Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1942-11-10
Cohan Lost
Broadway by
Being Decent
liz
Out Of Date With Smut
PeeIer Declares
BY wESTBROOK PEGLER

ilkilt, dS 81 ItldUy VI Ills
eulogists have said, but George
M. Conan should be remembered
for another quality. too.
The little song and dance
man, as he continued to be
called long after he had become
a great actor and playwright,
was clean, too.
His decency was not agrees
sive nor did he wear a white
lawn tie and long-faced piety,
but he just had no liking for
smut or filth, either sly or out
spoken, and he was, for this
reason, in his last days, out-of-
date on Broadway.
His example did not prevail.
Beginning with What Price
Glory" in which, for the first
time. dirty language was hurled
at the people. and continuing
down through the raw obsceni-
ties of Tobacco Road" and the
burlesque shows which in his
day were known to the profess
sion as louise opera, the stage
has gradually degenerated.
THERE came a day, a few
Il years ago, when a New York
congressman invited to a hear
ing in Washington a producer
of the viiest sort of exhibitions.
and permitted a congressional
hearing to be used as a forum
for propaganda TO the effect
that such revolving shows were
a new and characteristic Ameri-
can art form.
That was too much for even
the depraved taste of the people
and the careless tolerance of the
public officials Of that time and
the producer and his art form
were temporarily driven out OF
business.
Joe Cook. who, like Cohan.
was clean just because he was
decent, retired because OF ILL
ness, but he, too, was OUT
spoken and couldn't compete.
OF one of the current great
successes on Broadway. a louise
opera disguised as a revue. a
very conservative Yankee who
had taken his wife TO the
theater in New York, said:
"Oh. IL Is absolutely rotten.
but II you just relax you will
enjoy IL because II Is terribly
funny"
CONAN ~Gs re prig nor did
~ he -eensaFe others i'm the
business who wallowed in dirt,
but he was incapable of nasti-
ness himself.
There you had the expression
of his great tolerance which
revealed itself also in his friend
ships.
He was never conscious that
a Jew was a Jew and he dealt
with and against and associated
with Jews as fellow men and
the one really bitter experience
of his career was his disappoint-
ment with a number of other
actors who joined the Equity
strike just after the war.
In that strife he was angrily
and unjustly abused by the
striking actors, including some
shameless ingrates who were
deeply in his debt and, cut 10
the heart. he quit the FriarS
and the Lambs and announced
that he was quitting the theater,
too.
Probably to his dying day
he resented, in principle. the
violation of their fat contracts
by many players who went on
in submission to the harrass-
ment of the pickets who pro-
tected their own futures with
a proviso that If Equity won
the strike the union would in
sist on amnesty for all con-
tract jumpers.
TN A day when actors were
Il clannish and very tempera-
mental, Cohan's dressing room
was sort of town pump.
People would just drop in 10
see him, bringing total strangers
to shake the great mans hand
and see an actor with the paint
on, and Conan would relax and
talk baseball or whatever else
was going until time to go back
to the stage when he would snap
back into character.
He would make a visitor feel
welcome though the dressing
room was crowded and little
people, who amounted to nothing
and perhaps never would but
might, were received with the
same courtesy that he showed TO
men of established reputation
and were drawn into the CONVEX
Sation though thew could only