The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-09-02
- In - Hollywood
BY, PAUL HARRISON

NEA Service Staff Correspondent
 Hollyood-It's news when a Hol- lywoodsman can find a profitable flaw in @ studio contract, because those bewildering documents run on for about 10 pages of where as-es and why-nots, covering every thing from industrial exigencies to the way the party -the-second part conducts his private life and combs his hair.
 So the screen colony is chuckling at the news that RKO now is pay, ing Carson Kanin 5000 week to tote a rifle in a training camp, T he 28 year old director almost certainly is the most highly paid private in the Army.
 This has happened because, by some oversight, RKO neglected, to provide. against a'A1lational eIner- gency. When the director received an order to report for induction, the studio followed the Hollywood rule by sending him a check for four weeks salary. His agent sent it back, He pointed out that the United States was not at war, that the contract was still in force, and that it would beA broken any time the studio quit paying off.
 Of course, the company had a perfect right to do that, but in that case Kanin also would have the right to make. deal with an- other studio as soon as he got out of the service. At least two other companies would be happy to hire the able MT. Kanin at $3000 a week.
 BOB IS HOPED
 In all the years that gossip-inong- CTS, commentators and other critics have been sniping at Hollywood and its people, the greatest amount of local indignation has resulted from 8 recent piece in a national magazine about Bob Hope. Main trouble with the Hope story was that after building him up as selfish penny -pincher who earns fantastic wage, it failed to make any mention of his benefactions, especially the cha rity perform aI1ceS.
 There is no question that Bob Hope plays more benefits than any, body else in the whole realm of entertainment. During his four years in pictures there have been several hundred of them, and there is no record of his ever having turned down such an appearance, except those which were promo tional rackets.
 During his recent vacation, the first in four years, Hope had been ordered by his studio to turn down all benefit requests so that he could get more rest. He disregarded the ban, played anl afternoon show in Toronto for $500 R. A. F. cadets some about to leave for England and then did a night show which letted $5600 for bombing victims. ENTER CROSBY
 Bob Hopes friendly feud with Bing Crosby indirectly provided some of the damaging material in the magazine article. The writer, WAAO dPpdA CAAVAJ CAACNhOQ 4AAo oCAAoC of humor before going to the Lake side Country Club to interview Hope, later found Crosby in the locker room and asked for some in- formation about the comic which hadn't been printed. Crosby <said about all he knew was that when they played golf together Hope was a har-r-rd man with a dollar:
 Crosby is used to being called, by Hope, that little fat man who sings" and having Hope say, "Cros- by never pays any income tax; he just asks the government how much 1t needs" They made facetious cracks about the two of them splitting $2 bets. Such remarks ap- parently were the basis of the tightwad article.