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INSIDE HOLLYWOOD bv Herb steJ HOLLYWOOD, Calif., May 11. — The Friars came up with a walloper Roast-master Dinner honoring Phil Sgt. Bilko Silvers. Regret we cannot give a blue-by-blue recap. But heres part of a letter Jack Benny wrote to Phil when Bilko walked off with those Emmy Awards. Jack wrote it, but somehow failed to post it. He read it at the dinner: "Mary and I want to congratulate you on winning the Emmy Awards. I was also nominated in two categories — Best Comedian and Best Comedy Show. To say Im not disappointed in losing the awards for these two categories would naturally be a ridiculous statement — but Mary and I both feel that as long as I had to lose — there was no one in show business we would rather see win than you — even though personally I do not think you are as good a comedian as I am, or Bob Hope, or Jerry Lewis, or Red Skelton — or Adlai Stevenson. In fact, W. C. Fields is a better comic than you RIGHT NOW . . . Now I know you have a pretty good show, Phil, and there is no easier way to get laughs than ridiculing the Army — but youve got r lot of nerve playing a sergeant when in real life you were 4-F . . . Getting back to the Emmy Awards, which is evidently the highlight of your long but only recently successful career: DONT LET THIS GO TO YOUR HEAD! Remember what happened to Anna May Wong and Wayne Morris. Even Stalin was popular six months, ago — but today they realize he too was a jerk in uniform . . . There is nothing I can add to this letter but my sincere congratulations, admiration and love. Will see you at the Friars dinner, if I CANT get out of it." AAA TIME RESEARCHING a story on TV-reporters and their news cameramen purportedly getting preferential treatment over regular newshawks at press confabs in Washington, New York and here . . . Capitol Records signing movie names for disks even if they have no singing background. Bob Wagner and Rita Moreno, f rinstance . . . Adela Rogers St. Johns now a Doctor of Religious Science in Dr. Ernest Holmes church . . . Unusually heavy demand at Time, Inc. back in New York required a second "press" run of the mimeo research compilation for the Marilyn Monroe cover story. Everyone in the place clamored for a copy of the unedited collectors items . . . Wag says that if The Monroe marries that Broadway playwright, shell take on a name as theatrically famous as her own — Marilyn Miller. AAA NEATEST CAPSULE COMPLIMENT for Cyd Charisse in "Meet Me in Las Vegas, comes from Memphis, Press-Scimitars Edward Howard, who writes: "I love my wife, by Oh-you Cyd!" . . . Nick Ray, working on the James Dean life story, hopes to make it into a picture. Big problem: wholl play Dean? . . . Today, when a parent wants to tell the children about "The Birds and the Bees," the kids flip: "Never _:mind, we saw the picture" . . . Most dated actress on the 20th lot is Lili Gentle, the 16-year-old . . . Bow-wow, Sheilah Grahams estranged spouse, is sending her flowers and urging her to reconcile . . . Definition of a communist: an anarchist who takes Miltown. FOX HAS COMMITMENTS for two or more pictures with the following top marquis-insurance monickers: Gable, Peck, Brando ... A mining friend of Alan Wilson hit a bonanza. Discovered some uranium that contains lanolin . . . Wilson just signed the papers to work with Slapsy Maxie Rosenbloom on the latters life story, hoping for the triple-play: mag serialization, book publication and movie buy . . . Wilson, by the way, has sent the script of his "Joe and Asbestos" TV series idea to Eddie Foy Jr. for consideration . . . The Cuban government isnt very high on "The Big Boodle," Errol Flynn starrer currently shooting there. It deals with counterfeiters operating in Cuba. AAA WARNERS HAS BETTER than , a quarter of a million fish invested in the. mechanical fish for "The Old Man and the Sea" . . . Ernest Hemingway has been actively involved in the production confabs of "The Old Man." At several points he was asked how he thought such and such a scene or sequence should play and all hed say, quite quietly, was: "I liked the way it was in the book" . . . The Vegas Riviera grabbed the entire press tab at the Friars Roast for Phil Silvers, who opened at the Riviera last night for four frames. AAA HET MANHEIM, WHO was film chief in India for the OWI during World War II., had a visitor here from India recently named Krishna Chandra. During his two-week stay, Chandra watched television j very closely. He . saw "Medic," "Medical j Horizons" and several other TV shows inj which medics were heroes. His comment: "The United States is suffering from doctor worship."
