The Des Moines Register from Des Moines, Iowa • Page 29

Theaters! Commercial, Home Building. Markets, Want Ads OrtTEl 7 DCLISHTFUL 1 kbau: i DAILY IN TVS' REGISTER TRIBUNEjt) Stctloti DK MOINES DES MOINES, IOWA, SUNDAY, AUGUST 5, 1951 SECTION SEVEN 12 Will They Ever Figure Out- Is London the World's Biggest City It Happened Last Night By Earl Wilson. The Pack In Samba Is Not Too Important "city" of London is a very small plare the ancient core around which the gigantic urban and suburban areas has developed. It covers only one square mile, once was walled, and has a population of around 8,000. The Administrative County of London, which corresponds in a way to the territory within New York City's official limits, is 117 square miles and hss a population of 3,348,336.

This compares with New York City's 365.4 square miles and nearly 8,000,000 population. Noxo romes fee gimmick. The County of London is surrounded by a great "nutrr ring" of suburbs in five counties. These 1 By Charles Honce. NEW YORK, N.

Y. London has Just counted noses. New York did so lsst year. But the question, which Is the larger city still Is technically clouded snd per-haps will remain so forever because the two cities count their population and define their boundaries In entirely different ways. However, leaving out the technicalities and simply considering concentrations of people and Integrated territories, New York's metropolitan area is more than six times larger than that of greater Lon GREATER NEW SHS or New York don and Its population Is nearly half again as large.

The preliminary report on the 19.M renaus issued by the British Registrar General gave Greater London a population of 8,346,137, an Increase of only 130,364 since 1931. Just a year ego the Census Buresu gave New York City a population of 7,841,610, and listed the metropolitan population, including New York and Northeast New Jersey sress, at 12.834,-143. The latter was an increase of since 1940. Now here'a why it is so difficult to get a satisfactory basis of comparison between London and New York: The actual as well leave me there. Everything will be gone." To the average woman convict the life at the women's prison in Tehachapl is a cruel contrast with freedom.

To Madge Meredith, fast becoming a Hollywood star, it must have seemed the end of the world. For all she knew she was doomed to spend the next five years and perhaps longer in the company of murderesses, blackmailers, forgers, of women convicted of felonies ranging from armed robbery to sex crimes. For the first eight day she was held in quarantine while medical and psychiatric examinations were completed. The prison psychiatrist, incidentally, said of Madge: "She is the most Intelligent prisoner I have ever Interviewed here." The Stigma. After the quarantine period, the former glamour girl was plunged into the prison routine.

It meant getting up at six a. m. and going to bed at 10 p. winter and summer, It meant doing a minimum of 6 i hours work every weekday. The work ranges from laboring in the steamy atmosphere of the prison laundry to making uniforms for male prisoners at other institutions, farming, mechanical Jobs and Just plain house work and cooking.

It meant wearing the shapeless dresses that serve as uniforms, sharing a celllike room with another woman and knowing that, because of a peephole in the door, a person can never be sure of privacy. It involved a hundred-and-one frustrations and deprivations plus the worst thing of all the stigma of being a felon. A less courageous person than Madge, experiencing the same swift fall from high estate, could easily have broken as a result and lost all Interest In life. But her natural resiliency and the CONNECTICUT What Comes Next For the Who Has Had Hollywood Pretty Girl from Iowa Falls and Prison in Her Career? Broadway, N. Y.

HERE AND THERE: flartley Crum, Rita Hayworth's lawyer, now practically commutes to his law offices in Israel. He Just got a visa for "several Journeys." Wilde, anxious to marry Jean Wallace, won't contest Pat Knight's divorce rase. screening audiences sre raving about Harry Popkin's powerful new movie, "The Well." MacAr-thur ssw the matinee of "Seventeen," where HE wss the matinee idol. Lanza will spurn half Jean Wallace. a million In personal appearances fees to tour rural Italy with a small opera company.

Cllft bought 4 7-story office bldg. in Santa Ana, Cal. Texas Yarn Romo Vincent, a big hit In the new C'opacabana show, played a Texan la one song, gazed around, and said, "Why, I got a tool chest blgger'n this club." ALL OVER: Phil Baker starts on TV for NBC Sept. 24 with a United Nations talent show Barney Ross and model Doris Allen were a woosome twosome at Maison Mario Cecil B. DeMille's next will be Homer's Odyssey Eva Gabor snd Stusrt Bsrthelmess were at Quo Vadis.

A thought from yesterday, "When you argue wtth a fool sure he isn't similarly engaged." ITEMS: Author James Jonea turned down 1,000 per lecture. will reopen in the fall as a cowboy spot. Cary Grant arrives to discuss a big TV deal with NBC. Steinman, Fran Warren's husband, signed a lease on the Diamond Horse-shoe'snd will reopen it in the fall. Johnston gave Shirley r-.

-1 -I Vr "friendship" ring at the I'en ft pencil. Still married to Fran Warren. Kathryn Grsyson, he's revised the old song to, "I Can't Give You Anything but Friendship." Joe Louis canceled his German tour because promoters couldn't put up the $25,000 guarantee. Answer "A youthful figure," says Evelyn West, who has one, "Is what you get when you ask a woman her age." Paulelte Goddard is quoted at Cava-naghs this way: "What every young girl should know a rich fellow." GOOD I'M OK MAN: Gypsy Rose Lee's shows for G. I.

a in Germany were abruptly canceled by the army when a chaplain ob jected. Halley's going on TV regularly a starting in September. He'll be well paid, of course; but in addition he'll have a big opportunity to combat crime. Merman 's new "Russel Nype" in "Call Me Madam'' (when Russel goes to Hollywood for 12 0Py Rose Lee. wks.) will be young A unknown Jeff Warren.

Kaye'll go on a big IT. S. one-nighter tvur for Sol Hurok next spring and undoubtedly panic the country as he did England. Sennett's custard pie stories came out of the files for TV. Peter Donald guesses Washington wants to censor television so that Faye Emerson and Dagmar will be complaining, "Long tlmo no Taffy Tuttle, the show girl, who is very popular with the gentlemen and has dates with a lot of them, says: "One of the things that Is ton good to be true is a true husband." it I ail' suburbs ere Independent politically or rein under the jurisdiction of fee forto counties, but because they are within the metropolitan police district they art considered part of Greater London.

This larger area has S93 square miles and the just announced population of tJiSJSt. Possessing similar characteristics to this territory is New York's metropolitan area, whose boundaries art definitely set by the U- S. Bureau of Census. Within this huge area of 4,408 square miles are nearly 13,000,000 human beings. While New York City proper hss no political connection with the outer territory, It is the center of the trading area, draws hundreds of thoussnds of workers each day and has certain Integrating activities through the Port of New York Authority, which operates both for New York and New Jersey, and other public bodies.

Actually, New York's metropolitan area Is much larger and more populous because it runs up into Connecticut and far down the New Jersey seashore. However, 'in defining the 1930 territory the Census Bureau changed the basis of determination used in 1940 when the boundaries cut across county lines. The 1950 area Includes only whole counties. New York City thought its 1950 census would show a population of at least 8,500,000. When the official figures came out there were cries of "We wui robbed" and demands for a recount.

But the Census Bureau simply said the complainants were deluding themselves. Similarly, estimates that London's population was at least 8,700,000 have been appealing In encyclopedias, atlases, and almanacs since 19S8. Today's figure will be quite a comedown for the whooper-uppers of London's vastnen. lywood but among people whose only glimpse of her had been on the screen. Locked away from the world, Madge knew little shout this growing support at first.

In her letters to the outside, she still msintained her Innocence. She could and did hope for a miracle that would set her free, but' the possibility seemed slim. It soon became more than a possibility. A Hollywood group, spearheaded by Actress Zasu Titts, urged a probe of the case. Vernon Kilpatrick, then an assemblyman and head of the Interim Committee on Crime and Correction, became Interested.

Two business men Charles E. Wilson, real estate man, and Herbert Scholfield, retired banker volunteered their aid to Kilpatrick. The Los Angeles Mirror Joined in the Investigation. Reporter Joe Ledlle put in hundreds of hours and interviewed scores of persons who might hsve informetion on the esse. The unofficial investigators obtained permission to give both Msdge and Albert W.

Tucker, San Quentin convict and one of the co-defendants In the case, lie detector tests. Tucker had testified during the trial that he was hired by Gisnaclis to fake a kidnaping with the blame to be thrown on Madge to discredit and ruin her because she had broken with her one-time business manager. The tests bore nut her claim of Inho-cence and the truth of Tucker's story. The fight to prove Madge guiltless and win her freedom was an unprecedented chapter in California criminal annals. The Case a Mockery.

It went on for over a year and resulted finally in a Crime and Correction Committee report finding "the case from beginning to end ia a mockery of investigation, of defense counseling, of trial procedure and of justice itself." Cited were failure of defense counsel to call sn Importsnt witness, failure of the prosecution to hold another key witness snd apparent perjured teetlmony by two important stats witnesses. There were angry retorts from the trial Jurist and prosecution snd defense counsel. But a short time later the California Adult Authority followed up the committee report by recommending that Madge's sentence be commuted by Governor Warren to time served. On July 13, her birthday, Msdge Meredith rerelved commutation and wslked out through Tehachapi's gates, a free woman. She was not quite so slim or so youthfully fresh as on the day four years ago when her troubles begsn.

But diet can take care of the prison-gained weight. And the beauty of her face is still the sort with which no camera can find fault. What's ahead for her, this Iowa girl who became a child of both fortune and misfortune? Can she get her feet back on the ladder of Hollywood success she was so confidently climbing when disaster overtook her? It is what she wsnts, still the main goal of her life. And she is sure she can do It. She fought for it once and won, and she will fight again.

Already, it can be revealed, she has received two television offers. One thing is certain. No matter how bizarre a story she may ever appear in on the screen, it cannot be as strange as the drama that has gone full eirce in her oun life. By Ely Culbertsnn. STRATEGY IN SAMBA, the new three-deck Canasta game, diffen radically from the strategy you use In regular Canasta.

Your emphasis In Canasta is In playing for the pack; you resort to the alternative the play for out only as a defensive measure. But in Samba the pack la not nearly so important, for the following reasons: I Because of the two-card draw, you continually Increase the number of cards In your hand, even If you never capture a pack. With IS cards dealt originally, and their number constantly Increasing, you rarely get squeezed. For the same reason, It Is relatively easy to build the necessary two ca-nastaa In a very short time; once this Is done, both partner have a good chance to draw out quickly. On the average, at 50, it will take a ro-operating partnership no more than the first seven rounds In order to go out, even If neither of them captures a pack.

In Canasta, on the other hand, a partner-ship sometimes has to atruggle for out all the way to the end of the stock. t'nlmportance of Pack. The relative unimportance of the pack has two effects: first, you almost never take small packs, nor do you take medium-sized packs indiscriminately, and sec ond, you never plan from the start to play for the pack. When taking a six-card pack, if you have to use three cards to take it(say a king is on top and you get it with 2-K-K), you will acquire five new cards from the pack. After discarding, and taking into account the three cards you used, your net gain will be one additional card in your hand exactly the same ss if you had drawn.

(Remember, you draw two cards at a time.) Taking a pack of leas than six cards actually reduces the number of tarda in your hand. The same considerations apply, of course, if you must use six csrds to get a nine-card pack (for instance, at 90, when a king (a on top and you go in, using 2-K-K, 2-Q-Q to make up your 90.) Quite Different. This does not mean that you should always pass up small or medium packs. If some cards in the pack (at least two) match up with your hand, take it! But a pack of no more than eight cards which are useless to you should be passed up. Note how different this situation is, compared to Canasta! In Canasta, when you take even a small pack, you acquire two important advantages.

First, by having made your Initial meld, you open the pack for your side, enabling you to take it with a single card and a deuce. In Samba, an initial meld does not open the pack; you slill need a natural pair to take it. Second, in Canasta, any pack of, say, eight carda is of value, since you acquire cards the left-hand opponent threw and cards that you threw which passed by him. Samba, things are different. Even if you manage to keep the pack away from the opponents, the resultant gain Is not likely to be large; they will probably go out before you amass a big score.

Furthermore, cards that passed fiy left-hand opponent before, and therefore are considered fairly safe discards In Canasta, are not nearly so safe In Samba. Here a player draws two cards at a time, and there are 12 cards of each rank (as against eight in Canasta). It is therefore quite common for a player who lacks a certain pair at one point to have it two or three rounds later. They're Not "Safe." It Is primarily this fact the ease in drawing pairs that makes a play for the pack unprofitable in In Canasta, when you have a pack hand, you break up a set of at least three for discards. If the first goes by, you have a reasonable assurance that your next discards from that set will get by also.

In Samba, with left-hand opponent's hand changing rapidly, this strategy will fail much nftener than It succeeds. In the first place, even In the early rounds of play, It Is better than even odds that a set of three In your hand will match a pair In left-hand opponent's hand. r5ut even If it doesn't if you discard a king, for Instance, from a set of three kings, and left-hand opponent can't take it the fact that he will draw two carda on each turn makes it quite probable that he will have a pair of kings two or three rounds later. So, breaking up a set and following It up Is not good Samba strategy. Instead, as a rule, you should keep your sets, meld early, and play for a quick out.

In discarding, throw useless cards and match left-hand opponent's discards. Of course there are exceptions to this rule, the main on being on hands with a fair prospect of a sequence canasta. We will discuss these in a later article in this series. tenacious quality that had won her a place In pictures rame to her rescue. She decided life was not over for her and that she would be foolish to waste her prison time.

She enrolled in the classes conducted st Tehachapi by teachers from a nearby high, school. She took English and, of course, her favorite of" all courses dramatics. She read every Shakespearean drama and cores of one-act plays. Lose Slim Figure. At Chriltmas time and during the annual high school graduation exercises she took part in the entertainment programs ataged by the inmates.

She patronized the prison beauty shop, run by a convicted forger. She attended the prison picture ahows regularly although seeing former associates on the screen must have poured salt on her wounds. She had her regular duties, of course. She was assigned to the cleaning crews, took her turn waiting on tables and had for her special job the care of the lawns and gardens outside her bungalow. She spent hours on hands and knees, pulling weeds and cultivating flower beds and mors hours cutting grass.

One thing that worried her, she recalls, was that on fj prison diet, which is heavy in starches, she began to lose her slim figure. Her normal Its pounds went finally to 160. But, busy constantly with work or studies, there were times- when she was almost content. "However, there's something you never quite forget," she said. "The high wire fence around Tehachapi and the locked gate." Meanwhile, a slow ground swell of protest against what was termed by many a miscarriage of Justice was beginning to form, not only among her friends in Hol- (This is the second and final article on the incredible story of Marine Mere-rltth, young movie actress from Iowa Falls, her pretty face, hard work, and the ef-Jorts of her business manager, Nick "the Greek'' Gianaclis have started her up the Hollywood ladder.) By Herb Stinson.

Pretly Madge Meredith, born Marjorie May Massow in Iowa could really feel that years of study and determination, waiting tables, never taking her eyes off her goal, were now paying off. So she had bought a house for her family in Hollywood Hills off Laurel Canyon. Nick the Greek had given some financial aid. It was with the purchase of this house that the Madge Meredith script veers Into av Hitchcock whodunit plot. The bare facts are these.

Madge began to get offers from established talent agencies to represent her. She has said Gianaclis became furious about the possibility she might break with him and in retaliation he gained control of the Laurel Canyon property by using papers she had signed without knowing their real coil-tents. She and her family were ousted by her erstwhile patron. She sued for the home and lout. On June 30, 1947, came the denouement that blasted her career.

Gianaclis and a bodyguard, Verne Davis, were dragged from their car in Laurel Canyon by three men who beat and kidnaped them. Madge Meredith was at the scene. Gianaclis and Davis escaped from custody of one of the kidnapers late that day and rushed to the sheriff's office with the story. Gianaclis accused Madge of, engineering the kidnaping In revenge for the loss of the canyon home. Arrest of Madge and her three asserted confederates followed swiftly.

Madge maintained her complete innocence and has never ceased to maintain it. She explained her presence at the scene by saying that Arthur Kachel, a Hollywood drama coach who had cured her of stammering at a Martha's Vineyard theater school and who had been friendly with her snd Gianaclis, had phoned her to come to the hillside home. Strangest Story. She had no knowledge, she declared, the three men who were in a car following -hers planned the beating and kidnaping. Albert W.

Tucker, one of the kidnapers snd an acquaintance of both Gianaclis and Madge, came up with the strangest, story of all. He asserted "The Greek" had hired him to fake a kidnaping with the blame to be thrown on Madge to discredit and ruin her. Gianaclis denied this. Where the truth rests nobody knows certainly but Albert Tucker, Nick Ulnnaclis and Madge Meredith. A jury believed Gianaclis.

Madge was given five years to life at Tehachapl, Tucker the same at Snn Quentin. The other men received lesser sentences. On May 9, 1949 Madge Meredith traded the thrills, the luxuries, the lush income and the glamour of Hollywood stardom for the drab uniforms, the crushing routine and the shame of a women's prison. As she stepped into the car that bore her and a murderess to the prison together, her full red lips quivered1 but her eyes remained dry. Earlier she had told newsmen: "When they take tn to Tehachapi, they might A- frl I 3 WISH ID SAID THAT: Lynns Gil-more colli a psychiatrist's fee mad money.

UFE'8 UNFAIR TO MEN, says Charley Jnes. At birth, their mothers get the compliments; at marriage, their brides get the presents; at death, their widows get the Insurance snd winters In Florida. That's earl, brother. Madge Meredith faces her accusers, Nick Gianaclis (left) and Verne Davis after the beating. She ha never ceased to maintain her complete Innocence, -a.

tJ.