The Pittsburgh Press (August 23, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, the OPA, which is evidently celebrating the end of the war in its own little way, has caught me flatfooted again. I woke up this morning and found they’ve gone and taken the price ceilings off birdcages, spinning wheels, glass furniture, wigs, magicians’ tricks and other useful things. Goodness, the spinning wheel item surprised me. I didn’t know we had an OPA during the Revolutionary War too.
I was heartbroken to find the ceiling was off glass furniture. If I’d only been smart while the price was low, I’d have bought some entirely glass beds, so the maid couldn’t sweep dust under them.
But I’m not as unlucky as some folks. I can imagine how Jack Benny will suffer when he sees that the ceiling price has been taken off wigs and toupees.
The Pittsburgh Press (August 24, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, Emperor Hirohito’s white horse is getting to be even more famous as an animal than Mary’s little lamb. Which is only fair, since it was discovered the horse was born in California, and the lamb wasn’t. At least, not recently, according to my butcher.
It just goes to show that you can’t keep a native Californian down. They took this one clear across the ocean to a foreign country where he didn’t know a word of the language, put a harness in his mouth, and a son of heaven on his back, and he still got most of the newspaper notices.
Goodness knows, I don’t know what the horse’s post-war plans are, but they’re undoubtedly brighter than his Japanese master’s. My guess is, being a blond, the horse will probably turn up at Mr. Zanuck’s movie emporium with Betty Grable and my friend Flicka.
The Pittsburgh Press (August 27, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
My, I’m afraid the post-war future of us human beings won’t be half as exciting as that of chickens. Last week, I read that atomic energy would make chickens lay eggs faster. Now, today, I read that clothes can be made out of chicken feathers. The soft part of the feather is used and George has already made a tiny joke about a “down” payment.
Ladies, now we’ll be able to buy suits in hen, spring chicken and bantam sizes with colors from Plymouth Rock to Rhode Island Red. They say the new material will be softer than wool. Goodness knows that I’ll do with my old woolens. Probably the only fair thing is to make little overalls out of them for chickens who might catch their death of cold without feathers. Anyway, now I know why a chicken crosses the road. It’s to get away from all these post-war plans.
The Pittsburgh Press (August 28, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
Well, Congress is going back to work almost a month early, and I’ll bet they’re pouting. I know how children would feel if school started ahead of time. And Congressmen are just grown-up children. That is, some of them are grown-up.
Furthermore, I guess they know what’s coming. The Nazis and Japs are defeated, leaving nobody left to yell at but Congress. And Congressmen are even better targets than baseball umpires. You can call them names without paying for a seat in the grandstand and getting mustard on your best pair of gloves.
Anyway, the poor things had a nice vacation playing guitars and appearing in plays before it was time to answer the roll call and put an apple on President Truman’s desk. Good luck, folks, and don’t stand up going around the curves.
The Pittsburgh Press (August 29, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
Well, goodness knows I don’t know much about this reconversion thing. But I’m having fun watching the people who run the gas stations frantically trying to retool their etiquette to peacetime use. All of a sudden the customer is so right it makes you dizzy. I’ve had my windshield wiped until the glass got thin, and water poured in my radiator until the car almost floated down the street.
It’s not much like the old days when the attendants let you sit there for hours while they studied the racing form. Some of us find the change a little hard to get used to. For instance, George went into a station yesterday for a quart of oil and the owner said, “Please, Mr. Burns, get up off your knees.”
Yes, you can well tremble, Mr. Butcher. Your turn is coming next.
The Pittsburgh Press (August 30, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – I see the Japanese call their Congress the Diet, which is even funnier than the names we call our Congress. I don’t envy the Diet one bit because they have to meet and try to explain the surrender nicely to the people.
It reminds me of the time I happened to run into a parked car. I explained to the owner that nobody would try to steal it now that the fenders were such a mess, but he didn’t think much of the explanation.
Maybe the Diet could tell their people there really wasn’t a war at all, and the whole thing was just something they ate. Anyway, for a ticklish job like this, the Diet ought to get in touch with the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce. Anyone who can explain California weather can explain anything.
The Pittsburgh Press (August 31, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Dear me! I’d say it’s just as well that tall, handsome General De Gaulle ended his visit here when he did because he was beginning to upset two classes of people in this country – the men he was kissing and the women he didn’t. as a woman of the world, I realize that when one Frenchman kisses another, it’s a mark of respect, but it’s hard for Americans to get used to the idea. George respects Jack Benny, but he’s never dreamed of even holding his hand.
It’s fun to see the newsreels of the men to whom the general paid his respects. Poor General Marshall looked like he was signing the terms of surrender after we’d lost a war to Switzerland.
And did you notice the one person the general didn’t kiss when he met him was Mayor La Guardia? I guess the general was too dignified to kneel down.
The Pittsburgh Press (September 3, 1945)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Have you been wondering what will happen to all those radio war commentators now that the war is over, or don’t you care? Goodness, they were emotional! Sometimes I couldn’t tell who was most angry at us – the Japanese or the war commentators.
Heaven knows what kind of jobs they will get now. Can you imagine one of those military experts at the information desk of a department store saying, “You can always get pinkbrush toothpaste on the sixth floor, unless they’re out of it; it may be on hand, although the claim has been made that it isn’t; time will tell, although it may conceivably refuse to do so.”
Or can you imagine Gabriel Heatter, as a regular commercial radio announcer, coming on with, “There’s good news tonight: Nussbaum’s nightshirts will not creep up and strangle you in your sleep.”
The Pittsburgh Press (September 4, 1945)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – My goodness, I certainly wish some of our waitresses and bus drivers were helping Gen. MacArthur with the occupation, so they could ask the Japanese if they hadn’t heard there was a war going on. The Japs are bowing and scraping and handing out pink lemonade and giving us sweet little bouquets of flowers arranged by the same girls who used to work in factories and arrange the TNT in bombs.
Gen. Homma and Gen. Yamashita can scarcely get their hats on over their halos, and all the other Jap generals are trying to pretend they only wore soldier suits because they were going to a masquerade. The big manufacturers are very much hurt and puzzled, too. They say they had their machinery set to make baby carriages and all of a sudden, to their horror, tanks started coming out.
The Pittsburgh Press (September 5, 1945)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, wherever you turn now, you can see little signs that show the country is getting back to normal. The hen that lays the square egg is beginning to get its share of newspaper space again. Cigarette butts are being tossed away instead of kept in safety deposit boxes and they’re busy choosing Miss America in Atlantic City. But I’ll bet none of the gals will look as good to our returning boys as that Miss America is New York harbor called the Statue of Liberty.
Personally, I don’t mind bathing beauty contests. I think they’re educational. When they show them in the newsreels, George always begins to take great interest in world events.
California sent a cute blonde to represent us at Atlantic City. And I’m sure she’ll do us proud. When she got on the train at Union Station, even the locomotive whistled.
The Pittsburgh Press (September 6, 1945)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, I suppose children have always hated to go back to school. But this year it’s lots worse. Lots of the kiddies have had good-salaried jobs in war plants and they’re more interested in earning than learning. Goodness, I don’t envy the teachers who have to teach all these little Rockefellers in rompers! The tots will probably demand overtime pay for staying after school. And George says they’re probably much more interested in Wall Street reports than McGuffey’s reader.
I noticed in a newsreel last night the authorities had got Bing Crosby to urge the kids back to school, but all the time he was talking I noticed Bing kept looking out of the corner of his eye to see if his four boys were paying attention.
The Pittsburgh Press (September 7, 1945)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Goodness, those scientist fellows are making more predictions these days than the woman at my favorite little gypsy tearoom. Now a Britisher says before long we can take rocket trips to the moon, and I hope that old story that it’s made of green cheese is true. It would be worth going here to get some good cheese again.
Of course, if the place gets popular and they start selling real estate, I’d like to get a lot there in exchange for one I bought at a famous California mountain resort. It might be nearer a railroad station. However, I don’t imagine a lot of people will really want to live there. Can’t you just hear the cook complaining about the daily rocket service?
Besides, George says the moon’s real name is Luna, and who wants to be known as a lunatic?
The Pittsburgh Press (September 10, 1945)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, our fellows have picked up another Japanese girl who used to work on the radio as Tokyo Rose. I suppose the Japs kept a few spares around in case one of them got blown up while she was advising our soldiers to quit because they didn’t have a chance. My goodness! I hope this country never goes in for plural radio performers. If we had three Mr. Anthonys, we’d all have to pitch in and suffer in our spare time.
Another Axis celebrity in the so-called entertainment world landed in jail when the British arrested Max Schmeling, the former boxer, in Germany. George says they shouldn’t bother to try him – just send him over here and turn him over to Joe Louis.
The Pittsburgh Press (September 11, 1945)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, you notice it didn’t take Los Angeles long to get back into the old tourist game. Now we can advertise a mountain lion hunt within our famous city limits. This mountain lion, according to an eyewitness, killed a deer that was drinking from a pool near Sunset Boulevard.
The story confuses me because it said the lion jumped on the deer from a bank. I don’t know what it was doing in the bank unless it was hired to bite people who overdraw their accounts. Goodness, if the banks are doing that, I’ll have to take lessons from a lion tamer.
Anyhow, that’s more proof I’ve had recently that California hasn’t lost its wild and woolly pioneer flavor. A girl friend of mine was telling me last week a wolf jumped at her in front of a drug store.
The Pittsburgh Press (September 12, 1945)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Goodness knows I’ve heard enough lately about post-war inventions and problems but I didn’t expect any post-war cattle rustling. George says it’s probably because of the beef shortage, and he explained cattle rustling meant stealing cows. I guess they call it rustling because the thieves make a rustling noise like a bale of hay and the hungry cattle follow them.
It seems to me a cow is a very unhandy thing to steal. You can always bury stolen money in the backyard, but if you tried that with a cow, the board of health wouldn’t like it. And I’m sure the cow wouldn’t either.
I offered to buy George a sheriff’s outfit, cowboy style, so he could call himself Creep-along Burns and go after the rustlers. He said it was beneath his dignity to notice that kind of a remark.
The Pittsburgh Press (September 13, 1945)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, I see in a dispatch from Washington that the OPA has finally got around to putting a ceiling on hula girls. With winter coming along, they certainly need something on them, but I don’t think a ceiling will cover the right territory.
Anyway, according to the OPA specifications, when you have your picture taken in Hawaii now, it will cost only 50 cents if you’re alone, but it will cost an extra quarter if a hula girl poses with you. It’s easy to see that 25 cents goes a lot farther in Hawaii.
George says that with hula girl photos, it’s not the original cost anyhow – it’s the upkeep. If your wife or sweetheart should find it in your wallet, it will cost you a fortune in flowers and candy to make her believe you were simply an innocent tourist.
The Pittsburgh Press (September 14, 1945)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, it’s certainly nice to know that there’s one thing science can’t affect. It can blow up cities and make molehills out of mountains but it doesn’t impress the good old-fashioned horsefly. These scientists invented an insecticide called DDT that killed all kinds of bugs for miles around, but the horsefly just kept right on horseflying.
Mind you, I think science is wonderful and very scientific, but it scares me. A fellow invents something to pull tacks out of a carpet, which is fine. But it gets out of control and soon it’s pulling small towns out of Kansas.
That’s why it’s comforting to hear science has met its match. While other people are taking trips to the moon, when they really only wanted to go to Jersey City, I’ll stay home and feed DDT to the horseflies.
The Pittsburgh Press (September 17, 1945)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, that War Production Board has taken the control off men’s clothes first and I think it’s very unfair because I believe in equal rights. I think every woman has the equal right to be first.
Now men can get fancy pajamas and shirts with tails long enough to tuck in, while we’re still wearing our wartime skimpies. Not that I begrudge George a decent shirt tail. He’s been going around looking like Bing Crosby after a wrestling match and our laundryman once asked me why my husband had buttons on his handkerchiefs.
I can just picture those War Production Board fellows parading around in pajamas with extra frills, drunk with power. Don’t they realize the intimate garments of their own wives are so scanty that it’s been years since anybody said, “Your slip is showing?” Where is their chivalry?
And where is our lingerie?
The Pittsburgh Press (September 18, 1945)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – I see the Duke of Windsor says he would take a job if he were offered one and he thought he could do it well.
Well, that just shows you that being a king is pretty poor training for getting along in the business world. You notice the duke talks wistfully about being “offered a job.” I suppose it wouldn’t look well for a man of his social position to go out looking for a job or to read the want ads.
And Edward says he wants to be sure he could do the job well. This really isn’t the way to impress a prospective employer. The employer wants somebody simply bursting with confidence – at least it’s that way in Hollywood.
It’s too bad, but I guess about the only job for a king is being a king. And those openings are getting rarer and rarer.
The Pittsburgh Press (September 19, 1945)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, I see that Will Hays is going to leave the Hays office and let somebody else take over the job of making the movies a pure, but still a paying, proposition. I must admit that during the time he was in charge of movie morals, I’ve never been shocked at a picture, although after sitting through a double feature, I have tingled a little.
I really think that Mr. Hays deserves a rest. It must have been quite a strain to stand there while some actor kisses Maria Montez, and do nothing but hold a watch to see that kiss didn’t last too long.
And imagine looking at Esther Williams in a bathing suit and having to decide if there’s too much Esther and not enough suit!
If the new man needs any help, I’d be glad to volunteer. I could gaze into Charles Boyer’s eyes to see if that sleepy look calls for censorship or just for a pair of glasses. And I wouldn’t charge for overtime.