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HomeMy WebLinkAboutZurich Herald, 1951-04-12, Page 6tis Goes For Type Lasting sparrow p1a� s part of Spatrruw. Glamour t is supplied by ]caauine (Praline! Niarcais, who is also makTng her debut nti the legitimate. stale, Until recently Praline. held the title of the host glamorous luanntquin in Parisian high-fashion circles. A tall, willowy blonde with all 18 -loch w ast, site was. always dcs'gnated by eputurier Pierre 13a1 - main, for whom she has been work- ing over four years, to wear his most allnring alluringand htxurious c•ve• ning creations. In "l,a 1"fit1 !.iii," Praline's role consists nperely in iolnkims chic and beautiful in a stunning evening gown and saying, "I)) you love toe?" and "Okay" with a fascinating French accent, "A very minor part, 1 know." she said, shrngging her shoulders, "but one must start somewhere.' It is because of her that "spar- row" Pier att-mpts to commit sui- cide. fluff it all ends happily—as it 1-11ways does In the musical cosnedV world. ' By ROSETTE H RGROVE 1'A k 1 S-.. t N 1 .A 1 - The Pari,si;ut Pubic wt•'11 soon : e able to judge• whether paft->'z:d Edith 1'iaf is as talente.l an actress as she is a real"tie singer. She has Inca given 'the title roll' in "La 1''tite 1.'ll,'' a new musical comedy. She'll Way the part of a Paris "sparrow," or street •'u er, That is t:x :etly what Edith Piaf was whe•: she started her career. .'\i'thor Marcel ,,chard says Piaf is a.gratural. Ile declared that from the.verx' first rehearsal she instinc- t.vcly responded to stage directing. Pia`f, he says, was his main inspira- tioq When he started writing "La P'tite hili," Broadly speaking, tltr musical is written around the tlwlle of the eternal lovers. 'Tritan and. Isolde. Although it is essentially a love drama set to Music, there is ample comedy and lots of tuneful songs which prom'se to be as great hits as any Edith Pal' has launched over the 15 years she has been sing- ing. N .k * "My characters are all little p e o p 1 e, not heroes," explains .Achard, "They say simple lines, sing simpie songs expressing sinl- Edith Piaf--For this sparrow, - a happy ending. French provinces, Belgiunl and Switzerland. * * * Achard stresses the fact that the ma'ority of actors in "La P'tite Lili" has had music -hall experi- ence., c`I think vaudeville is' a marvel- ous school for an actor," he says. ple thoughts and reactions. The play is also a protest against sui- cide." Co-starring with Piaf is Robert Lamoureux, another newcomer in the theatrical world. Lamoureux recently burst into fame as a radio performer over the, national net- work. Before that he had appeared in a comic one-man act in music halls in the provinces. He is young, dynamic and 'handsome.' Also in the cast is Eddie Constan- tine. An American, born in Los An- geles. Constantine was known as a radio performer in U.S. He met Piaf when she was singing in New York. At the experiatiou of her contract, he accompanied her back to Paris. In the last few months they have appeared together on a tour which took them to the Wlis VVL•"i' lien. in l veer Pieces Queerest will ever was tatooed on a sailor's back with a iaignattlre on hes thigh, properly atteste-d and quite legal. Probably the saeieplest will was penned by 0 Iltlth;'ourt judge on a half -sheet of ntltepaper, hemucathing 500,000. Thi;_ Thl gest will was 0 95,000 -wont elt'z. veined by a woman who eventually made her will the whole aim and object of her life. Years in the Courts With the ponderous manuscript constantly at her side, friends thought she was working on a novel, Having codicil after codicil, it gave directions for the distribu- tion of over £1,00n.o00, Unfortun- ately she left only £20.583. and the courts took years to clear up the middle. More successful was the 20,000 -word will of Sir John Eller - man. A model of clarity it even had an index to the various sect'ons and disnosed of over £36.000,000. Then there was ti'e industrialist who set his £200.000 fortune in order with fourteen words scrawled on a sixnennv will form; -add Sir Henry Hatihilton's famous nine -- word enta'lment, "To my wife; after her decease, to my daughter." Equally concise was a sailor's will, written on an eggshell. "To May. Everything I possess." A Liverpool shipowner made his will on the lining of it's hat. A wo- man painstakingly wove her last directions into a tapestry. Wiils have been written on flour bags, scratched in watches on even in- scribed on -wallpaper, A. solicitor who fell through the ice while skat- ing on Windermere managed to support himself for a time, and, with commendable calm, scratched a few words with a penknife. Un- fortlanately. the will was upset. for it was never properly witnessed. In the vaults of Somerset House, the last resting place of over 59,000,000 wills, are such oddities as a will chalked an a door and an- other written on the improvised sail of a raft by a seaman torpedoed in the Atlantic. Mortally wounded in the Pacific, an American soldier scribbled his bequests on the cuff of a nurse's uniform. Another Service man scratched his final directions on his identity disc, including his signa- ture and those of two witnesses. Gramophone Wills A Birmingham business plan not only made an orthodox will in Prize Goats—Three female Toggenburg champion dairy goats were brief visitors to Canadian National Express quarters at Central Station, Mantreal,. as they arrived from Saint John, ' LB., Bred in England, land, they were 'en route to a farm at Latirel 'n `the Laurentian MountainS. One of the three goats is shown • e, with her twa.ltids born while she was held in quarantine. Attending them is expressman Jerry Laviolette, Box Patrons Get A Lift—New, ultra -modern boxes form a striking pattern in London's Royal Festival Hall during a special concert by the London Symphony Orc'testra. Acoustics tests on the new interior decorations wvere being made during the concert. STICKS NOSE INTO OTHER PEOPLE'S BUSINESS FOR 27 YEARS •Orphan Annie, the little girl of Harold Gray's comic strip, has one fixed idea. It is simply this: "Keep your nose tidy!" Annie arrived at this philosophy by sticking her nose into other people's business for nearly 27 years. Even at the start, in the Fall of 1924, in Chicago, in the "age of innocence," she was wise beyond her years. Harold Gray became 30 years older than his creation last Jan. 20. Looking back from this 57th birthday over the years, he opined that his own philosophy coincided closely with Annie's. If there has been any moral behind the multi- farious adventures experienced by the ageless orphan, it might best be summed up in that same inelegant expression, "Keep your nose, tidy!" Life As It Is • Mr. Gray, the Kantakee farm boy, now a plutocrat, but to his way of thinking "damned little changed by the years," hopes there has been no moral at all. In writing and drawing the strip, he has aimed to picture life as it is. He has studied humanity, In the Gray strip, Annie is the constant foil, Life flows by her like a river while she stands still. Float- ing on the tide are both the good and the bad. Annie sizes then up, but does not try to change them writes Philip Schuyler in Editor & Publisher. "God deliver me from a reformer, even an honest one," Mr. Gray eja- culated the other day. "I dislike preaching, and missionaries of any kind. I don't mean religious mission- aries exclusively. They are bad enough. Worse, in my opinion, are communistic evangelists, or evan- gelists of democracy,.or the capital- istic system, Against Butting Ill • 'Why can't we leave each other alone? Butting il,to the other fel- low's business is a prime cause of trouble, misery and war. writing, but also accompanied it with a sound filen, showing him reading the will and adding a few forthright remarks on the faults and virtues of his heirs. Just as trouble- some to the executors was a man whose will took five years to open.. He had placed it in a complicated series of envelopes, the outer one sharked "To he opened six yeeks after my death," the next inscribed, "To be opened a year after," and SO 011. Count Tolstoy wrote his will on the snit -11P of a tree. Nelson made. codicils in his diary. Wills have been made in speranto and in short- hand, and have been successfully made by gramophone record, com- plete with signatures scratched on the label. "It is much more difficult to tamper with a spoken will than a written one," said a Mr, Theodore Mantz, of Des Moines, as he dic- tated his will into a microphone. A judge thought otherwise. "Where there's a will there's a way to .break it," he remarked. "In this case drop the subject on a tiled Hood" "There are eternal verities easy enough for all to learn: tell the truth, work hard, save your money to be independent; in short, 'keep your nose tidy!' A n d that's enough." The millions who follow "Annie" in the more than 275 • daily and Sunday papers pay off the •author artist handsomely; possibly for constantly mirroring the composite mind of the multitude. The Gray income runs at about $130,000 a year. He says he has to work hard from 11. a.m. to 11 p.m. seven days a week to keep paying his taxes to Uncle Sam. The 25 - room Georgian mansion his comic creatures bought on Sasco 'Hill at Southport, Conn., was recently ap- praised at $750,000. It's up for sale. The .Grays have bought another place across the. bay from the present four -ace es- tate. The new 10 -room house would just about fit in the living room at Southport, but it is set on 22 acres of land. A farm -born boy, Harold likes land. But doesn't like farnhng, and doesn't farm. The Roving Kind The Grays Iike to keep on the move. If it isn't from one !louse to another, it is in their Lincoln touring the United States or Cana- da. One summer they went abroad. - But they prefer this side of the Atlantic, and "the long brown road, leading wherever you choose." The Syndicate makes Mr. Gray keep a three months' supply of strips ahead. On a trip, if he gets behind, he'll "hole up" at a hotel for two or three days and catch up. His cousin, Bob Leffingwell does the lettering and puts in some of the backgrounds. Bob also has his own two strips, "Little Joe" and "The General." Bob's and Harold's mothers were twin sisters, Bob is unmarried and lives in Fairfield,. Conn. His Only Collaborator When Harold is in Southport, Bob comes to work every day at the Gray's. They have two desks there in a hook -lined study. Both can and do work while a radio blares. Television proved too dis- concerting, and was banished up- stairs. Bob is Harold's only colla- borator, if you can call hint that. Harold thinks no one can illustrate another person's ideas as well as the originator, "I'm no artist," he insists. "I've never gone to any art school, But I know what I want and do the best I can. Bob does the dirty work." A cotlinl.on trick with 11r. Gray is to spell a name backwards, He doesn't like to use ordinary names, because he's bothered enough by people who all the time are recog- nizing themselves in a strip, and write in about it. Some 20 have threatened suit. Only one, however, ever took the case into a court. On Mr. Gray's advice, the syndicate refused to settle, and after several years of asking vainly for $10.000 for a damaged reputation, the plain- tiff dropped the whole thing a abort time ago. 'i'it.e continuity that led to this shit concerned an OPA ration hoard head and the similarity of names of a Gray character, symbolical of a snoop, andof an OVA man in Con- necticut, Other people enjoy identifying themselves with Gray's true-to-life characters, Such a one was a A11ss Clare Treat, head of a home for incorrigible children. in I:ow.a, Mr, Cray had never suet anyone by that name when he gave it to a terrible head of a girls' home. The Iowa 'Treat was delighted, Who Is Annie? In the case of Annie herself, no ane knows who her lost parents Capt. Joseph M. Patterson, late were, or at least no one is telling, editor of the New York Daily News and Harold Gray, were the obstetri- cia115 at her birth. Mr. Gray was on the Chicago Tribune at the time. Ile had. been working with Sid Smith, helping hint draw "The Gumps." The Captain .w.auted a new strip for the News. "Make it for grownup people, not for kids," the Captain advised. "Kids don't buy Gapers. Their par- ents do." Mr. Gray was- enjoying his job on the Tribune. Most of all, lie liked to roam Chicago streets with other newspaper limen, stopping at their hangouts for a late snack. One early morning on the streets, he caught sight of a little gamin, quite evidently in the so-called age of innocence, wise as an old owl., "I calked to this little kid and liked her right away," he recalled. "She had common sense, knew how to take care of herself. She had to. Her name was Annie. "At the time some 40 strips were using boys, as the main characters; only three were using girls. I chose Annie for mine, and made her an orphan, so she'd have no fancily, no tangling alliances, but freedom to go where she pleased. . "Patterson and- I worked over the first strips together, We kept • clear of violent action, such as kids like, kept our story as close to life • as we could." Thus was Annie born, never ta; grow up, although. some of today's readers are grandchildren of the first who followed the strip. Simple Things The young fry, if they everpon- der on the way of life thirty to forty years ago, doubtless wonder what the old man did to enjoy himself. Things must have been awfully dull. No radio. No television. Auto- mobiles that were chugging, un- dependable piles of junk. Movies that were silent, fuzzy flops . . . This bleak appraisal of yester- day gives us no self-pity. We find it• a bit amusing, a bit pathetic... The average .teen-ager today might deem it' a fate worse than death to spend an evening at home listening to dad read a book. Dad might think it a bit ludicrous hint. self. • But the family should try it some winter evening. They alight get" hold of something good. To make the. setting complete there should be bowls "of apples and popcorn within easy 'reach... . We feel rather sorry for today's youth. His seems a shallow quest, hurried and forced and somehow artificial. And the simple things of yester- day were so• rewarding. —Minneapolis Sunday Tribune LEN GARDEN NOTES Sontething Will Bit No matter !.low unfavorable tlie. location there is soros flower, vege- table or shrub that will thrive in it and actually prefer such a situation, The ideal garden, of course, is open to the sun and the soil is ti rich, well -drained loam. i3ut there are many plants which c10 not care tor this. Sona flowers, vegetables and certain varieties of grass prefer shade, some want acid soil rather than sweet, some like heavy clay better than loans or sand; some ac- tually do better in poor soil than ri ell. 1'Ite thing in plasmin; is to con- sider these special likes and dis- likes, then to select those plants that salt odes special location, Special information in the seed cata- logues wl11 help in planning, Most vegetables, however, are pretty keen on 0 generous amount of sun but they have distinct likes and dislikes in the matter of soil. For deep-rooted things like car- rots, potatoes, etc., it is important. that the soils be fairly loose at least a foot down. Many types pre- fer sandy soil to clay. But no mat- ter what the soil is like to start with by a little plauning and build- ing one can change it fairly easily, * * .K Must Like Our Climate It's 'a waste of time, labor and money to try to grow certain ten- der flowers or other plants which may do beautifully in Britain or the Southern United States. Our climate, soil and other conditions are not suitable. To guard against • discouragement one is advised :lb stick to those flowers, shrubs and vegetables that are specially rec- 'onimended for Canadian conditions, 'These are the .varieties and types tested under •to iadian conditions and are recommended by Canadian authorities. 6 • Lawn. Work One can't sow lawn grass seed too soon in the spring. Some people even broadcast over the last snow and as. it melts it carries the seed down into .the soft earth. On a sloping place, of course, this might not be advisable where running water !night carry seed away. Good grass seed consists of a blend of several different grasses. Some of these germinate quickly, providing some .cover and also the necessary protection .for the later more permanent sorts., For `shady Iocations one should get a special. mixture. Either for patching or new lawns, grass seed should be sown liberally and lightly raked in. Like 1nost plants grass will ap- preciate good soil and an occasional application of fertilizer. As new grass is easily pulled out so one should make sure the mower is sharp for the first few cuttings, especially. Back in 1927 Jacob Sullivan and Eula Thomson were divorced. The other day they were . remarried at Carthage, Mo. Sullivan is now 78, his ' wife, 73. Said Sullivan: "We found we missed each other." BY • HAROLD ARNETT ANDY RACKTO MA',KE\ HANDY RACK FOR BLUING, SOAP, ETC., GU`s TIN CAN IN CENTER AND FOLD TO FIT RIM OF WASH TU13. JITTER OH IBOY! WHAT A w RELIEF To FINISH THNt,'.' NYENT01>,Y List • 'COULD SLEEP FOR A WEEK!..NM•MAYBE BETTER CHECK 17 ONCE MOPE -- By Arthur Pointer V / ( WHAT'D I EVER DO Oir-, To DE5SRVE THIS! ` `e"