Religion: Billy in New York

"Although he has played to SRO in London (twelve weeks) and in Glasgow (eight weeks) and has never laid an egg anywhere, there is some apprehension among his supporters about New York City. Praying circles all over the world will pray all night, opening night, like actors in Sardi's after a premiere."

That is how the show biz weekly Variety good-humoredly told its readers about an extraordinary show that opens in Manhattan's Madison Square Garden this week: Evangelist Billy Graham's crusade for New York, a city he has sometimes regarded as a kind of Gomorrah-on-Hudson. Variety noted admiringly that "for sheer activity,...