Reading Eagle (September 19, 1940)
HOLLYWOOD’S LEADING ACTORS MAY ESCAPE FROM CONSCRIPTION
Washington, Sept. 19 (AP) –
It’s a good guess today that none of Hollywood’s handsome young leading men will be drafted from the studios into Army training camps.
Selective Service experts privately expressed the unofficial opinion that stage, radio and movie stars probably would be deferred from service because of their importance to a so-called “essential industry” – essential, that is, in maintaining civilian morale by entertainment.
Among the better known and higher paid Hollywood figures who are within the draft age and more or less without dependents, except perhaps their agents and some ex-wives, are James Stewart, Wayne Morris, Eddie Albert, Jeffrey Lynn, Lew Ayres, John Carroll, Dennis O’Keefe and Cesar Romero.
Whether or not they will be deferred, however, will depend upon how they are classified by the local boards in their home districts. And if they should be deferred, they cannot even volunteer for the year’s training – the law specifies that.
There will be no general exemptions for whole industries or occupations such as motion pictures, radio, theatres, railroads, airlines, automobile manufacturers, etc. Each man’s case will be decided on its own merits. A board might rule, for example, that a man’s industry was essential but that he himself was not essential in it, or that one plant of a big firm was essential while another was not.