The Waterbury Democrat., 1935-01-12
In New York
By PAUL HARRISON


 New York--The weirdest enter- tainment in town right now begins each midnight, except Monday and Tuesday, in 8 small room over a, saloon in East 28th street. The es- tablishment belongs to Frank Hughes, Q softspoken rIrishman ana patron of the tieater. Per formers are group of younRsters called the Phantom Players, and they have a repertory of Grand Guignol dramas that are as ma cabre as anything you've seen.
 You walk past MT Hughes long bar, up Q flight Of rickety steps. and into 6 black room with black tables and black cloths. Albert Johnson designed the stage, which IS small but effective. Forty cus- toners make 8 capacity house. They witness two or three short plays In an evening. such as "The SiaD, in which q murder is locked m q morgue with the body of his victim and a bottle of absinthe. He goes mad and commits the crime all over again.
 Another item Is called "A Kiss in the Dark" In that one, a woman decapitates one of her boy friends. Then there's Apache, in which a. gent gets tossed into the Seine. Af- ter a couple of hours of this, MT Hughes patrons no longer are sip- ping Tor pleasure, but are gulping copiously to steady their nerves. It's quite a successful enterprise. Dinner for 8
 Crosby Gaige, the Broadway producer, gave Q little dinner party the other evening to Constance Cummings, Benn Levy, Samson Raphaelson and some other people connected with his new comedy hit, Accent on Youth. Gave, served and cooked the eight-course dinner, all by himself. Piece de resistance was goulash cooked in ale, a la Gaige, and he took six curtain calls on it.
 Gourmet Gaige says that's noth- ing; lot of stage and literary men are excellent cooks-Julian Street, Alfred Lunt. Irwin Cobb, Paul Ab- bolt, Alexander Woolcott, Charles Hanson Towne.
 Past and Present
 F Blackouts: Brian Donlevy, in Life Begins at S:40," was Leyen- decker's famous collar model, and he's getting no end of attention from the chorus girls Leslie Howard, back on Broadway, calls himself "an actor by accident"n.. .. Bob Hope, though, might never have been star comedian if he hadn't tried to make a serious speech at a church party in Cleve- land. It was just too funny American actress who has played the most parts: Mrs Thomas Wrif- fen. retired and now living in Vir- ginia Wealthiest actor: David Warfield. likewise retired Wealthiest actress: Maxine Elliott, living in France Playwright who earned the most money; not Eugene o'Neill. but Winchell Smith.
 Most unusual hobby of an actor: meteorology. by James MacColl. of Life Begins". Collects weather charts and painstakingly works out forecasts in his dressing room only 58, would like to slay all rem iniscent dodderers who. delight in reminding her that they saw her on the stage 40 years ago Most modest actress: Helen Brod- erick, headline comedienne. Saves her money because, she says. 'they'll catch on to me any min ute." Says, too, that no one actress save Katherine Cornell could draw so much as fly into a theater these days.
 Footlight Babel
 Ruth Weston must be the only ac- tress who can speak Swahili. When she tired of being Q Junior Leag- uer, and before she decided to try | the stage, she used to go hunting in Africa with her papa Will liam Gaxton. who's half Spanish, speaks Chinese and little Japan ese. Picked them up in San Fran cisco, where he spent his boyhood. A couple gof years ago, in Lon don, Gaxton, disguised as a Japan ese and delivered technical ad- dress in that language on Diesel engines before the Engineers club. Gaxton knew nothing of Diesel en- zines, but the engineers knew l nothing of Japanese. A technician. in on the plot. pretended to trans late. and made 1t g very successful lecture.