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Show IP? STAGED SCREEN -RADIO By VIKGIMA VAI.K litlc;istii by Western Newspaper Union. I "I1ILE making "Sahara" ' ' for Columbia, Bruce Bennett met a marine who'll have to be referred to merely as Joe, the marine. Joe was on leave after some tough Guadalcanal fighting, and due soon to return to the South Pacific. The actor told Joe about a Guate-: malan machete he'd collected when he was making a Tarzan serial about ten years ago. "That's a little something some-thing I'd like to have," said Joe, so Bennett sent it to him. Last week, V-Mail note from Joe said: "My machete is the pride of the outfit. I I spent two solid weeks sharpening it. And brother, I ain't out to cut hay!" Bennett wishes he'd had dozens of them to hand over. Nobody could be more surprised -than the originators of the air's WLS Barn Dance Show are at the way it has developed. It was started as a program that would appeal principally princi-pally to listeners in rural areas, but F,. v"-'V'--!?; "--"I .V .- ' X ' ! ft-1 '!t:r---M it-i I . . t 1 HAL O'HALLORAN come October 2 it celebrates its 10th anniversary on the network as a show that many city people love. It's one of the few that has a paying studio audience. The genial Hal O'Halloran will be on hand as usual as m. c. Metro is certainly rounding up the popular band leaders; they recently signed Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians for a musical, and al-Teady al-Teady have Tommy Dorsey, Harry James, Xavier Cugat, Bob Crosby, 'Vaughn Monroe and Spike Jones. Watch for a radio guiz master to name three of Hollywood's loveliest "who have not played opposite Cary Grant. It would be hard to name one. Laraine Day shares honors with him in "Mr. Lucky," and is the latest of a list of 28 of his heroines. Irene Dunne, Katharine Hepburn and Sylvia Sidney have appeared "three times apiece In Grant pictures, and he's probably our only ranking star who has both Joan and Constance Con-stance Bennett on his roster of "Celebrities I Have Made Love to on the Screen." The cast of "Mr. District Attorney" Attor-ney" made money when they won a wager from the "Ellery Queen" performers. Jay Jostyn of the former for-mer show was a guest star on the latter, and his colleagues bet the opposition op-position that he'd solve the mystery. Just a natural The soldiers sta-- sta-- tioned at Camp Ellis, near Lewiston, 111., were trying to find just the right girl to name "Miss Camp Ellis," and wound up by selecting Anita .Ellis, songstress of the Jack Carson show on CBS. Every now and then Hi Brown, -producer and director of "The Ad--ventures of Nero Wolfe," runs into an old-timer in radio who reminds i him of his first program on the air. It was called "High-Brow Readings by Hi Brown," and he'd rather forget for-get it. j Three years ago an aspiring young ctor named Curtis Rudolf failed to obtain a bit part In a little theater production In Cleveland, and was advised ad-vised to try some other line of work. Eecently Metro staged a first showing show-ing on "Salute to the Marines" In Cleveland, and an actor named Donald Don-ald Curtis, christened Curtis Rudolf, had a leading role in the Wallace Beery starrer. A prop man on "The Fallen Sparrow" Spar-row" set laboriously made "snow" by flaking ice into a freezing bin and returned from lunch to find that John Garfield and Walter Slezak had returned from their lunch and used it all up throwing snowballs at Maureen O'Hara and Director Richard Rich-ard Wallace. When they learned how much labor had been Involved, they pitched in and made more. ODDS AND ENDS The small black microphone into uhich folks on die fling Cros6y program sing has been named "Skinny Ennis" . . . Bob Hank, of "Thanks to the Yanks," has an idea for a movie qui: in which several studios stu-dios are interested . . . f'retf Astaire's signeC long-term contract with Metro, uihcre he made his first picture "Dancing "Danc-ing Lady," which starred Joan Cratv-ford Cratv-ford and Clark Cable, in a cast including includ-ing Frunchot Tone, and made little of Astaire's talents . . . Dickie Jones, the air's netv "Henry Aldrich," went to Hollywood Hol-lywood several years ago as a protege, of Hoot Gibson he was the voice of "I'inocchio" in the picture of thai name. |