Evening star., 1942-06-28
This Is Time
For Comedy,
Says Ina
Miss Claire Wants
To Do Her Bit
On the Stage
By Katherine Pinkham,
SAN FRANCISC,

DAN FftANClSCO.
Ina Claire, that happy-go-lucky
comedienne, has decided she is a
| flop at doing conventional war work
with other San Francisco matrons.
She thinks she could be more useful
producing belly laughs than band
| ages.
She wants a good, rousing, put
'em-in-the-aisleS play-none of your
macabre, supernatural stuff which
she thinks has been having success
because of abnormal undercurrents
OF the times.
I'll do anything-they can kick
my hustle. If they want to. if thatll
do the trick" she said. with a hint
of appropriate pantomime.
Whatever the proffer might lack
in elegance, it made up in incerity,
for Miss Claire is in dead earnest
about furnishing laughs TO worried
people.
Chances seem good that this
youthful-looking veteran of the
theater and such successes as THE
Awful Truth" Reunion in Vienna"
and The Last of Mrs. Cheyney,"
can succeed without going to ex-
tremltieS, so to speak.
Yearns to Be Useful.
Her search for play took her to
New York recently, but she hasn't
| anything more definite to announce
now than that she'll probably do
something with the Theater Guild
later on.
Like every one else, she yearns to
be useful.
AS Mrs. William R. Wallace. wife
OF a San Francisco attorney, she
dutifully signed up witt, the Red
Cross and the American Women's
Volunteer Services.
So far. her score with them Is
something less than zero, to hear
her tell it. Her recital, told with
sweeping gestures of comic de-
spair has the germ of a pretty good
skit itself.
Il say to them. I'm ready; tell
me what you want me to do. Ill
roll bandages, ride in truck, go
anywhere
They say. No, no bandages:
we've put you in the speakers
bureau and I tell them, But I
can't make speech; 4m not any
good at it; I have to have an
author
Nobody Would Listen"
They want me to make a talk
about the Red Cross. 1 say, All
right, let me see something, 60
down to the docks when the refu-
gee ships come in, see the supplies,
learn something about it. But
they say the FBI won't let them
take anybody to the docks any
supplies.
They give me five pages Of speech.
1t tells about fine work, yes. but
nobody would listen to that, for
everybody knows it already.
Il say Tell me what a nickel will
buy for the Red Cross. I can tell
people that After days and days
l finally find out it costs about 3
cents for one bandage.
linen get assigned 10 lecture
by Alfred Moves. the poet. It's
morning audience: most Of them
have money or they wouldn't be
there at that hour. So what do
they care about 3 cents?
They tell me apologetically the
program is pretty full, and Id bet
ter make mine pretty short, about
five minutes. So 1 say, All right,
it II be five minutes
Just a Reminder
"a little later they come up and
whisper could I cut it to about three
minutes? It'll be three minutes I
say.
Just before I go on, somebody
comes up and holds up finger.
One minute he orders. One min
ite,' I say So my speech is one sem
tence to remind that the Red Cross
drive is on.
so that's what il all adds up
to. I say, Give me a play! I want
to serve my country"
Right now Mrs. Wallace is putting
in little time fixing up the 1862
vintage home she and her husband
(See PINKHAM, Page E-2J