Letters, Dec. 21, 1936

Toohey's Hit

Sirs:

Whoa, there! Wait a minute! What's this about the Noel Coward doings being the "first smash hit of a middling season" [TIME, Dec. 7]? What about Stage Door! What about Tovarich! I'll grant that the season has been even less than middling and the crop of flops has been a bumper one, but since first they opened both of these plays have been complete sellouts. Stage Door has never fallen below $19,500 a week at the Music Box and if that isn't a smash hit my name is Ivan Ivanovitch and not

JOHN PETER TOOHEY

Music Box Theatre New York City

Sirs:

UnTiMEworthy is the phrase in TIME'S review of Tonight at 8:30 calling Noel Coward's harlequinade the "first smash hit of a middling season." On Oct. 16 (day following opening of Gilbert Miller's Tovarich), owl-eyed Brooks Atkinson of New York Times chuckled, applauded, said: "Tovarich is the season's first hit." On same day, scholarly, professorial looking John Mason Brown of the Post said: "Tovarich is the first smash hit of the season." Richard Watts, Jr., blue-shirted, plumpish pundit of Herald Tribune called Tovarich "the first resounding dramatic smash of the season." Equally in accord were other critics.

Gilbert Miller's press department sits, scowls, awaits adequate reply.

JOHN LATHAM TOOHEY

New York City

John Peter Toohey and John Latham Toohey are father & son, rival pressagents. Father John Peter has been general representative for Producer Sam H. Harris (Stage Door) for six years. Son John Latham. 20, got his first job three months ago with Helen Deutsch, pressagent for Producer Gilbert Miller (Tovarich). A "smash hit'' can be judged by its box-office score. Week of Nov. 30: Tovarich: $21,000; Stage Door: $19,000; Tonight at 8:30: $27,000.—ED.

Matthews' Shirt

Sirs:

Permit us to refer to p. 36 of your issue of Nov. 23 from which the following quotation is taken:

"Who [A. E. Matthews] is reported to be so dissatisfied with the work of Manhattan laundries that he sends his soiled linen home every week to England."

... It is incredible that Actor Matthews could not find a single laundry in Manhattan (including the Champion, which boasts of a large theatrical clientele) to launder his linens satisfactorily. This seems even more unbelievable, since a number of British laundry operators visit New York annually to study American methods.

NILS E. HELLSTROM

Vice President Champion Laundry New York City

A. E. Matthews' enterprising pressagent, Tom Barrows, declares that Actor Matthews sends his starched linen to Baikie & Hogg, Ruchill, Glasgow; his unstarched laundry to Prospect Cottage, Bushy Heath, England; adds that Mr. Matthews "used to use the American Banker, a ten-day boat, but now uses the Queen Mary because he has only two shirts."—ED.

Abhorrent

Sirs:

I have been a subscriber to your publication almost from the beginning and have derived great satisfaction, pleasure and information from reading it; however this letter is written as a protest against the unwarranted, indelicate, vulgar way in which the birth of the Crawford child was described [TIME, Nov. 23].