The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1938-09-16
WHO'S
NEWS
THIS
WEEK
By LEMUEL F. PARTON


MI W YORK.-In Indianola, Iowa,
~ the only member of the Multi
can family who stayed that way was
Doc Mullican, the
Onty LOG town dentist. One
Mullican of his daughters
Stayed Put marrieu, s anu ha
came the Lane sisters of Hollywood.
Had he lived a few months longer,
the father would have witnessed the
grand slam success of three of the
girls, Priscilla, Rosemary and Lola,
in the new film -Four Daughters"
The home background of the Lane
girls is such that it suggests Meg,
Beth, 10 and Amy, these antece-
dents somehow easing into the pic
ture, to the delight of the audience
and the quite unrestrained enthusi-
asm of the critics. It is too bad
that Leota couldn't have been the
fourth daughter-this without dis
paragement of Gale Page, who gets
a full share of honors. Leota is
aiming at the Metropolitan and is
now studying at the Juilliard School
of Music.
The only sources of excitement in
Indianola, 81 miles south of Des
Moines on the Rock Island, were
the 3:15 train and the Methodist col
lege. The Mullican girls, all musi-
cally gifted and all good looking,
became locally famous for their
home nusicales and their party
stunts.
Lola, eldest of the four, met Gus
Edwards, away out on the kerosene
rry. circuit, 10 miles
Aoeo Ae""S from Indianola.
Trek to She persuaded
HOLLYWOOD him to give her a
tryout. That led to
a vaudeville engagement, and later
to Hollywood. 1t was Edwards who
tagged her Lola Lane. Leota moved
out next, also in vaudeville, while
Priscilla and Rosemary were still
in school. But, at the ages of IA
and IS, respectively, the two latter
rounded out the quartette in Holly
wood, in VARSITY Show"
They have a grand house, snowy
cars, silks and sables and what-not-
in the Hollywood routine-but their
public doesn't begrudge them their
slice of the American dream, as
long as they so faithfully portray its
Little Women" of poignant MEM
CRY.
-Four Daughters" of modest pro-
duction cost, was quietly unveiled
without any fuss whatsoever. Crit
les headline it as a sensational
success" The lesson seems to be
that the picture moguls, downheart-
ed about the business and ready to
spend until it hurts, are overlooking
the pulling power of not necessarily
expensive taste, simplicity, and
sound dramatic craftsmanship, in
lieu of a million dollars.
IF 1T hasn't already happened, it
u is pretty nearly a certainty that
someone will give Commodore Rob-
ert B. Irving, master of the Queen
49, Mary, q pipe for
M0SteF OF breaking the At
Queen Mary lantic speed rec
lib. Pine. ord. He collects
pipes and smokes
them almost constantly, and impor-
tant occasions in his life are usually
signalized by the ceremonious pre-
sentation of a B.B.B.-Best British
Briar-which type of pipes features
his collection of several hundred.
The tall, smiling, wind-and-sun-
tanned skipper is a border Scots
man Of Kirtlebridge, Dunfreeshire,
81 years old, sailing man for Al
years, IS years with the Cunard line,
barring time out for war service.
He is deliberate, friendly, chatty
and easy-going, the last man in the
world to pose for the portrait of a
speed demon. Next to pipes, his
hobby is collecting carvings of min
iature elephants.
The son of a retired army colonel,
with no seafaring folk anywhere in
his line, he went to sea at IL on the
school ship Conway, and, at IA,
shipped on four-master around the
horn to San Francisco. He joined
the Cunard line as fourth officer.
His first command was the Venno-
mia, and later he was master Of
many of the crack ships of the line,
including the Lusitania, in 1914, and
the Aquitania.
In his native Kirtlebridge, he lives
IN a house built in ITO, tramps
through his 1900 acres of copse and
moors, works in his garden and
raises spaniels. AS one who has
ranged the world through nearly
half a century, he is happiest when
headed homeward, for there he is
the killed chief of the ancient Irv-
ing clan, and there his heart is.
o Consolidated News Features.