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Show Pitching Horseshoes -. , . - Bad Breaks Mean Fortune : To Sad-Eyed Jimmy Savo By Billy Bom Next Urns the world deals you deuce. It might not be a bad Savo, the little man who became a Broadway star because of a se-rlet se-rlet of bad breaks. And If you're not famll-, iar with bis story, here's a a.ick run through of I his cloud - clut-l tared career. - m First at all, BinyBeas ' Jimmy got off to a botchd-up start by getting himself bora into a family of nine which was living In a one-room shanty In the Bronx. His father, a eatch-as-eatch-can shoemaker, couldn't afford ' th four cents a quart that grade B cost In those days, and the i bambino was weaned on heavily I watered condensed milk. But this r dietary misdesl undoubtedly saved th Infant's Ufa, for shortly after ' he was born a typhoid epidemic - hit the Bronx and killed dosens of kids in better-off families. When the board of health investigated it was found that th epidemic had been caused by contaminated milk. At the age of six, besides being the poorest kid on th block, Jimmy was' also th puniest But it was this piece of bad luck which boom-eranged boom-eranged him into a stage career. To defend himself against his bigger big-ger and burlier playmates, he spent several hours each day at the school gym, and by the Urn he was eleven he was known as the Postag Stamp Sampson. At an amateur performance on night, his weight-lifting stunts won first prise, and a vaudeville agent who happened to be in the bouse booked him to play on of th minor variety va-riety circuits. - Professional strong men rarely get top billing or money, but hard luck again cam to Jimmy's assistance. as-sistance. Sine the pint-sis strong man couldn't afford a costume, his grandmother mad him on out of bits and pieces of cloth and, fortunately for-tunately for th American stage, there wasn't enough toft over for pockets. When Bavo got his first week's pay, he had no place to stash It but his ahoa, and at the next performance a half-dollar began be-gan tickling his Instep. To get relief, re-lief, he went into a funny-legged walk, and after th show th houss manager complimented hlra oa being a pretty funny fellow. And thus, as the saying goes, a. star was born. In 1933, t hired Savo to hold down ths Important comedy spot at an overgrown bistro I waa operating, op-erating, and for an antlr sis son ths little clown with th sad syea got the biggest hand I've ever heard In a nightclub. Following this success, however, -. Jimmy coasted and continued using his old routines Instead of digging for new material. What his career needed, of course, was another shot of disaster. dis-aster. And It got it a few years later when the comedian mad th mistake of thinking he waa a businessman and Invested his dough in a daffy enterprise. When he waa short of eating money, he draamad un a count of new rou- tines, on th strength of which he landed th leading role la "Th Boys From Syracuse," where be scored th biggest hit of his cockeyed cock-eyed career. Three year ago, an Infection est In and on of tevo'e Isga had to be amputated. Broadway managers man-agers and agents figured he was through, but Misfortune" Favor-Its Favor-Its paid no attentiea to their sepulchral se-pulchral solicitudes. While la the hospital he wrote a gay little book about himself, and, as soon aa he was out he learned to manipulate an artificial leg and went back) to pantomiming his way Into people peo-ple hearte and funnybones. The story of th one-legged comic waa a "natural" for the columnists, and on the strength of their publicity it wasn't long before Savo waa being offered more jobs than he could handle-end handle-end most of than at doubl his former salary. I watched him perform act long ago,' and aftar th show I went backstsgs to tell him he waa more wistfully amusing than ever. "By the way." I said "doesn't that wooden leg bother you when you're doing your routines?" "Not at all," said Jimmy. "A performer gets Into trouble with wooden gestures, not wooden legs . . ." And that my beefing compatriots, compa-triots, la ths aaga of Savo la five choppy chapters No Milk, No Muscle. No Pockets, No Dough, No Leg. Of course, I'm not advising you to go out and get hit by a trolley, but the next Urn you ran Into a bit of grist you could do a lot worse -than remember that many a man has bitten Into an overripe oyster, and found himself him-self chewing oa a pearL Copyright 1949. by BlUy Boa |