St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 45

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH PI 1 ft 5U Diqy r. i. PART FIVE ST. LOUIS, SUNDAY MORNING, MAY 15, 1938.

PAGES 11 OG iiOT sip in wr nrirprwr I wuj in 'in in HELP FATHER rom yjg NEW YORK By LUCIUS BEEBE A MOTHER SPEAKS By Elsie Robinson Florence Rice, Blue-Eyed Daughter of Grantland Rice, the Sports Writer, Will Not Let Him Use His Influence to RE you a middle-aged A NEW YORK, May 14. THE drug store of fashion is as much a part of evesy American town as ever was the livery stable affected by the best people vhen their own horses had the epizootic Harvard men, of course, all patronize Billings and Stover, and the best Beacon Street folk of A miserable middle-aged mother who feels that her life Aid Her in Gaining Film Stardom. By H. H. NIEMEYER A STAFF CORRESPONDENT OF THE POST-DISPATCH I i I a I this department youtn woman be seen dead at any other soda fountain than that of Godding's, at the corner of Newbury and Dartmouth.

In Fort Worth, the chic pharmacy is Doc Murchison's Ballinger Street rendezvous, where the Waggoners and local Roosevelts get their, nostrums and Joe Min-turn charges his Bourbon, and there isn't a community from Ogunquit to San Diego without its chemist de luxe. In Manhattan the high-toned drug counter is that of Henry Halper, at Madison and Fifty-sixth. Its smartest clientele derives from the staff of "Town and Country," whose offices are upstairs and who, from Editor Harry Bull to the brashest copy there and "has been one long sacrifice" for her children, and who is filled with self-pity and resentment because those children no longer make mother the center of their universe? Then here's a story that's good for what ails you. It's a true story of another woman who has lived her life for her children, and how she feels about it now. Twelve years ago (she's 48 now) she divorced the father of her four, children who were 12, 9, 6 and 3 years of age.

Since then, with a very little help from her father and the oldest boy, she has brought them up alone, doing all her own housework, besides holding a position as secretary in a business office. And she hasn't been content to give them just a hand-to-mouth existence. It has been a good living. Three of them have high school educations. The oldest boy has a good trade.

They live comfortably and entertain happily in a seven-room house. o-o LUCIUS BEEBE. ire dosed with bromides when the occasion demands. "The Harper's Bazaar" staff, also upstairs, for some reason or other, doesn't patronize Halper's and is esteemed snobbish by the regulars. Tony Williams, smartest of men tailors, frequently graces a stool at lunch, and Mrs.

Hi on the way to a social funeral at St. Thomas. The most glittering of all Halper's patrons was the late Julian Van Courtlandt, who gleamed with fashion and often made a resplendent appearance In full morning dress. Louis Ehret occasionally snatches a bromo there, and the counter boy who scrams down Fifty-sixth with a tray every morning just at noon is ferrying Jerome Zerbe's breakfast to bis bedside. The mutest crisis in If ulrwr'a chemical-social career was when FLORENCE Harry Bull wanted some photographs of the Ubangis from the f'-- III II II I 'J circus consuming ice cream soda at the fountain.

The publicity would be delicious, but Ubangis They compromised by taking the pictures, but not mentioning Halper's in the caption. It was all very confusing. NO SECT OR CLAN following any prophet or faith soever, not even the collectors of Edwin Arlington Robinson items or the skiing enthusiasts, are so fanatical as the railroad and locomotive aficionados, I posse of dervishes which have multiplied geometrically in recent years. Beside the white-heat of passion of, say, a collector of Denver Rio Grande narrow-gauge photographs or the proprietor of a quarter-inch scale system, the enthusiasm of the hasheesh-eating assassins was the merest whim. New York's leading rail devotees, and they are only first among many equals, are Edward Hungerford of the New York Central and entrepreneur of many railroad pageants; A Shelden Pennoyer, who is a distinguished artist in the bargain; John Billings, managing editor nr ii i i ble.

lust because I was Grantland ited his daughter. In fact, there FLORENCE ADDS A LITTLE MAKE-UP TO THE RUGGED FACE OF HER FATHER, GRANTLAND RICE. Rice's daughter. is a beautifully strong tie between "So I started out looking for the two, sort of mutual admiration, jobs on my own. I kept the father She took him to the Metro-Gold-business under cover.

I received wyn-Mayer studios where she has plenty of encouragement but there been under contract for more than weren't a lot of parts running two years now. While visiting the ON THE DAY the mother wrote, the two oldest boys were out of the state on a week-end trip. The youngest boy was on a motor-boat trip with a party of chums. The little girl was away on an automobile trip with a party of friends. And what was this mother doing there in that empty house, while her children went merrily forthi seeking their own happiness? Was she brooding bitterly over her lost youth, over the long, toiling years of sacrifice? Was she shedding tears of self-pity because those children were neglecting dear old mother? Indeed, she wasn't! "I am alone and I like it," she writes.

of my women friends are horrified when they hear me say that, but it's true. I do like being alone by myself. I am never lonesome, nor do I feel neglected; fotl in spite of my position as a mother, I have always managed to remain myself to retain my own separate career, my own personality and my; own interests. HAVE LIVED for my children, but I have also lived for myself. I have not considered my work 'a or a penalty which had to be borne because I was a mother.

I have felt that I was living my own life when I worked. "Most mothers seem to forget They act as if their children were to blame for all their hardships. "I have never made my children feel that I was anything but glad to have them and to work for them. And yet I have also made them feel that I have rights as an individual which must be respected. HOLLYWOOD, May 14.

LONG time ago, when we were a sports writer on a New York newspaper, our desk, if we got A sets, one of the directors took occasion to introduce Grantland Rice tof "Life" magazine; Gilbert H. Burck of the Munsey publications, Otto around. At last, I received a role. It was in 'Jine Moon and was I happy! "We started rehearsals and I felt very proud of myself. Then, suddenly, I came to a sharp realization that there might be something to the fact that one of the authors of this, play was Ring Lardner.

Mr. Lardner was a great sports writer, as everyone knows, and he was a close friend of Dad's. "That is how I learned that Dad had used his influence to help me to someone. What he said was, "This is Florence Rice's father." To Florence that really was "something," and so today she isn't as afraid of that "famous father jinx" as she used to be. Florence has played in a lot of pictures and won critical praise.

She is a film favorite because of her work in such pictures as "Navy Blue and Gold," "Paradise for Three," "Double Wedding," "Mar- get a start. I didn't let on that MISS RICE JUMPING ROPE ON THE GROUNDS OF AN ESTATE IN HOLLYWOOD. IT IS ONE OF HER FAVORITE METHODS OF KEEPING FIT. I knew. I just dug in and worked 1-16(1 Before Breakfast," "Beg, Bor 4 to it first, was right alongside one occupied by Grantland Rice.

Grant wasn't so prominent then. Everybody liked him and he was an authority, mostly on baseball, but even he didn't picture himself in the position he occupies today-dean of all sports writers and an authority on practically every sport there is from seven-up to yacht racing- Everybody still likes him and, most of all, that "everybody" includes his daughter, the lovely blue-eyed Florence Rice, who adores him. But out here in Hollywood, where she is coming along as a movie actress, she doesn't run around telling people Grant Rice is her father and expecting it to help her to stardom. And Grant is pleased to have her standing on her own. When he comes out here in the winter to take in the Rose Bowl football game, or the Santa Anita Handicap, or even just to play golf with Bing Crosby, he doesn't go to the studios, where, the hard-hearted gate men tip their hats and ask him what he thinks about the third race, and suggest that Louis B.

Mayer do something for Florence. No, Florence Rice is one of those rare individuals in Hollywood who row or steal ana a great many others before those. Being the daughter of Grantland Rice, Florence has always been interested in sports, both as a participant and a spectator. o-o hard. And I really believe that because I was suspicious that every compliment might be a gracious little pat on the back to 'Grantland Rice's little girl' I learned a lot more than I would have otherwise." That help from her father was the last that Florence really got just as I respect their rights.

HE plays a driving game of ten- I have always done all I could 11 om f1' one on no Nnet and an equally fine game of more inriuence ana tne other en- kJ badminton. She also plays golf, for my children without too much work and inconvenience to myself; gagements she got in New York for I never could see that any good Kuhler, the artist and designer; Rogers Whitaker of "The New Yorker," and F. E. Williamson, president of the New York Central. And from Boston to San Francisco there are hundreds of youths and gaffers who know the automobile isn't here to stay and get a guffaw out of the flying machine, but will walk a score of miles to watch the Century or the Yankee Clipper or the Daylight or the Chief roar past on the high iron, bound for far places and romance.

Mostly the railroad fans incline to scoff at Diesel power and I streamlining, although modernized standard equipment, if it is steam powered, has their suffrage. They don't even acknowledge the existence of electrification. For this 'reason the Pennsylvania Railroad has its being for them only west of Harrisburg, where the K4 locomotives take over. Railroad executives in general, opposed by nature as they are to public tolerance, are just catching on to the circumstance that they have friends. Big shots on the Central, when the Railroad Enthusiasts applied for their first week-end excursion train, casually offered them a special car on a regular run if they would guarantee 50 fares.

It ended with four special trains, with 16 coaches, two diners and two locomotives to each train. OVERHEARD at the bar at the Plaza:" "I don't like the guy-he' an insincere drinker!" The latest in trick accessories, demon ftrated by Patricia Ziegfeld, is a flower bonnet with a tiny flask in the crown for perfume. This department for years has been after Val-Mtina, the most extravagant of all female hat architects, to design 'chapeau with a smoke pot concealed in its inner economy. It vcrtainiy would set the Colony by the ears to have someone at a front table smouldering briskly throughout lunch. Vernon Duke, a pious gourmet and gustatory explorer, is back in town, telling friends about tee wonderful blackfish chowder at Henry's, in Charleston.

Ruby Foo, the Chinese restaurateur, stocks a rare tea so strong that a single leaf will brew 20 quarts of beverage and which sells for $50 a pound. Discovered in the depths of the Racquet Club bar the other evening, the husband of a so but her preference is for the faster net games. Of course, she swims and rides horseback. She also dances expertly and since some people consider it a type of sport let it be chronicled that she is a reliable bridge partner. She loves football and baseball.

One of her greatest professional where through her own efforts and by pounding the pavements and haunting the offices of theatrical agents. It was after "Once in a Lifetime" that she came to Hollywood, in 1934. She was signed by a studio but felt she wasn't getting far enough as a beginner by being under contract. She followed that line of reasoning and chose to become a free-lance player. mark, 'Oh, her dad probably wrote it for her or at least rewrote it.

As a matter of fact, Miss Rice born and the story is a natural few newspapers could pass up. Florence did not grow up as a thrills was playing in the football has tried, and succeeded, in getting picture, "Navy Blue and Gold." She She was reared 1 influent She UOeS W1UC lillguijf well. iwt 6" confesses she really got fired up pretending to be witnessing an It was disappointing," she says. Army-Navy game, for she has seen Jk orj tion, or even prose. She writes in New York.

Her education, took beine a triple threat Sf Poetry. It is natural that she can place there and at the Dwight enougto succeS she'honfst- write poetry. Remember that swell School for Girls at Englewood. wi liit tam. trick of Grantland's leading off J.

It was her inheritance, of "I think vou can see my point story or his cofurnn with a bit of course, to be curious. She went I think you can see my pmni Wasn.t it Rice who abroad three times and observed "It seemed that I just couldn't get many of them in real life anywnere. finally, Dad found out Women who scream their heads about it. He wanted to confer with off at prize fights are just sisters studio executives whom he knew under the skin to her. The only because he was making a series of reason she quit patronizing the came out of a mother making a martyr of herself.

"And because I have enjoyed myself, my children enjoy me. They wait upon me, laugh and joke with me, and give me about two-thirds of their salary every week without my asking for it. "I am still very young looking, and keep myself so. I work hard to keep my own circle of friends and my personal interests, apart from my children's lives. I am always willing to play with my children, but I also realize that I have had my girlhood and I don't expect to live it over again in their youth.

I believe in people of my generation 'acting their "Moreover, I have prepared my children to make happy homes for themselves and am looking forward to the day when they will leave me and go into a greater happiness than I can give them. "Probably some of your readers will consider me an inhuman, unnatural and selfish mother because of this, and yet I know of no home that is happier than ours. "Do you think I'm a failure? "JANE HARDING." Is she? What's YOUR verdict, stranger? sports snorts, tie said he could isht arenas is that she felt she'd the scene with the analytical eye xt a. reporter by instinct. As a child, Florence was interested in the theater.

School and travel abroad only served to heighten that interest. She studied or view, sne ioiu us iuc uuici mj. "I can sympathize with the sons the famous Grange his "Galloping of great men who are trying to Ghost name by a poem he wrote achieve some success of their own. about Red Imagine what a disheartening thing Florence writes verse for her own it must be to a talented young man pleasure. She never has attempted to hear or merely realize that peo- to sell any of it or get it printed.

i ru ho rfru She is sure it will be heralded as get me a break. But I said wreck her screen voice if she kept I wanted to get my own jobs and it up. As it is, she has a hard time stand on my own feet. I did, too. restraining herself even when she -Since I hadn't grown up in Hoi- just tunes in her radio the theater in Europe and back in eooJ 7hins-whrwou't with The daughter of GmntTand XSert1 Through the broad 1wood where everyone would know I suppose it awfully silly." she rSSiertSoutL Rice" Those who have read acquaintance of her father, she 1 as the daughter of a famous says "but that's, the way prize t.

tnr verse say it is swell. But still Flor- came in contact with the best lit- man' I could keep that dark. Of fights affect me I just get all keep plugging for him cially prominent woman given to energetic organization of char- i 'ty festivals and such told his friends "I am a fugitive from the course, the minute I landed a part steamed up until everyone wants ence merely puts it away. She is erary and dramatic mind3 of her distinguished by the complete lack time. and filled out biography forms at to know who's that girl making the studios you know you have to terrible scene down at the ringside.

of affectation. tell about your parents the pub- "Even football doesn't affect me -o-o- licity departments would find out that way. I can sit on the 50-yard and wham would go a story to the line and act like a perfect lady, ex- cept for an occasional yelp of 'hold 'em' or Many a sports celebrity visited her father. So, too, did men and women of the theater and Florence used to sit in admiration of these thespians and mentally drink in the experience these figures displayed in their conversation. Florence decided she wanted to go on the stage.

"I knew dad could get me a part in some play if I would let him," she says. didn't want that. I "I am amazed that any sons of famous fathers or daughters of famous fathers or mothers, for that matter ever become famous themselves. To know that everyone minimizes your own efforts by crediting any success to the efforts of the father is enough to make a person give up trying." This fact is one of the reasons Florence did not become a newspaper woman. She did not have an urge to be a reporter but, since she -was always watching her father write and reading his stories, it was natural that she would want "The first time I ever went to a prize fight was back in New York papers that 'Grantland Rice daughter today was signed' "But I kept on and continued to learn and before long I was just Florence Rice, an actress, and people forgot I was a big man's little girl.

Anyway, I began getting leads and folks in Hollywood don't hand FLORENCE'S early life was just what you'd expect from the daughter of a famous man and of a sports figure. She was born in Cleveland on a Feb. 14, which, if the writer's recollection of holidays is still as good as it was when he was a schoolboy, happens to be Valentine's day. Undoubtedly, the press recorded the fact that Grant- with Dad. I forget now who was junior League." Even larger than the trunk In which Ed Wynn transports his fancy hats and gag library, Is the luggage box made for Marion Pierce of the "Three Waltzes" company, by Sol Alper of the II.

and M. Trunk which specializes In out-size portmanteaux. It's 70 inches long, half again as ong as Wynn's, because Miss Pierce is a tall girl and gets into double when it comes to packing. nO SERIOUS EATER should miss the magnificent article in the current "Town and Country" by Harold S. Kabn, which tells about food if more New Yorkers would eat honest Dutch break-with five or six sorts of meat and lots of herring there would be er hargovers around Cecil Beaton, sometime photographer Conde Nast, but now returned home to England, after that unfor-Jnate incident, is reported to have told a friend who met him at the that he was going into politics.

"Haven't you," asked the uienH i fighting. But I was terribly dis gusted at first when I saw women acting the perfect lunatic and screaming 'give it to him and other leads to persons who might flop decided that dad, with his fame, was on them just because they want to remarks. Uses of Printed Square The printed square ordinarily designated as a scarf has. added more uses now that the aprc type of frock has become pop ilar. You can fold it into a triangle, and tie it around your waist to give your frock that Swedish look if you tire of the square as a neckline decoration.

There's the alternative of a hood or platochek as well the handy idea of transforming the square into a knapsack. be nice to someone's father." land Rice and wife received "a love- a decided handicap to me. I knew "Then, the first thing I knew, they were tugging at my coat try to do some writing magazine sto- ly valentine today when a daughter that, if he got me a break on the was born" Files of papers will ing to get me down from my chair where I was standing, yelling at the Florence feels that she has received the last laugh on her father, however in that "father, daughter" business. A year ago, Grantland Rice came to Hollywood on business and vis- ries, articles, maybe novels and surely poetry. "But I knew that whatever was published under my name would be sure to be greeted by the re- stage, I might never know where I was making mistakes or how bad I was.

I thought that they would just keep me on in a little part, eyen if I did turn out to be terri- top of my voice. It's pretty embar- show anyone who has more ambition in looking up past clippings i than the writer. For Rice was famous even before Florence was en mere long enough?" Continued on PACE TWO TEST FOR YOUR GIRL FRIEND By DR. GEOR W. RAN TURN TO PAGE FIVE.