The Waterbury Democrat., 1935-03-28
In New York
BY PAUL HARRISON

New York.-Notes backstage: have met a theater ghost. A ghost. named Maurice Sommers. For twenty years he has made good living playing a piano behind the | scenes while stars go through the
 motions of playing on the stage. He was ghosted for Ethel Bar rymore, sBillie Burke, Mary Pick ford, the late Barbara LaMarr and scores of other performers. Once he considered a concert career. but gave up the idea. There's no glory in the ghost business, but it's steady work.
 After sitting in the front row at "Petticcat Fever" and being convinced that the three Eskimos in the cast really were Eskimos, ]
 was impatient to go backstage and learn whether I'd been fool ed. I had. The real name of
 Snow Bird" Is Frances Hogan, and out of her makeup she doesn't look at all likek blubber-
 eater. Little Stear is Naoe Kon-
 do, a Korean. The role of an Es-
 kimo servant is played by Peter Goo Chong, star of Chinatown's theater and a pjlayer of consider able Broadway experience. He has rimpersonated Eskimos before
 this; also Filipinos, Siamese, Ha-
 waiians and, with a small salaam
 to his conscience, Japanese.
 
 Showing Hollywood
 "Petticoat Fever" by the way,
 played 75 performances on the
 road to establish the screen rights in the hope that somebody would
 buy it for $2O,O00. Nobody bid, so
 it was brought to Broadway to perish. Here it became a hit, and
 the movie offers now have reached O,0OO. Noel Coward's Point Valaine" lost $10,000, with no
 comment from MT Coward.
 Dennis King has taken to horseback jumping with such en- sured his precious neck for $25,- 900. .. Tommy, official cat of the Forrest theater and "Tobacco
 Road" has returned from the hospital. A taxi hit him while he was crossing the street on
 some errand, probably aniorous, and fractured almost everything from tail to skull. He was bun dled off to a pet hospital, and collection box was put up back
 stage at the theater. During his
 convalescence several bouquets of catn!p were sent to him by
 friends. For Tommy is no ordin-
 ary cat. He has been petted in
 the theater by Mrs Roosevelt and
 Amelia Earhardt, and he's the
 only animal with a card in ActdAs' Equity
 Ban on Makeup
 Leslie Howard is the only actor ever heard of who flatly refuses to use any makeup on stage or in the movies. He doesn't like New York; everybody here Is too dog goned busy. California is more to
 his taste, but Surrey, England, ii home. Has a son and daughter. and the latter is named Leslie.. He's passionately fond of detective stories and ice cream sodas. Given enough sodas, he can memoriZe role in two days.
 Consider Crosby Gaige, the producer: In odd moments he tends a big greenhouse on his country place; experiments with perfumes; sets, prints and binds books by hand; collects butter flies, woodcuts and first editions; plays lot of bridge; cooks en- tire dinners for his friends. He once operated a platinum mine in
 Mexico. His office Is full of start ling nudes.
 Putty Bad Cold.
 Most worried employed actor in town right now is Sanford Meisner. who wears Q grotesque putty nose in Awake and Sing" So far 1t has stayed on all right, but Meis- ner has the beginning of spring cold, and 1t would be catastrophe | if he ever should sneeze It's | fortunate that Robert Sherwood makes a lot of money from his plays. He's six feet seven inches tall, spends $100 for suits and $40 for his specially made size 14 | shoes.
 George M. Cohan and the others in "pAh, Wilderness ate 1ob-, sters every evening while the show was in New York. On the road, though, the property man en- countered difficulties; couldn't al- ways buy fresh Holsters. So he im- l ported some shells, boiled, dried and vanished them, and filled them with mashed potatoes. They tasted a little queer at first. but | the actors haven't had a touch of indigestion since the tour began. NIGHT SCHOOLS SHOW GAIN | Detroit-(UP)-Gain of neariS