Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 14, Number 18, DeMotte, Jasper County, 17 March 1944 — Stat Dust [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Stat Dust

<SUGE<SCREEfOADIO

By VIRGINIA VALE

Released by Western Newspaper Union. SINCE his return from his recent overseas trip Joe E. Brown has been the talk of New York being modest, he’s told the people fortunate enough to hear him, things that he should say to the entire United States. He has traveled more than 100,000 miles, entertained more than two million men, on all fronts. The man is terrific; it’s no wonder that a psychiatrist who followed him through hospitals in the South Pacific reported a 71 per cent improvement in the patients* condition. He entertained men everywhere—in the front lines, on ships, in canteens.

His new radio show, on the Blue network, is a quiz show; too bad he’s not doing an additional one, so that the public could hear what he told newspaper people. * Lauritz Melchior, Metropolitan tenor who scored such a hit clowning with Fred Allen on the air, has signed for his first motion picture—it’s Metro’s “Thrill of Romance,” featuring Esther Williams, the swimmer. He’ll play an opera singer. “All the other fellows razzed this chap,” said the soldier who’d just come out of Halloran hospital. “He sat down on the side of my bed and played cards with me and talked, and was swell. I didn’t know who he was then. Found out later he was Frank Sinatra.” $ James Cagney has started his personal appearance tour of U. S. army and navy bases in the European war theater; expects to remain abroad for three months. He rehearsed six weeks with a dance coach before leaving Hollywood, on a cavalcade of American dancing from George Primrose to Fred Astaire. * We won’t see Rosalind Russell in “Sister Kenny,” after all that preparation, because it’s been indefinitely postponed. But it’s going to be too bad jf she’s assigned to “Roughy Speaking” instead, because that’i i perfect story for Bette Davis. 7K ■ Shopping for lingerie with his wife, Geoffrey Barnes, he of the ominous voice on “The Mystery Pheater,” yielded to the temptation to use his radio voice on the elevator operator. Barnes says he never had an easier time getting out. ODDS AND ENDS That Flying Fortress named for “We, the People” is still blasting away at the Germans . . . W hile Bob Griffin was recovering from a plane crash on CBS’s “Mary Marlin* he was down with jungle fever in “Valiant Lady” . . . “The Silver Theater” may move from Hollywood to New York, to present well-known stage players in its Sunday dramas . . . Onethird of the principal players in “The Robe” will be new to the screen; Producer Frank Ross believes the story demands fresh faces . . . Jack Benny has checked off the Warner Bros, lot, after completing his starring role in “The Horn Blows at Midnight.”

JOE E. BROWN