Press Agentry

Siamese Twins. No one would suppose Terry Turner, a fat and smirking Broadwayfarer, to be an exploiter of monstrosity. Yet such is part of his profession. The Hilton twins, Siamese ones, who live in Texas, owe their fame and vaudeville contracts especially to him. Last fortnight this press-agent for Loew's Vaudeville Circuit turned his talents on another female pair, the Gibb twins, Mary and Margaret, joined since birth and recent members of a Coney Island freak museum. Very discreetly, he let it be known in newspaper offices that one of them was in love and that they would therefore submit to a separation.

A tremendous burst of journalism followed. Pictures of the unhappy couple were shown in the Evening composo-Graphic. For postures which the two twins would not or could not adopt, chorines were employed. The surgeon who proposed to divorce the pair, one Francis Pantesco Watson, was interviewed by reporters. The Graphic's circulation jumped 40,000, because its readers were delighted with this ingenious tale of romance and deformity.

Last week, as shrewd observers had expected, the operation was called off. The mother of the twins became anxious and the girls hobbled away from their hospital to their home in Holyoke, Mass. With them they had a fat contract for 15 weeks in vaudeville; not, however, with Press-agent Turner's organization but with its rival, Keith's.

Cinemactress Bebe Daniels flew from Hollywood to Hadley Field, New Brunswick, N. J. At every stop the local papers noted her. Finally she left her purse in the taxicab which carried her the 30 miles from Hadley Field to Manhattan. The purse contained $168 and feminine gimcracks. Whether or not Miss Daniels left the purse deliberately, the ensuing publicity was worth many, many times $168. And the taxidriver returned the money.

Writer. Richard Halliburton, who writes travel stories with the sprightliness of an old spinster's darling, last week displayed a letter from Governor Meriwether Lewis Walker of the Panama Canal Zone, permitting him to try to swim the 50 miles of the Canal. He started. No long-distance swimmer, this self-generator of publicity intended to interrupt his feat every time he grew tired. A soldier in a motor boat accompanied him to shoot at any obnoxious alligators. Trans-canal steamship passage was not halted. Nonetheless, the proposed stunt approached the scandalous. It costs the U. S. several hundred dollars to open the canal locks needed for the swim. At Gatun Locks Swimmer Halliburton paid 36-c- (correct charge on a tonnage basis) to be floated up the 85 ft. from Limon Bay to Gatun Lake.*

Actress Louise Groody, plump, frolicsome musical comedy headliner (Good Morning Dearie, Hit the Deck) swam playfully last week, in the fashionable Lido pool on the Champs Elysees, Paris, collapsed naturally, was removed routinely to the American Hospital at Neuilly. The attention she gained so accidentally her press agent put to prompt, broad and good use.

Singer. "I know nothing about it, and what's more, I refuse to have anything to do with her publicity stunts."

With this tart, skeptical comment Samuel Insull, multi-millionaire impresario of the Chicago Civic Opera Company, disclaimed, last week, any concern with the report that his bonanza prima donna Mary Garden ("Our Mary") had announced her engagement to Pierre Plessis, youthful, wealthy Parisian journalist. Mary Garden, 51, has never been married. Recent summers she has reported herself bathing naked in the Mediterranean sun.

-Once Writer Halliburton made much romantic ado about his swimming the mile-and-a-half-wide Hellespont, like Leander and Lord Byron. Last week 17 U. S. college men and one newspaperman sportively swam the channel. One, Jack Bowron, captain of the swimming team, rested a few minutes; then swam back to his starting point.