St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 31

ca Published Evtrt Wcek-d Jit4iiS LOUIS POST-DISPATCH PART FOUR ST. LOUIS, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1948 PAGES 16D VETHftAIKIS FOMGM WARS IN CLRIFUIL PARAPH I I Vi 1,: UvvJ I Racfro 4cor Forrest Lewis Man Of Thousand Voices By Dickson Terry FORREST IJ5WIS is known in show business 9 "The Man of a Thousand Voices." This is, rf course, a. figure of speech, but the fact remains that Lewis has many voices at his i. 'air iff -n mmnmmm -n ft IIHlla i.aioi 31SI1.I 3311111 UM.1 Vf vvvT mfxi Pennsylvania drum and bugle corps, representing V.F.W. Post No.

1630 of Lock Haven, nears the end of march which began at Eighteenth and Locust street and moved over a route lined by thousands in jh district. Bright sunshine and a breeze made It an ideal parnae day. tSyrrtk I rr si PI i V-Vl I 43 F7 KM' 0 "rf IT "4. ff III III I 1 A 24-Wock downtown This I here 111. 5 4 wun music mrougnour me anemoon.

c- yrPw fC I command, nrae 01 wnirn nf. unex regu larly, snd some of which he keeps filed away, so to speak, to be brought forth and used when needed. On the Tom Mix radio progra.rn,-where he is heard most often these flays, he plays virtually everything but Tom and his horse. He has played no fewer than S7 characters on the ihnv in tVm last FORREST LEWIS three or four years, and he regularly plays nine characters. It is going to come something- of a.

shock to many a moppet who sits with his ear glued to the radio to learn that Wash, the comical Negro; Poe Green, the village doctor; Angus McPhee, the bookstore owner; Obadiah Patch-wood, the hotel man, and several other regulars auch as Colorado Mooney and assorted villains re all one and the same mn Lewis. LEADS to some unusual situations. On one. show, Lewis. Wash, was captured and held prisoner by Lewis, a murderous Nazi.

While Wa.3h was pleading for his life and the Nazi was telling Jiirr, gutteral tones, what he was going to do to him, someone broke the door down. Mr. Lewis, as an English inspector of police, then proceeded to rescue himself as Wash from himself as the Nazi. In spite of it all, Lewis seldom gets confused. One time, however, he was juggling three characters when he turned a page in his script and discovered there was no indication as to which character was speaking in the next lines.

Ha took a guess at it and guessed wrong, which caused all the characters to be speaking in th wrong accents. So he stopped suddenly and, in his own voice shouted, "Hey! Wait a minute!" Naturally all the characters stopped talking, all of them being Lewis, and then he started out again, giving each bis proper dialect. Audiences may have, wondered who stepped in and straightened them out, but something had to be done. LEWIS, who is making a personal appearance here this week at the Firemen's Rodeo and Thrill Circus, developed his vocal versatility from necessity after joining a repertoire company that visited his home town of Knightstown, when he was 17 years old. With this company was a man of many character parts.

Later he took a crack at Broadway, where ha had good times and bad. Rut it did include peason with Ignore. tTJrie in "Lulu Relle." Ha went out with a number of road shows of Broad-wav productions, the last of which was "Broken rushes" Jn 3930. At that time radio looked like it was here to tay, ao he went to Chicago where he got his first role. It was that of an old man.

"I played old men when I was young, and when I got older they had me playing boys. That's show business," Lewis says with a wry smile. He has been more or less a permanent part of such programs as Grand Hotel, First Nighter, Cavalcade of America, Story of Mary Marlin, One Man'i Family, I Love a Mystery and what have you. IN 1842 he went to Hollywood to make a. movie with, Harold "Great Gildersleeve" Peary, but Hollywood was too much for him.

In the phony aweepstakes, he just couldn't make the weight. As soon as he got through his commitments he returned to the comparatively safe and aan haven of radio where a man didn't have to pretend to be anything but what he was. Lewis is five feet 10 inches tall, weighs 170 nounds and, although pushing into middle age, has the look of the perennial juvenile. He has a. son, Gene, who.

at the age of 19, is aix feet three inches tall and weighs 205 pounds. Lewis peaks of him with awe. The boy is now with a mad comnanv of "Mister Roberts" and has been effered a contract at Fox. Lewis's chief character on the Mix show is Wash, and it is his favorite character, despite the fact the humor is pulled down to juvenila level. When, as Wash, he boasts about his ability as a detective, someone asks him where he gets his clues.

"Clues?" he says, "why, I gets in the clues-closet, of course." Toung-ters think it very funny, and Lewis, like many another performer on shows aimed at young people, doesn't worry much about what others think, just so the kids are kept happy. ALTHOUGH Lewis doesn't talk about it. it is common knowledge that radio has been kind to him. financially speaking. He does go so far as to that while the other boys, when in the big mony.

bought convertibles and swimming pools, he bought annuities. Not that he is exactly close with his money. Said an associate: "He doesn't throw his money away he'll raise a nickel in a poker game, if he's got three queens." Says Lewis, "I've seen too many old men in this game without a dime to their names. Too many." Lewis now lives in Skokie, HL, just outside of Chicago, and his only hobby is making colored movies of his travels. Radio takes about all his time.

After all, thousand voices Try and Stop Me By Bennett Cerf A PARK AVENUE socialite had a 12-year-old son by his first wife, a -year-old girl by bis second. When the two kids met for tha first time, the air was very frigid. Later the boy aaid to his father, "Were you serious when you told me that girl was my half sister?" "Tea," said the father patiently. "Humphh. was the comment.

"You better hurry and ret her the other half?" A MERCHANT in Houston, had been unable to collect a long overdue bill by ordinary methods for over a year. As a last resort, he tried to play on his delinquent customer's sympathies. He sent him a picture of bis three small, children with a note explaining. "The reason I must have the money you owe me." The tomer. however, sent back a photo of an orchidaceous, scantily clad blonde, labeled, "The reason I can't pay it." Whaf Am I Saying! OU don't hare to be a detective to find that there's usually mystery connected with every -woman's birthdaythe date.

Which reminds inf. a new-born child is like storm. It j-ener-aliv begins with an awful squall. FRANK MORGAN. 1 A snappily outfitted musical unit, sponsored by Belleville Post No.

drew applause from sidewalk Aerial view of the huge annual parade of the Veterans of Foreign Wars as units moved up Chestnut street past the reviewing stand at Soldiers' Memorial (left center) yesterday afternoon. Shaft of World War li memorial is at right center. An estimated 20,000 men, women end children marched in the colorful procession, which was interspersed with musical units and floats. were IUU Danas in The procession to tui me air Confetti showers on spectators lining a curb on Locust parade rolls by. iffnll 11 iiiimiii r'w im iwiim 1 ir''' 0 1 4KCx r- (lifi- In nmm nif4 ZmPtfc1iHtti''Ay- ftfrtC "''Trttti street.

Note footsore veteran removing shoes as the Ir Pwt-DiMttk Staff PlMtMrafhara. Ray H. Brannaman (left, in seat), V. F. W.

commander in chief who is presiding over the forty-ninth encampment, takes a ride in a covered wagon from Colorado, which stopped at the reviewing stand pick him up. The parade, reviewed by city and state officials and high-ranking officers of the armed services, was the major public event of the five-day convention, which closes Friday. pX- rr. 1 i lAfll lirfl KillMA iHRRTC rURRDirfC CIIH IRTTC Queen Wilhelmine (left) waves as she HONOR FOR COL TOVVNSEND aTSt Missouri Military Disirict. receiving a certificat cf achievement presented by Maurice C.

Bigebw, state senior instructor the reserve, ceremony marking Col. Tcwnsend's retirement yesterday. The certificate was -signed fey Maj. Gen. Jchti F.

Lucas, Fifh Army deputy cemnnar.dsr. yat-oap ftsf appears e'n the balcony cf the royal palace in Amsterdam fo receive the plauaifs ef a cheering throng celeorannq her sixty-eighth birthday end golden jubilee as ruier. With the Queen, who abdicate Saturday, ere (from lefJ; -j Prince Bernhard, Princess Juliana, who wilf succeed her mother, holding) her daughter. Princess Meryke, and Princesse Eeafrix end (rent..