George Shellhase – A New Yorker State of Mind

It’s a Gift

Above: Charles Sellen as Mr. Muckle and W.C. Fields as shopkeeper Harold Bissonette in the 1934 film It's a Gift.

Rea Irvin featured the New York Auto Show on the cover of Jan. 12, 1935 issue—the extravaganza of cars at the Grand Central Palace was one place New Yorkers could go to chase away the winter blues. The other was at one of the city’s RKO theatres, where a classic W.C. Fields comedy was gracing the silver screen.

It’s a Gift was a showcase of Fields’ vaudevillian talents, tied together in a story about grocer Harold Bissonette (Fields) whose various tribulations included a pompous wife (who insisted on pronouncing the surname “biss-on-ay”), bratty children, and challenging customers (the hilarious Charles Sellen as Mr. Muckle). Writing for BFI Film Classics, Simon Louvish calls the film a chronicle of the “many titanic struggles between Harold Bissonnette and the universe. There will be battle of wills between father and daughter, between male and female, between man and a variety of uncontrollable objects.” Here is John Mosher’s review for The New Yorker.

HAROLD VS. THE WORLD…Clockwise, from top left, **W.C. Fields** as grocer Harold Bissonette; Fields with **Kathleen Howard** as wife Amelia Bissonette; Bissonette is relegated to the back porch in search of some rest; **Charles Sellon** as one of Bissonette’s more challenging customers, Mr. Muckle. (IMDB/TCM/filmfanatic.org/YouTube)

BABY BLUES…Two-year old Baby LeRoy (**Ronald Le Roy Overacker)** played the annoying foil to **W.C. Fields** in three films, including It’s a Gift (left, with Fields and **Tammany Young**). **James** **Curtis’s** *W.C. Fields: A Biography* (2003) quotes director **Norman McLeod:** “[Fields] used to swear at the baby so much in front of the camera that I sometimes had to cut off the ends of the scenes in which they appeared.” Fields’ popular persona was a man who hated dogs and kids, but a studio photo taken during the filming of *It’s a Gift* (right) seems to show another side. Perhaps. (Pinterest/citizenscreen.com)

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By Another Name

E.B. White led off his column with a note about Persia, which had officially changed its name to Iran. To mark the new year, Reza Shah had officially asked foreign delegates to use the new term, which referred to the native name of the people who inhabited the region.

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Hot Rods

The New Yorker was back at the auto show, where correspondent “Speed” noted the appeal of the Auburn Speedster to a college-age crowd. The $2,500 price tag (equivalent to about $55k today) was apparently within reach for some of the lads at Columbia and other Ivies. Speed also admired the limousine version of the Chrysler Airflow, but the real car of his desires was a bottle-shaped milk truck.

INSTANT CLASSIC…*The New Yorker* predicted that the Auburn Speedster 851, which came to be known as the “Hollywood Car,” would be popular among lads on college campuses. Despite its technical advancement (it could do 100 mph) and beautiful lines, it would prove to be Auburn’s final production model. (Wikipedia)

RARITIES…Clockwise, from top left: Boattail version of the Auburn Speedster 851, of which only 143 were built; REO milk bottle truck, circa 1930; 1935 Chrysler CW Airflow Limousine—only fifteen of these massive cars were built. (Wikipedia/Pinterest/Donald Pittenger@carstylecritic.blogspot.com)

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From Our Advertisers

The proprietors of Essex House tapped into the popularity of the Auto Show to market their economical, yet deluxe accommodations…

…the anti-war group World Peaceways continued its ad campaign with this image of the “most powerful man in America,” that is, the average citizen who should not be tricked into “the absurd business of war”…

…United Airlines used the endorsement of journalist and radio commentator Edwin C. Hill to tout the safety and comfort of its airliners…

…at the time, United’s flagship airplane was the Boeing 247…

Interior and exterior of the Boeing 247. (Library of Congress/Wikipedia)

…”Mrs. William LaVarre” (Alice Lucille Elliott) was the latest adventurous soul to endorse the energizing effects of Camel cigarettes…

…it was no coincidence that the Camel and Chesterfield ads both featured women, the tobacco companies’ biggest growth market in the 1930s…

…on to our cartoons, we go bowling in this spot by George Shellhase…

…a doctor’s bedside manner, in James Thurber’s world of the battling sexes…

…two of Helen Hokinson’s “Girls” were left breathless by the exploits of Elias Burton Holmes, an American photographer and filmmaker who apparently coined the term “travelogue”…

…for this next cartoon by Robert Day, a snippet from the Auto Show will shed some light…

…and we close with Carl Rose, and some hijinks among the statuary…

Next Time: Everything’s Jake…

The Wahoo Boy

Darryl F. Zanuck (1902–1979) was an unlikely Hollywood mogul. Born in a small Nebraska town with an unusual name (both his and the town), Zanuck dropped out of school in the eighth grade, apparently bitten by the acting bug during a brief childhood sojourn in Los Angeles.

Nov. 10, 1934 cover by **Constantin Alajalov.**

In the first part of a two-part profile, Alva Johnston began to probe the mystery of the boy from Wahoo who would rise to become one of Hollywood’s most powerful studio executives.

MAKING OF A MOGUL…Clockwise, from top left: **Darryl F. Zanuck** relaxing with trophies from his hunting excursions, circa 1940 (detail from a Margaret Bourke-White photo); Zanuck’s home town, Wahoo, Nebraska, 1920s; screenshot from a trailer for *The Grapes of Wrath,* 1940; Zanuck with child star Shirley Temple (left) and his first-born daughter **Darrylin** (mother was silent-screen actress **Virginia Fox**) in the 1930s. (Robin Pineda Zanuck via *The Hollywood Reporter*/Saunders County Historical Society/Wikipedia)

Johnston took a quick look at Zanuck’s humble origins, including his first encounter with the film industry at age eight. There must have been something in the water at Wahoo, a town of just 2,100 residents when Zanuck was born. Other Wahoo notables contemporary to Zanuck included Nobel Prize laureate and geneticist George Beadle, Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Howard Hanson, and Hall of Fame baseball player Sam Crawford, among others.

After writing dozens of scripts for Warner Brothers (including many for their popular canine star, Rin Tin Tin), in 1933 Zanuck would leave Warner and form 20th Century Pictures with Joseph Schenck. By the time Johnston penned the New Yorker profile, 20th Century had risen to be the most successful independent movie studio of its time.

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One-Way Street

It goes without saying that the interwar years of the 20th century were a time of extreme foment; Bolsheviks, communists, anarchists, fascists and other political agitators seemed to be constantly at each other’s throats as Europe prepared for its second act of self-annihilation. In the middle of it all was the Balkans, its many feuds always simmering near the boiling point.

After the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 (which, along with other factors, triggered World War I), you would have thought Europeans would have abandoned the practice of parading dignitaries through crowded streets. In 1934 they were reminded of its risks.

That year was King Alexander I of Yugoslavia’s thirteenth on the throne, but his time was running short in a country constantly beset by civil war. Fearing that the German Nazis and Italian Fascists would take advantage of the instability, on Oct. 9, 1934 French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou invited Alexander I to Marseille to sign a Franco-Yugoslav solidarity agreement. While Alexander and Barthou were being slowly driven in an open car through the city’s streets, a Bulgarian gunman, Vlado Chernozemski, stepped from the crowd, hopped onto the car’s running board, and shot Alexander along with his chauffeur. Barthou also died in the melee, killed by a stray bullet fired by French police (three women and a boy in the crowd were also fatally wounded by stray police bullets). Struck down by a policeman’s sword, Chernozemski was subsequently beaten to death by the enraged crowd. It was one of the first assassinations to be captured on film.

Paris correspondent Janet Flanner offered some thoughts about the incident in her “Paris Letter.” Excerpt:

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES…**King Alexander I of Yugoslavia** (left) and French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou just moments before an assassin fired two fatal shots into the king. Barthou would die an hour later from a stray police bullet that would enter his arm and sever an artery. (Still image from YouTube video)

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The Traffic Machine

In his “A Reporter at Large” column, Morris Markey sang praises for the Triborough Bridge project, which was making visible progress on the massive public work that commenced in 1930. City officials had dreamed for years about a project that would at once connect Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx, but it wasn’t until the power broker Robert Moses got involved as the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority chairman that things really started to move. Moses biographer Robert Caro wrote that “Triborough was not a bridge so much as a traffic machine, the largest ever built.” A brief excerpt:

As noted by Markey, the “people in charge” were forthright about the bridge’s completion date of July 1, 1936. And they kept their word. The bridge was substantially complete by June 1936, and would be dedicated on July 11, with Moses serving as master of ceremonies.

MAKE WAY FOR THE GIANTS…City engineers had been kicking around plans since 1916 to build bridges to connect Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx, but the massive Triborough Bridge project finally got off the ground in 1930. By 1934 the bridge’s Queens tower (left) would loom over Ward’s Island, visible in the background; at right, views of buildings in Astoria (Hoyt Ave.) that were slated for demolition to make way for the bridge, photographed by Eugene de Salignac in early 1931. (*MTA Bridges and Tunnels Special Archives/NYC Municipal Archives)*

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From Our Advertisers

The common zipper was a relatively new invention in 1934. It had been more or less perfected by 1920, and in 1923 the B. F. Goodrich Company would coin the onomatopoetic word to describe the newfangled fastener on its galoshes, but it would take a while for the fashion industry to adopt the zipper as a replacement for buttons on garments, including men’s trousers. And so we get this staid-looking ad from Wetzel that signaled its entry into the brave new world of zippers (Talon was the dominant U.S. producer of zippers for many years)…

…this next ad is kind of amazing, a 1935 Auburn for only $695, which roughly translates to $15,000 or so today—still a bargain…known for cars that were fast, good-looking and expensive (and favored by Hollywood elite), Auburn struggled mightily during the Depression…along with its sister marques Duesenberg and Cord, the company would fold in 1937…

…during Prohibition distillers were allowed to keep stocks of whiskies produced before the 18th Amendment went into force…some of these were distributed through pharmacies during Prohibition for “medicinal purposes”…what was left over was sold after repeal, a stock of “pre-prohibition casks” that would be exhausted before Christmas, or so the ad rather alarmingly suggested…

…we first met tennis star Ellsworth Vines Jr a few issues ago when he was touting the health and energy benefits of Camel cigarettes…here he promotes an unlikely “stimulant”—Pabst Blue Ribbon ale…Vines testified that “the demand for more and more speed in sports calls for a finer and finer ‘edge’ of physical condition” and observed that PBR was “a great preventive of overtraining and staleness”…yep, after a few brewskies who feels like doing anything, let alone play tennis?…

…on to our cartoonists we open with a couple of spots by George Shellhase…

…and Gregory d’Alessio…

…William Crawford Galbraith gave us a fish out of water (the caption reads: You New Yorkers didn’t know we were so sophisticated in Detroit, did you?)…

…George Price still hadn’t come back to earth in his latest installment…

…Gardner Rea illustrated the results of charitable acts by the Junior League…

…and we close with James Thurber, and kindness from a stranger…

Next Time: Portraits and Prayers…

A Slice of Paradise

Lois Long welcomed 1933 by venturing out into the New Year’s nightclub scene…

…where she encountered the new Paradise Cabaret Restaurant at Broadway and 49th, where there was no cover charge and not much covering the showgirls, either…

THE GANG’S ALL HERE…Everyone from gangsters to sugar daddies (and a number of *New Yorker* staffers) took in the sights and sounds of the Paradise Cabaret Restaurant (shown here in 1937). (Pinterest)

THE SPIRIT OF NEKKIDNESS, as **Lois Long** put it in her “Tables for Two” column, could be found at the Paradise Cabaret Restaurant: clockwise, from top left, marquee on the corner of the Brill Building advertises a 1936 appearance of the comedy team of **Dewey Barto** and **George Mann** (photo by **George Mann** via Flickr); menu cover made it clear that food was not the main attraction at the Paradise; a 1933 poster advertising “a Galaxy of Stars”; a 1943 “Paradise Girls” poster; circa 1930s matchbook; circa 1930s noisemaker. (Flickr/picclick/Pinterest)

THE LONG AND SHORT OF IT…known as the “laugh kings” of vaudeville, the comedy team of Barto and Mann rehearse at the Paradise in 1936. Their humor played on their disparities in height — Barto was under 5′ and Mann was 6’6″. If Mann (top right) looks familiar, later in life he portrayed “King Vitaman” in commercials for the breakfast cereal of the same name. As I recall it tasted like Cap’n Crunch. (Wikipedia)

While Mann went on to become King Vitaman, another Paradise performer, 16-year-old Hope Chandler, found the love of her life while performing in next-to-nothing at the Paradise…

SHE WAS ONLY SIXTEEN…**Hope Chandler**’s photo (right) was featured on the Dec. 20, 1937 cover of *LIFE* Magazine, which proclaimed the 16-year-old as the “Prettiest Girl in Paradise”. Photo at left was included in the magazine article. (Twitter)

…namely the 22-year-old son of William Randolph Hearst, who spotted Chandler during one of his visits to the Paradise. David Whitmire Hearst married Chandler in 1938 and they lived happily ever until his death in 1986.

YOUNG LOVE…**David Whitmire Hearst** and his new wife, **Hope Chandler,** after their wedding ceremony in New York, 1938. They would be married 48 years until David’s death in 1986. Hope would remain active in the Hearst organization until her death at age 90 in 2012. (Tumblr)

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Tragic Opera

Yes, the lovers die at the end of Tristan und Isolde, but for New York opera buffs the real tragedy belonged to Samuel Insull (1859–1938), a Chicago utilities magnate responsible for building a new Chicago Civic Opera House in 1929. When Insull’s opera house went bust in 1932, the Met landed two of its principal stars. Robert Simon reported for The New Yorker:

CHICAGO’S FINEST…Soprano Frida Leider (left) and mezzo-contralto **Maria Olszewska** were stars of the Chicago Opera from 1928 to 1932. When the company went belly-up, the singers headed for New York to appear in a much-acclaimed performance of *Tristan und Isolde.* (metoperafamily.org)

Insull was a famed innovator and investor who was a driving force behind creating an integrated electrical infrastructure in the U.S. In 1925 he addressed the financial difficulties of the Chicago opera community with a proposal to build a skyscraper with an opera house on the ground floor — he thought the rental of office space would cover the opera company’s expenses. The building was completed in 1929 — the same year as the market crash — and suddenly his grand plan didn’t look so grand.

Then Insull’s companies went under, and he was charged with fraud and embezzlement. He fled to Europe, but in 1934 he was arrested in Istanbul and brought back to Chicago to stand trial. Although he was acquitted, he was left a broken (and broke) man, his $3 billion utilities empire in shambles.

DUELING ARIAS…New York’s rival in the opera scene, the Chicago Civic Opera erected this skyscraper (left) in 1929 with the help of **Samuel Insull**; a door at the Cook County jail in Chicago is opened for Insull in May 1934, his $3 billion utilities empire in shambles. He was unable to raise the $200,000 bail in fraud charges, which were eventually dismissed; at right, New York’s Metropolitan Opera House in 1909. (classicchicagomagazine.com/Wikipedia)

FAME TO INFAMY…Insull’s appearances on the cover of *Time* said it all: left to right: issues from November 29, 1926; November 4, 1929; and May 14, 1934. (classicchicagomagazine.com)

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From Land to Sea

The National Auto Show left town to be followed by the annual Boat Show at the Grand Central Palace, featuring boats that were priced to meet the needs of some Depression-era buyers:

CRUISIN’ CRUISETTE…You could buy an Elco Cruisette for just under $3,000 in 1933, but that was roughly equivalent to $64,000 today, so it was still out of reach for most Americans in the 1930s. (Pinterest)

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From Our Advertisers

Yes, the boat show was in town, but automobile manufacturers were still making their points to potential customers including Chrysler, one of The New Yorker’s biggest advertisers in the early 1930s…here’s a two-page spread for the Dodge 8…

…Chrysler’s DeSoto line claimed a luxurious interior that would inspire even regular folks to put on the “haughty air” of a French Duchess…

…on the other hand, the folks at Cadillac went for understatement with this announcement of a limited edition V-16…

…with 16 cylinders under the hood, this thing could really tear down the road, but it was the Depression, and even though this edition was limited to just 400 cars, only 125 were sold…

…it really bothers me that the Savoy Plaza Hotel (1927) was knocked down in 1965 and replaced by the monolithic GM Building…and look, in 1933 you could get a single room for five bucks a night…

…maybe you’d rather take to the seas on the Hamburg-American Line…

The SS Reliance in 1937. Gutted by fire in 1938, she was scrapped in 1941. (Wikipedia)

…or you could chase away the winter blues in a steaming bath that the folks at Cannon Towels called “almost the ultimate in mortal content”…

…and no doubt a few lit up a Camel or two during their soak…note the tagline “I’d walk a mile for a Camel!”…it was a slogan the brand used for decades…