March 24, 1958

A Beverly Hills lady named Eve is willing to stipulate that–at the
moment at least–it’s a very temporary world, particularly for those
who aspire to the drama.

A few mornings ago she was visited by a tax assessor who confided after
a few minutes’ chat that he wasn’t regularly a tax assessor. He was
really an actor but things had been a little slow.

That afternoon Eve went to the hospital for an operation. She was lying
in bed, reading Variety, when a man came into take a blood test.

Seeing what she was reading, he asked if she was in the entertainment business. No, she said, but her husband was.

"I’m an actor," he said, "but things have been a little slow and you know how it is, a fellow has to make a living."

YOU KNOW HOW cold and efficient and merciless Boris Karloff is when he plays the part of a mad scientist or a zombie?

Well, there he was in a market at Sunset and Laurel Canyon boulevards
the other day, tugging mildly at a shopping cart telescoped into a
whole batch of them, trying in vain to get it loose. A magnificent
study in quiet desperation.

Finally, reports writer John D. Weaver, a woman at the check stand
finished with her cart and Boris, in great relief, appropriated it to
do his shopping.

AN ENGINEER from Northrop Aircraft Inc., gave a talk the other night at which films of the development of the Snark missile were shown.

A spy who was there reports the engineer commented wryly, "You’ve all
read about the trouble the Navy had getting the Vanguard into orbit
after so many of them plopped into the sea. Well when we were testing
our missile at Cape Canaveral we used to refer to the Atlantic Ocean as
‘the Snark-infested waters.’ "

AND THIS profound
but devious reflection came in a letter Mack Tuesley received from his
mother: "Glad the Navy finally got its grapefruit into orbit, although
it is a little difficult for me to understand why they went to all that
trouble and spent all that money, never knowing what these experiments
will discover. I suppose it’s a case of not knowing what we can’t get
along without until we have one. Like my new dishwashing machine."

ONLY IN L.A. — If
anyone has wondered what all those people are looking at in the store
window at 837 N. Fairfax Ave., they’re gazing at the 7×5-foot oil
painting titled "Oscarama," by artist Ted Gilien, whose studio it is.
He brought it out in front to commemorate the Academy Awards Wednesday.

It’s a brutally satiric study of movie types, men and women, at the
"moment of truth" when they receive their statues. And in the
background center, just for the heck of it, Ted painted himself and his
wife with three-count ’em–three Oscars in front of him.

AT RANDOM —
Heather Lowe, 2, got into the aspirin and was rushed to Santa Monica
Emergency Hospital. After a pump job she came out beaming, holding a
lollipop and balloon. Turned out these are budgeted items at the
hospital, kept on hand for just such cases. Very nice … Pat Buttram,
CBS radio funnyman, bought a new home in Northridge with swimming pool,
push-button garage door and other luxuries–but you know what impressed
him most? A gold-plated weather vane on the roof … The Manchester
Guardian reports a famous inn near London had a notice in superbly
appropriate orthography: "Whet Paynte." Which is about as quaint as you
can get … A reader who is sensitive about such things reports that he
heard Gen. Gruenther say on a TV program that "over-all-wise" the Red
Cross campaign was doing very well.