Evening star., 1942-02-15
Bv Jaw CarmOdv.

Somewhere in North Africa is a
Royal Air Force member who is
achieving fame and fortune daily
without knowing it. Or, he may not
be in North Africa. 1t is a wide
world and war is everywhere. Fight
ing men move quickly over its face,
and, less quickly, out of it alto
gether Libya, however, was the last
ascertainable address of Patrick
Hamilton.
The fame and fortune accruing
to him are derivatives of Angel
Street." a play whose author and
strange history could be combined
into another play, which might also
be hit. Angel Street" of course,
is hit. 1t achieved that distinction
of its author in year which saw
the best efforts of Maxwell Ander-
son, George S. Kaufman, Edna
Ferber, Clifford Odets, Somerset
Vaughan, Ben Hecht, Marc Con-
molly and Charles Macarthur suffer
the ignominy Of failure-at least,
artistic failure
Mr.. Hamilton of the r. A. F. had
no reason to anticipate what has
happened to his play. Before he
went to Libya, Singapore, or wher-
ever he may be while his royalty
checks are being paid to his agent
in New York, he was given no cause
to hope that it might turn out as
1t has. While he still was in Eng
land, somewhere outside of London
living through the bombing raids, he
had heard of its pathetic distinction
as the play read and rejected by
more producers than any other of
the season. There was little cause
for him to hope that such unanimity
was undeserved. Authors are sensi-
tive men, pitiably prone to look upon
producers as men who know what
they are doing.
Then He Went to War.
Before young Shepard Traube
came to the rescue of Angel Street"
Mr.. Hamilton had gone away from
England to fight along some Hell's
highway in the skies above Africa,
where he may gather the material
for another play.
The story goes that he has not
been located since, that his hundreds
of dollars in weekly royalties are
being sent to the Samuel French
Office, which finally put the manu-
script into the hands of Mr.. Traube
of the movies, who could not wait
to produce it.
Playwright Hamilton is man Of
mystery in other respects than
having gone away without leaving
his address. as so many young men
are doing these days.
He seems to have been in the
writing business, one department or
another, for rather a long time Born
in London in 1904, who's Who in
the Theater" says briefly, his first
play, Rope" was written in 1929,
when he was Is. What happened to
it is not revealed. The next year,
instead of going on being creative,
Mr.. Hamilton did an adaptation
from the French of "The Procurator
of Judea," and in 1881, another play,
John Browns Body"
Between plays, he contrived a
couple of novels, THE Midnight
He'll" and "The Seige of Pleasure :"
Their fate also is something that is
left in the dark by the theater's
Who's Who, novels usually not being
taken too seriously by that publi-
cation.
In the course of trying to find out
something more about the play
wright, Traube's Office thought it
came close once to some actual in
formation about him. That was
when it ran across a woman in the
British Press Office in New York who
remembered she had friend who
once knew the mysterious Patrick.
Mr.. Traube's man was properly ex-
cited. Here was chance to learn
something about one Of the rarest
current playwrights, fellow who
could write coherently. At least.
that was what he thought. It turned
out that the woman's friend who
knew Mr.. Hamilton was as impos-
sible to locate as the playwright
himself.
That was as close as they came to
locating him beyond the report that
he was somewhere in Libya. In the
meantime, the royalty checks are
piling up. And the fame.
Luise Rainer Gets . Play.
Cheryl Crawford, the theater's
only woman producer who is getting
fich rnick on a revival of "Porgy