The Theatre: Prank

Finishing a turn in As Thousands Cheer one Manhattan night last winter, plump Dancer Marilyn Miller whirled airily offstage, bumped brutally into her costar, frail Dancer Clifton Webb. Up to her side to berate Dancer Webb leaped Chorusman Chester ("Chet") O'Brien, who was also the show's second assistant stage manager. When it was over. Dancer Webb threatened to quit if O'Brien were not fired, Dancer Miller threatened to quit if O'Brien were fired. Everybody stayed.

In early summer James P. ("Jimmy") Donahue, fabulously rich & prankish young Woolworth scion, thought of a good joke he could play on his cousin, fabulously rich & serious Princess Barbara Hutton Mdivani. His friend Marilyn Miller got Chorusman O'Brien to let him take a part in As Thousands Cheer one night. At the proper moment, when Marilyn Miller was impersonating Barbara Hutton in a skit, ''Jimmy" Donahue minced onstage in a princely uniform, fawned over the lady's hand. No one in the audience noticed the substitution, but it was the last straw for the managers of As Thousands Cheer. "Chet" O'Brien lost his job. Dancer Miller followed him out of the show.

All of these events became public knowledge last week when Marilyn Miller and "Chet" O'Brien dragged Harrison, N. Y.'s Town Clerk away from a barn dance, had themselves "secretly" married in the presence of a dozen yokels.