Star Tribune from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page 8

Oct. 12, 1947 MINNEAPOLIS SUNDAY TRIBUNE 8 I il Broke, Mike Todd Seeks New Laurels on Broadway 1 mm i ML tix Show Producer Owes a Million, Blames Horses Ry WIM Mlnnrcpollt Trlhene BUff WrIUr NEW YORK Mike Todd may be broke, but he isn't letting on. He's off in two directions after more dough. "I'm going to make cheap movies," he announced last week while his attorneys still were wrestling with his bankruptcy action in federal court. partments are functioning perfectly." Todd, 38.

left Minneapolis at the age of 12. In Chicago he got a job as a drug store clerk because he was small enough to crawl into a hidden compartment to get the bootleg whisky the proprietor kept there. At 19, he reputedly had $100,000 in the bank after cleaning up on a prefab housing scheme. But bankruptcy isn't new to Todd. That early fortune was wiped out when a bond house went broke.

Todd went to California, setting himself up as a soundproofing expert for movie studios in the early days of talkies. Back in Chicago, he wrote radio comedy. FAIR STARTS HIM Chicago's World's Fair started him in the girlie show business with "Streets of Paris," for which he devised the "flame dance." Money from traveling girlie shows financed "Call Me Ziggie" and "The Man From Cairo," which flopped on Broadway in 1936 and 1938 respectively. "Hot Mikado" was his first success. At 17, Todd married Bertha Freshman, in Chicago.

They separated in March. 1945. She died in August, 1946. Their son, Michael, 17 entered college this fall. Todd and Joan Rlondell's Aquatennlal visit was really an extended honeymoon.

Since then they've moved Into a large farm home In Connecticut, along with Miss BlondeM's two a a. --r-rrv. I -t 9 P1 He was at the same time ready ing a new Broadway effort which he calls "a play with music. I picked up scraps of informa movie. It will have a budget of $500,000.

"That's cheap these days," he said. "It's the only way a showman can make out. Good showmanship but cheap production. The only thing that won't be cheap is the script. "If you've got a good script, you can make it go." THOUGHT UP STORY His first picture will be titled "Busman's Holiday." Todd said he got the original story idea himself from newspaper accounts of the Bronx bus driver who took off for Florida in his company's bus.

"Isn't it funny that title hasn't been registered before?" he said. "I about fell over when they okayed our registration." Todd said he will make his pictures in New York. His "play with music" is now being written by Anita Loos and Victor Wolfson, with musie by Alstone, French composer. Its present title Is "Montparnasse." "I'm going to change that title," snapped Todd. "I don't like it.

Can't pronounce it." Todd's biggest hit. "Up In Central Park," grossed $6,000,000. Of that, he says, his cut was He estimated he made to $300,000 apiece on "Star and Garter," "The Hot Mikado." "Something for the Boys," and "Mexican Hayride." Other productions, including "Catherine Was Great," and several World's Fair shows earned him somewhat less. BACKERS SECRET Since Todd's business enterprises are not involved in the bankruptcy action, it's hard to get a true picture of his real financial status. He has always made it a point to keep his financial matters vague as far as the public is concerned.

While his "Hot Mikado" was playing at the New York World's Fair, a New York Times reporter asked him: "Every day your auditors are trying to prove to Equity (the actors union) that you can't make any money. And every day your press agent sends out stories saying that you have the biggest hit at the fair. How do you reconcile this discrepancy?" "All I have to say," came back Todd, "is that both de tion about Todd's plans during 1 one of the most maddening interviews I've ever had. The little sharpie from Bloom- Ington, who became one of Ji "i I) children. MIKE TODD AND JOAN BLOND ELL.

Celebrated wedding with champdgne; now broke Coincidental with the Todd bankruptcy action, Miss Blondell last month asked her former husband, actor Dick Powell, for an additional $14,000 a year for support of the two children. 5 Marines Die in Auto Crash FREDERICKSBURG. VA. UP) Five marines were killed and a sixth injured In an auto-truck Colony, two of the most expensive restaurants around; Fifth avenue outfits like Cartler's and Dunhlll, assorted furriers and florists and a limousine rental outfit. I'm, to pay off all of those," said Todd.

"I'll he able to transfer money from the moving picture company to pay them as soon as we get going." Todd had just returned from Hollywood with his wife, movie star Joan Blondell, with whom he visited the Minneapolis Aquaten-nial shortly after their marriage last July. While in Hollywood, Todd said, he had lined up Hollywood money to back up his first "fej jjft jt I DlntMt Chairs 9.95 Chsst of Driwir 59.50 crash near here Saturday. tions with people who went by in the corridor, yelled to his secretary to get an assortment of people on the phone in New York and Hollywood. Hollywood could not have presented a more jazzed-up picture of a busy Broadway producer. NO WORK, ALL TLAY Part of his financial troubles, Todd said, were due to the fact "I've just been playing around fpr the last year and a half.

I haven't done any work." Collecting the profits from two hits which closed only last season, he said, he didn't consider work. "I didn't produce anything: new." As security for the $600,000 note, Todd's bankruptcy schedule claims he has in hock a number of 3Iako Up Viiur Own IJviii-lliiiin Sloom All piaeat composing this eaquitite tmbl ara in perfect harmony. Comet in beautiful bleached solid hard norther Michigan maple that always gives complete satisfaction. You can order as many or as few of the pieces shown as you with. Note the listings below and the attractive prices.

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died in the hospital here. Identification of the other four men has been withheld by Quan-tico marine base. FIVE-PIECE DINETTE Th. built small Insurance policies, 25 per Broadway's most fabulous producers of money-making hits, was "being cagy. He has the most authentic Brooklyn tongue that ever came out of Blocmington.

"How can a guy who's had so many hits and made so much money go bankrupt?" I asked him. SWEARS OFT GAJEBLING "That's a good question," he said, casting a ly glance at the celling and flicking an ash off a long: half-dollar cigar. "I'm going to tell all about It when I start an outfit called Gambling Anonymous. You've heard of Alcoholics Anonymous, haven't you? Well, this is going to be Gambling Anonymous." Todd, adjudged bankrupt in federal court, has just filed a schedule claiming liabilities of more than 51.100,000 and assets of some $275,000. Mont of the assets, he claimed, were in hock to secure a $600,000 note.

That note eemed to bother him most. "Before I could get going with this movie company, I had to take a little bath," he said. "I was on that paper for $600,000 and I had to get that cleaned up. "It was a little race track deal." Todd's reputation as a race track gambler Is a Broadway legend. 1 wondered naively if the guy who held the note was a bookie.

BOUGHT RACE TRACKS 1 "You flatter me!" exploded Todd, amused. "That would be something, wouldn't it, a bookie letting me go in for that 'much? Naw. I bought a race track. Del Mar." Todd took a telephone call. He wouldn't talk about his "gambling" any more.

"You'll have to excuse me if I seem evasive," he said. "In my position, I have to be that way. My attorneys are mad at me now. I wouldn't talk to you at all If you from Minneapolis." Our "interview" took place in a dark and rather shabby office over the Playhouse on V. Forty-eighth street.

All the while we talked. Todd walked in and out, answered phone calls, held shouted conversa- cent of a movie to be based on Superior workmanship throughout the entire set. $TO50 WITH PIERCED-BACK CHAIRS. Edna Ferber's "Great Son," and some worth of right in "Up In Central Park," "Mexican Hayride," "Something for the I 5 PIECE DINETTE I WITH ITRaS? a A FabrIcs UPHOLSTERED BACK CHAIRS 3 DINETTE TABLES To Choose From 36x50 33x45 $39.75 33x33 S29.7S All 3 fooet etfenrf 10-1. Iv4 ALL THE CREDIT YOU NEED 1 $9450 Boys," "Star and Garter," "The Would-Be Gentleman," "January Thaw." 'The Naked Genius," "The Man From Cairo," and "Catherine Was Great." REFLECTS GAY LIFE His unsecured debts include $165,000 to the federal government for taxes; to New York state for taxes; $69,177 to the American Broadcasting Co.

for sale of a theater; $30,000 to Dorothy and Herbert Field, musical playwrights, for royalties; $18,000 Ik I SECTIONAL PIECES 4 SOATS atO EACH frrm dtlirtry up ia 200 milrt en any purihott of 120 or ever to composer Sigmund Romberg for musical royalties, and some $75,000 worth of additional loans. The list of smaller creditors raeks with the gay, high Broadway life: Toots Shor's and the SEP MONDAY STORE HOURS 12 NOON TO 8:30 P.M. HOME TRADE i lew STORE. U4NICQLLD AtkhrAiminl By PIANOS official piano of the Metropolitan Opera kmmui NO MORE WHEN THESE ARE GONE established 1837 the KNABE "400" $1575 A triumph of admiral research! Completely new amazingly different! Featuring a specially designed retractable precious metal pick-up point. Miracle tone arm.

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