VAUDEVILLE: Blondie v. Blackie

It was one of the strangest union meetings to be found anywhere. Ranged on one side of a bitter leadership battle was a fading movie actress supported by her floor leader and lieutenant, a goateed mind reader. On the opposite sidewas a former nightclub pitchman supported by fire-eaters, sword-swallowers and comics. As a flock of Washington reporters perched outside the Pall Mall Room of the Hotel Raleigh, the annual meeting of the American Guild of Variety Artists grew as raucous as anything that ever happened on a carny midway.

At real and serious issue was the conduct of Jackie Bright, the M.C. who rose from the floor of obscure nightclubs to the $25,000-a-year post of administrative secretary of null a 13,000-member union made up of vaudevillians, circus performers and miscellaneous nightclub entertainers (ranging from Red Skelton at $40,000 per week to a chorus boy at $75). Sporting pearl tie pin, jeweled cuff links and charcoal-grey suit, Bright quickly earned a reporter’s nickname, “Blackie.” Against him stood Blondie herself—Actress Penny Singleton, fortyish, who was up for re-election as A.G.V.A. president. Said she, weepily: “I’m just a little 114-lb. girl going in there alone.”

The most serious question: had there been an off-to-Buffalo shuffle with A.G.V.A. sick and relief funds? Member contributions are recorded only by number, not by name, so that only Bright and his staff can decipher who deserves what. In addition, a separate corporation called the A.G.V.A. Foundation, headed by busy Jackie Bright, last year bought 62 acres of land in the Catskills, plus assorted buildings, announced that this was the new retreat for retired A.G.V.A. members. So far no A.G.V.A. member has retired there. Asked one critic: “What kind of a home is it up there in the hills? You need overcoats, underwear and everything else. What are they going to do in the winter—sit in the basement and watch TV?”

Secretary Bright denied all charges, shouted that his staff had been “pretty good crucified in here by dirty innuendoes.” The Blondie v. Blackie battle will continue until all mail ballots can be counted. In the meantime, Senator John McClellan confirmed that his Labor Rackets Committee has been taking a look at A.G.V.A. For the moment, Crusader Singleton seemed to have the last word. Said she about her opponents: “I have a national reputation as a housekeeper, but I resent having to clean out their kind of mud.”