The Awesome power of Jack Paar
By PETER EVANS
name is Jack Paar,
Hand the chances
arc
you've never heard of him.
Yet this men, this one-time mall-time American radio an- nouncer who arrived in Londen almusi unnoticed Inst week, is now probably one of the most powerful, influential men in the United States,
Yet he in't a politician or big business tycoon or iven
แ
ព
union boss. No, Mr Paar as a far mare potent power in this
modern age than rich men,
For Jack Paar is a TV per- sonality. His nightly two-hour watched programme is avidly
by on audience estimated ut viewers 19,000,000
throughout American and Canada over network of 150 stations,
The show, called "Tonight,"
is packed with interviews
a
and
THE CHINA MAIL, FRIDAY, APRIL 1, 1960.
Don Iddon's Diary
THE SHORN SAMSON IN THE
WHITE HOUSE
conversations with famous and Again the four-yearly flat season clamps down on the U.S. Administration. sometimes not-so-famous peo-
ple. Puar, relaxed as spaghetti, adds his own comments
potted philosophies and mentaries
CHARMING
nd
com-
WA
Wost is looking for leadership it should look to Macmillan
If the
WARNING for the West from Washington: Do not expect leadership from the self-named Capital of the Free World for nine months at least, if then. This is a caretaker capital headed by the amiable Dwight Sometimes there is a political Eisenhower, now unkindly called in the American phrase, "a lameduek edge to Paar's comments. Re-President." cently, as he told me, he
han
been defending Cuba's Fidel Castro-"I'm
Castro's Jast
These are the dying months
stronghold in America," he said.of his administration and he can
Ап
Now this man, remember, is entertaler, Ye nighty. with charm and humour and warmth, he is imposing his own nil- on many personal views lions of people.
It could,
It needs Just one men
ness
with
never run again.
Mr Eisenhower sald Fest week in answer to a quest(cn
No che wi about his plans;
or what I do
care about me alter July."
WASHINGTON WEDNESDAY
be
**Kennedy
ore
الله
Yel any more. The Presidential a year every four years. only a few people in the capital candidates are mediocre and
entire cumber- ininor. They urge that the
"too" some archale system of primary emdidates. contests, midsummer conven- tions, November elections, rud
maugurations are stil January
streamlined and modernised. shorn
The whole process could well be done in three months or Instead, we have the under. long, cold winter and the long. hot summer and the autumn of paralysis.
July, Is the month of the Presidential conventions. when This, to me. Is a phenomenon the candidates will be choren, which needs a sober examina- but after July there tion ...
before it happens in
six imonths with ke sitting in Britain. Because, let's face the White House, the
Samson.
This means that the West goes the awesome talents of Mr Paar. teaderless unless Mr Macmillan
discan exert his persuasive But perhaps even more
Der turbing is the apparent readisonality to, replace the retiring
with which millions of
Eisenhower new dreaming of a Americans now necept the Par
green twight of golf courses.
urmland, and poker games. patter.
I am perturbed by the, atti- of mind of Washington. tude The Senators, the Congressmen, the White House and State De- partment officials shrug their shoulders and say "What can we do? This is election year." So the illness which comes every four years and effectively Only six Seniors WOTS paralyses the United States their places, and
"My show can make a 50-50 elling book into a best seller," he told me.
"I make personalities on my Nobody show, Peter Ustinov,
Poor until he appeared on the
her show. Gingold, I made name in the States having her on the show."
POPULAR
Just too too...
I have rarely known this city on the Potomac go listless, tack- ing life and energy
I took a trem lowards the Capitol and then to the Senate to watch
"the what is called
exclusive club" world's most
but only by itself) in action.
in
DAT GOL OG MOL...
JULIE ANDREWS: The first Lady stopped down, but the show gaas on and on and an and on...
IT SPELLS
MONEY FOR
MR MANEY
WHAT, I wonder, would
Bernard Shaw have enid if he had had the slightest idea how much money he would be making after ho Was dead?
In itz first four years. (It started (1st fifth- year the other day) My Fair Lady has paid £380,000 to the
Shaw estate. That, under tho musical'e original contract, is 3 p.c. of the gross-over £12,000,000~~~ it has poured into the box- .offees of New, Yrak, touring American cities. London, Stockholm. Helsinki, Oslo. Copenhagen, Mexico City, and Melbourne. And there's no sign yet that the show's run will ever end. To- day's theatregoers may be old... men, before they get around to Alming My Fair Ladly.
Isn't it odd?
I have been chatting about It
to Dick Mimey, the Irish- American Frers ngent who is so much of a character that he ought to be in the show. In his rich baritone he song "Dat gol og mol I sölen en Espanjol, "That's how
The Rain In
Spain came out in Danish," he said
"Dld you realise that My Fair Lady is the only theatre show President Elsenhower has ever gone to see since he entered the White House? "There was a night when the Liza Doolittle understudy was felled by virus, and Karen
Que Sheperd, stroll
understudy's understudy, went on for three bewitching hours.
violent, but from the lassitude there is the or even Mcmie's him become more is too young and the Summit,
In Д too Catholle; Humphrey is too latest beauty treatment. Incl anyone who says he doesn't like Hcentiousness.
the through the entertainment area Johnson talkative:
is too dentally, the
of the is liable to get what consumption
a string of G-string I found here is the horse gave Senator Morse. Texan: Symington ton Southern alcohol per capita
striptease joints and nude im Truman and Adlal highest in the country, and too
traps. "Best nudist film ever," Stevenson is too often, having
Mrs Eisenhower. the First
sold the posters, Nude in A returned to the capital been besilen twice before, and Lady.
the other
White Car. Battle of the Bur- her two day after Nixen too opportunist."
leaque
Maling Queens. The weeks at the Phoenix, Arizona,
1724 wealth farm.
the lonely
Urge. Most Amazing Female Impersonators in the World, ike, after being snowed up al
"Steamy French Stav." his farm in Gettysburg, was back at his White House desic
I said. "What about the out- Ride: Wayne Morse of Oregan?" She told me he had been hurt again, this time being rushed by u sow. You will recall that Morse was kleked in the face by a horse
and then unkindly
Just too... The President's endorsement fichard Nixon for President has not caused much of a stir. Mr Nixon's Washington friends are urging him to stari cam- palening instead of acting as umpire, referee. and prizegiver sports, events all over the
country. Their huge personal popu- remains undiminished.
What on earth is the proud and lovely capital coming to when it puts on shows that New York and even New Jersey
1 am finding Washington
Apart band long ago? upon changed in other ways.
kicked again by Clare Boothe Iarlty Luce, the wife of the publisher The power of the President may
the attacks and beautiful. it temperamental, huve gone, Ambassadress to Rome.
The lovely daughters of Chlef Justice Earl Wurren were on display with a squad of Wash-
e hugton correspondents and per-
Government has come again. Southerner. of course, carrying laps a dozen Senators, a score on the interminable filibuster of Congressmen and their wives,
against negroes' civil rights had the floor.
and various generals, admirals, colonels, majors, and captains The live others were reading and their ladies. magazines or dezing.
It was quite party, the drink General ren in rivers and no one, appar-
This jail is TOO
Hobart.
It will last until next January, when the next Presideal is in- augurated,
Unti then all plans, bine- prints and bets are off,
The rest of the Western world
Joseph Bailey asked me to, the ently, except myself seemed to cord as saying that a had will just have to sweat it out.
country that It gives up almost "There aren't any giants here year of paralysis, the last no to jail built at Riedon, about basin,
con du The great man wrong, it seems. A few weeks 200,000-a-year star ago, the walled out in the middle of his show in front of millions of viewers after a row with his borses over a juke they censored,
Lyes brimming with tears, the handsome, 42-year-old, balding Mr Paar told his great public: "Goodbye. You have peachy to me always."
bren
Let Mr public The
What happenert?
explain: "The Taur reaction was tremendous. switchboard was junimed, you know. And, er, 40,000 letters of protest poured in. That's the figure was told. 40,000 I usually get 1,000 leiters a day, I'm told. But 40,000."
Then milestly: "So the net- work. NBC, you know, asked me to think things over. So decided to stick with them."
Mr Paar forgot to mention that such was the public hysteria at his walk-out that in the streets buttons with the legend "Come back, Jack," were being sold.
SINCERE
I asked: "Why do you think you're so successful?"
allence. A small
Then, "I
It is a phenomenon of this
A dinner-dance
wife
(1 Senator told me: he curing too much about the
Potato
it's going
THAT
'knows' when
to rain
HAT earthy object, the potato, is a first-rate weather forecaster. It can breathe. And it reacts, in advance, to changes in barometric pressure. Who says so? The Russians.
While their colleagues have been firing off Sputnike, a group of Moscow scientists, led by blologist Albert Emme, has been
of dozens of experimenting spuds.
In
a basement
Inboratury.
guess because I'm sincere. And they sliced them hito chips, people can spot a phoney as popped them Into glass quick on hell."
bottles. and hitched them to sensitive apparatus to their "breathing."
I said: "Your programme is reputed to be entirely upon taneous Sure it so why do you employ four writers?"
Another
A potato has
The World
of Science
by Peter şi minsan
com-
smaller Smaller and record
pufers are promised following the distinctive discovery of a device called the rhythm in its breathing. they micro-module. It is a tiny wafer report.
rhythm And this
is ut ceramic, on which compicte circuits can bu noticeably by alr eles.rical
"printed." Twenty dvr stacked lcgether are no bigger than a So, already, the rugar cube. transister is obsolescent.
slightly disturbed silence, longer than the first. Then, pressure changes, radiation "Well, that's a good qucation. cosmic rays. Uhhua. You see, they boye to think up ideas:
Or
They claim they were not only able to judge barometric pres-
at the time, but could Spring-loaded
"They may work a whole day cure tidalding up oue idea. Like, uh, forecast, from the potato's be me wearing a bowler hat andhaviour, pressures for a day or carrying an umbrella because two ahead. I'm in London, Sco?"
But before the spud can be is a miniature 9ation, Emme hundreds of thousands more
1 sald: "The American public relied upon seems to have a great deal of tuet,
carry is lond at exactly the same height for 20 years.
Another, used in the fuel con- trol jet engine, must not vary in Į Its work by one thousandth of an Inch. One hundred thousandth of an inch thick, it stands only an inch high.
Space trails
Millions of meteors enter our ainuosphere every day, and burn up. In doing so, they Icavo trails of Electrically charged particles behind them, often 15 miles long.
Scientists believe it may be possible to use these trails to reflect radio signals for world- wide communications. They est:- male that several meteors per minute would be available for ure between any two stations on
motor the earth's surface.
What have a watch, a light switch. an escalator, a cir, a pistol and a washing machine in common? Answer: opitars.
Promising
love for you. What do you think experiments are fieċded." He Ollen, they are only try, but experimental
of them?"
"I'm an entertainer, not adde: "Nonetheless, It is a roost father Agure. My ambition in to tractive project," retire, Get the hell out of 1.
Go fish some place. And when Midget "brains"
I've saved enough money, that's Just what I aim to do."
Watch out for the man with a sallesse he may be carrying Around a computer,
The U.S. National Burdau of row bullt un We take them for granted. Standards has
zystem. and they are vital. Emciency may be succeeded in bouncing messages the difference between 11te and the "shooting star" Itails. Because the system only works death. So a brand-new £47,000 intermittently, messages are fixt spring Tescărcil Inborntory, which will be cpened in Sheffield recorded on tape. has an important role to play in Britain's relentine research programe,
One of these midget "bralns" It will test sorings ranging will be demonstrated in London from four-thousandths of an inch
NOKI
A continuou probing anal nearches for a suitable trail, then nulomatfenlly switches on the transmitter when one is found, The taped message in fached at
a speol of 4,000 words a minute
AL £200,000 A year-o various gifts from his sponsors such na earn and other trinkets I imagise Mr Juck Panr will
Although portable, to thige' inchp" thick, Fontle to the receiving station hundreds soon be thing. I hope so. For Mr Paar is a pleasant, sincere it can be used to build simple recurney in calod for. One glant of miles away.
electrical models of car suspen- Burled, to go under a power conlenber weighing sion systene or heat exchanger et
everal tabs; enist be miške to Fin a nuclear power station.
man who just happens to have inherited power with his fame. (Landon Express Horvlov},
THE Tasmanian Legisla-
ture
TH
has gone
on to-
now
comfortable
comfortable best,
table better conditions than they had seven miles from Hobart, is and chair and even the jams in their own homes," TOO comfortable for have attractive shades on then. prisonors.
More in winter
Members of the Legislative Council took exception to the delicate pastel colours, all dif. ferent, chosen for the cells,
Each cell has its own wash
PASIPORTE
SPECIALITY,
"It's
"
Statistics showed that during winter months the number of Iemales in the jail incregsod.
"11
ridiculous," getting
don't think we should Harold MeFie told his flow make jails so attractive that legislators in the island 11. pole will WANT to get into
"Most prisoners there wlu be them." Mr McFle added. serving their sentences
under
-(London Express Sarulce).
QUIDS IN-BY JAK
Mr Money makes a must odd disclosure: That for three years a notice has been posted backstage in New York, say
ing the show operating on a week-to-week basis and is liable to close any Saturday night without further notice to you."
are legendary. There
stories about My Fair Lady. My favourite tells of the woman sitting next to the only empty scat in the theatre. Her hus band, who was to have been there, had died, she explained to her neighbour. "But couldn't you have brought
one of your friends?" Oh, they're all at the funera),"
TALKING
POINTS
Most happy is he who is entirely self-reliant.
-CICERO.
·
Anger is a noble in- firmity,
MARTIN TUPPER,
Firat results are described as "most promising W
-Landos Lapras Mervice),
“Blimey, a portrait as well-who d’you think I am, Annigoni!"
Sandon Kapraya Sydra
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