Life — August 16, 1928 — page 36: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ALONG THE MAIN STEM 71 Dear Pat Witvarp: \| T’ve just come wm from one of the 46th Street hush - houses after exercising m elbows with — Jack Lait, one of the stem's veterans, who hypnotized me with tales of people he knew “when.” Perhaps the most arresting gab concerned Anna Held, Jr., whose immortal mater must have been a grand person—to hear Lait unfold it. The lassie’s tag, in case you didn’t know, is Liane Carrera, and she has been toying around with the theatrical producing racket with so-so luck. At any rate, the Stem is rooting for the kid to click and when the locals give anybody a boost, Willard, it’s a sate wager that that per- son is not an “n.g.g.,” which is Broad- wayese for “no good guy.” Liane is the only child of Anna Held’s only marriage, to a South American mil- lionaire. She was born in that allegedly dear old Paree, the year Dewey took Manila. Her mother died of a broken heart in the Netherlands Hotel here. Hating men, she left her estate so tied up that no two-timer could take advan- tage of her kid long, high or often. The pay-off was fixed at wide intervals. So the gal became a Hammerstein “freak” act, and for a spell attracted pretty good jack, but it wasn’t steady. She dwelt on the farm that her mamma left her up near Peekskill (Liane’s dialect calls it “Peeskeel”) and now and then she took down a little bundle. Lately, how- ever, the prime securities, realties, and other hereditaments swelled so greatly in value by prosperity’s accretion that her most recent installment was a handout which took two men to lift. Always artistic, she returned to the theater. Suspicious of guys by heritage, she decided to roll her own productions. So she opened a piece called “Restless Women,” a subject on which she can qualify as an expert. The show “laid an egg,” however, and she is to try again with a revue labeled “The Theatrical Di- gest of 1928” (awful title) soon. She drives, or is driven, about in a Lincoln. She loves her farm, Broadway, nice furs —and a woman who runs a boarding house, because that woman was always kind to her mother whether she had it or not. Her other pashes include the Brook- lyn Bridge, her oo-la-la pearls, osteopaths in crises and a hundred photos of her en- shrined mammy, most of which are dis- played in her home. She hates a lot of pills who weren't nice to the adorable, unforgettable Anna; men who took advantage of her own foreign- ness, ingenuousness and inexperience— snoopers and spurious friends. She has a few airtight protectors (one is Lait) who can't forget What, Who and How her mother was, and who have learned to kind o° fancy the kid, also, I hope all of this gives you an idea of the wealth Liane inherited. You're rich no end, Willard, when the “mob” goes for you in a Big Way. on this canyon, which, if I had my own way, would be named “Two- Time Square.” The night clubs are still hollering “Uncle!” Most of the smarter places are so sensitive about the lack of business that they are making their revue entertainers occupy tables between performances to give the joint some tone. I have heard some, swell tunes, however. “Sweet Sue” isn’t new but it serves to keep you cool and get you “hot.” Then there is “The Lowdown,” a sizzling and contagious stomp from the “Black Birds” revue, and “Meditation” is a lift from one of the old masters, but it is oke. The current nifty concerns Eddie Can. tor, who kept George Jessel waiting for over two hours on a corner. When Cantor finally arrived on the ->———— scene Jessel ejac- ulated: “Good heav- fi ens! Where have you been?” “I'm sorry,” apolo- gized Cantor, “but I ran into Mayor Walker.” “Oh, yes?” chirped = Jessel. ““What’s he doin’ in town?” Incidentally the revised adage now goes: “Early to bed and early to rise and you'll never be Mayor of New York.” Walter Winchell. IN THE FLEA CIRCUS Ix amazement I watched the trained flea do his stunts. “Did you educate that flea yourself?” I asked the man. “Yes,” he replied proudly, “I raised him from a pup.” Tue Steam Snoveter’s Luncu Hour comicbooks.com