Evening star., 1943-05-02

though, was sincere modesty.
Cohan really did say to us, II don't
see how you'll find enough in my
life to make a show" Joe Cook was
as shy as though he'd never left
Evansville, Ind, and kept trying
to tell us what other people had
done in his life, and Eddie Dowling
has begged us not to make any at
tempt to glamorize him. And these
are the so-called "egomaniacs" Of
Broadway!
They were all willing to help. too,
though here is where they differed
most. Cohan was always quiet,
offhand, and chatty. Instead OF
sticking to the subject, himself, he
was continually veering off into new
projects he had in mind; new
musical comedy he was writing,
new song he'd had an idea for; or,
and this was his only reminiscence,
the changes that had taken place
on Broadway. Fortunately there
was already an autobiography in ex-
istence to which we had access, and
he was very helpful in digging up
old songs he'd written-one he'd en-
tirely forgotten until we got on the
track of it--so that the going wasn't
too difficult. And when we spent
the first act making him a very Of
fensive youngster, indeed, he chuc-
kled with delight. A lesser person
might well have brought law
suit. (.
Joe Cook was altogether different.
We'd ask him for some factual ma
terial-say, the date of certain
production-and he'd Immediately
launch into a very funny incident
associated with that date in no
mind but his own. We'd ask him
how he happened to 60 into Earl
Carroll's "Vanities," and he'd re-
member how narrowly he got his
trunks out of gangster- ridden
night club in Chicago. We'd ask
him when he first arrived in New
York and he'd remember a hilari-
Gus spaghetti party in Des Moines
and then launch into an involved
description of the particular spa
ghetti on that occasion. He remem-
bered everything in terms OF what
mad been fun at the time, of what
happened after the theater rather
than in it, of what other people
had done while he stood around
like a stooge Actually, of course,
the shoe was on the other foot,
but Joe had enjoyed everything so
much he always sounded like an
innocent bystander.
When we got through with our
sessions with Joe Cook. we had ap-
proximately 1.437 gags, and about
four minutes of story. So we rum
lnaged his scrapbooks and finally
hit upon the method of telling the
facts, cleaned from his clippings,
in terms of the fancies cleaned
from conversations with Joe over
some of the best food we have ever
eaten. I think Leo Brady and my
self had more fun writing Cook
Book" than any other Of the four
or five shows we've done together,
and on none of them did we ever
get bored enough to take to writing
articles for the Sunday papers.
Whenever we got to point that
smacked slightly of factual expo
sition, we'd just ask each other:
How would Joe Cook tell 1t If he
was making it up?" and proceed to
do it that way. In the end, the
whole thing wouldn't have given
who's Who" an awful lot of in
formation it could sell to its Gus
toners, but we thought we'd cap
tured the flavor of Joe, who is one
OF the most delightful persons you
could hope to meet, and we were
happy with that.
Man Of Understatement.
Eddie Dowling Is again another
matter. Mr.. Dowling sticks to the
facts, so close and SO cautiously to
the facts that you get the impress
sion he is afraid you are going to
dress him up bit and make him
tsee KERR, Page E-2J