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Show stagescreenMdio By VIRGINIA VALE Released by Western Newspaper Union, MARY ASTOR certainly started something when she signed up as master of ceremonies for that new Thursday night air show, in which she is starred with Charles Ruggles and Mischa Auer. Within a week sponsors were being deluged with plans lor programs pro-grams on which girls would act as emcees. And just ask John Charles Thomas if the ladies are taking over! He's a placid, composed individual, in-dividual, but he nearly lost his calm i - i ' .-V v - ' U "c. I IV - 1 MART ASTOR recently, at one of his Sunday afternoon after-noon broadcasts, when he saw six new girl members of the orchestra. Penny ("Blondie") Singleton is a Very proud young woman. She now answers to the name of Mrs. Major Sparks her husband was recently promoted, after performing distinguished distin-guished service as a captain. Penny's Pen-ny's more elated than he isl If it's announced that Capt. Clark Gable will appear at your local movie house in a new picture, "Wings Up," don't expect to see a great deal of him in it. The film's an Office of War Information short subject, and it's certainly worth seeing, see-ing, but Gable isn't on the screen much of the time. He acts as narrator, nar-rator, and makes an appearance only in the concluding scenes. Now you'll have to add another Ameche to your list. He's Jim Jr., son of Jim Sr. of the Sunday "Here's to Romance" broadcasts, nephew of Don. The five-year-old appears on CBS In the "Big Sister" serial. To make the cloud effects for the Heaven scenes in "A Guy Named Joe," starring Spencer Tracy and Irene Dunne, the air must be undisturbed un-disturbed and the temperature even. So an air lock system is being used on the heavy double studio doors, and a watchman's been installed to see that the outer one's closed before be-fore the Inner one's opened. Of course the cast has nicknamed him Gabriel. Among the congratulatory wires Bill Stern received when he switched to a Friday night spot on NBC was one signed by George Raft, Betty Grable and Tommy Dorsey. He's slated to make a movie with them some .time next fall. They put Marie McDonald into a wig, for the first time in her life, for scenes in "Tornado," since her own blonde hair was too short. So when she lighted a gas heater in her dressing room, gas which had escaped during the night exploded in a burst of flame, which caught the long ends of1 the wig. The wig was ruined; Marie would have been badly burned if she hadn't thought fast and snatched it off. Signe Hasso, of "Assignment In Brittany," has been signed to contract con-tract by Metro, and around the studio stu-dio they are predicting that she will be one of the biggest stars in Hollywood Holly-wood after two or three roles In top pictures. Anne Shirley, the romantic Inter- est 01 DOmoaroier, una uie idifi- est collection of service men's flying wings of any Hollywood star 42. But Donna Reed has a set of flying reports taken from a Jap flier shot down at Guadalcanal, a bomb fragment frag-ment from London, and walrus tusk sewing needles from Iceland, all sent her by soldier admirers. Susan Peters and her fiance, Richard Quine, had a bad spill the other day. They were showing off before some friends with a bit of trick double riding, on Susan's new motor bike it went down and so did they, but hurt nothing but their pride. ODDS AD .VDS Humphrey Bogart and Robert Young have made more free appearances for the Screen Guild Players than anybody else jct-cn broadcasts apiece for the charity . . ."A Dale if ilh Judy," another serial about an American family, will replace Eddie Cantor's "Time to Smile" program pro-gram for the summer . . . The day after Phillips Lord blasted lire stealers on "Ganf Busters" he started for Maine-end Maine-end somebody stole the tires of his roadster . . . Gcorce I.owthcr, writer-narrator-producer of "Superman " says he's never had mike fright because he spent three years as cheer leader at Acic Haven high school, megaphone in hnntl |