RELIEF: Theatre Lobby

The new WPA appropriation bill, as sent up by the House to the Senate last fortnight (TIME, June 26), discontinued work relief for employes in the Federal Theatre Project, for reasons of unnecessity, inefficiency, immorality and Communism. The same bill last week provided Congressmen with relief from their work. Into Washington swept throbbing, throaty Actress Tallulah Bankhead (The Little Foxes), chosen by FTP’s friends to lobby for it because her Uncle John is Alabama’s senior Senator, her father Speaker of the House.

For the newscameras, Miss Bankhead hugged Uncle John and cried: “Of course you’ll vote to do something for the unemployed actors!”

“No,” replied Uncle John, “I don’t think I will.’ These city fellows in Congress never vote to do anything for the farmers. Sol Bloom [Representative from Manhattan] and that whole crowd always vote against the farm bills.”

“Sol Bloom will do exactly as Daddy tells him to,” pouted Miss Bankhead a bit tactlessly. “Anyway, we actors shouldn’t be punished for what Sol Bloom does.”

Before the Appropriations subcommittee chairmanned by Colorado’s compact little Senator Adams, Alabama’s gift to the drama tossed aside her blue felt hat, perched herself on the table and read a prepared statement. “Go slower, Tallulah,” whispered her father, who sat in as coach (and whom she also hugged for cameras). But she raced on with her arguments—that the theatre should be helped because it yields a 10% Federal tax on its admissions; because its people know no other work and their talents are social assets; because they bring cheer to millions, and give benefit shows to relieve the distress of others. At her conclusion Miss Bankhead broke into tears. Next day she sent the committee a vast basket of roses.

Columnist Heywood Broun reported that little-foxy Miss Bankhead subsequently told him:

“… I went over to Daddy. I thought he might be ashamed of me for crying like that. And so I said to him. ‘Daddy, you know I was only acting.’ And he said, ‘Yes, I know that.’ But he knew better ”

> Guild talent in Hollywood backed up Miss Bankhead’s effort with two big all-star broadcasts over the weekend.

> Eleanor Roosevelt also lobbied for FTP last week. In My Day, she wrote: “I know that this project is considered as dangerous because it may harbor some Communists, but I wonder if Communists occupied in producing plays are not safer than Communists starving to death.”*

> The Senate subcommittee voted to restore life to FTP. Actress Bankhead’s Uncle John telegraphed her: “I tried 24 hours to find a weak place in your masterly argument. . . . Check me off as voting for the project. . . .”

*Nobody planned to starve the jobless actors, writers, painters removed from WPA. They are as eligible for home relief as jobless admen, wheelwrights, plasterers.