Variety (December 1956)

MISCRU4SV The Havana Las Vegas axis is 4 getting to be! even more pro- 1 nounced now .that the Cuban, cao- ital is negotiating for airliners to service that town from Dallas and New O-leans. Vegas has Ion? re¬ lied. on Texas oil money for a healthy share of its revenue and now Havana is seeking to divert a lot of that coin. Havana operators feel that when such money is diverted to Cuba,- it will be able to get a bigger play frcm some of the spenders than Las Vegas. It’s held that the aver¬ age L?s Vegas vacationer stays ju£t short of two days. That’s be¬ cause bulk of the tourists come by automobile. However* plane and train vacationers remain longer. In Havana, with no. automobile tourism, the average stay is e\^ pected to be considerably longer. Resemblance between Las Vegas and Havana is growing. Las Vegans already identified with casino ven¬ tures in Cuba include Wilbur Cla 'k of Vegas’ Desert Inn; Jack Entrat- ter of/the Sands, who will be in chargdmf a new hotel still under construction; Lefty Clark, now in charge of the Tropicana casino v.ho was formerly with the nea'by Sans Souci. And there’s possibility that the upcoming hotel of the Hil¬ ton chain will call on Las Vegas ltffowhow for the operation of its casino. Murphy Talent Head For Ike’s Inauguration Washington, Dec. 4. George Murphy, Metro’s travel¬ ing ambassador and a biggie in Califo rnia GOP politics, has been named to head entertainment in connection with President Eisen¬ hower’s inauguration in January. This involves principally the fes¬ tival to be held on Jan. 19 at both the National Guard Armory and Uline’s Arena. Top name talent will be sought for the double-header. Inaugural will also involve a con¬ cert, ball, and parade. , Pat Boone’s Cap V Gown And Film Career, Too j Columbia Urtiv;/ New York, hav¬ ing' okayed leave of absence from studies - without jeopardizing his Phi .Beta Kappa chances, singer Pat Boohie r will make his film debut in “Bernardine” for 20th-F.ox starting Feb. 4. Boone had held up signing a contract until he received assur¬ ances'* that his film career would not impair his , chances for aca¬ demic honors. Director Henry Levin was in N.Y. yesterday (TuesJ) to begin going over film pla»;s. Meanwhile, Cecil Bern¬ stein, managing director of Brit¬ ain’s Graiiadjt Theatre group, sgid that Boone makes his British bow Dec. 26 at,the Granada Theatre, to be followed by a tv appearance. BALLERINA SUES 20TH FOR ‘KING & I’ SLIGHT Ballerina Gemze De Lappe filed suit in N. Y. Supreme Court last week against 20th-Fox, Darryl F. Zanuck, Charles Brackett, and tjae Roxy Theatre charging that she did not receive proper credit in “Th^f King and I.” Through her attorney, Barry S. Cohen, the dancer alleges that the producers “negligently, willfully and maliciously” refrained from giving her “the proper and appro¬ priate credit due her by virtue of her having created^and performed the role of King Simon of Legree” in “The King and I.” Instead, Miss De Lappe claims, they credited the role to a dancer who did not per¬ form it. In thie picture, the bal¬ lerina recreated, the role she origi¬ nated in the JBf;6^dway production. PffRl&rr ’J’imp Is Money i . IJollyWood, D^p. 4. • New. pro4>f that; things were , cheaper in! the good did days ■* came to itilel Sliavelsdh and Jack Rose, whose indie firm will biopic the Wright Broth¬ ers for Paramount release.’ When the Wrights assembled their first plane at ; Kitty Hawk in 190.3, it cost them\$?85. 'To make a facsimile bf the famed ship for the .filnj, producers have received b'ds as follows: non-flying. duplicate, $45,000; practical model,-$75,000. We<!,ne»dayj^ (1 $,\l9$6 Go to Bat in D C,; Vs. 10 & 20% Tax Washington, Dec/4. The new Congress does not be¬ gin its sessions for another month, biit it is already \mder a show hit barrage fo£ further reduction and elimination of the excise taxes. The Forand Subcommitee of the House Ways and Means Committee heard pleas last week for legislation to: 1. Slash the 20% nitery bite. 2. Eliminate the 10% tax on tickets to legit, concerts and lec¬ tures. 3. Wipe out the 10% manufac¬ turers’ excise on phonograph rec¬ ords and tape recorders. The heaviest heat was turned on to get action again x the 20%i cabaret tax . Pleas came mainly from musicians who emphasized (Continued on page 76) ’<4n .*• -■ ‘J.’m ■■■i' "■ 'irfc.-A Ail l-A TO 3 £ma* Gift Subscription ( Inclosed find check or m.o. or $.Send Variefy for one year. h two years. j NAME ...; .. ApDRESS ...7. CITY. r7 .ZONE.... STATE..,. Indicate if gift card desired □ NAME . ADDRESS ... CITY. . ... Zone..,. STATE. One Year —$10.00 Two Years—$18.00 Canada and Foreign—$1 Additional per Year JSSsttETY i"«. 154 West 46th Street New York 36, N. Y. Coi’Id Sherm Billingsley Libel ‘Toots’ Without A Prepared TV Script? Libel has always been consul ered as any written defamatory matter while slander concerns the spoken word. But last week in what may be a precedental ruling, N. Y. Supreme Court Justice Wil¬ liam* C. Hecht Jr. held that a'tele¬ cast of defamatory material not read from a prepared script combs within the scope of libel. Ruling stemmed from prelimi¬ nary legal jousting on a defama¬ tion suit which restaurateur Ber¬ nard (“Toots”) Shor is pressing against rival cafe owner Sherman Billingsley. Former’s action claims that Billingsley defamed him via certain remarks made in the (Continued on page 86) CURB 2 ‘UNAUTHORIZED’ FILMS OF THE OLYMPIAD By COL. BARNEY OLDFIELD (Author of the hook, “Never a Shot iri Anger”) Melbourne, Dec. 4. Film bootleggers are having a rough go at the Olympics, with the film cans of two “unauthorized” teams under clamps here. One of them, lensed by a Japa¬ nese unit, got caught in the Com¬ monwealth Film Censorship Board through which all film' slated for export must move. The other, shot by an American team of four peo¬ ple who had passed themselves off as “still” photographers, had ac- (Continued on page 76) • London, Dec. 4. Norman Del Mar will conduct the full Royal Philharmonic Or¬ chestra to accompany Louis Arm¬ strong when the American, trumpet player donates his services at ‘ a concert here in aid of the Lord Mayor of London’s Hungarian Re¬ lief Fund. Concert takes place at the Royal Festival Hall on Tuesday, Decem¬ ber 18, and Armstrong is reported to have cancelled a 22,500-dollar booking at Miami Beach in order to make the date. The Musicians’ Union has given the okay to BBC to televise part of the concert, which is being promoted by a com¬ mittee under the chairmanship of Royal jazz-fan, Gerald Lascelles, cousin of the Queen. Lascelles is writing a special tribute to Arm¬ strong in the souvenir program. Ticket prices for the concert range from $1.50-$28. # If HI* ‘ Show biz biographies and kin¬ dred works, which rely on name- dropping for authenticity and ap¬ peal, are too oftentoead -from the back—meaning the Index. Thus, whatever name, .or event interests the •• reader particularly is first scanned. A quick gldinming of Fred Al¬ len's posthumous memoir, “Much Ado About Me” (Little, Brown; $5) discloses nine references to Variety and four to Sime Silver- man, founder - editor - publisher. Taken out of context, the' very first reference to both might be construed that the comedian hatl been nursing a /Jf0-year grouch when he recountis an incident at Proctor’s 5th Ave. Theatre (on [ Broadway and-/28th St.)) which [Siipe frequently covered in pref¬ erence to the Palace or other flag¬ ship assignments. It wasn’t as much giving himself the “worst” assignment but the. house was im¬ portant, as a near-Times Square ’showing” theatre where agents and bookers cased possible candi¬ dates for a bigtime route. Irked by aft eager-beaver ad solicitor, Allen recounts, “He played his trump card: He told me that Sime, editor of Variety, was going to review the show that night, and that he, the (ad) rep¬ resentative; would like 'to go back ;o tlik office and tell Sime that I had taken an ad. I told him vhatyhe^could tell Sime. I don’t kio^r what;-if anything, he did tell 3ime, but I do know that Sime Appeared at the theatre that night, reviewed the show, arid panned the life dut of me and my act . . .” However, within 'the same chap¬ ter Allen reprises that he not only flopped at the 5th Ave. but was canned at the Palace, which he first entered via an emergency booking. In sequence Allen flopped several times more before he- made the grade. So while the above sounded like a gratuitous gripe, Allen records two rave re¬ views in the paper, one a New Act notice Oct. 4, 1925, when as part of. (Bert) Yorke & Allen, doing 18 mins. 4n “one,” when Dave Gordon booked them finally into the Palace, the reviewer conclud¬ ed : “As g. single, Allen was • too fast and/refused to > compromise. With his present partner the act contains all the necessary elements for the poets and peasants, and is geography proof. They’ll \like Yorke & Allen, from half a Buck up/o $5.50.” lien reprises that when his ;ent, Dave Gordon, and Palace looker Eddie Darling caught them at the Fordharn and spotted his act, titled “Disappointments-of 1927” at the flagship bigtime show¬ case, Variety wrote: ‘Aside from Fanny Brice and e .Gus Edwards Revue, the out¬ standing turn was Fred. Allen, do¬ ing Xnew solo line of patter, 20 minute^ofas sparkling a monolog as can befeqnd hereabouts. Al¬ len is one of\the exceptional comics who can geKhonest laughs without hokum. The material is meaty with witty surprises.. Port¬ land Hoffa, nice looking girl, does . t . i . ^ >»»»♦» »♦ > ♦♦♦ ’MM »+ # » ♦ » » + ♦ " » ♦ » 4 assistant fon brief interruptions, but otherwise rAllen alone sustains an ’ amusing interlude.” . kljeri-includes in .life book ex* cerpts from the “Near Fun” col¬ umn he did in Variety when Sime gave, him the .opportunity to .pick up where ; the • late Tommy Gray had left off! Allen knew that “Tommy’s Tattles” had made Gyay a force in show business; that, ac¬ tors .were .constantly quoting his quips and Gray -was getting writ¬ ing assighme’nts, <ptc, Allen alto did several extended columns in three Anniversary Numbers of the paper. It was at this time, when his show biz fortunes were again downbeat, that Allen approached Sime and offered to work for $60 a week as a Variety staffer. He recounts, “As I talked, Sime was busy rummaging around in a mound of editorial debris that lit¬ tered his desk; from time to time he looked up to see if I was still there. When I 0 mentioned small salary the second time, Sime stopped foraging, looked up again from his rubble,, and. said, ‘Do you know what Variety’s advertising l’ates?’ I said I didn’t. ‘You get two columns a week,’ Sime con¬ tinued. ‘If you took a two-column ad, you’d have to pay for it.’ Pick¬ up a pencil and salvaging a small pad of paper from the desk litter, he said, ‘Let me show you.’ He started scrawling away at some figures, when he had finished his wry smile and said, ‘It seems to me, at current advertising rates. Variety is paying you about $200 for this column you’re writing’.” What Allen didn't dig. appar¬ ently, was that Sime felt the comedian's greater talertEs^were in comeaianing. not writings The latter was incidental. ^History proved both Sime and Allen right. But out of context, it would appear Allen may have been nurs¬ ing a 30-vear grouch. (Parenthetically, as this journal of trade Information—hasr—been^. making more to’ more with the True Confessions bit, and not a little soul-searching, two footnotes in re Fred Allen re Variety come to mind. One has to do with Walter. WinchelL There, again, an overly eager-beaver ad representative had solicited the columnist backstage at the Broadway Paramount. What¬ ever the “scripts” that ad hustlers are prone tp give *out with—and Variety doesn’t stand for much nonsense along those lines—Sime objected to Winchell chiefly be¬ cause he felt that he (WW); having been ad solicitor for the old]Vaude- ville (NVA) News, before starting to columnize for the N.Y. Graphic, he should have understood the paper better. This (1) had nothing to do with the great help given Winchell by the founder-editor- publisher of this paper, and which the columnist has often and volun¬ tarily acknowledged, nor (2), even the fact that Winchell, of all out¬ siders, should have known how divorced is ad solicitation frorii any “notice” in the paper. The entire credo of Variety is founded (Continued on page 76) Trade Mark Re gister FOUNDED 1905 by SIME SILVERMAN; Published Weekly by VARIETY, INC. . Syd Silverman, President ^ 154 West 46th St., New York 36, N. Y. JUdson 2-2700^ * Hollywood 28 6404 Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood 9-1141 Washington 4 v 1292 National Press Building, STcrllng 3-5445 Chicago 11 612 No. Michigan Ave., DElaware 7-4984 London WC2 8 St. Martins PI., Trafalgar Sq., Temple Bar 5041 SUBSCRIPTION Annual,'$10; Foreign, $11; Single Copies, 25 Cents ABEL GREEN, Editor Volume 205 Number 1 Bills .*76 Chatter .. 85 Circus Review . 72 Concert, Opera . 82 Film Reviews . 6 1 4 House Reviews . 73 Inside Pictures .27 Inside Radio TV . 43 International . 16 Legitimate . 77 Literati .: 84 Music . 57 New Acts .73 INDEX Night Club Reviews .... 74 Obituaries . 87 Pictures .!. 3 Radio . 32 Radio Reviews . 43 Record Reviews.58 ■ Television . 32 Television Reviews .... 36 TV Films. . r « Unit Reviews ........ . j Vaudeville . 68 Wall Street . 20 Insert Alphabetically . DAILY VARIETY ^ % (Published in Hollywood by Daily Variety, Ltd.) ,v 515 a year. $20 Foreign.