Evening Star Newspaper, January 5, 1942, Page 9

Otis Skinner, Dean Of Theater, Dies in New York at 83. Veteran Actor Played More Than 325 Parts, Produced 33 Plays By the Associated Press. NEW YORK, Jan. 5—Otis Skin- ner, dean of the theater, is dead at 83. The veteran actor, whose mother ence said .he would never succeed on the stage because he “couid not even talk straight,” but whose his- trionics during a 55-year span won him international acclaim, died last night of uremic poisoning. Funeral services will be held at noon tomorrow in the Little Church Around the Corner. Burial will be in Woodstock, Vt. Mr. Skinner was stricken Decem- ber 7 while attending a benefit per- formance at the Plymouth Theater. With him when he died was his daughter, Cornelia Otis Skinner, herself a famed actress. His wife, the former Maud Durbin, whom he met on stage, died five years ago. Produced 33 Plays. Mr. Skinner, who played more than 325 parts and produced 33 plays before his retirement in 1932, was born in Cambridge, Mass, a son_of the Rev. and Mrs. Charles A. Skinner, who did not encourage his dreams of the footlights. Yet it was they who indirectly launched him as an actor on a Philadelphia stage in 1877. Mr. Skinner got that first part with the help of a letter from P. T. Barnum, ‘which read: “O. A. Skinner is known to me. His parents are very respectable.” Consummate skill in acting, plus something of the dash and color which marked the romantic figures he liked best to portray, distin- guished Mr. Skinner throughout his 50 yeaxs as a favorite of the Ameri- can stage. Although he met objection from his parents when he decided to make acting his life’s work, firm in his purpose, he left home at 19, almost penniless, and joined a stock com- pany in Philadelphia at $8 & week. In a hard and hungry first season he eked out his scanty funds by selling his schoolbooks, one by one. Just once in his life did Mr. Skin- ner venture into the movies, and then with conspicuous success. His single photoplay was “Kismet” in which he played “the joyous mur- derer, Hajj,” who was called also “the wickedest villian of the stage.” As the wild and colorful beggar of Bagdad the actor was thoroughly happy. Daughter Wrote Play for Him. Becatise she knew her father “al. p- of the ‘Holy Innocents’” for him in 1925. Another play “made to measure” by a member of his family was “Pietro” in which his wife collabo- rated with Jules Eckert Goodman. The manuscript was left at the Globe Theater for Mr. Skinner in 1918 by “a man in sailor clothes.” It was months before he learned who had written it. No effort was too great for Mr. Skinner in preparing for a part. When he played the deaf hero in Goodman’s “The Silent Voice” he studied the inmates of an asylum in Buffalo, N. Y., where the company happened to be, until he acquired the peculiar voice tone of the deaf man and the way of watching the lips. S0 much a part of the American stage for so many decades, Mr. Skin- ner became something of a national if not en international institution. Calling on President Coolidge in 1926, he was invited to luncheon at which the convversation turned to boyhood days in New England, To their surprise the friends discov- ered they had fished the same streams and played with some of the same boys in the mountains of Ver- mont where the family of the elder Skinner, the itinerant preacher, at one time lived. The life of the actor was bright with friendships. His deepest affec- tion was for Edwin Booth who, he said, was “the most lovable man” he had ever known. In the Skinner memoirs, called “Footlights and Spotlights” and published in 1924, the writer is a minor character al- though it is his own life story, but Booth and others whom he knew |, and loved are treated with great ten- derness. Anecdote on Edwin Booth. That Mr. Skinner possessed the in- stincts of the dramatist, also is shown in his anecdote, there includ- ed, of Edwin Booth’s great grief at the assassination of Lincoln by his brother, John Wilkes Booth. On a winter night in the furnace room of the old Booth Theater in New York, Mr. Skinner wrote, his grief- stricken friend in silent tears burned the silk and velvet costumes his dis- honored brother had worn. On all phases of the drama Mr. Skinner had became an authority through his habit of concentrated study of his many parts. He wrote well arid drew special attention by an article in Scribner’s magazine in 1926 on Edmund Kean, an English actor of the time of Keats and By- ron, who cared nothing for noble au- diences but sought only to please “the pit.” Stage censorship he could not sym- pathize with. When police raids on the Broadway theater began in 1927, he said in Hartford, Conn., where he was playing in “The Honor of the Family:” “There may be things wrong with the theater, but there is nothing so radically wrong that it needs this wholesale readjustment. We are perhaps a bit more frank than we were before, but so is the world 'm;:h we are attempting to inter- pret.” ‘Was Acting During Quake. Around Hollywood, Calif., where he made his one movie, a story is still current that while Mr. Skinner was acting a scene in “Kismet” a slight earthquake occurred, setting the big sets swaying and the actors the cameramen scurrying. It came NEW YORK.—FAMED AOB THE EVENING STAR, WASHINGTON, D. O, MONDAY, JANUARY 5, 1942, DIES—Otis Skinner, pictured with his daughter, the monologist Cornelia Otis Skinner, two years ago, died yesterday at 83. He had been ill since De- cember 7. . —A. P. Wirephoto. Phone Call to Nearest School Will Bring 'Y’ Paper Collector Plans to Expand Growing Campaign Will Be Announced A call to the nearest school will bring a paper collector to the door of any resident of Washington and vicinity. More plans to facilitate contri- bution of newspapers, cartons, card- board and magazines by persons not directly connected with school chil- dren conducting the drive will be announced later. The Salvage for Paper Collection for Tomorrow The following is the schedule for The Evening Star-Parent- Teacher Salvage for Victory paper collection program in Washington schools, together with the flve leading schools in the division and their poundage 30 far collected: District No. 2. Victory paper campaign is being | g, conducted by The Star and the vari- ous parent-teacher and home and, scholo associations, under the gen- eral sponsorship of the Office of Production Management. Approximately 45 tons of paper already have been collected by| school children. For newspapers and cardboard each parent-teacher association or home and school association receives 60 cents & hun- dred pounds, and for magazines 90 cents a hundred pounds. In many communities committees of parents are being established to facilitate collection of the paper. Individuals receive paper all week and take it to school on a specified day. Brookland Taft Junior ‘Woodridge Langdon Noyes Crummell Cleveland Eckington Gnimke McKinley High Garnett-Patter- Langley Junior Langston Slater M. M. Washington Harrison ‘Terrell Junior Garrison Bundy Thomson Twining ‘Webster Nazi Efforts fo Build "Unified Europe’ Seen, Still Hitting Snags Berlin Reports Indicate Much Less Unity Than Germans Are Claiming By DAVID M. NICHOL, Porelgn Correspondent of The Star and Chicago Daily News. BERN.—Nazl efforts to build a legal and juridical structure for a “unified Europe” continue in sharp disparity with the facts. according to indications in Berlin reports. The dissolution of all political par- tles in Holland, except the Nazi- sponsored Mussert group, is one step more in this direction. Dr. Anton Mussert, leader of the Dutch Nazi party, thus becomes the spokes- man, as far as the new Europe is concerned, for the entire Dutch people, although his movement rep- resents but a fraction of the total population. D.N.B. shows how closely the Mus- sert group parallels the evolution of the Nazis in the Reich. Utrecht, where the party was formed 10 years ago, will have a significance for Holland, as Munich, birthplace of Hitler’s organization, has for Ger- many, according to present plans. Dutch Collaboration Claimed. The N. S. B. (National Socialis- tiche Bewegung, the Mussert group is known) already has opened a “home” in Gelsenkirchen, one of its early centers. Dr Mussert’s recent speech indi- cates once again that the Reich plans virtually to incorporate Hol- land, following blunt hints in recent statements by Dr. Arthur Seyss- Inquart, Nazi commissar for Hol-| land. The National Zeitung of Essen quotes Mussert as declaring that the Dutch have embarked on a program of “active and purposeful collab- oration of all Germanic peoples for the security of Europe, convinced that the general good supersedes the benefits to any single folk.” Mussert also announced that Hol- land would participate in the “col- onizing development” of conquered eastern territories the size of which the Russians are now somewhat re- ducing. Ten thousand Dutch volun- teers took part in the campaign, ac- cording to the Voelkischer Beobach- ter (Hitler's party organ). but Dutch estimates are much smaller. Balkan Action Called “Plebiscite.” The Wilhelmstrasse spokesman meanwhile, undertaking to charac- terize the Balkan declarations of e Modjeska and was leading man with Margaret Mather. In 1894 the rising actor was starred for the first time in “His Grace de Grammont.” Then cam war against the United States and England as symbolic of the spirit of the “New Europe,” insists that these ‘were made freely without Naxzi pres- sure. He even went 8o far, according to the Neue Zuercher Zeitung, as to describe the process as the “plebis- cite” of all Europe against the “ag- " . Almost every account originating in Berlin for several days has stressed the “voluntary” nature of these declarations. Perhaps the lady | doth protest too much. Berlin spokesmen declare, accord- ing to the account, that the “laws of simple logic show that the Euro- pean states designate the United States as the aggressor.” A similar tenuous reasoning is ap- plied to the difficult situation cre- ated by German reprisals in Paris. Spokesmen declare, the account says, that the measures are directed “not against the French but against criminals, intellectual sponsors of criminals, and potential criminals.” Vichy Not Convinced Vichy apparently is not convinced. A report in the Neue Zuercher Zei- tung (Zurich) says that the German measures far exceeded the worst | expectations of the Vichy govern- ment which had hoped it might, as & result of recent concessions, ob- tain some moderation. This protest, broadcast, was the only-one by the Vichy radio, however, the Berlin ac- count adds. It indicates that the Nazi feeling might have been a “mistake.” There is no attempt to disguise Berlin’s hopes that Prance soon may be won to active participation in the war against the Allies. The Baseler Nachrichten (of Basel) likewise re- ports the concern of Berlin regard- ing the stand of the South Ameri- can States which the Nazi spokes- man described as “ 4 1Cocyrisht. 1941, Chicago Daily News, Inc.) Farms Being Mechanized Military enlistments and high wages are causing the more prosper- ous farmers of New Zealand to in- crease the use of agricultural machinery. ‘Big Bill’ Keliher, Whose Faro Plot Ruined Bank, Dies By the Associated Press. BOSTON, Jan. 5—Willlam J. (Big Bill) Keliher, 60, confidence man and gambler involved in a con- spiracy that wrecked a bank 21 years ago, died yesterday. With the aid of a $12-a-week em- ploye of the National City Bank of Cambridge, Keliher was alleged to have obtained in fake faro games hundreds of thousands of dollars stolen from the institution. The bank, claiming it lost $300,- 000, was forced into receivership. Keliher was sentenced to 18 years in 1910. “Big Bill,” who during his heyday was known as a lavish spender and man-about-town in New York, was paroled after serving only eight h| years. He went back to jail twice - | more—but on these occasions was convicted of operations on- & much induced the clerk who was looting the bank to make periodic trips to New York where they played in a fake faro game with gambler friends ting himself. clerk testified that he had $100,000. Kelther was found desd in his home by his wife and his son. - Counferespionage - ByU. S. Catches Gestapo Napping F. B. I’s “Inside Job’ Gave It Complete Control of Ring B the Ausociated Press. NEW YORK.—When the war'’s 1ast gun has sounded and the ink is dry on all the new treaties, the ex- perts will be able to sit back and talk frankly about the “secret weapons” developed for the most fantastic forms of warfare in all history. The United States should walk off with at least one blue ribbon for & supersecret weapon—a new form of counterespionage. - Some results of this defensive weapon were brought out in the four-month spy trial in Brooklyn Federal Court of 14 de- fendants, convicted of to avold registering as agents of a foreign government and of con- spiring and delivering to Germany vital United States defense secrets. America’s streamlined counter- espionage is more advanced, appar- ently, than the vaunted German fifth column. It is a sixth column that completely dominated the fifth column, that “bored from within” the spy ring until it controlled the movements, communications, fi- nances and even the personal lives of would-be traitors. F. B. I. Man Heads Ring. That is what the Federal Bureau of Investigation did in rounding up those convicted in Brooklyn. Agents and special spies say they know of no parallel in counterespionage history. The F. B. I put its own man at the head of the ring, furnished him with a powerful “secret” transmitter on Long Island and made him so successful as a “spy” that other sples gravitated to him or were sent there by spy headquarters in Ham- burg, Germany. Then things began to happen. Hamburg headquarters demanded information on ship movements, blueprints on certain American de- fense devices, details of military movements. It suggested tasks for certain agents; it gave names and addresses of its agents here and in neutral countries, It sent money and new men to this country, pointed out weak .5pots in American counterespion- age, and, generally, tipped its hand on virtually all the who's, what's, where’s, why’s and how’s the F. B. I. could ask. It was, in some respects, almost as good as having No. 1 G- man J. Edgar Hoover at the head of the Gestapo. Spies Mostly Naturalizsed. Who are spies? The trial has shown that they often are bright young men trained in & Hamburg espionage school; mostly naturalized Americans who accepted citizenship as a requisite to making money here (as contrasted with loyal Americans of German birth who are the mainspring of F. B. I. counter- espionage). Why are spies spies? Partly for love of their fatherland, but mostly because of promised rewards. Ger- man spies are promised estates in the homeland according to messages from Hamburg. They enjoy official Jjobs in conquered countries. Their families in Germany are well cared for during their absence. But the immediate earnings are small. What do spies want? News of ships sailings and Europe-bound car- goes, industrial production and ship- building figures, reports on plane and tank performances, and dats that can be culled from newspapers and magazines. New Inventions Sought. They also want information on incredible devices; bombers directed' to their objective by one ray while another ray looses bombs above the target; pillboxes that sink auto- matically into the ground and de- stroy tanks as they rumble over them; reports on tests of bacterio- logical warfare; gas-repellent uni- forms; range finders; “electric eye” anti-aircraft shells and other devices which probably have not yet seen service in the current conflict. ‘What secrets were delivered to Germany before the F. B. 1. took over were not disclosed, but, judg- ing from Hamburg's frequent com- plaints that microphotographs of blueprints and documents were too blurred for use, Germany received precious little after the F. B. I. took charge of the fifth column. $20,000 from Hamburg. Counterespionage Agent William G. Sebold received about $20,000 from Hamburg for spy pay rolls. He paid out little; most of it is still in the bank and will help pay the cost of fostering and then smashing the spy ring. The evidence indicates less than $50,000 was spent by Ham- burg on the 33 spies and suspects during the 18 months the ring op- erated. The F. B. I. learned through its quarry about German spies in other countries such gossipy tidbits as the report the head German agent in Lisbon, 8 Mr. Duarte, used to photo- graph all London-bound diplomatic mail. His pictures were said to ar- rive in Berlin as soon as or sooner than the original documents reached London. An agent said that when the ring was rounded up late last June, the Long Island “spy” radio transmitted the bad news to Hamburg. Gestapo aeadquarters expressed astonishment at the job done by the F. B. I. and for days urged the arrested to sit tight and say nothing. ‘Then, when it became known that the F. B. I itself had been operating the transmitter, the Gestapo wire- lessed “congratulations.” It was Hamburg’s last message to Long Island. Papen Presents Gifts To Turkish President BY the Associated Press. BERLIN, Jan. 5 (Official Broad- cast) —Franz von Papen, German ambassador to Turkey, who returns to Berlin soon for e visit, presented Turkish President Ismet Inonu with a number of gifts, including a spe- cial book on grave excavations in Turkey, at a farewell visit in An- Von Papen presented Inonu & spe- cial Goethe edition of 137 volumes. Academy of Science statute excavated 40 German archeologists near Afilum Kars Hisser, in Asis 3 7 $2.50 RALEIGH QUALITY SHIRTS Semi-Annual Sale Price ’1.85 Pajomas also included ot this low price. Broadcloths, madrases, chambrays, ray- ons. All tailored for per- fect fit, long wear. Pre- ferred colors, patterns. e RALEIGR'S SENLANVLAL SULE 1 and 2-TROUSER SUITS, . TOPCOATS and OVERCOATS 2% RALEIGH ONLY i Why gamble on unknown clothing when you can buy quality-famed labels in Raleigh’s Semi-Annual Sale? Especially - naw, when fabric and tailoring quality are so important. Advance preparations; for this event, result in a choice selection of imported and American fabrics that in- cludes shetlands, worsteds, tweeds, flan- nels and other favorites. clothing needs now—and look to this Semi-Annual event for a quality selection " $33.50 and $35 Values $37.50 to $42.50 Values ~—at unusual savings. $45 TO $50 SUITS, COATS - $55 AND $60 SUITS, COATS._. BURBERRY OF LONDON COATS.___$69-579 el e R All Hand-Tailored $1, $1.50 TIES Semi-Annual Sale Price 89¢ An exceptional group at Semi-Annual Sale savings. Luxurious satins, wools, foulards aond even pure silkks. In a great variety of patterns and stripes. S i SR L Entire Stock $12.85 HANAN SHOES Semi-Annual Sale Price .85 Timely savings on your fa- vorite models in this fomed- for-quality group. Black or brown soft calfskin, Nor- wegian calf, and shell cor- dovans. Look to your