The Waterbury Democrat., 1946-01-15

HOLLYWOOD, Jan. 15--Without single exception, insofar as I know, the studios have kept the pledges which they made at the time of Pearl Harbor and re-employed all of their contractees who have returned from service. But the lot of those return ing movie workers who were not tin- der contract or on regular payrolls at the time of their induction has not been so good. Many of the free lance "bit" players, particularly, seem to have been forgotten by stu- dio casting directors, and are not finding jobs enough to give them livelihoods.
 One studio, at least has recognized their plight and undertaken to do something about 1t. That studio is PRC, an independent. Its casting di- rector has set aside every Thursday for interviews with the veterans, and is consistently giving them prefer ence whenever he has roles that they can fill.
 The practice should be copied by every studio in the business without delay, for the motion picture indus try owes just as much to the return ing "free-lances" as it does to the men who were regular employees. They were just as essential to pie ture-making, and they sacrificed just as much when they entered the service. It is a patriotic duty 10 see to 1t that they get fair break now that they are home again.
 It's because the average studio boss tries to win his arguments by out shouting his opponent rather than by resorting to logic that I am so impressed by Humphrey Bogart's cunning. All week long in the studio he dodgeS business discussions as craftily as Red Grange used to dodge would-be tacklers. "I'll call you from the boat Saturday. and we'll discuss it by phone" he says. The payoff lies in the fact that he has one-way radio phone on his yacht. The poor studio boss, unable to interrupt him, has to meekly listen while Bogie states all his views, and only when he is through can the big-wig take over the line to make his points.
 A local cOlumnist recently carried 1 an item about Lana Turner, com menting on the fact that she, dis guiShed by her freshly blondined hair, walked down Hollywood Boule- yard unrecogni0ed. He wondered if | Lana would have been discovered" 1 had she looked then as she does now. rather thing she would have been, for. if my memory serves me right, the reason for Lana's discov- cry by talent scouts had something to do with a sweater.
 News that producer Ben Bogeaus is shopping for a story makes me wonder why he doesn't screen his own biography. At 39, he's compiled | one of the most fantastic records of | achievement imaginable. In his early | twentieS, he was head of Chicago | syndicate that operated eleven of l that city's largest apartment hotels. Wiped out by the depression, he went to Europe and made a second for tune, then returned to America and doubled it by organizing a wholesale electric appliance business. Just four years ago, he came to Hollywood and. without knowing beans about picture-making, plunged into the in- dustry on big scale He bought one of the biggest studios in town and has made. to date, four hit pictures. Today he's working on a program which, if carried out successfully, 1 will make him one of the real pow ers-that-be in Hollywood.
 It's a rare day that fails to pro- duce a new runor in explanation of Bing Crosby's strange inactivity. | Naturally, his fans are worried. Nat