The Beau from Mo

MANNERS & MORALS

For years after he left Independence, Mo. to become a theatrical producer in New York, fortune perversely eluded a benign-looking ex-schoolteacher named Charles Blevins Davis. He managed to round up enough Broadway angels to stage a couple of productions, but they were flops, and life was hard and gritty. Nevertheless, he traveled, met the famous, became well-tailored, suave and bald, and shortened his name to the more fashionable C. Blevins Davis. In 1946, at the age of 45, he married an aging heiress named Marguerite Sawyer Hill, a daughter-in-law of Rail Tycoon (Great Northern) James J. Hill. When she died in 1948, C. Blevins inherited $9,000,000.

After that C. Blevins Davis strode forward holding the watering can of wealth. The rocky pathway he had endured for so long turned verdant and fruitful, and headwaiters stepped forth softly to greet him and smile with lowered eyes. He became a patron of the arts and sponsored a show of new German paintings in Munich. He threw a reception and dinner party for his old neighbors, President & Mrs. Harry Truman, at his fabulous Missouri farm, frequently squired daughter Margaret to public functions.

A Strident Shouting. But. into every life an occasional summons must fall, and last week C. Blevins' rich existence was interrupted by a tinny-voiced and strident shouting in the courts. One Joseph William Collins, a salesman of Ozone Park, Queens, New York City, asked for $354,000 on the grounds that Rich Man Davis was little more than a creature of Collins' own fertile mind.

Collins claimed that he met the art-patron-to-be in New York in the early '40s, judged him to be a man capable of social success and spent a great amount of time grooming him for future triumphs, introducing him to members of the 400, buying him clothes, and paying off legal judgments for him. Collins stated that he also looked over the social crop, got himself introduced to Mrs. Hill and then sold her on the charm and worth of his pal Davis.

A Ready Answer. In those days, the plaintiff mused, C. Blevins had talked gratefully of buying his trainer & manager a farm where Collins "could raise a few cows or chickens." Instead, once married, Davis had given him the big brushoff. Collins asked the court for $250,000 for his efforts to aid Davis socially, $100,000 damages because Davis had twice beaten him up, and $4,300 which he claimed to have spent in keeping Davis presentable.

C. Blevins Davis' lawyer had a ready answer. The statute of limitations had already run on the assault cases, and as for the rest, Collins didn't have a leg to stand on--after all, he wasn't a licensed marriage broker. Furthermore, the lawyer added, Client Davis denied the whole story.

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