Variety (February 1961)

3 MISCELLANY PSriett Wednesday, February 1, 1961 Man Producer Would Do Biopic On Life of Mother Cabrini in U. S. Rome, Jan. 31. A plan to shoot a biopic on the lile of Mother Cabrini in the U.S. this year was divulged here by Fuierico Fellini, whose wife, Guili- etta Masina would have the title role in the ambitious project. Quer¬ ied by Fellini, John Ford has ex¬ pressed interest in directing the pic. If fall ’61 target date for shooting start is not delayed pic would be first non-documentary Italian production 'and perhaps the first European one) to be shot entirely in the U.S. Several such projects have been planned in recent years, but so far various factors have delayed or cancelled them out. Dino DeLau- rentiis recently had two in mind: “An Italian in the Far West" and “Sacco and Yanzetti.” Cabrini project will be produced by Federiz, new company formed by Fellini and Angelo Rizzoli (who produced his “La Dolce Vita” with Giuseppe Amato), and run by Clemente Fracassi. Both admit the ambition of their project, and are particularly worried about find¬ ing real-life locations reflecting turn-of-the-century American back¬ drops for their story. Another major effort for 1961 will see Federiz produce Fellini’s next pic, his first after “La Dolce Vita," which was recently sold for a record advance to Astor Pictures International for U.S.-Canadian re¬ lease. Mishaps Plague Longhair Chiefs The 1960-'61 season has been tough on symphony-opera con¬ ductors, with both the N.Y. Phil¬ harmonic and the Met Opera con¬ fronted with a drastic substitution problem. It started, of course, when Dimitri Mitropoulos died while rehearsing a concert for La Scala in Milan. He was to have conducted four weeks with the Philharmonic, a new production of “Turandot" at the Met as well as several repertory performances of “Simone Boccanegra,” “Electra," “Butterfly." etc. Then Karl Boehm, another gue-ter by Philharmonic and Met developed a detached retina and had to return to Vienna, dropping all his U.S. engagements. In turn, Fritz Reiner had to cancel his Phil¬ harmonic engagements- because of heart trouble and Eugene Ormandy, missed eight concerts with his Philadelphia Orchestra because of an automobile accident. Latest casualty is Igor Marke- vitch who was to have started a Philharmonic engagement in Feb¬ ruary and had to cancel it Finally Leopold Stokowsky broke hi*; hip while romping with his children. Nightclub Owner New Houston Chief Barker “■ Houston, Jan. 31. Harry Martin, operator of the Club DeLaine, has been re-elected Chief Barker of the local Variety Tent. Other new officers include Augie Schmitt, first assistant bar¬ ker; Max Gray, second assistant; George D. Dietrich, dough guy, and Les Hunt, property master. New on the board are Earl Stone- cipher and Francis Deering. Re¬ elected to the board were Joe Berlowitz, Richard McGarr and Fred Much. Think Again TV Writers!’ Kennedy’s Advice on Those Who See Broadway a Snap Hollywood, Jan. 31. Teevee writer s who hit the jack¬ pot with one, and possibly two hour long shows, and think they can jump to Broadway with a suc¬ cessful play without going through an apprenticeship in the art of playwrighting, are just dreamers, according to Arthur Kennedy, now working on the Warner lot as star in “Claudette Inglish.” Trouble is, tv scripters don’t know how to write a play, he said. Moreover they aren’t willing to take the time the necessary con¬ struction takes to turn out a good play. “They have no apprentice¬ ship and it just can’t be done with¬ out it,” Kennedy opined, pointing to the painstaking efforts and time Lillian Heilman puts into each of. her undertakings. There are exceptions, the actor made clear. William Gibson, who wrote “The See Saw” and “Mira¬ cle W T orker,” two outstanding Broadway hits, and Paddy Chayef- sky, whose “Tenth Man” is a best¬ seller in the Times Square thea¬ tre area, are among tv writers who have made good in the Broadway play arena. Noting the slack in good plays on the Broadway boards last sea¬ son and this, Kennedy bemoaned representation by a number of playwrights, such as Arthur Miller and others: “Miller has gone into his shell, apparently. I know he has some great stuff on his shelf because he told me the plot of ‘Montezuma,* which he wrote in 1953 and which has never been produced. I think if he pulled it down and did a lit¬ tle work on it ‘Montezuma’ can be a darn good play for Broadway.” Continuing along this line, Ken¬ nedy believes many of the play¬ wrights who have had a number of hits have forgotten how to write a good play. | “Most of the new plays on I (Continued on page 77) LARRY KANAGA President of General Artists Corp^ representing premier artists in all fields of entertainment says: “PAUL ANKA is a superlative talent and an extraordinary favor¬ ite of audiences on six continents. No wonder he breaks attendance records all over the world! "We are proud to represent him.” 50 Years Since Bernhardt’s ‘Liz’ Hollywood, Jan. 31. Screen Producers Guild has se¬ lected “the Golden Anniversary of first feature-length film shown in the U.S.,tas theme for its ninth annual Milestone Awards Dinner March 5 at Beverly Hilton Hotel. Film pioneer Adolph Zukor will be recipient of this year’s presenta¬ tion. It was Zukor who brought the French-made “Queen Elizabeth,” starring Sarah Bernhardt, to this country in 1911, thereby setting the pattern for full-length feature films. ARGENTINA’S SHOCK: CANTINFLAS A DANDY jMar del Plata, Jan. 31. Mario Moreno, better known as Cantinflas, is the biggest attrac¬ tion of the third annual film fest here. Which is, in general, the best by far inj screen names, producers and directors from film-producing countries! Cantinflas. has the added advan¬ tage for - the Argentine children, of speakjing Spanish. He enjoys close friendships among Argentine screen knd legit players, who worked ih Mexico for long periods. The great surprise for the pub¬ lic is that instead of the comic rag¬ amuffin they expected, they find a very personable and rather ex¬ quisite dandy, with an educated gift of speech, added to a friend¬ liness which is endearing. Columbia Pictures threw a party for him at l’Hermitage with Man¬ ager Nat Brusky as host, which was an example of what this sort of thing should be. So far, the only one which was not a scramble for all concerned, there was' J no dis¬ order, no fights and a remarkable show of friendly spirit. “Pinocho” (Juan Carlos Mareco, top tv and legit player here) bade the guest of honor welcome, with legit actress Mecha Ortiz and Can¬ tinflas’ friend, comedian Luis San- drini, echoing. It’s Luise Sillcox Luise Sillcox, who has been exec secretary of the Authors League of America since memory runneth, is the ob¬ vious original for the char¬ acter of Cora Ballard in Rex Stout’s new Bantam paperback whodunit, “Plot It Yourself.” Story concerns an outbreak of fake plagiarism suits which in¬ volve the National Assn, of Authors & Dramatists. Cora Ballard is to it what Miss Sillcox is to the Authors Guild and the Dramatist Guild which comprise the League. Stout, himself a much re¬ elected top officer of the Au¬ thors Guild in real life, has captured perfectly the cadence and phrasing typical of Miss Sillcox’s speech. The story also is barbed at the expense of book publishers who emerge as condescending, pious and cheapskate. Land. Behan Cancels Date & Nobody’s Surprised San Francisco, Jan. 31. Brendan Behan notified hungry i owner Enrico Banducci last week that he was cancelling his opening at the lowercase cellar—the open¬ ing was scheduled for Wednes¬ day (1). “I was hardly surprised,” said Banducci. “But I have a signed contract with him (which means nothing to him, of course) and he’s agreed to come' during the latter part of March.” Banducci, who’s agreed to pay the Irish playwright $1,000 weekly to sing Irish songs, and talk about the British Empire’s decline, is not holding his breath. Don’t Bet on It, But Brendan Behan Is Set For Cafe on St. Pat’s Eve Brendan Behan will piake his American nitery bow at the Blue- Angel, N.Y., March 10—St. Pat¬ rick’s Day Eve. The rampaging Irish playwright will work on a two-week stand and with a two week option. Salary wasn’t dis¬ closed. The agent in the deal was Leon¬ ard Lyons, N.Y. Post’s syndicated columnist who presumably isn’t taking the usual 10% in this case. He was with Behan in the Angel during the fall prior to Yom. Kip- pur, when headliner Shelley Ber¬ man spoke of the need for a one- night replacement for the Day of Atonement. Behan volunteered, but later reconsidei|d because he felt he needed more preparation for the occasion. i When talk arose of Behan play¬ ing the hungry i, San Francisco, Blue Angel operators Max Gordon & Herbert Jacoby asked Lyons to call Behan In Dublin last week, j and Behan agreed to the date. Confirming cable arrived late last | week. Literary figures are no strangers to nitery stands. There is still some hope by Gordon that he will get Carl Sandburg to play his Village Vanguard, which has seen the nitery dates of Jack Kerouac and Maxwell Bodenheim, among others. Screen ‘All’ Proust French producer Raoul Levy, now teamed with Columbia, dis¬ closed during a New York visit from Paris this week that he has completed negotiations for the screen right to all works of Mar¬ cel Proust Literary properties of Proust, who died In 1926, were obtained by Levy at a cost of $80,000. Meanwhile, the Parisian film¬ maker, now getting underway with “Marco Polo,” plans to start “Paris by Night” as a Brigitte Bardot- Frank Sinatra costarrer in New York in 1963. Can Chfs Loop Return by ’66? Chicago, Jan. 81. Th® Loop district here, with much of its nightlife punch gone, is undergoing a revitalization that augurs encouragingly for the show trade. Impact on the entertain¬ ments—and other downtown enter¬ prises, for that matter—is defi¬ nitely longterm, maybe five years or so off. But it’s in sight at least amid the current boom in residen¬ tial and commercial construction. Upbeat future for at least a partial swingback of after-dark ac¬ tivity to the Loop is in focus with disclosure last week of a projected 2,000-room hotel and flanking apartment units on choice land overlooking Grant Park and Lake Michigan. High-rise domiciling is part of a planned (by a Texas syndicate) Illinois Centre develop^ ment featuring a 60-story office structure, tallest west of New York. Other contribution of potential trade for Main Stem enterprises is via the prior-announced Marina City office - apartment complex underway on the riverfront at the north perimeter of the Loop. This and the Illinois Centre project are of principal note in the building splurge that is dressing, up the town’s central district. Anything that brightens the area, of . course, is all to the good on the axiom that esthetics precedes traffic—as with any urban fighting blight and latterday honky-tonk conditions on prime real estate. Theme for show biz and •other entrepeneurs in consequence of the residential construction is that downtown ipso facto becomes the “neighborhood” of nearby cliff- dwellers. Situation will be a novel one for the Loop, and thus tinged with some business anxiety. But Main Stem picture houses figure to be among the business cate¬ gories in a beneficial position, for as with any nabe theatre patron¬ age, there isn’t the transportation, parking and related going-out costs to contend with. Cultural Pipe Dream Of Chi Architect Would Put A Freedomland in Loop Chicago, Jan. 31. It’s only a suggestion, made to a meeting of businessmen—a pipe dream. But if architect William E. Hart¬ mann had his way, Chicago’s Loop district would be transformed into a Utopian complex of housing, sports and culture, with publie art (sculpture, plazas and fountains) as focal points. “We should have a Tivoli, a Disneyland or Freedom- land, perhaps on an island in th® lake.” Hartmann also projects annual festivals for American opera; an international music competition for young people; contemporary art and theatre festivals; a mam¬ moth sports centre, etc. Subscription Order Worm \ _ Enclosed find check for $.♦ □ One Year Please send VARIETY for □ Two Years □ Three Years To. (Please Print Name) Street.. City ..Zone.... State... Regular Subscription Rates One Year—$15.00 Two Years—$28.00 Three Years—$39.00 Canada and Foreign—$1 Additional Per Year VfiklETt •»«- 154 West 45th Street - New York 35. N. Y. Washington 4 1202 National Press Building. STerllng 3-5443 Chicago 11 400 No. Michigan Ave., DElaware 7-4984 London, S.W.1 49 St. James's Street. PiccadUly, HYde Park 4561-2-3 DAILY VARIETY (Published In Hollywood by Daily Variety, LtdJ $15 a year. 920 Foreign.