view raw text
INSIDE HOLLYWOOD system HOLLYWOOD, Calif., June 3. Main reason for Ava Gardners visit here: a medical check-up. . . . 20th-Fox Director of Operations Jim Ru-man, chairman of the Civil Defense and Disaster Board for Los Angeles, is sending Mayor Poulson a letter of resignation today. Hopes Hizzoner will accept it after seven years of a brilliant job in handling the CD post. . . . Memo to Jackie Gleason: You sure blooped in failing to take an option on Charlie Leonards "The "Big Brother." XJ-I producer Howard Pines now interested in it without ya. Ditto Warners. . . . Joanne Woodward will marry a man she never met Monty Clift, in "the Young Lions." . . - John Huston and scripter Charlie Grayson back from scouting locations in the Orient for Eugene Frenkes "The Townsend Harris Story." Theyll shoot at Kyoto. Huston and Grayson take off pronto for Mexico to work on the script. . . . Marie MacMonald telling folks in Vegas that a new boy friend is gifting her with a white Lincoln convertible. ... As for Mike Wilding, gone for six months of pic making abroad, the buzz is that he was glad to be outta town to duck Maries Vegas opening. AAA What happens to TV writers? Norman Paul, with Edgar Bergen for years, has opened , a restaurant called El Matador in Tijuana. . . . Used to be a crush of Holly wood celebs at the good fights here. But at the Moreno-Cotero slugfest at Gilmorei Field earlier in the week, ringside seats were washed clean of em. . . . Robert Young j ends a two-month vacation this week end, resumes shooting "Father Knows Best" Monday. . . . Cameron Shipp X-rays Lawrence Welk in an upcoming S. E. Post. Cams title: "Country Boy With Great Big Band," but thats subject to editorial change. t As readable a book as you will find on show business is Eddie Cantors "Take My Life," written with Jane Kesner Ardmore. Some Will Rogers quotes, in the tome: "Dont worry if a man kicks you from behind, it only proves youre ahead of him" "Congress is so strange. A man gets up to speak and says nothing. Nobody listens. Then everybody disagress" "The United States is a great country, Eddie; we never lost a war and never won a conference" "Everyone knows the world is round, but if it werent for the United States, the worldd be flat." . . . On Rogers generosity, Eddie writes: "In the 30s when acting jobs were scarce Id meet actors at Bank of America in Beverly Hills and they werent taking out, they were putting in checks from Will Rogers. He was sending out weekly checks to down-and-out actors as if they were relatives. There were actors who turned down extra jobs because they were getting better pay from Rogers for nothing." Bette Davis shoots a telefilm next week for General Electric for viewing next fall. She says shes nuts about TV because it moves so swiftly has none of the head- j faches of retakes, the great energy-sapper of the movies. . . . Insiders whisper is that the current rhubarb in the PCC stems from a clash between the top personalities of Oregon State and the University of California. One source says the Oregon State rep has been told: "However California votes, vote the opposite." Explains why senior footballers at UCLA and USC wont be permitted to play in the fall. . . . Item here May 14 that "the next major tinkering with edging into entertainment production for TV is U-I" was confirmed the 29h with the story that the studio has made its first sale of entertainment TV via a "Woody Woodpecker" series. Desi Arna,z brewing a teleseries idea thatd co-star married showbiz couples. . . . Next weeks TV Guide covers Lassie. In its inside story the mag reports: "The trouble with a sliow like Lassie, a human-type friend of Lassies mused recently, is that boys grow up and dogs dont. This in essence is the reason behind the sweeping change in the three-year-old award winning show about a boyand his dog." And thats way, beginning in January, everyone on the show will be new except the dog. Tommy Rettig, 16, has been playing an 11-year-old. . . . Clint Walker has a weight problem he lifts em. Its about all he does in his spare time, being dumbbell happy to keep his figure. . . . Hollywood couple recently reconciled. Shes telling friends: "We smoothed out our indifferences." . . . Joe E. Lewis, the sage of El Ranch Vegas, says: "The toughest problem confronting the younger generation is the older generation."
