The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-10-05

the CruLn were
 known, the en-
 aterta a i1ment
 1 N world is the hvioochondriac's Paradise, tn c neUrotic's Nirvara-the Backyard of the Breakdown.
 Not only can sufferer of some obscure and unbeatable allment find a listener z he can find a whole audience in .Lindy's any night and the chances are he will discover 8 half dozen boys and girls who will match him symp- tom for symptom. " " HART 'as's' s TROUBLE
 Not every hypochondriac can reach such lyric heights of his mania as, for instance, Larry Hart, the songsnith. Hart, g nervous individual with a hit show running and three Rodgers and Hart songs in the Hit Parade, goes all to pieces during a rehear- sal. Sometimes it Is difficult to tell If he is in the throes of com- position or of some terrible. afflic- ton.
 There was the time, six months after. he recovered from an attack of pneumonia, that he suddenly was seized with the fear of re- lapse. Nothing would do but that he carry thermometer around with him and pop 1t into his mouth at odd times of the day and night - at the Stork Club, at Ralph's, in the silent darkness of 8 theater.
 Friends would make persistent attempts to destroy the little glass tube and often succeeded-but he would always buy another. In a moment of forgetfulness he used one. as a swizzle stick in high ball and almost swallowed an ounce of mercury. That cured him. WATERWAYS
 WEIGH OF LIFE
 A fear that haunts many of the healthy but intense workers is the gaining or losing of weight. Paul Whiteman on his doctors orders, shelyed many, many pounds. The subconscious fear that he will wake up one morning with them all back again makes him weigh himself a dozen times a day. Life, for Whiteman, is a success sion of. scales and not musical ones either.
 On the other extreme, Mervyn LeRoy is haunted by the dread of @ nervous breakdown. He, too, weighs himself ad infinitum and should there be a loss of eight ounces LeRoy puts himself on a cod liver oil diet for 8 week. GAMBLERS
 TO THE END
 Two of the most companionable ailing wretches are Sidney Skol- sky and Lew Brown, the producer. The story is now ancient of how Skolsky, having induced two other ailing gbuddies to go with him and have their blood pressures taken, halted before the doctors door and declared: Remember - low man pays.'
 < Even better is the tale of how he and Brown sat in Dawes Blue Room from three in the morning till six. complaining bitterly to each other about the state of their health. After listening to one of Skolsky's most narrowing symp- toms, he leaned forward and pat ted him on the. shoulder.
 %"I know just the thing for you" he declared. Why don't you try So-and-So,s pills?" Skolsky reach- ed down into his pocket and fish ed up a little card -board box. You mean these?" he asked. T tried them already. No good"
 Well" countered Brown, ''how about Dr. Such and -Such's renl- edy?" Skolsky fished in his back pocket and placed that on the ta- ble. No good either" he declar- ed, "but tell me = I hear that there's certain blue powder :"
 Before he finished Brown had the little blue powder in front of him, rNaw,," said Brown. mot worth a hoot. tried 'em."
 REAL UNFORTUNATES
 IGNORE THEIR HANDICAPS
 Of the actors, Willie Howard is the most noticeable neurotic, since his peculiarity, in addition to the pills and powders, is stick ing his tongue out in front of every available mirror. And Chic JohnSon,s mad buffoonery, which seems so healthy and effortless on stage, invariably is preceded by a dose of whatever he happens to favor at the moment.
 Of course, the people of the theater and radio world who really do have things wrong with them never complain. Alec Tenn pleton, for instance, the blind genius of the piano never wor- ries about thing and rarely suf- fers from even a headache. And Connie Boswell. whose voice IS heard in the swingiest of blues, has never been out of a wheel chair since she was three years old. To those people the afflic- tions are so real they don't have to imagine any.