Kindly Artist

    A woman came into artist Leon Frank's studio and said she admired his work and wanted to buy one of his paintings.  He showed her several, ranging in price from $150 to $500.  She was hesitant and finally she said, "Do you have anything old?"

    "Of course," he said.  He went into the next room where he had another batch of finished paintings, returned and said, "Here's one for $7."  She was pleased with it and bought it.

    One of his students who had observed the transaction asked why he did it — $7 was less than the cost of the canvas.

    "Just because she didn't have any money," Franks said quietly, "didn't mean she wouldn't appreciate it."

    IF IT'S timeless you're looking for, we've got it today. 

    An audience-opinion card was received at MGM studio the other day from E.H.C. of Burbank — 33 years late.  It was for showing of a movie "Slide Kelly Slide," starring Sally O'Neil, William Haines , Harry Carey and Karl Dane and, according to the date stamp on the card, was previewed Feb. 19, 1927.  E.H.C.'s comment: "Just found the card.  As I recall, the picture was OK."

    NO TRUTH to the rumor that Our Leader plans to lead a posse to investigate and assemble a dossier on "the wild tribes of the inner mountains of Mexico."

    Meanwhile, much more seriously, an arrogant, gratuitous insult to half a million people hangs heavy in the air.

    IT NEVER FAILS
Belts are made with notches
For waistlines-slim or fat.
But at the place where my
    belt fits
There are no notches at.
            PEARL ROWE

     THE ROUTINE news account of the death of Christina Wentworth, 41, and her husband Hampden, 43, of Rolling Hills, when their private plane crashed on take-off from Reserve, N.M., rang a mental bell for writer Victor Boesen, who interviewed her for a magazine article in 1952.

    In 1938, fleeing from Franco after her husband's death, she walked across the Pyrenees carrying her infant son Peter.  Now 25, he survives her.  She made her way to Vienna, where she appealed to U.S. Ambassador George Messersmith for a quota number to come to this country.  When he asked why she wished to enter the United States, she recited the Bill of Rights, taught her by American volunteers in the Spanish Civil War.

    Years later, when Messersmith was ambassador to Mexico, she called on him and asked why he had expedited her entry.  "I felt you would be a good citizen," he said.  Oddly enough, Messersmith died Jan. 29, in Houston, at 76.

    Mrs. Wentworth was taught to fly by Earnst Udet, a famous German aviator, and accompanied her husband on distant trips.  One time their plane went into a spin when her husband blacked out at 17,000 ft. over the Andes.   She righted the plane with one hand and clapped an oxygen mask on him with the other.

    A woman of great force and character, Boesen recalls.

    SIGHT OF the week, observed by Clarke S. Wood, SC graduate student:  On a cold, foggy morning a youth of about 15, wearing a gold gym suit over long johns, was riding a racing bike on Lincoln Blvd. in Santa Monica — and smoking a  cigar . . . Herb Stinson nominates as the city's best woman driver the lady who at midday yesterday piloted her new car precariously but safely westward on one-way eastbound 6th St. between Main and Spring Sts. — where an awed gendarme greeted  her.

    AROUND TOWN — Goodie Knight has been giving the race results on KCOP, filling in for an ailing sports announcer.  A connoisseur in this matter reports he does fine . . . Oops, Mrs. Carmen Perez, an officer of the Bell Gardens High School PTA, received a notice announcing a meeting of the "broad members" . . . Some customers thought the headline "Finch to Tell How Wife Cooled" was a bit macabre, inadvertently, of course . . . And did you notice that William Clauson will sing Saturday night at the Friday Morning Club playhouse?