Life — December 14, 1928 — page 8: what you’re looking at

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

6 LIFE THE MAIN STEM Dear Pat Wittarp: If they tell Walter have gone tall Winchell millinery and have ac- quired adenoids, _ please don’t believe them, for I really haven't, although I've been seen making the rounds of the gayer parlors with David Ludovic George Hopetoun Carnegie, Earl of Northesk, Baron Rosehill, which is one person, familiarly known around Broad- way as “Dave.” I come to his defense, old-timer, strictly because the locals have been tossing him around for laughs, and because he doesn’t rate being hit below the belt. This Stem, as you know, kid, is a pretty merciless avenue. That is, too many of the natives on it are crummy at heart and wouldn't give a person a “break” by you that I unless there was a big enough percentage in it. Lord Northesk, who happens to be an all-right guy, also happened to fall madly in love with Peggy Joyce and then the fun began—for the other fellows. I tittered myself. However, when his di- vorce from Jessica Brown, the phormer Ziegpheld pholly, was made final, North- esk went to one of the white-light joints —without Peggy, but with her permis- sion—where he went gay. He was simply being himself, you know, “regular’—which is only another way of saying he is democratic; but it appears that this town doesn’t quite get the point. Well, to make a short story interesting, Willard, Northesk rubbed shoulders with “the mob,” the lower class, the racketeers and their soiled ladies. He urged them to call him “Dave’’ and to drop the Lord business and not make a fuss over him. He got up and Black-Bot- tomed and Charlestoned to everyone's de- light because he was in the mood, and take it from me, his dancing is really better than that done by some profes- sionals, So what happened? One of the tab reporters played the “story” to the hilt (and it was a great story), and they clowned with him, adding that “Lord Northesk made whoopee without his fiancée!” They inferred that he was never going to marry Peggy and when Peggy, who is in a new show now, got a load of the yarn, she made it a better tale announcing that all was off! tte) Northesk, like so many of us, took it on much to heart. I tried to tell him the other night that he made his big error in not putting on some of the dog that most other titled visi- tors put on when they come to America, But he argued otherwise. He doesn't agree with me when I tell him that Americans “go for’? that snob stuff—pro- vided the snobs have titles. Then he pointed out the popularity of the Prince of Wales and the Earl ot Amherst (the latter is Jeff Holmesdale of the World's reviewing staff), and Northesk added: “The hell with the title. I want to be one of the crowd!” But you see what comes of a noble- man’s trying to “be one of the mob,” don’t you? He isn’t a phony, but some of the saps won't believe it. I feel rather sorry for him, really. If he featured a monocle and dropped his aitches most of the social climbers would break their The Animal Lover aaa < comicbooks.com