"Three Greatest Guests"

Tall, blue-eyed Ginny Simms, official sweetheart of 100 college fraternities, fingered the rabbit's foot Judy Garland had slipped her, flashed a toothy smile at a husky sailor, a slick-haired soldier, a plump marine. Blues-singing Ginny was introducing "Three Greatest Guest Stars in the World," as she emceed the premiere of Philip Morris' Johnny Presents Ginny Simms (NBC, Tues. 8-8:30 p.m. E.W.T.) The three servicemen were allowed to telephone anybody anywhere.

First star was the sailor: Gunner's Mate Second Class Mel Van Keuren, wounded at Pearl Harbor, where he was the first man to bag a Jap plane. He had studio telephone operators put through a call to a nurse named Rosella Nesgis, in Pearl Harbor. It seems that while nursing Sailor Van Keuren's wounds, Rosella had also read him his favorite comic strips. Hopping to the phone, he blurted happily to her: "I never look at Popeye without thinking of you."

Next delighted listeners heard wavy-haired Marine Sergeant Leonard Wheeler try to telephone his boyhood hero, ex-Sergeant Alvin C. York, in Jamestown, Tenn. (It had to be solo because Major York was chinning with the boys in a local barbershop and forgot to be at home for the call.)

Corporal Ben Effros brought the house down. He phoned Mrs. Michael Sharlitt, director of Cleveland's Belle Faire Orphanage. Talking a bluestreak, he reminded "Mother" Sharlitt how she used to wash his mouth out for using cuss words, told her he had a sergeant "who would run her clean out of soap."

An unqualified success, the "Three Greatest Guest Stars" were showered with proposals of marriage, offers of post-war jobs. Gunner's Mate Van Keuren was offered a movie contract. They had easily stolen the show from Ginny Simms and Dave Rose's 22-piece orchestra. But Ginny didn't mind any more than her sponsor. Still stroking her rabbit's foot, she guessed she had a sure-fire program as long as there is an Army, Navy and Marine Corps.

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