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Show i sTagescreenradio By VIRGINIA VALE Released by Western Newspaper Union. JOSEPH C. GREW, former U. S. ambassador to Japan, says "To beat the Japanese and to do the job thoroughly, we have got to understand them thoroughly." The latest March of Time, ". . . And Then Japan!" does more than hundreds hun-dreds ol books and newspapers could do to help the public to do it. It traces the gains Japan has made, and shows how she Is converting her newly won wealth into armaments and weapons; other scenes show the people, at home, in night clubs, .and at work. It's a valuable background for current history. Shirley Mitchell's had plenty of experience in being a sweetheart; she's done it on the air with Gilder-sleeve, Gilder-sleeve, Rudy Vallee, Groucho Marx, Red Skelton, Johnny Mercer, Wil- Aft' '. t SHIRLEY MITCHELL liam Bendix, and currently with Fred Brady. She got her experience experi-ence when she did daytime serials in Chicago on "First Nighter"; had a different one each week! If you've wondered, when you heard Vera Vague on the Bob Hope program, just what she looked like, prepare to see her in the All Star Comedies that she's making for Columbia. Co-lumbia. She's working now in the first of a series of four. When Paramount hired Victor Young to write original music for "For Whom the Bell Tolls" they had no intentions of causing him to be mistaken for a messenger boy, but that's what happened. Victor, who also conducts the music on John Charles Thomas' Sunday program, bought a motorcycle to convey himself him-self to and from the Paramount lot and NBC, carrying his orchestrations orchestra-tions in a messenger's dispatch case, slung over his shoulder. So far as the general public was concerned, con-cerned, he was just another messenger mes-senger boy. It's- a publicity story that just had to come along all about the five-year-old tot who got so worried about what Fred Astaire would do for dancing shoes that she sent him her shoe coupon. Her name's Dorinda Hastey, and Astaire sent the coupon back. Carol Ann Beery, 12 - year - old daughter of Wallace, made her debut de-but in films when Robert Benchley earned her across a ship's deck in "China Seas." Bent on being an actress, she's taking another whack at it in "Rationing," in which her father stars. Harry Sherman, who tops the list of producers of historical outdoor pictures with more than 100 to his credit, now has eight leading actors for his U-A releases. The newest addition is Rod Cameron, who'll get the same kind of roles that carried car-ried William Boyd, Richard Dix and Albert Dekker to fame as Western heroes. You'll see him first in "Wherever the Grass Grows." Comedienne Cass Daley has a new hobby; like Gracie Allen, she's a one-finger pianist, only she's discovered discov-ered that she does better on a pipe organ. So she's acquired three pipe organs, all antiques, placed them in her bedroom, living room and den and Husband Frank Kinsella, hearing hear-ing her practice and glancing at the check stubs, is trying to switch her to collecting stamps. Charlie Spivak, "The Man Who Plays the Sweetest Trumpet in the World," just can't understand Hollywood. Holly-wood. His drummer doesn't believe In making faces; just placidly drums. But the 20th Century-Fox folks felt that in order to look like a swing drummer in "Pin Up Girl" he ought to grimace so that he'd look like a "drummer" and hired for him a tutor who's never played a drum! ODDS AND ENDS CBS is interested inter-ested in a girl vocalist for John Gart's Trio he's the lad who started Dinah Shore . . . It's rumored that RKO will sign Victor Borge's lovely wife to a contract . . . Max Marcint the "Crime Doctor" author, will appear in a quick flash in the next Columbia production of "Crime Doctor" . . . The amusing chatter handed out by the guest stars on the Bing Crosby program are the result of the joint efforts of Crosby and his writer, Carroll Carroll; Bing can think up some stveli insults for the guests to hurl at him . . . Gale Page is coming out of retirement to replace Binnie Barnes in "Perpetual Emotion," |