The Pittsburgh Press (January 28, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, lots of people are saying that it’s too bad we sorties of today don’t have the hardy pioneer spirit of our forefathers. They point out that strikes and shortages wouldn’t bother us a bit if we pitched in and made the things that are lacking with our own hands. I’ve seen them get so excited about this that they loosen their collars – made in Boston, roll up the sleeves of their shirts – made in Chicago, and pound on their furniture – made in Grand Rapids.
I’ve tried this pioneer thing but, goodness, I frankly admit that my efforts haven’t turned out so well. The butter I tried to churn was sort of a cross between a milkshake with lumps and a polish for yellow shoes. And if George only wore the clothes, I made on a spinning wheel he’d be cold – and arrested.
The Pittsburgh Press (January 29, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – My goodness, I certainly keep meeting the handsomest governors. And luckily, they seem to be distributed all across the country, too. There was Gov. Tobin of Massachusetts for the East, Gov. Green of Illinois representing the Middle West, and now I just met Gov. Wallgren of Washington. He’s the first political man I ever met whose eyelashes are longer than his speeches.
Meting men like Gov. Wallgren in politics makes you think things can’t be so bad after all. There’s an air of confidence and assurance about him. But then I guess that’s because he doesn’t have to run again until 1948.
And believe me, the governor is very brave, too. Anyone is who comes visiting in Southern California and then brags about the wonderful scenery back in his home state.
The Pittsburgh Press (January 30, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – My goodness, every time I pick up a paper, I see that another airplane speed record has been broken. An Army flier has just crossed the continent in a little more than four hours.
It’s possible now for a man to leave San Francisco by plane and be at the place where he lives in Los Angeles in 45 minutes. Isn’t that remarkable? Imagine anyone having a place to live in Los Angeles!
We’re living in the air age, all right! Of course, Congress has been living in it for years, but the rest of us have just got around to it!
Soon it will be possible for people to live in Los Angeles and fly to work in Denver, Boston, Buffalo or any other place. Our Chamber of Commerce already is investigating the possibilities, and I’m sure that before long they will suggest we change the name of the country to the United States of Los Angeles.
The Boston Globe (January 31, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, now Army scientists have contacted the moon by radar, and if the people there are smart, they’ll pretend they’re not at home. There is also talk of space ships making excursions to the planets pretty soon, and it begins to look as though Lana Turner, Betty Grable and a certain Miss Allen are going to have other celestial bodies for competition.
But goodness, I hope the countries of the earth don’t get into any quarrels claiming the planets as colonies now. If Hitler had come along a few years later, he undoubtedly would have screamed that the moon and Mars were pushing the master race too far, and something would have to be done about it.
Gracious, there’s no limit to the wonders of transportation. Rockets, jet planes, spaceships – why, someday there may even be new autos!
The Pittsburgh Press (February 1, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, I see that science is now going to bring out some plastic furniture that we won’t have to dust because dust can’t settle on it. As nearly as I can understand it – which is not very nearly – a chair will give out positive charges, repelling dust, which gives off negative charges.
That’s all very well, but it sounds a little dangerous to me. Take my sister Bessie, who, according to George, always has had a very negative personality. If she sits in this positive chair, it’s liable to repel her clear across the room. Personally, I’d rather have her a little dusty.
And, goodness! I don’t want to have any chairs around shooting off charges, anyway. All I want is a quiet place to sit, and I’ll take care of the dust myself.
The Pittsburgh Press (February 4, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
I used to envy the President because he had a place like the White House to live. My friends envy anyone who has any place to live. But that was before I found out the poor President has 531 landlords.
When he wanted a little million, 650-dollar addition to his home, who did he have to ask for it? Congress! Not only did they say “no!” like most landlords, but some of them were so sore they wanted to cut his salary, too. At least my landlord couldn’t do that to me.
I certainly wouldn’t want to live in a place where you have to get an act of Congress to have a leaky faucet fixed. Come to think of it, even if Mr. Truman did get one, where on earth would he find a plumber anyhow?
The Pittsburgh Press (February 5, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
Did you see where a Los Angeles man is suing his wife for divorce because she charged him $5 a kiss? She says she did it to discourage him ad I’ll bet it worked. Can you imagine the poor man coming home from work with love in his heart and only 80 cents in his pocket?
There might be possibilities in putting other phases of domestic life on a cash-and-carry basis, though. For instance, a wife could charge her husband $2 for getting his breakfast, $1 for making his bed, or 18½ cents an hour for not talking. Not having his mother-in-law visit them might break him, but it might be worth it.
But charging your husband for kisses – good heavens! That’s ridiculous. Why, if I charged George $5 a kiss, he’d owe me darn near $10 a week!
The Pittsburgh Press (February 6, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – I see the editor of a prominent vegetarian magazine says we should stop beefing about meat strikes and shortages and become vegetarians. We are all digging our graves with T-bone steaks, according to him.
Well, maybe, but even he must admit they make delicious shovels. And can you imagine what George would have to say if he came home to dinner expecting a thick juicy steak and I put a rutabaga roast in front of him?
No, I’m afraid once a meat eater, always a meat eater. So when there are slaughterhouse strikes or meat shortages I just go to the butcher, turn on my most dazzling smile and flutter my eyelashes at him. He’s one man I still have George’s permission to flirt with.
The Pittsburgh Press (February 7, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Goodness, the battle of the sexes seems still to be going on, and that’s one battle even the United Nations’ Organization can’t do anything about.
A group of women meeting in Los Angeles said that man was still dominating women, but they seemed to think a good push would topple him over. They’re getting ready to do the pushing, too, and I think it’s a big mistake.
I don’t want to dominate George. If I did, he might not wash the dishes every night like he does now, or run errands for me, or pay for all my clothes. No, I like it the way it is, with the poor dominated woman running things and the big, strong, domineering husband doing as he’s told.
The Pittsburgh Press (February 8, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – My, I see that a doctor is warning bobbysoxers not to wear things lie sandals and moccasins because they cause flat feet. Oh well, as long as he didn’t war them not to wear bobby socs. Theres’s enough competition for nylons as it is.
But the doctor has me worried with his moccasin and sandal theory. If he’s right there won’t be a good pair of arches in one single Frank Sinatra fan club. The girls will be showing their feet to prove how long they’ve been members. The flatter, the longer.
Personally, I think this worship of movie stars such as Van Johnson and Frank Sintra is too ridiculous for words. Imagine those silly girls running after Johnson or Sinatra – when thy could just as easily run after Charles Boyer. And you don’t need moccasins for that, either.
The Pittsburgh Press (February 11, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – My goodness, what aren’t governments up to now! I just read where the House of Commons was upset because the British Treasury had allowed the transfer of $1600 to New York to pay a motion-picture producer’s bill for getting his teeth fixed there.
A government financial official said the producer had been warned to be more economical in the future, and I think that the British government was very lenient, considering. My goodness, suppose they’d have passed a law making him send those new teeth back to America?
But I guess that producer learned his lesson all right. Next time he has a toothache, he’ll hurry right down to the House of Commons and open wide.
And he’d better take an ice pack along if he has to sit through a debate there on how much he can spend.
The Pittsburgh Press (February 12, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, I see that the OPA has taken action against an Alameda, Cal., woman who is said to have charged her apartment house tenants $1 a month for parking their baby carriages in her garage.
I’ve heard about social security extending from the cradle to the grave, and I guess this covers one end of it.
Of course, $1 a month isn’t expensive if the attendants at this garage give regular service – you know, check the tires, clean the windshield, see if the formula is low, change the diapers, and powder the upholstery.
Oh, well, it used to be practically necessary for a presidential candidate to be born in a log cabin. Perhaps in a few years candidates will go around boasting they were so poor they didn’t have a roof over their baby carriage.
The Pittsburgh Press (February 13, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, I see Lady Astor has been having a lot of fun on her visit to dear old America, the land of her birth. The best hope for world peace is British and American cooperation, she told a conference in Washington, waving a nail-studded olive branch. The trouble with the world, said she, is that we’ve been having too many arguments, and she’ll start a beauty with anyone who says she’s wrong.
Lady Astor also said women should play a larger part in international affairs, because they don’t start wars. But goodness, how some of them can start an argument!
However, I do think all us girls should admire Lady Astor for what she has done for our morale. No man ever thinks of women as the weaker sex when she’s around.
The Pittsburgh Press (February 14, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – I do so love St. Valentine’s Day. I remember George used to bring me a box of the finest candy he could afford and I would let him kiss me. It wasn’t good candy but I loved it. Now that we’re married, things are about the same. The candy he brings me these days is a lot better, but on the other hand, his kisses aren’t quite what they were.
This year I sent my frilliest Valentines to the butcher and creamery man. And the one that went to our landlord read, “If you loved me like I love you, you’d fix the roof and plumbing, too.”
The dairyman answered, “I love you more than pen can utter – but what the heck, I’ve got no butter.” The butcher however got sentimental, and actually permitted me to buy a beef heart.
The Pittsburgh Press (February 15, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Oh dear, according to a leading dance expert, the sailors all love to jitterbug and the soldiers won’t dance to anything but the slow numbers. Another hurdle in the way of people who want the Army and Navy to merge! They can’t even dance with each other.
This expert explains that soldiers don’t like fast music because their tootsies are tired after all that marching and drilling, while the sailors’ dogs are in good condition because their owners don’t use them. Goodness, if our soldiers are too exhausted to jitterbug, I wonder how the Germans and Japs feel. They must be sitting out all their dances.
The Pittsburgh Press (February 18, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
I see that Mayor William O’Dwyer of New York City has decided after a month in office that he’d better go into training for his job, so he’s working out daily in a gym. I’ll bet Mr. LaGuardia never considered that.
To him a gymnasium work-out would seem too much like resting.
Mr. O’Dwyer is taking steam-baths and letting a masseur work on him every day, but I can’t help but fee he’s wasting money that way. After all, he can get the same results for a nickel any night around 6 p.m. in the subway.
I guess the good people of New York thought there’d be quite a few changes when the Little Flower quit blooming and a new mayor was planted, but things have been going along just about the same. Except, of course, that the attendance is one less at every fire.
The Pittsburgh Press (February 19, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
Well, a military authority has said that we’re sure to find a counter-measure for the atomic bomb. He pointed out that every new weapon seems frightful at first, but we always figure out some way to block it. It struck me that this doesn’t apply only to weapons.
Goodness, the double-feature movie was pretty frightful at first until we thought of taking rubber cushions along with us. And the permanent wave eliminated the practice of women appearing at breakfast with a head full of tin curlers.
Mind you, I don’t say we haven’t had our failures here and there. So far, we’ve worked out no counter-measures for middle-aged women who wear bobby socks or men who wear their wives’ hats at parties or people who eat peanut-brittle in theaters. George says the invention of the shot-gun takes care of all those cases, but that seems a little too drastic.
The Pittsburgh Press (February 20, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, as much as a Californian hates to brag about California, I must admit that we have our fancy moments. Up to now the dullest subject in the world has been the weather, but Los Angeles made it much livelier by just having a shower of real purple hailstones. I presume that the next step may be mauve dew or robin-egg blue rain or even a nice shocking-pink flood.
I thought of using the purple hailstones to put under chickens as decoys and encourage them to lay ready-dyed Easter-eggs, but I decided against it. Too chilly for the feathered dears.
The Pittsburgh Press (February 21, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Gracious, I’m glad to find that Vice Adm. Alan G. Kirk, our new ambassador to Belgium, believes as much in the power of the press as I do. It seems that Adm. Kirk couldn’t find any stiff shirts and an ambassador without a stiff shirt is an unusual as President Truman without a crisis.
But Adm. Kirk believes that now his trouble has gotten into the newspapers he may get hundreds of shirts from sympathetic readers, although he modestly admits he would settle for a dozen.
Goodness, both George and I can testify to the generosity of newspaper readers. I’ve gotten nylons and George received some shorts made out of several big salt bags that tided him over the great short shortage of ‘45. So, chin up, Adm. Kirk!
The Pittsburgh Press (February 22, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Girls, it was to be expected, and if we didn’t see it coming it was our own fault. I mean those ideas some of our returning servicemen have picked up about Japanese women.
The boys say that Japanese wives are slaves to their husbands. They never nag, never buy silly hats, and they wait up for their spouse with his pipe and slippers instead of a rolling pin. And what’s more, they hint, that’s the way they would like American wives.
Well, girls, our side won the war and our sex isn’t going to lose the peace. Personally, I’m not getting talked into any of those Japanese customs. No one’s going to catch me going out to afternoon tea in my kimono, that is, unless my husband buys me a kimono made of mink.