Walter Winchell

Evening World-Herald/September 6, 1939

At 2:33 a.m. September 4, the London telegraph agency flashed a dispatch reporting that Prime Minister Chamberlain had just read a proclamation to the German people via a French radio station, in which he stated that Great Britain did not declare war against the German people, but against Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime . . . The suggestion was sent to the prime minister in a cablegram acknowledgement of which has arrived.

Talk about picturesque reporting — get this from The World-Telegram of August 80 . . . Unintentional, perhaps, but wonderful, anyhow: “Associates of Hitler said his face is always serious these days, but that his entire attitude is one of claim” . . . It couldn’t have been a linotyper’s accident . . . It must have been a linotyper’s genius.

The “Exhibitor,” a trade paper, reveals the sense of humor of J. W. Crabtree, manager of the Paramount theater in Clarendon, Ark. . . . Crabtree reviewed Goldwyn’s film “The Cowboy and the Lady” this way: “Oberon was no draw, Cooper was no draw, so when a picture has no drawers it doesn’t do so good out in the ‘crooel’ woild” . . . Writer Wolfe Kaufman reckons the career span of a film comic is three years, seven months, three days . . . Gwan! We’ve seen some of them that long in one picture . . . W. C. Fields wants an income tax refund of $33,006, claiming he spent the coin on necessary sleight-of-hand lore and health buildups . . . Uncle Sam should pay off — as a bonus to the first film star who didn’t list the expense as “entertaining the press.”

We are as glad as the actors and stagehands’ unions are over the settlement of their differences of course . . . Gladder, maybe, because about three weeks ago, during the Atlantic City meetings, the column reported that the actors would win — that Sophie Tucker would be taken back into the Equity group — and that Ralph Whitehead and the AFA would be the only victims . . . Which is exactly what happened Sunday night.

Short-short: The former owner of the Prague Coal company, one of the richest men in Czecho-Slovakia before the Nazis burgled it recently, arrived here penniless . . . Through a friend (an advertising agency), he got a job with a Brooklyn radio station where he now conducts “The German Hour.”

Add picturesque reporting: From August True Magazine, in “I Saw the Shooting of Dan McGrew:” “Behind the bar swayed McGrew, a cigaret in his mouth, a gun in each hand, and all three smoking.”

Whatever happened to the controversy that raged here — over Thanksgiving day? . . . Most exciting line by an NBC broadcaster from Berlin was his closing, to wit: “Good-bye, lucky America, so long!”