St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 13

rv i W.trr. Published Everq Daij Wfifc-daa JXindr in the ST.LOUIS POST-DISPATCH rr PART TWO ST. LOyiS, 2 1952 PAGES 1 6B I 1 TORNADO 'PATHS OF DESTRUCTION AND DEATH Ex-Movie Moppet TTT- 9 No Pigtails Now For Mary M'Carty ByCfarissa Start BACK in the days when Shirley Temple wore curls and ruffled pinafores, Mary McCarty wore pigtails, hornrimmed glasses, and braces on her teeth. Neither glasses nor braces were necessary. MI.JJJ..UI.11 nn mujjup.iw mm but among the mop- vWj 5 Z- it -r -vX ti irrTT -w---- pet starlets of that day, she was the comic foil for the cutie pies.

Today Mary is a cutie pie herself, a pretty comedienne with several musical comedy successes in her past and a new career as supper club soloist under way. At the Chase Club, where lusty-voiced Mary is currently appearing, she illustrates why critics have compared her to Ethel Merman, C4 I Mry M'Carty In such numbers as, "1 Gotta Stay Sober Tonight' j.immmmimm'-' mmmmmmm mmmi mmmm mvm ttgum never make passes at girls with just a little chaicecL water in their and a twangy guitar -take-off on the foggy, foggy dew school of folk- aingers. DRAWING OS HER OWN experience in every kind of night spot, she does a take-off on night dub singers, portraying such characters as the girl tvlftj'tilames every sour note on the piano player, the debutante chanteuse, the girl who's sung in the same saloon for five years and knows all the customers, and the young singer who's been sold an over-arranged arrangement that starts out with Gershwin and ends up with Oklahoma-okay. "Like a lot of my material, that one's based on real experience," Mary said, over a luncheon of non-fattening fish and fattening chocolate pie. "I met an arranger like that when I first started out singing but I couldn't afford his over-arranged arrangements.

I guess there's a little malice in the number." Right now, Mary works out most of her own songs, is delving further into her past for a satirical sketch which will include actual scenes from movies in which she appeared, with Jane Withers, Shirley Temple, and Judy Garland. As she runs off old films (borrowed from Fox) Mary will provide a comedy commentary. Aided by a lantern. Josh Matthews, 72-year-old resident of England, inspects rubbish topped by mattress on splintered floor all that is left of his home, which was swept away by the storm. Search for victims in wreckage of homes and buildings continued today.

Property I damage was heavy in this town, southeast of Little Rock, the capital. Hospitals in county seats and larger cities were flooded with patients and American Red Cross disaster teams moved rapidly to set up first: Splirvtered remains of a group of homes mark devastating swath cut by tornado that struck Dierks, yesterday one of a series of deadly storms that swept sections of that state, the Missouri Bootheel, western Tennessee and North Mississippi. Note piece of metal roofing wrapped about tree. More than 2C0 persons were killed and the list of the injured exceeded 1000. Hardest hit sector was northeast Arkansas.

Associated l'ress 1 lrvbnto. aid centers and shelters. -AuocUttd Trtu Wtrtpboto. i if It 4 UflCf I'll HER EARLY FILM CAREER seems funny to her now but it was very serious at the time. Part-Irish, part-Osage Indian, Mary Theresa McCarty (without the was born in Winfield, and taken to California by her movie-struck mother when her parents separated.

One night in a Los Angeles theater, a drawing for a refrigerator was held and when they asked for a child volunteer to draw the winning number, Mary's mother jet-propelled her up the aisle. A director who was in the audience asked her mother to bring her to the studio. "So I became a chorus girl at age five in a picture called Mary recalled. "I remember in the very beginning, I always took all my dancing school costumes with me. I thought you never knew when they'd call on you to do a number.

I'd been brought up on movies in which the unknown could become a star overnight. Gradually I learned better." -vs Ffef Storm that dipped into western Tennessee last night sheared off half this house at Moscow, but a rocking chair in kitchen (at left) and china cabinet in dining room remain upright. The owner, J. W. Stafford, and his family escaped injury by taking refuge in a storm cellar at a neighbor's home.

Unlted Pmu TrtfPhot. EVENTUALLY MARY BECAME reconciled to being a supporting player, usually made up to look as unattractive as possible "so the others would look favorable in contrast." By the time she was 15 she had reached the awkward age and her movie career was over. There followed a series of minor -jobs as ballad and torch singer, and a USO tour with the Jack Carson unit. At one time, Mary was singing nights in a club called the Hollywood Tropics and taking a two-year course at the Immaculate Heart College during the day. At still another low ebb in her career, she applied for a job with an all-girl band, representing herself as a bass drummer.

With an advance of $100, she joined the musicians' union and reported for work. No one had told her bass drums had to be fastened down so at the first hefty wallop, hers skidded across the night club floor and knocked down a customer. She was fired and out of the musicians' union in short order. Figuring she was getting nowhere fast, she decided to head for New York. "I knew if I wanted to be a comedienne.

New York was the place," she, says. "Hollywood is too glamour conscious, and I knew I wasn't the ingenue type." pmiwwunii.m.a) iituww.LW).v..iiiJiW..uiliiiw.i. uu iiiiijiii.ni.il 11 uiii I- At a first aid center set up at a filling station which escaped the tornadic blast at Dierks, E. V. Dildy and Nurse Marie Porter attend Mrs.

William Blagg, who lies in rear of a pick-up truck. She was seriously injured. Dierks, a lumber town, suffered heavy property damage. More than 100 perished in the Arkansas storms. Associited Press Wirfphoto.

UF? ill ft S. I V. IN NEW YORK SHE LIVED in a walk-up flat, played club and theater dates and got a part in a show called "Sleepy Hollow" which folded in six days. Just when it looked as if her career had ended inauspiciously a second time, she went into "Small Wonder," a 1949 musical. In a take-off on Texas oilmen, Mary, wearing ermine-fringed bra and cowboy pants, sang, "Ballad for and with her bellowing of its delicate lyrics "Get your little carcass down to Neiman-Marcus, buy yerself a mess of mink" she became a star and had her salary doubled overnight.

Her next two shows, "Miss Liberty" and "Bless You All" helped her farther along. Now Mary, who was moving from hotel to hotel every five days when she went into "Small Wonder," has an apartment "with something very unusual for New York, a fireplace and a backyard with two trees." Since her mother's death, Mary has no family but hopes to start her own some day. She's engaged to a young man in California, eventually expects to marry and settle down. She figures that after 23 years in show business she finally has proof of her success. -When I first came to New York I had she says.

"For a while I would tell people, 'Now I have but that's changed. More truthfully I can say, 'Now I owe $14." ADVERTISEMENT Nik if Above, wreckage of filling station smashed by tornado which lashed Searcy-Judsonia area in Arkansas. Battered automobile crushed under flying masonry is at left. Jud-sonia, a town of I 100 population, was' one of the hardest hit communities. Only unscathed building there a church was converted into an aid station.

At right, a bewildered cow picks its way from debris of barn northeast of Searcy. These photographs were taken by Louis Errico, 2 1 5 South Taylor avenue, a salesman who was en route from Little Rock to St. Louis when the storm struck. tag ant-Pot SMOOTH 'N GOLDEN MELLOW BREW mm-. W.

F. Foster, a Red Cross worker in the Arkansas storm zone, gently covers two injured and frightened Negro children brought into an emergency center at England. Hail, rain and outbreaks of fire added to the misery of the injured and the homeless. One Arkansas twister swept into the Missouri Bootheel, with the-Caruthersville-Hayti sector bearing the brunt of the blow. Ajcocilted Pnu WLiphoto.

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