The Baltimore Sun from Baltimore, Maryland • 109

THE SUN, BALTIMORE, SUNDAY MORNING, APRIL 27, 1924 Q5i ft. Si it Alyce McCormick, Beauty Contest Quits Wry in 'High for Life of Service in Her Dear Old Omaha pilll Miss McGormick was called back from New York by the City of Omaha so that the honor, sought by almost every girl in. the city, could be given that of being "Miss America" in the an- nual municipal festival Did Alyce suddenly come to feel that the life of. an actress was iot her real mission in life? Did the faces of her poor outcasts haunt her as she danced through her light, frivolous 1 numbers Did the thought they might be needing her gnaw at her very soul, even as she laughed and sang and made merry for the Broadway thousands? No one can say. In leaving the stage for the street corner she would only say something was calling 4ier back.

She could not help it. She had to go. Then Alyce added: religion has protected me here as nothing, else in the world could have Hfino- Tt has hftvn t.b means of Ravine Alyce McCormick, the Volunteer of Winner, Gay White Disgust Over STAGE DOOR 4 After all her quests on Broadway, where almost overnight she became a sensation in one of the hits of the season, in which she appeared as a headliner, pretty Alyce "chucked the whole business" 'I I'll $ional fashion 4 beauty contest, sweet Alyce had. won out again. That Broadway should have found Miss McCormick seemed almost' inevitable.

Here was her sweetness, her" humility born of nights and days serving as a handmaiden of the poor, here was hex amazing beau ty, her almost perfect and stately figure. The, stage did find Alyce. Back on Broadway Tna Claire has been singing the praises of her find. And soon there came to her an offer from one of the theatre's most noted producers. She was ff as "a start a minor part in one of at musi mm 3 n-m i -I mu i iiuiiw America lass who sang and played her way into the hearts of thousands on the street, turned her back on the fame a fortune, a stage career offered and has returned to her- au.diences of the street TV 9 mm more the dark garb of the army of the poor? These are questions Broad- way also ponders over the phenomenon of a beautiful "girl who raised the cup of fame to her lips only to dash it away.

These are questions for students'of psychology to think about in examining the details of the life of a young woman who had the courage to act as she saw fit. Ever since she was four years old Alyce did missionary work among the needy and the poor. When she was a little girl, with long auburn curls, she was the first "woman" who ever sang in Charlestown, N. prison. She faced rows of grizzled, whiskered faces and sang with a trace of fright.

Many of these men had been imprisoned for a long term of years without seeing a single woman or child. Tears came into their eyes as Alyce sang, and as her father carried her from the building many reached out gently and touched her clothing and caressed her curly head. Night after night, whatever 'the weather, she sang on the street" corners to her own guitar or mandolin accompaniment. However grudging the crowd, Alyce passed the hat until the coins jingled merrily. Christmas after Christmas, as the years of her girlhood flew, she gave out baskets and innumerable more cheering even than the provisions contained in the lowly containers.

And all the while, in her demure blue cloak and bonnet, she preached and led in prayer: She ministered to the down-and-outers, kept books and conducted "testimony meetings" in a bus-. inesslike manner. During the hot. summer days, with the heat making her auburn hair all the curlier, her cheeks the more like wild roses, she sang in the prisons of Trenton, N. Joliet, Lincoln, Leavenworth, and Los Angeles Calif.

A singer in prisons, a worker on the street, a member of that strange, blue-garbed army of self-effacement which some pity, which some marvel at, accord- ing, to the way they look at things; a salvation army lass, nothing more or less that, was Alyce McCormick. Then the hand of fate was felt. What happened next- in the life of the little maid of destiny sounds like another ver- sion of the Cinderella legend. So much water has run under the bridge since then that it seems years ago, but it was, in reality just a little more than a year that one of the fate' sisters in the I '4 me much unhappiness. It is, dangerous to take a man at face value.

I think it is the quickly formed acquaintanceships that are most dangerous of all to. girls of this country today These hurried acquaintanceships make the brief unhappy marriages, the sordid tragedies of life and they could 'easily be avoided. Fpr, of course, there are parties for every girl on Broadway. You can associate with the best or the worst just as you like it." But could you? A ND that? was all. And now Broadway Iiiti VlllJf olllB 'Oh, Don't You Re cal successes of the winter, headed by Trini, the famous dancing beauty.

Youth is youth, though, and the call of it is strong) In the end Alyce did what every normal and pretty girl put in the same set of circumstances would have done. She signed the contract which was to eventually make it possible to play herself right into the heart of Broadway. She offered her resignation to the Volunteers, but they would not accept it. So she said she was only looking on her stage work as a wider field and that on Broadway she hoped to be just as much a soldier of the cross as when she was-singing hymns and saying prayers on street corners. OOON it was decided this part was too insignificant for one whose charm and capability were so outstanding.

A better" part in another musical show under the same production followed and another more important role still. Then came decision of the famous Broadway producer to give his "find" three months' strenuous training under the ablest of instructors and at the end of that fime to star her in one of the famous "annual revues. Here was fame knocking at her very door. Night after night, day after day she worked. Her work, was the talk of the producers.

She was a second Ina Claire, the one who had found her she was nothing short of that. And -then something happened. With, fame and fortune within her grasp, Alyce walked into the producer's office one morning with her baggage in one hand and her contract in tlfe other. She wore the simple little blue serge in which she had arrived on Broadway. She came to tell she was leaving The producers were thunderst.ruck--what had come1 over their, star? But persuasion and 'promises and a bigger contract had no appeal.

She. was going back back to preaching and playing to the down-and-outers of her beloved Omaha. 8 43k member Sv.et Alyce can learn no more of why the Great White Way is after all not going to see the debut as a star of the bright-eyed little dancer they had learned to call a saint. But there are those who; say little Alyce of the Volunteers may yet come back.They wonder if, like Fred Stone, she may not some day decide the stage may be more of a place for doing good than any other. 0 4 II TRO ADWAY is the sign post of gayety and success.

It is the world's merriest and most successful thoroughfare. Many a girl would give all she possesses to scintillate in the midst of the joviality and advantages of this famous street. But happiness, like gold, is where you lind it! Perhaps that is the truest explanation that ever will be given for the strange decision of pretty Alyce McCormick, the salvation army lassie, who won her way to that bright dizzy goal which is the aim of almost every maiden with a. win some only to suddenly relinquish all her triumphs and go simply back to her tambourine. TTOW a demure bonnet-clad street rescue worker of the famous army -of salvation won her way into the flitter of stardom in the most sophisticated revue the Great White Way boasts is part of this surprising tale.

Alyce is the daughter of Major and Mrs; F. A. Mc- Cormick, battalion commander of the Volunteers of America in five Middle-Western States. She is also the granddaughter of Mrs. Maud Ballington Booth, founder of the organization.

But after a quirk of fate had landed behind the footlights, from musical success to musical success she whirled. Managers clamored for her. Famous artists besought her to pose for them. Wealthy, youths pampered and courted her as such chaps will pamper and court a brown-eyed girl with curly auburn hair who has jumped into sudden favor on the stage. Then at the very threshold of high fame Alyce McCormick threw it all over, Broadway's living saint has gone back to her kettle on a street corner in Omaha, her home town; back to her down-and-outers; back to those bands of singers who whether the world laughs or listens, chant faithfully on.

WHY did Alyce McCormick give up without a sigh or regretr yet with gladness, that wmcn so many girls would give their lives to achieve Did she enter the inner portals of Broadway only to find the life too sophisticated and too blase? Did the temptations that stalk in the path of every pretty girl on the Great White Way. frighten her and urge her to 3es as she would the very evil one 't Or "was it neither of these two reasons all? Was It simply the call of duty that urged little Alyce to throw off her pretty spangled stage crress and don once I i fl shape of Ina Claire, the actress, came to Omaha for a week's run in one of her comedy successes. Coincident with this, the Volunteersof America were sponsoring a bazaar to finance a picnic for poor children. Some far-sighted person had suggested that a local beauty contest be held in connection with the bazaar and Miss Claire was accordingly selected as one of the judges. One can just guess what happened when this dainty and fascinating actress laid -eyes on Alyce.

She insisted army or no army she go in the contest. Alyce. protested, but finally gave in. Of course, she won and life from then on was a long series of winning prizes for this demure little lassie of the Volunteers. Destiny moves fast once she gets started, and the first thing the granddaughter of Mrs.

Booth knew she was on her way to Atlantic City, on her tacked the name "Miss for in a contest to discover who was the prettiest girl in Nebraska and who was to journey to the gay and picturesque resort to represent her tiome State in a big na- Copyright, 1924. I I It is.not so very long ago that Alyce McCormick played up and down the streets of Omaha. In the picture she is shown with her father, Major F. A. McCormick; Mother McCormick and another Volunteer pf America worker.

Alyce stands between her father and mother, and now she is back, at the work she. loves best of all.