The Pittsburgh Press (February 25, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
My goodness, I knew that Texas is our biggest state and that they do things in a big way down there, but I wasn’t prepared for what a Texas newspaper publisher told a group of reporters the other day. He said the housing shortage is as good as over, because they have a machine in Texas that lays two-bedroom concrete houses just like a hen lays eggs.
He didn’t say whether the contraption cackled when it laid a house, but if it does, I’d rather not be around when it happens.
Gracious, can’t you just picture yourself ordering a house like that from the man who runs the mechanical hen? You’d probably say, “I’d like a nice house, please, sunny-side up, with the white part paneled in knotty pine and southern exposure throughout the yolk.” Fascinating age we live in, isn’t it?
The Pittsburgh Press (February 26, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, I don’t know whether it’s the Ingrid Bergman influence or not, but all the lady dentists who attend a convention in Chicago seem to be approaching dentistry from the psychological viewpoint rather than the actual business of chipping at teeth.
For instance, the lady dentists all agreed that you should definitely not tell your child that the dentist won’t hurt him, because junior will soon find out differently, and then he’ll be as mad at you as he is at the dentist.
The lady dentists claim it hurts them as much as it hurts the youngster when he comes walking in, expecting a pleasant, painless afternoon, and then gets his little brain knocked out.
Therefore, mothers, be sure to tell your tot that the nice dentist will positively hurt him, and then junior won’t hate you after he leaves the dentist’s office. He’ll hate you before he goes.
The Pittsburgh Press (February 27, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, a group of ladies in San Francisco has organized a movement to replace young screen lovers with men of a more thrills to women who are “frankly over forty,” but I don’t believe their opinion will have much influence on the movie industry.
In the first place, movie producers are in business to make money and they can’t make money unless they get audiences. And where in the world would they find enough women who admit they’re “frankly over forty” to make up an audience for the tiniest theater?
The Pittsburgh Press (February 28, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, I see a nudist organization is making speeches and urging people to join their movement when all they actually need is a little patience. If they’ll just sit around and wait, the clothing shortage will make nudists of the rest of us whether we want to be or not.
The head of the nudists believes we’d be assured of world peace if everybody took their clothes off. He says that people understand each other better when they look alike, and that in the natural state it would be hard to tell an American from a German. Maybe so, but my goodness, clothes or no clothes, I’d never make the mistake of confusing Hermann Goering with one of those Oklahoma Aggies basketball players.
The only argument I can see for nudism is that if I stayed out in the sun too long it wouldn’t be so noticeable that my nose was peeling.
The Pittsburgh Press (March 1, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, engagement rings for men are becoming fashionable and it’s about time, too: Men have had an unfair advantage with nothing to show that they’re private property. A man could meet somebody attractive and not mention that he was engaged, but an engaged girl has to slip her ring into her purse and run the risk of losing it.
Another good thing about male engagement rings is that a girl wouldn’t be so apt to break her engagement and give her ring back to a man with one of his own. He could then pawn two rings for enough to buy a nice present for some other girl.
Wedding rings for men are growing more popular too, but George says every married man already wears an invisible wedding ring. It’s in his nose and his wife leads him around by it. He’s so cute – and so right!
The Pittsburgh Press (March 4, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
Well, Gov. Jim Davis of Louisiana came to Hollywood and got right into the spirit of things by making tests for the lead in a cowboy movie. If they turn out well, don’t be surprised to find all the producers dipping into politics for a new crop of stars.
Ex-Secretary Ickes might fit into a whole series of curmudgeon pictures such as “The Scream of the Curmudgeon,” “The Curmudgeon Blows Up” and “The Curmudgeon Bites People.” And quite a few senators could qualify for a part in a horror movie where Dracula and Frankenstein would meet a congressman instead of a wolfman.
Goodness, if politicians decide to make pictures as a sideline it should bring out some interesting campaign slogans this fall. Like, “You’ve seen me at the Strand – now send me to the Capitol” or “If I’m good enough for Bergman, I’m good enough for you.”
The Pittsburgh Press (March 5, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, someone in Parliament has suggested that instead of sending Scotch whisky over here the British should keep it all at home to attract American tourists. That wouldn’t bother me, but I hope other nations don’t get similar ideas about their products. It would be pretty inconvenient to make a trip to China every time you wanted a pot of tea, or to buy a doughnut and then realize you’d have to go clear to Brazil if you wanted to dunk it in coffee.
And think how upsetting it would be if you went all the way to Persia for a melon and then decided you’d rather have Swiss cheese!
But it will be quite a while before we travel from country to country looking for exotic foods. Right now we’re too busy traveling from market to market looking for oleomargarine.
The Pittsburgh Press (March 6, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – My goodness, I’ve been reading about this island that’s coming out of the water near Japan, with a strong odor of sulphur and great clouds of steam arising from it as it forms.
Gracious, I had heard that the housing shortage was out of this world, and here’s proof at last that it’s true. One of the worlds to come must be short of housing facilities, too, and it isn’t hard to guess which I’m talking about.
Well, you really can’t blame them for wanting to spread out down there. They’ve been getting a new crowd who have always wanted plenty of lebensraum. What’s more, I’m sure the old occupants are more than willing to give it to them. They’ll spoil any neighborhood they move into, even in a place like that.
The Pittsburgh Press (March 7, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, here’s another tragic aspect of the housing situation. Not only are a lot of our citizens without places to live, but it seems that Uncle Sam has about 17,000 homing pigeons without any homes to fly to.
Just when he is up to his neck in international and reconversion problems, he has to remember to rush out and feed all those pigeons.
The upkeep of the pigeons is costing the government a pretty penny, and now it’s trying to give them away. But with domestic problems what they are today, no one wants to add a flock of hungry pigeons to their family.
But, goodness, it’s going to be interesting, when new homes become available, to see who gets there the quickest – the pigeons or the people.
The Pittsburgh Press (March 8, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, I see that an anthropologist says that people are doing too much thinking. And they’d better slow down before the tops of their heads grow too large and the bottoms of their faces too small. Goodness! I think he’s unnecessarily alarmed, thinking hasn’t hurt my looks any, and I do it two or three times every day.
Personally, I think this anthropologist is a little off on facts. If the part of the anatomy we think with gets bigger, some of our leading politicians would never find a hat that was small enough, and their jaws would be developed like prizefighters’.
No, I can’t swallow this theory that the more we think the less attractive we get. According to this, Van Johnson would be terribly stupid, Charles Boyer even more so and Clark Gable an absolute moron.
The Pittsburgh Press (March 11, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, I think one of the nicest things about our democratic way of life is the way our leading public officials practice up to work at something useful if they should ever retire from their present offices.
Here President Truman has been tooting whistles and acting as engineer on his special train, and a while back I saw a picture of Gov. Dewey of New York doing his best to drive a nail helping someone build a house or something. Come to think of it, it must have been something because who can build a house these days?
Anyway, you take most foreign rulers when they leave their jobs instead of going fishing they immediately start thinking up schemes and revolutions to get back in again. Can you imagine President Truman doing that?
The Pittsburgh Press (March 12, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Mr. Bernadotte, who was Prince Carl Johan of Sweden until he married a commoner, is in Beverly Hills with his bride on their honeymoon. Mr. Bernadotte, like the Duke of Windsor, gave up a royal position for love. My goodness, it looks like when you’re in love, smorgasbord doesn’t taste any better than Yorkshire pudding.
There wasn’t much danger of Prince Carl ascending the throne because he was only fourth in line, but the duke was sitting right on it, polishing his tiara, when Wally beckoned. My, I wonder if he ever thinks of comfy old Windsor Castle these days as he and his duchess, like the rest of us, search frantically for a house.
Well, the renunciations by the prince and the duke for the women they love certainly make beautiful stories. But if Darryl Zanuck ever put them on the screen, he’d be accused of being a hopeless romanticist and told that such things don’t happen in real life.
The Pittsburgh Press (March 13, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, a lady who runs a charm school in Chicago says that girls really prefer men to be wolves. And why not: If all men are beasts, it’s more fun to live dangerously with a wolf than to sit around with a stuffy old sheep who’s forgotten how to gambol.
She says that if a wolf gets too aggressive a girl should just laugh at him.
Suppose he does the same thing and goes off laughing, leaving you stuck with the dinner check!
The Pittsburgh Press (March 14, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Lord Halifax, the British ambassador, has the chickenpox and everybody is concerned that Winston Churchill may have caught it while visiting him.
I don’t believe he will though, because big black cigars that Winnie smokes would make any microbe keel right over and beg for mercy.
I thought only children had chickenpox, but my doctor says adults often catch it and other children’s diseases, too. Wouldn’t it be nice if some of our senators got an attack of something like whooping cough when they were about to speak? There are times when a cough would be a big improvement in the Congressional Record.
The Pittsburgh Press (March 15, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – I see that a New York judge has ruled that people shouldn’t annoy their neighbors by sending policemen over to stop them when they’re playing the piano at night. Well, I hope this doesn’t happen in Hollywood, because the policemen who have been sent to stop our piano playing have often turned out to be Irish tenors and they become the life of the party.
However, I do think it’s a good idea to control the grouches and grumps who hate to hear anybody laugh and have a good time. Usually the ones whose ears are so sensitive at night are the same ones whose noses are stuck into everybody’s else’s business in the daytime.
I must admit though, that a neighborhood pest once made George very happy by calling him when in the middle of “Ain’t Misbehavin’” and asking him to stop that singing. All previous calls had asked him to stop that dog howling.
The Pittsburgh Press (March 18, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – I’ve just met Gov. Blue of Iowa (not to be confused with Gov. Green of Illinois). Some people think he’s visiting here to round up the votes of all the Iowans who have moved to California but I think he just got plain lonesome for the sight of an Iowa face.
We have enough Iowans here to make Hollywood known as the corn belt even if we didn’t have the movie studios and the radio programs. And plenty of refugees from other states, too. A typical Hollywood scene is a line of Kansans and Georgians waiting in line for a New Yorker to vacate an apartment owned by a South Dakotan.
In fact, California is so full of outsiders that you can scarcely blame a little boy who was born here for being upset. He came home from school crying because the other children had called him a native son.
The Pittsburgh Press (March 19, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, a statement made by a New York hair stylist had done more to make millions of American women happy than a shower of nylons from Heaven. He said that women over 30 are more attractive with a few wrinkles because they give character to the face.
Now a woman who can’t afford to have every line ironed out or filled in won’t have to wear veils or just be seen by candle light. When a man gives her a close look, she’ll have the feeling that he may be saying to himself “what character” instead of “what a character.”
If the idea catches on, we may even have beauty shops that specialize in placing a wrinkle or so where it will bring out the most personality. Imagine an ad that says “Madame Mignonne guarantees to give you that prunelike appearance.”
The Pittsburgh Press (March 20, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Oh goody, girls, we’re going to have a showdown with the men at last. The women’s division of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce is tired of listening to men make bright remarks about women drivers, so it’s going to keep score nationally on the traffic troubles each sex gets into.
Well, I hope most women drivers are as careful as I am. I never fail to put out my hand when I stop suddenly in the middle of traffic to admire a hat in a store window, and if I’m driving along a one-way street I always leave plenty of room for cars that are going the right way.
Naturally, I’ve had a few minor accidents, but they were never my fault. Once a parked car drove right into me, and another time, when I was backing out of a filling station, one of the gas pumps tore off my rear fender. Fine place to leave a gas pump, right in the middle of a filling station!
The Pittsburgh Press (March 21, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – I see Gen. MacArthur reports that the Japanese are going in for freedom in a big way, one indication being that they now have 90 political parties.
My goodness, we have only four major political parties ourselves: The Northern Democrats, the Southern Democrats, the Eastern Republicans and the Midwestern Republicans.
I’m afraid the Japs have overextended themselves a little. With 90 parties their babies are going to need plenty of stamina around election time to withstand kisses, and the men won’t do too well either if each candidate passes out cigars.
George says the Japs used to make good jugglers back in vaudeville. Well, they’ll have to be sensational if they’re going to keep one candidate in office and 89 in the air.
The Pittsburgh Press (March 22, 1946)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – I see that Hermann Goering testified that he didn’t loot Europe of art treasures. He said he paid cash for everything he got, and I believe it. He probably called his playmate over at the Reichsbank and said, “Max, I’m going shopping – print me some money.”
What’s more, Herr Goering complains that on several occasions he was cheated. Well, that shows you what happens when art connoisseurs indulge in little hobbies like trying to conquer the universe.
Goodness, if Hermann had had time to make a thorough investigation of those Rembrandts and Titians he bought, he probably would finally have found out they were really only French postcards.
But I guess between running like mad for his air-raid shelter and telling the population of Germany that they could never be bombed, he was really much too busy.