Radiopuss

PAST IMPERFECT--Ilka Chase--Doubleday, Doran ($2).

One of the best-selling books in the U.S. last fortnight was Radio Actress Ilka Chase's Past Imperfect. Word had gone forth that this hodgepodge personal history is as broad as it is high, and generously peppered with peephole patter about everybody from the late William Alexander Percy (Lanterns on the Levee) to cafe society's Lady Mendl and Hollywood's George Cukor.

Quaker Girl. Author Chase is the end-product of a long line of Quakers. Among them was famed Quaker Author John Woolman, but Ilka prefers her great-grandmother, who was "something of a glamor girl." During the Civil War, Great-grandmother ran away from her children and husband (a strict Abolitionist) and married a Southern doctor. She raised him a family in Florida, and when he died, returned to remarry Great-grandfather. "This," says Author Chase, "seems to me nice going at any time, but in that day and age a truly remarkable feat." Great-grandmother died, age 92, from automobile injuries sustained while out joyriding with a beau.

Father Chase, once a seafaring man, used to lull little Ilka asleep with gamy sea chanteys. So young Ilka was hurried off to the Convent of the Holy Child Jesus where, it was hoped, the sisters might teach her manners. They also taught her "a very smooth game of pool." One of the Convent's buildings, the former residence of Financier Thomas Fortune Ryan, had contained a pool table which "the dear Sisters had seen no reason for removing." Says Author Chase: "It was a pretty sight to see Mother Mary Agnes, who shot a mean ball, leaning backward over the table, her veil slightly askew, while with her cue tucked under her arm she aimed swift and true for the corner pocket."

Hindside Foremost. Later young Ilka was transferred to a secular school where her popularity depended on whether or not her mother, Edna Woolman Chase, editor of Vogue, was "crusading against fashions for the young." As soon as she could, she bought herself a gold lace negligee with pink marabou feathers "of which Mother remarked, with the candor which has always distinguished her, that it was a tart's idea of heaven." Then Mother gave her a choice of more school or a trip to Europe.

Publisher Horace Liveright guided Ilka somewhat through England. She "never liked Horace much--he was rude to waiters"--but he took her to see George (Confessions of a Young Man) Moore, who unexpectedly pinched her behind. Somewhat encouraged, Ilka ventured to ask the fiercely conceited Master what he thought of Conrad. "I don't know, my child," said Moore testily, "I can't read Polish."

In France Ilka took lessons in declamation, and used to hope that her actor-manager "would attack me with passion and tenderness." Sometimes his Siamese cat did, "but it was more in the spirit of criticism than desire."

Back in the U.S. Ilka went on the stage. The only thing wrong about the stage that Ilka Chase can see is it does not give her enough jobs. Her first parts were all one-line maids. Later she graduated to a nun. "The scene was fifteenth-century Italy, and in rehearsals we were told to shriek loudly when the ravening barbarians thundered at the convent gates." "What do we shriek," asked Actress Chase, "goody, goody?"

In one company Ilka played with famed Actress Julia Hoyt. "Later on we married and divorced the same man [Louis Calhern]. I got there first, but she lasted longer. . . ." One day Ilka found a box of calling cards engraved with her married name. It seemed like conspicuous waste. So she mailed them to her successor. But remembering her ex-husband's "mercurial marital habits," she wrote on the top card : "Dear Julia, I hope these reach you in time."

Cinemansions. "Premeer! Kill that broad ! Santa Claus Lane ! Bury your loved ones in Well Drained Ground!" Such is Actress Chase's salute to Hollywood, where she went soon.

There are few places, she believes, "where the surface is so indicative of the core. The sordidness, the cheapness, and the naivete are revealed at a glance." She recalls Director Lewis Milestone's saying that "Hollywood is semitropical, so that it takes you twice as long, but you get to hell in the end."

Instead, Actress Chase went to San Simeon as the guest of Marion Davies. William Randolph Hearst scared her to death, "especially in the swimming pool, where he looked like an octopus. One day he dived in and came up quite near me, and the sight of his long head with the white hair plastered down over his brow by the water, and his strange light eyes gleaming on a level with my own, sent me thrashing to the far end of the pool." It was fun to throw parties, where celluloid celebrities immersed themselves "impartially in water, Scotch, and gin." Ilka's great friend George Cukor warned her: "Honey, don't kid yourself. Wait till the first cold snap--the place will be a desert."

Back in Manhattan, Actress Chase made the hit of her life as harpyish Sylvia Fowler in Clare Boothe's The Women. She made a second success in radio, where she was mistress of ceremonies for Luncheon at the Waldorf, now Luncheon Date With Ilka Chase. One of the funniest chapters in Past Imperfect describes radio's self-inflicted censorship and the lengths to which sponsors will go to avoid mentioning their rival's name on the air. "On the Armour program no one is swift; they are quick, brisk, or agile. And on the Swift offering, knights in armor are taboo." Luncheon at the Waldorf was sponsored by Camel cigarets, and instead of "Lucky break" or "You lucky boy," it is necessary to say: "What a fortuitous circumstance" and "You favored child of fortune."

Says Ilka, in one of her (fortunately rare) sententious moments: "Signor Marconi must squirm in his grave when he hears some of the uses to which his great invention has been put. . . . Radio, which might be an incomparable channel for enlightenment, has done more than its share to debase our intellectual standards."

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