The Waterbury Democrat., 1945-08-15
AUGUST OBSERVATIONS

Will Rogers died August 15, 1885, ten years ago today Warner Bros. have long owned the movie rights to his life, and dozen times the scenario has been revised. First Hal Wallis and then Mark Hellinger passed up the picture. The reason given is that they could find no actor who could present plaus- ible portrayal of the name part. had returned from European trip with him not long before the tragic crash which also ended the life of Wiley Post. I wrote two books about Bill-"Our Will Rog- ers'' and twill Rogers Wit and Wisdom" I withdrew them when his widow issued her story, which made every other tale about the cowboy seem fragmentary
 But in my second book had detail which has never been pulp fisher in a newspaper. It was the inside story of how and why Rog- erS took that air junket to Alaska in a creaky crate which shouldn't have been allowed to fly to San Diego.
 George M. Conan was starring in Eugene O'Neill's "Ah, Wilderness!" He got sick in Los Angeles and told his friend Rogers he would be out indefinitely and would have to close the show and send the com- pany back East. Rogers, who had never been in a spoken drama be- fore, volunteered to step into his role, and did so with only a week. end for rehearsal. Rogers was as good a name" as Conan, and the theaters booked accepted the switch
 He opened in Pasadena, at the Saturday matinee, and gave letter-perfect performance Af- ter the show that night, a mes senger handed him 8 letter Rogers read it and turned pale... In one scene in the play, the judge (the Cohan-Rogers character) tells his adolescent son some of the phy- sical facts of life. The note was from a Pasadena minister, stating that, trusting Rogers wholesome ness, he had brought his l4-year old daughter to the matinee; but, when he realized the nature of that scene. he had quickly taken her by the hand and left the theater with her. Never in his life had Rogers been accused of shady line or gesture He closed the show that night, paid the entire company two weeks salary, and, since he had cancelled a picture commitment for the play, he had one of his rare idle periods r. Always an airplane addict, he sent for the one-eyed Post and said, Let's fly somewhere
 It was his last flight.
 C,Ohan told me later that in the hundreds of performances of the play he had given, no patron or critic had ever regarded the scene in question as "blue". In compari- son with other plays of that period, not to mention the raw obscenity which is tolerated on the stage to- day, it was mild and, in fact, con- structive and essentially decent -. The scene was done in the picture version of O'NeiIl's piece later and the passage was reproduced with practically no change. No one else Ehat I know of objected to it.
 Anita Colby calls Leslie Venable, Powers graduate and rising young film actress, 'the prettiest face in Hollywood" Coming from 'Tne race" her self, that's laying it on the line Sherman Billingsley has heen asked to take over the Bradley Casino in Palm Beach next Winter. Bradley, past 30. has sold out .. TWO of the five judges refused to vote at the elimination contest to select Miss New York for the Att iantic City Beauty Contest when they discovered seven out or the ~