The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1932-11-26
In
NEW
YORK
!!'!!' Gil: ran

New York, Nov. 26.-Sidelights on
Manhattan's famous and almost
famous folk: Amusingly enough, it's
a lad from the farm who supplies
Broadway with its most colorful and
modernistic scenery. They refer to
Albert johnson as 1.-The boy wonder"
for he came into eminence at the
extreme age of 20 with the settings
for THE Criminal Code" Yet his
father is a famous agriculturist, and
wanted his son to follow in his foot
steps. Instead of which, Albert had
no interest in the soil but a vast yen
for stage properties.
Johnson's sets in THE Band Wag-
on" Face the Music" and now in
Americana" to say nothing of his
Hollywood experience, make him a
Broadway fixture at %. He has no
office, preferring to work in his hotel
room. He hires no assistants, in
sisting on working out his ideas
alone
His first arrival on Broadway was
achieved with the crashing per-
sistence of a One-Eyed Connolly. He
approached a big producer, offering
to be an actor. But the producer
had never heard of him. So next
he reappeared insisting that he
should direct a play. He followed
this with a letter campaign. To get
rid of him, the producer wrote back:
Have some doubt whether the play
in question will ever be produced.
The sets are terrible, ETC."
This was Johnson'S cue. Very we'll,
he announced, If he couldn't act or
direct, he would do the sets. And he
did. With plenty of boyish conf
dence. The play was "The Criminal
Code" and the sets put him on the
map.
TRY THIS ON YOUR PIANO
Piano bites Helen Morgan! That's
news! It happend at studio party
the other Sunday.
Two stalwarts hoisted the pulchri-
tudinous Helen to the top of a small
baby grand. The top came uncere-
moniously down and Helen was
pinched between the keyboard and
the next song.
x X X
TITANS-ALIVE OR DEAD?
Burton Rascoe, whose "Titans of
Literature" makes human beings out
of immortals who were so much
mummy dust in school textbooks,
wrote pieces not so many years ago
from the Chicago bureau of NEA
tn 1No
writing giants remain stuffed shirts,
I'd advise you not to read it. But II
you prefer them alive-go ahead!
There are still no male matinee
idols in all Broadway. Insofar as
any one personality of the stage may
be said to have idolators that one is
Eve La Caffeine. Head of her own
repertoire company, crowds wait at
the stage door to watch her exit
And small-pursed folk send her visit
full punches of flowers. She lives in
an apartment over her theater SO
that she can be close to hand. The
legend was, a few years back, that
she had a fire-house pole from hel
floor and often slid down it. This
has never been verified.
Harry Franck, who has vagabonded
the world and written q dozen books
on his travels, says he has discovered
New York laundryman-he will no.
give the name-who lives in east
and luxury on sums left in perpetu'
airy by the historic King Charles II
It seems that ancestors of this fellow
helped the king make a get-awa!
following the Battle Of Worcester.
- 4 -
Until couple of weeks ago, tn,
French colony Of New York had n
night spot that they could call thei
own and which would echo the stree
songs and the hoppity dances of thei
country. So it's Leon Bedou, VIII
came to America as Carpenter
sparring partner, who has brough
. touch Of Montparnesse to Broad
way in place titled The Bal Mu
settle. In an audience of $50 person