Zurich Herald, 1950-07-13, Page 3i
They Tried. To Shoot
Albert Chevalier
With a comical little liat set on
the back of his head, wearing loud -
striped trousers, wooden shoes, blue
shirt and huge white gloves, a small
boy stepped on to the small stage
of a cafe in a working-class sub-
urb of Paris and began to sing.
Staring at the ceiling and bawl-
ing at the top of his voice„ the
-diminutive figure shouted his way
through two verses and choruses
of a popular ditty.
Little Manricc Chevalier, twelve-
year -old son of a drunken house
painter, had started his stage
career.,
But his first attempt as a come-
dian was not wholly satisfactory.
The hysterical shrieks and guffaws
front the Saturday night audience
of worsting people were induced not
by _the skill of the large -headed
and small -bodied urchin, but by the
fact that throughout the song. lie
had consistently shrieked out the
wordy in a voice that threatened
to crack at ally moment—three keys
higher than the piano accompani-
III
Only one person who was pre-
sent on that night in 1900 could
have foreseen, even dimly, that
this child, with no musical train-
ing, would one day have not only
Paris, but London, New York and
I•Iollywood at his feet. And that
one person was —Maurice,
Tried Many Trades
As lie says in his autobiography,
"The Man in the Straw Hat" he was
never meant for the stage. He was
expected, as the ninth child of a
poor family, to learn a trade. There
was no artistic precedent in the
family. And since only three of
ten children born to his mother
had survived there were few to
bring in money to the household.
Maurice tried trade after trade,
He was apprenticed in turn to
an engraver, carpenter, electrician,
doll painter; he...tried his hand as
clerk to a paint merchant, and lie
worked a machine malting drawing
plus. But his mind was on none of
those jobs. He wanted to be a
singer.
The experience at the cafe did not
daunt the child Chevalier. He knew
the laughter of the audience was
not kind laughter, but lie left the
building more than ever determined
to be a singer. As he puts it in
his book: "At least I had made
a start and the hardest part was
over. From tomorrow on I just
had to sing better."
And lie did.
At fourteen he was sole sup-
porter of his mother. His father
had deserted the family and lois
two brothers had married. After ,
various successes and failures in
provincial shows Maurice got his
first engagement on the Paris
Boulevard at the Petit Casino—
and failed. A suunlixer of poverty
followed as work eluded him.
Then fortune smiled again with
a six -months' contract for nine
francs a day at the "Parisiana"
Music Hall. And so to the Folies
Bergere—anti a criticism from the
critic of 'Le Figaro' that did a
great deal to change Maurice Che-
valier's style. Tile vulgarity that had
succeeded so well elsewhere had
to be cut out. Laughs would, in
future, have to be born of skill
and subtlety.
Freed Ten Prisoners
Between the two world wars
Chevalier reached world fame. Then
aline 1940, when France was over-
run by the enemy. Much lugs been
said about Maurice Chevalier's part
in the years of occupation. In his
book lie tells the story of his re-
peated refusal to entertain German
audiences and of the one slip he
made that nearly cost him his life
at the hands of the Maquis.
Maurice agreed to perform once
at Alten Grabow, where he had
been a prisoner in World War I.
In return ten prisoners frons his
own birthplace, Menilnsontant, were
to be restored to their families.
After the performance Ise returned
to Cannes, where lie was living.
A German "Promise"
Then the blow fell. Despite a
promise from the Germans that no
publicity would be given to the
performance, the newspapers pub-
lished long articles on his visit to
Alten Grabow. They implied that
Chevalier had visited many pri-
son camps and made a tour of- the
Cerlllan cities as well. A London
p-tper stated lie was pro -Nazi and
liact sting everywhere iii Germany
except in the prison canips.
Years passed, during which Che-
valier consistently refused to per-
form anywhere. Then another blow
fell, In February, 1944, London
t•adio included his name in a list
Of French collaboratorsl Though
JITTER
Cha_ip Milker—Grand champion milker Frederick Phelps, age 13, presented a "Kev to Health"
to Wanda Matuszczuk, queen of the Dair}eland Festival. Phelps also provided the queen, a.nd
her attendants with the mill: they are drinking. He milked'almost 19 pounds of it in three
minutes.
one of the leaders of the resistance
movement got a message through
to the broadcaster denying it, and
the name was omitted from the lists
after that ,the mischief had been
clone.
Some time after the landing at
Arramanches a mail and woman
rushed into the post office where
Chevalier was listening to the radio.
"Maurice! Maurice! Don't go back
to your ]ionic. The Maquis are
looking for you—to shoot you!"
The London broadcast! And in
Cannes very fete knew the music»
hall star intimately. He was some-
thing of a stranger—a refugee from
Paris.
Maurice fled on foot to Cedouin,
four or five miles away, where
friends hid flim for several weeks.
Then the Germans burned a whole
village nearby and the Swiss, Lon
don and Paris radio announced that
Maurice Chevalier bad been exe-
cuted at the toren hall. To add to
tha confusion, the German radio
confirmed his death, but stated
that he had been killed by French
patriots because he had sung to
German audiences and to prisoners
in Germany,
Death Warrant Out
One day three armed men drove
up to the house in Cedouin. Maurice
was arrested and taken to Peri-
gueux for questioning by a young
i•taquis fanatic known as "Captain
Double Metre."
It was abvicus that given hi;
way "Double Metre" would have
executed Maurice there and then.
"Two months ago," lie raved at
Chevalier, "ire would have had
the pleasure, of exposing you our-
selves. We had orders for traitors
like you who have been condemned
by the court of Algiers. You know,
don't you, that you have been con-
demned to death? But unfortun-
ately we are no longer allowed to
execute the death w=arrant without
a superior decision from Paris.
The interview ended with Maur-
ice signing a statement covering
his alleged collaboration with, the
enemy, He was free so far as
"Double Metre" was concerned, un-
less Paris reconfirmed the death
sentence,
That confirmation never carie.
Gradually, the cloud lifted. Maur-
ice Chevalier returned to the Paris
lie loved. At fifty-seven he went
back to work harder than ever—
back to the footlights and his straw
lvat.
"So you got the answer to that
$64 question!"
Ship Stabilizer
Irngineers are developing a sta-
bilizer which will take the roll out
of rolling seas. It's an old idea. Sir
IFIellry Bessemer invented such
a stabilizer in the last century. The
Present invention's purpose is to
provide a steady platform for naval
weapons and aircraft carrier.land-
ing: It may prove to be a boon on
Passenger vessels as a preventive
of seasickness.
The theory of the stabilizer was
developed more. than a decade ago
by Dr. Nicholas Minorsky. Experi-
ments made with a model named
ttie U.S.S. Minorsky and built at
the New York Naval Shipyard in
1938, gave such good results that
Pavy engineers decided to build a
device -which is now being tested
on the minesweeper U.S.S. Pere-
grine off the coast of Virginia
Two large tanks are installed on
opposite sides of the ship. The tanks
are partially filled with water, and
the bottoms are connected across
the ship by a duct.
The instant the ship begins to
roll a sensitive instrument called
an angular accelerometer, flashes a
signal which immediately starts
Pumps that force water through the
transfer duct to the tank on the side
where the roll started. By shifting
water from one tank to the other, I Said one electron to another: "I the inference that they were vege-
tation.
"My husband never drinks water
\avy engineers hope tc reduce roll- don't know you from atom." Iand the dog can't read."
Canadian Discover New „ .,
Supply For "Wonder Drug" 0�0
ing at sea by as wt;.cli as 80 per
cent.
In recent experiments it has been
found that the cross duct of the
stabilizer should be placed above
a ship's center of gravity, When this
is clone, the inertia of the moving
water in the duct aids stabilization.
BREAD TESTER
Chemists have devised a machine
which measures the freshness of
bread by squeezing it, a familiar
practice of housewives. George F.
Garnatz, director of the Kroger
Food Foundation, recently described
such a machine before the American
Chemical Society. A disc is con-
r,ected with a platforms by a vertical
shaft. A slice of bread is mounted
under the disc. Into a flask, -on the
platform, mercury runs at a standard
rate. The increasing weight of mer-
cury progressively compresses the
tread until the standard compres-
sion is .reached. Then an electrically
operated signal notifies the operator
that the flow of mercury is to be.
stopped. The weight of the flask
and mercury is a measure of the
freshness or staleness of the bread,
because fresh bread compresses un-
der a lesser weight than stale bread,
New ,answers To Cold Riddles
About 'The Planet Mars
Because it is relatively near, Mars
has attracted more attention than
any other planet ever since the tele-
scope was first turned upon it. Is
it alive in the sense that there are
intelligent being on it? Do the re-
galar appearance and disappearance
of white caps at the poles indicate
that snow falls there in winter and
melts in the spring? Are dark re-
gions vegetation? The questions
were discussed for the nth time
by Dr, Clyde Tombaugh, discoverer
of Pluto, at a recent meeting of
the American Astronomical Society.
Back in 1877, Schiaparelli, a dis-
tinguished Italian astronomer, made
the first accurate map of Mars. In
the course of his survey he discov-
ered curious straight lines (actually
arcs of great circles) which lie called
"'canali," Tile English equivalent is
',channels," but someone passed on
the translation "canals„” with all
that it implies, Thus arose a con-
troversy on the nature of the canals,
which has not yet been settled,
Lowell's Mars
The late Percival Lowell, who
founded the observatory at Flag-
staff, Arizona, went much farther
than Schiaparelli. His maps of Mars
have never been surpassed for de-
tail and for accuracy. He saw not
only all that Schiaparelli saw but
more. He was certain that the polar
caps were covered with hoarfrost
er snow, that intelligent beings had
ting the canals for the express pur-
pose of bringing the water from
the melting polar caps to temperate
and equatorial regions that could
bring forth vegetation if irrigated.
The planet certainly turns green,
the characteristic color of vegeta-
tion, as summer advances and the
arid Martian soil is presumably irri-
gated by canal water, according to
Lowell; it also turns red as winter
approaches and the canals dry up,
red being the color of dying vege-
tation, Along the canals there are
also spots which Lowell called
"'oases" and which he conceived
to be!the sites of great settlements.
As ' a class, astronomers rejected
Lowell's reasoning. The canals were
optical illusions to many; the polar
caps might be solid carbon dioxide
as well as hoarfrost or snow. Be-
sides, there was little if any oxygen
on Mals, so that animal life like
that of the earth was impossible,
Yet there is no. doubt that Lowell
knew more about Mars than any
astronomer of his day and that he
made it necessary to revise old not-
ions.
"Seas" Show Vegetation
In the first place, the "seas," the
name given to certain dusky mark-
ings, were found at Flagstaff to be
a mass of intricate detail quite out of
keeping with water surfaces. Canals,
for example, crossed the seas. Vari-
ations in the color of the seas oc-
curred synchronously with changes
in the Martian seasons and justified
The low oxygen content in rein
atmosphere of Mars has been in-
geniously accounted for by Prof,
Ifenry Norris Russell, .lie has sug-
gested that the rocks of lvlars are
red because the iron in them has
cixidized, which means that oxygen
has been taken from the air, never
to be returned. Sonic day the whole
p'anet will appear a changeless rusty
r'ea.
Dr. Tombaugh holds that the red
color of Mars is the natural color
of its igneous rocks and not the
result of oxidization of iron, To
him the "oases" of Lowell may be
craters left by the impact of coir
liding asteroids. The great dust
clouds which have ben observed
i,adicate that there are winds. hence
there must be wind erosion, which
would level off the high wails of
the craters.
Most astronomers now concede
that the dark color that comes and
goes seasonal13; on Mars is evidence
of sonic low form of vegetation, Like
others before him, Dr. Tonnbaugh
suggests that lichens constitute this
vegetation.
But intelligent life on lh;rs? Dr.
ombaugh spurns the thought. He
is willing to accept the canals a,.
real, but he will not accept them
as artificial engineering works. Many
of the canals radiate from oases, To
Dr, Tombaugh the radii are just
cracks in the surface caused by the
impact of asteroids. Dr. Lowell,
however, insisted that the radii are
geometrically straight lines, where-
as natural cracks, whether they oc-
cur in a sheet of glass or in the
earth's crust, are never geometri-
cally straight.
Some of these controversial ques-
tions will possibly be settled with the
aid of the 200 -inch telescope on
Palomar i\iountain, California, It
has been proposed that motion pic-
tures be made of Mars with that
Powerful instrument—not ordinary
motion pictures, but pictures taken
.it intervals frequent enough to ob-
tain a series of several hundred,
In such a series there would be
a few "frames" in which details
would be so clear that there could
be no mistake about there. As it is,
the canals have never been photo-
graphed. A trained observer has to
craw what he thinks he saw in
a clear fleeting second. The at-
n;osphere of the earth is constantly
"boiling" as heat radiates from the
surface, and it is this boiling that
makes it impossible to obtain a
steady view of any detail of Mars.
—Waldemar Kaempffert in The
New York Times.
NO SALE
A lady went to buy a drinking
trough for her dog. The shopkeep-
er asked her if she would like one
with the inscription, "For the Dog."
"It isn't necessary," she replied,
r
'flue first reported extraction of
the wonder drug ACTH from cattle
glands was announced recently by
a Canadian company, .Frani: III
Horner Limited, Montreal.
Company spokesmen said that the
success of the process after tiffany
months investigation means that
the world supply of ACTH could be
greatly increased by large scale
extraction from beef pituitaries,
Until now, the very small quatiti-
ties of this agent available to meet
the large demands of Canadian
medical research could be obtained
only from hog pituitaries in tine
United States. Previous opinion
held that cattle pituitaries would not
be a practical source. Despite this
general impression the Horner lab-
oratory showed that gland for gland
the beef pituitary is just as good as
the hog.
ACTH (adrenocorticotropic hor-
mone'), although known to science
for many years as one of the key
agents it the pituitary, regarded
as the master gland of the hotly,
first came into prominence in nsedi-
cine just over a year ago,
It had been known previouscly
that it acts as a chemical messenger
between the pituitary and the adren-
als, two tiny hat -shaped organs
above the kidneys. It stimulates
these glands to secrete other hor-
mones which in turn affect such
bodily functiolis as carbohydrate
metabolism and water balance.
Through the work of such men as
Montreal's renowned Dr. Haus
Selye this pituitary -adrenal gland
ib
r5
relationship has been esti blislied as
a vital factor in the so-called "dis-
eases of adaptation" which include
high blood pressure, certain kidney
disorders, and arthritis,
Then early last year, the Mayo
Clinic revealed the spectacular
effect of ACTH in arresting arth-
ritis. Since then there has been a
succession of medical reports on
the near -miraculous action of this
hormone in controlling other form-,
erly unresponsive human ailments.i
The material is potentially so
dangerous in the wrong hands and
the available supply so small, that
the National Research Council
keeps a strict control over its dis-
tribution. Because its chief .value
is that of a research tool.,to study
these various disorders, ACTH is
used chiefly by medical investigators
and is not generally available as
a cure for private patients.
"At first," continues the Horner
research director, "ACTH was con-
sidered to be a protein, perhaps as
complicated as insulin, which after
almost thirty years of use stili must
be prepared from animal glands,
But recent studies suggest that the
activity of ACTH as it is isolated
from the pituitary is concentrated
in a small fraction of elle product,
And there is, therefore, the possi-
bility that this simpler active portion
or portions may be prepared
chemically some clay."
Countless thousands of arthritis
sufferers in Canada and throughout
the world are hoping and praying
for that clay,
,
Pointer
--J Bov.,.. t
5495 A HONEY+
Dr, Leonard Mitchell (right), research director of Frank W.
Hornier L united, Montreal, who recently announced the first
isolation of ACTH from cattle glands, 'watches Dr. Lucien
Delcourt, an assistant, carry out one of the many steps in the
preparation of ACTIT oil an experimental scale in the Horner
laboratories.
Dr, ,Leonard Mitc,,ell (right), research director of Vrulal: W.
Horner Limited, Montreal, who recently announced the first
isolation of ACTIT from cattle g1<,1ntls, confers with his Assistant,
Dr. l,ttc..len Delcourt, c