Star Dust
★ Ash-Sifting Diva
★ Jolson, Model Mayor
★ “Beau Gcste" Again
-By Virginia Voir
CHARLOTTE LANSING,
whose lovely soprano
voice you must have heard
over NBC, has become an
ashes-sifter. When she’s not
singing, she’s sifting ashes in
Princeton, N. J., and holding
her breath.
You see, her home burned to the
ground in January, just after she
had collected all her worldly goods
under one roof. And she had about
$4,000 worth of jewels in the house.
Hence the ashes sifting.
She estimates that she has gone
through about two tons of ashes up
to date, and she has found rings and
pins which she values at $2,000.
-*
Irene Wicker, radio’s Singing
Lady, accidentally cut down the
high cost of living the other day.
She was walking in Central park on
Irene Wicker
^ _J her way from one side of New
York to the other when she saw a
tiny patch of chives. She dug them
up, went home, chopped them up
with cottage cheese and ate them.
And the friend who'd asked her to
luncheon in one of the town’s smart
est hotels worried all afternoon be
cause Irene had no appetite for the
chef’s masterpieces.
_^_
-V
Some day 41 Jolson may abandon
radio and the screen, but there’s one
job he’ll always have, if the inhabi
tants of Encino, Calif., have any
thing to say about it. Since he’s
been their mayor he has secured
for the town a .system of street
lighting, many miles of paved streets
and the promise of an up-to-date
fire department.
'is
/I
Rochelle Hudson is making the
most of her vacation. She has taken
an apartment in New York and is
seeing the town as if she’d never
seen it before. The town’s appre
ciating her too; New York univer
A sity made her “Queen of the Prom.”
Olivia de Ilaviland avoided report
ers when she sailed recently from
New York for England, by using the
name “Lavinia Ifalliday.” She also
gave her friends something to think
about, before she left, by intimat
ing that she was going abroad to
see someone quite special—that
someone being her fiance, according
to good authority, who is a foreigner
and has a title.
■y
Perhaps a wave of remakes has
hit the Hollywood studios. “Beau
Geste,” one of Ron
ald Colman’s most
beloved pictures, is
to reach the screen
again, with Gary
Cooper in the title
role. If you have
any old favorites
that you’d like to
see screened with
new actors, why not
write the studios
about them? Many
fans have wondered Gary Cooper
why some company
t hasn’t done a remake of "The Cop
perhead.” As a silent years ago
starring Lionel Barrymore, it is re
membered as one of the most ef
fective pictures of the time.
-*
ODDS AND ENDS—Trained carp
appear in “Marco I’olo"; they had to
be taught to eat out of Sigrid Curie’s
hands . . . Republic has actually found
a story for Gloria Swanson’s attempt at
a come-back—usually, after companies
signed her, they couldn't get a suitable
story . . . RKO is grooming Mitzi
Green for stardom, apparently . . . The
next De Mille spectacle will be based
on the story of the Union Pacific . . .
Anna May Wong is selling her collec
tion of screen souvenirs to raise money
£ for the Chinese victims of the war with
Japun . . . Gary Cooper plays a scene
in a strait jacket in “Bluebeard's Eighth
Wife”; he. was wearing it one day
when the whistle blew for lunch—and
co-workers got a laugh by going of]
and leaving him in it . . . Paul Taylor,
director of numerous radio choirs, de
cided to be a singer when he was four
teen years old, and sang before an
evangelical convention of 6,000 people
. . . Thirteen-year-old Junior O’Day, of
the "Big Sister” program, began his
cureer on the air when he was seven :
. . . Joan Blaine, chosen as radio’s best- '
dressed woman, declares that her most
fashionable hat is made from an old
, one of her brother’s . . . Frank Black
and his wife have adopted a baby boy.
© Western Newspaper Union. '
THE CAMERAMAN
WAS THERE!
These news
pictures will
90 down in
photographic
history . . .
On May 6, 1937, a routine assignment gave news
photographers the greatest picture story of all
time when the Hindenburg burst in flames over
Lakehurst, N. J. Not so tremendous, but equally
thrilling was Photographer Harry Knapp's aerial view of Harold
Parkhurst, the daredevil parachute jumper who touched off his
cigarette 5,000 feet in the air. And near Dexter, Iowa, an
i alert cameraman caught the picture of unrestrained emotion
(below) when a posse closed in on wounded Marvin Barrow,
notorious bandit, and his hysterical wife. Pictures in this FOTO
FEATURE were selected by A. J. Ezickson, famous photog
rapher and author of a book about his work, "Get That Picture!"
—........ . .\ ^ ^
On August 12, 1934, Gordon Israel tried to land his plane
at 80 miles an hour after winning the 50-mile free-for-all
contest at the Omaha air races. A quick cameraman caught
the result, shown above. The plane bounced, landed on its
nose and then settled to the ground. Israel was unhurt and
walked from the smashed plane unaided. Split-second action
is demanded of the photographer who would catch a picture
like this. Sometimes, seldom, it's a matter of luck, but many
a cameraman gets gray hair from constant nervous tension.
The news camera also catches
pathos. This picture of despair so
great it gripped a baby was one of
many photographic masterpieces
emerging from the Ohio and Mis
sissippi valley flood area in January,
1937.
Who was responsible for the bloody battle
at South Chicago, May 30, 1937, when police
clashed with strike demonstrators near the Re
public Steel corporation plant? Here was an
instance where news pictures found their way
into official hands, studied by members of the
Senate civil liberties committee in an effort
to fix the blame. The above shot was snapped
a split-second after a policeman's nightstick
bounced off the head of a fleeing demon
strator. His fellow protestors lie prone, either
wounded or cowering to avoid the policemen.
This was not the first time news photography
has been used in official investigations, and,
later, pictures of the Panay bombing proved
invaluable to the U. S. state department.