HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1950-2-22, Page 3g -i
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Jay tllnbnrd 11111 Wilkinson
Paul Sparrow's vaudeville aet was
not especially good, nor was it es-
pecially poor. He did a couple of
trick dance steps, told some fairly
funny stories and sang a couple of
songs. There were dozens better
than he. Yet Paul always played
the big time, always got the best
money. We who were in show
business at the time, wondered.
The answer was simple when you
stopped to think about it. Paul was
enterprising. He gave himself a
build-up. For one thing, he se-
lected his music with care. He in-
structed the orchestra what to play
and how to play it before he came'
on. IIe trade it stooge of the drum-
mer. Ite sold the idea, generally,
that he was terrific,
We all expected that Paul
would be among the first to go.
But he wasn't. I didn't see him
for almost a year, then one fall
up in San Francisco, I ran across
him again, It was rather a unique
experience, because the gag he
pulled that night was epic.
It seems that, despite his enter- •
prising faculties, Paul was due to
get the air, He had'exhausted his
bag of tricks. Managers were get-
ting wise to him. On this night he
was trying out at the Olympia The-
atre. Most of us thought it would
be his swan song. On the other
hand, if he went over big with his
"Well," grinned Paul, "3t
yeu're serious, that's fine ..
it my gag took to an old troup-
er like you, it worked bettor
than I thought 1t would."
audience, it would mean a 40 -week
contract. There wasn't a chancel
We watched him coque out from
the opposite side of the wings, He
was doing a quick little dance step.
There was a smattering of applause
that almost instantly died away.
Paul hesitated, theta went into a
routine, It was pitiful, because the
step was rotten and he had appar-
ently lost his self-confidence to
boot.
I was standing so I could see
Paul's face. For the first time
since I'd known him, I saw anger
in his eyes, a red flush in ltie
cheeks. He stopped dancing.
"All right," he said, "All right,
wise buys, I'll show you.'
The hecklers booed at him, they
shouted catcalls. Paul's face want
livid. He suddenly galvanized into
action.
I have seen some good trick
dancers in nay day, but I've never
seen anything to equal the antics
of Paul Sparrow that night. Thor-
ougsly aroused, he became a con-
tortionist. He )performed feats
that were unheard of in the art of
dancing. He threw himself around
that stage like a madman. It was
marvelous to watch. Superb 1
Paul came out for three encores.
He was a man inspired each time,
and each time the audience gave
him an ovation. They clapped for
five full minutes after his last ap-
pearance.
After a while, 1 strolled back to
Paul's dressing room, The manager
was just leaving, Inside, Paul was
happily folding up a sheet of paper.
I could tell by the expression on his
face that it was the contract.
"Hello, feller," I grinned. "You
killed 'em. I guess the thing to
do if you want to stay in vaude-
ville these days is get mad."
"Why," he said, surprised, "Did
you think I was mad? I wasn't."
"Don't kid me. Those hecklers
had you down for the county
"Well," grinned Paul, "if you're
serious, 'that's duel 1 mean, if my
little gag took in an old trouper like
,yourself, it even worked better than
I thought it would."
"Wail a minute," 1 said, begin.
ring to feel funny, "What are you
getting at?"
"It was a gag, old horse. I'hired
three hecklers to do the. job—you
know, stake the audience feel sym-
pathetic toward me by having
scathing remarks hurled at me.
Then I pulled any trick, My new
step, It .really wasn't much of a
stein, you know. it only seemed
that way. The audience was sym-
pathetic. They would have liked
anything I did," He grinned broad-
ly. "You see, I was on the skids, 1
had to think of something. i tell
you, friend, if you want to .stay in
vaudeville these days, you've got to'
be enterprisingl"
Scholarship Pays Off—Say you're a student in a certain, school on New York's lust Side
and you got grades of 90 or more, or just B -plus or better. Run your report card over to
ice cream dealer Sam Miller and pick up, free, a half pint of frozen custard. If your grades
are lower, you get the cold shoulder. Muller is seen doing a rushing business after posting'
his sign offering ice cream awards for scholars.
Boxers Who Take
On All Comers
In Britain from Portsmouth to
Inverness and from Cardiff to Hull,
on every fait -ground of any size the
caravans pull in and the canvas
theatre is set up, with its boxing -
ring inside. Then, over the blaring
music of the fair, over the shouted
invitations of other showmen, the
age-old challenge to all comers is
repeated again and again.
The boxers are on view, standing
In line on a platform outside She
booth, lending point to the barker's
reiterated phrases: "Any weight
from seven stone to fourteens Pick
your own man."
The charge for admission is small,
generally a shilling, but even then
it is difficult to get the fairgoers
inside until they have seen a con-
testant come forward.
However, the delay is seldom a
long one nowadays, Young men
who have boxed inn the Forces are
always eager to "have a go." Be -
aides, every town and village has its
favourite local boxer, who can gen-
erally be relied on to acceept the
challenge. As soon as a fight has
been arranged the paybox becomes
busy and the shillings flow in.
Seats are seldom provided, and
the grass of the fairground field is
the theatre's floor. In the centre the
boxing -ring is roped off, and the
crowd stands around it. With many
ceremonial phrases the contestants
are introduced, and the bell rings.
Long experience and continual
practice give the booth boxer an
initial advantage. Also, he knows
and has to know, every trick of the
fighting trade, True, he may face a
top -rank amateur in need of a little
practice—and that night's pay will
be hard-earned. But generally he is
on hie feet at the end. For if the
booth boxer loses too many fights,
"You oar put a lock on the lee
box, Mother, after we're marled, '
or is- often knocked out, he ceases
to be a booth boxer.
It is a hard life by any standard.
Yet men stay in it and like it. Joe
Beckett, later in the championship
class, was' a booth boxer for years.
Jack Lockyer took on all comers at
fairs until he was long past fifty,
Red Pullen, a welterweight, has
boxed with, a Wood's saloon for
twenty years, and is still going
strong.
They say that habit becomes sec-
ond nature, and that may be the
secret. Certainly my own first booth
encounter was with a grizzled, fat-
tish man nearly twice my age,
writes Jim Phelan in "Answers."
His midriff region looked so soft
that it seemed a shame to take the
five pounds. When he concentrated
on covering that soft spot, leaving
his jaw unprotected, I pitied the
poor, fat, old man. But I smote that
uncovered jaw nevertheless.
Nothing happened, and I smashed
at the wideopen point again. He
still hung back, covering his vulner-
able mid-region, and it was plain
that he dared not risk even one
punch on his solar -plexus. Where-
upon I myself risked everything in
one terrific slam at the rock -like
jaw.
Just before the punch landed I
saw a knowing glint in his hard,
small eyes. That time he did leave
]tis midriff unprotected. But I didn't
know anything about that until
after I came round.
He knew no better move, that
grizzled ntan, and it served hint well
in a hundred different fairgrounds,
Night after night that unprotected
jaw lured strong young boxers, as
a I had been lured, into the all -or -
nothing venture that ends with the
monotonous chanting of ". , , seven
—eight—nine—out."
But what kind of courage must
it take to go on doing that for years
in the fairgrounds up and down the
country?
-It is difficult even to guess why
sten stay in such an occupation.
Motley is not the answer—the booth
boxers seldom get any large sums,
Nor it is stere love of fightin, either
on the part of the booth boxer or of
the man who accepts his challenge.
That type would not last long.
There is something deeper, per-
haps resembling the snap -and -slash
play of dogs or foxes, which is
really a training for the bigger
struggles of 11fe, Certainly it needs
a vast reserve of courage to face a
different crowd each night with the
offer to take on all comers,
To take on all comers—it is not
a bad slogan, for a man or a nation.
Closet held A Fortune—Millionaire hosiery utanufacturrt• Stan-
ton Sanest, and his wife, Maxine, look into the hall closet 'of
their New York apartment from which thieves emptied eleven
jewel cases while both were out. Mrs. Sanson, an ex -model, said
it wa, a million -dollar haul, butollee scaled the figure down to
$290,'000.
Do Their Dancing
On Their Knees
Goulimine, a former Foreign Le-
gion outpost on the southernmost
fringe of Morocco, is the only place
in the world where the ghedra is
being danced. And the ghedra is
probably the only dance in exist-
ence during which the dancer re-
mains on her knees, without moving
legs or feet.
1 was recently staying at Gouli-
tnine as guest of the French Com—
manding Officer, and on my second
night my host arranged the ghedra,
the dance that I had travelled hun-
dreds of miles to see, writes Ron
Landau in "London Calling." We
were about a dozen Europeans,
chiefly French officers and their
wives, and after a ceremonial din-
ner at the officers' mess, we moved
into an adjoining reception room to
await the dancers.
It was nearly midnight when they
arrived—tiny, dark women, exquis-
itely dressed in floating, night -blue
robes that covered them from head
to foot. Though by profession they
ranked not so much as dancers as
courtesans, they behaved with the•
dignity of duchesses, and Moved
with the grace of gazelles.
There were about twenty of them,
and as soon as they had shaken
hands with us, they let themselves
glide onto the cushions prepared
for them on the ground. Meanwhile,
in front of the dancers a semi -circle
of musicians formed, magnificent -
looking Blue -men, with the eyes of
hawks and the faces of eagles,
Goulitnine is the heart of the Blue -
men country, so called because of
the exclusively blue garments worn
by the population. Sometimes, the
blue dye penetrates their skin, and
gives them a dramatic appearance
unlike that of any people I had
ever seen. •
Though there were over a dozen
of these men, only one of them
played an instrument—namely, the
ghedra, a large, earthenware jar
used as a drum. The other men
' were to provide the singing, and
especially the hand -clapping which
forms the main accompaimnent to
most Berber dances,
Each woman dances solo for
about ten minutes, and is then re-
placed by another one. Having re-
moved her top garments, she now
exposes the traditional silvery jew-
ellery that covers much of her
front, and her complicated hair -
dress of scores of little plaits, in
which tiny jewels and ornaments
have been entwined. Kneeling on
the ground she dances chiefly with
her arms, hands, and fingers in
rapid, jerky, but beautifully sensitive
movements that respond to each
beat of the drum and of the clapping.
Each new sound ushers in a new
movement and a new pose of the
dancer.
You will naturally wish to know
why the women crouch on the
ground. The ghedra is essentially a
love dance; originally it was danced
by one woman for one particular
man. Since the desert Berbers all
lived—and, to some extent, still do
—in tents that are low and not very
spacious, there was not enough
room for the woman either to stand
up or to move about freely, and she
was forced to remain kneeling on
the ground.
But because of these limitations,
site put all her artistry into the
movements of torso and hands, and
I should be surprised if many tent -
dwellers could ever resist those
hypnotic staccatos of head and tor-
so, and the evocative rhymn of
those tiny, supersensitive fingers.
Parted 25 Years
ReunitedByRadio With
(The author of this real-life story,
Nina Epton, is in charge of B.B.C.
broadcasts to French.apeaking Can-
ada, and here she tells how a
chance encounter on an island he
Quebec Province led to a blitzed
Londoner being reunited by radio
with the family that had brought
him up many years ago.)
In radio, as in any other profee-
sion, one can go plodding along at
one's normal routine for weeks and
even months without anything par-
ticularly exciting to remember until,
suddenly, the unexpected happens
—the "highlight" of an unusual oc-
casion, an extra good "story," an
encounter, perhaps, that makes you.
realize just how worthwhile the
medium of broadcasting can be in
helping to build up friendly inter-
national relations.
That is bow I am feeling at the
moment of writing, after having
organized a reunion between friends
who have not seen each other for
25 years—one in London and the
other on the Island of Orleans, in
Quebec Province.
It started while I was on a visit
to French-speaking Canada, seeing
some of the people I broadcast to
nearly every evening in our London
contribution to the French "Actu-
ality Review."
Unspoiled Part of the Country
Just before we left Quebec for a
tour of the Island of Orleans,
clown stream in the middle of the
wide St. Lawrence, one of the chief
announcers stopped us to remind us
"to be sure and call ott M. Eudora
Letourneau, in the Village of Ste.
Fantille.
We called on him at the very Last
minute, because there had been so
many other people to see on the
island, which is perhaps one of
the most unspoiled parts of the
country near Quebec. This is still
the romantic part of French Canada
that has retained its old-world
charm. Itis only a few years since
Orleans was joined to the mainland
by a steel bridge, and that probably
explains how the inhabitants' have
managed to keep up the old,
French-Canadian traditions and
way of life.
1 arrived on a bright, crisp,
autumn clay, and the staple leaves
were flashing crimson between the
fir and. the spruce, almost the same
color as the apples which Madame
Letourneau was carefully polishing
in the barn when we called. Her
husband rushed out to greet us,
very pleased to meet somebody
from Great Britain.
He said English visitors to the
island were rare, very rare—in fact,
the only English person he had
aver seen on the island was his
protege, a man called William
Pearson, who had come to his farm
as a boy and ltad grown up with
his own family. He scribbled an
address on a piece of paper: "Wil-
liam Pearson, Reginald Road, Dept-
ford, London." Could I, when I
got back, find out what had become
of hint? Pearson had left the island
years ago -25 years ago, to be
precise. They had corresponded
intermittently up to the Second
World War, but, sines then, there
had been no news from Deptford.
M. Letourneau was most anxious
to know what had become of mon
petit Anglais, as he called the now -
mature William, and one of the
first things 1 did when I got back
to London was to try to locate him.
To my delight, after a few inquiries,
1 found him. He had been blitzed,
as I had feared, and had sustained
an injury to his spine which means
that he can do only light work now.
I wrote and asked him to conte to
the B.B.C. and discuss the possi-
bility of broadcasting a message to
Eudora Letourneau. f doubted, of
course, whether he would be able
to remember any of his French
after such a long tine, but perhaps,
with a little coaching, he could read
a short script.
To my amazement, I discovered
that William Pearson was perfectly
capable, after, a little preliminary
discussion together, of broadcasting
in French an unscripted interview
with me about his memories of the
Island of Orleans, ending up with
a personal message for Eudora and
his family, and he spoke French
still with the accent peculiar to the
island, I had cabled over to Can-
ada before the broadcast so that
Eudore Letourneau and all hie
friends on the island were advised
beforehand, and they all sat and
listened in, as they wrote after-
wards, "with tine tears streaming
down our cheeks."
Since that day, the two of them
ate corresponding regularly again.
Personally, I feel sure that WUlieen
will manage to see ,lila beloved.
island and adopted fainity again.
A Volcano
As A Neighbor
Olive again Nature has declared
war,
On December Znd, as dawn was
breaking, Mount Etna erupted
front new craters, and the people of
Bronte found a stream of molten
lava five hundred fest wide and
twenty feet high advancing upon
them at the rate of half -a -mile alt
hour. They knew that no power on
earth could stop that advance, and
they did the only possible thing,
Alt ten o'clock that evening the
towevacuated hts 20,000 Inhabi-
tants.
Eighty times since man started
keeping records Etna has caused
death and destruction. The last time
was in 1928, when incandescent lava
completely obliterated a railway and
destroyed the towns of Haacati and
Nunziati.
Living on the slope of a volcano
must be like living its a house on a
frontier and knowing that an
enemy's entire heavy artillery is
trained on the house. When hos-
tilities break out you will be the
first to be hit.
Why do people live there, latow-
ing that at any moment they and
their posseesions might be destroy-
ed?
One good reason is that the sides
of volcanoes are often the moat fer-
tile areas in the district. The slopes
of Mount Etna, for instance, are so
fertile that as many as five crops
are raised every year.
There are between three and four
re
a
It's Cocoa Time — Belted and
bloused, this pure sills shantung
afternoon dress, done in warm
cocoa with white embroidery,
is shown in the French design-
er's salon. The full skirt is
topped by a belted blouse fea-
turtng the dropped shoulder
line and full, long sleeve.
hundred active volcanoes in the
world and the slopes of most of
theta are inhabited, In some cases
the people know from past exper-
ience that they will receive good
warning before an eruption, but in
others they may have leas than as
hour to clear out with whatever val-
uables they can take with theta.
Vesuvius is one of the most nu -
predictable. In A.D. 79 it erupted so
quickly and so fiercely that three
towns—Pompeii, Herculaneum, and
Stabiae—were completely destroyed.
Pliny, commander of the Roman
fleet, sailed at once to Herculaneum
to t.ry to rescue survivors, but
found 'the harbour completely choke
ed by ash and lava. He sailed on to
Stabiae, only to find the population
dead, suffocated by fumes,
So well did Vesuvius do its work
that all three towns were effectively
buried in lave aitd ash. Four hum•-
dred years later their very sites
were forgotten and the stories of
the eruption were treated as a le-
gend They lay hidden until 1860.
From that day in A.D. 79 Vesu-
vius was quiescent, To all intense
and purposes it was an extinct vol-
cano, and towns and villages were
built on the slopes while the people
used to picnic on the lip of the huge
crater.
Then, 1,450 years later, in Demme
ber, 1631, it awakened. Without a
moment's warning it erupted, and
18,000 people died,
Since then there has hardly been
a year when Vesuvius has not belch-
ed flames and red-hot Lava. In 1900
the explosion was so terrific that
607 feet of the summit was blown
off.
The people of St, Pierre, on the
slopes of Mount Pelee, in Martini-
que, had plenty of warning but took
no notice of it. The volcano grumbl-
ed for several days, and then covets-
ed
ovetsed the town with a layer of fine ash.
.A few days later It erupted, and
150 people lost their lives. Then iL
sister volcano on a near -by island
erupted.
The people of St. Pierre thought
that the fireworks were ower and
continued their leisurely lives. But
thirteen days after the first grumble,
Mount Pelee exploded, and 40,000
people died before they could reach
safety.
Best Way To Send
Coins In A Letter
Next tune you want to mail a
quarter, dime or half -dollar to
someone, you'll probably wonder
just how to do it.
Many people use adhesive tape
or Scotch tape to fasten the coin
to the letter, But an editor says:
"Don't do it that way. Tape sticks
to the coin and causes trouble,
"Better way," he says, "is to wrap
the coin in a piece of paper. Then
use transparent adhesive tape. The
coin won't shake off or out."
Ten years ago a Dutch scientist,
Professor S. W. Tromp, set out to
prove water -divining was nonsense.
Now' he has published a 534 -page
research report confirming the popu-
lar belief that there is something in
it.
He thinks the power to detect
underground water may depend oat
the electrical resistance of the skin.
Diviners can increase their sensf-
tivity by rinsing their hands in salt
later,
What's Cookin' In TV—Morn can cook her hatn and watch
it on television at the same time, with this combination gas
range and television set:. Mrs, Bea Reeder, above, shows
haw the cook can stir up a delectable dish simply by
foi1owinC' a step-by-step instructions on video.
JII-r61t,eToe' LOONINn nokt
FENWBS UNDER THAI -Matt AND
FAV AI-rearcON. r'LL SW 1+A04
IN ?MINTY M/NurScs to
mNrreo PAO AWAY.
��tuNn
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By Arthur Pointer
,1011