You're Another

The dog days had arrived for journeymen of the columning trade: last week the heat had the boys talking to themselves, and writing about each other. .

In a humid humor, Westbrook Pegler, who writes for Hearst, teed off on Ed ("Little Old New York") Sullivan, who writes for the tabloid New York Daily News. One of Ed's columns had caught Peg's bloodshot eye. It "consisted of an open letter to his secretary," wrote Pegler. "This was an unusual device. Usually his secretary writes to him and in this way is able to congratulate him on remarkable feats of exclusive journalism and prophecy and thank him for kindnesses to others which he might not have the indelicacy to mention, although modesty is not his worst fault."

Ed had a grateful note from Frank Sinatra, who was glad to have Ed for a pal, "when a few guys start throwing rocks."

"I am not obtuse," wrote Peg, "so I assume that this refers to some news [Sinatra's meeting with Panderer Lucky Luciano] which deviated from the laudatory and purposely rapturous trash which had become standard Sinatra publicity as turned in by the saloon, movie, radio and gambling house journalists. . . .

"Mr. Sullivan has long seemed to me to be willing to go to the gutter to find a hero." To prove it, Peg unwrapped a 1929 Sullivan column eulogizing Frank Marlow, a murdered Manhattan mobster ("Goodbye, Frank, and God bless you."). Pegler's verdict on Sullivan: "A prideful intimacy with many of the worst gangsters ... a professional name-dropper, a grown-up but still callow Saturday night sport.. . ."

Sullivan's answer was in character. In a column addressed from Hollywood to "My Secretary, Africa," he asked: "What was the reaction in N.Y. to the Pegler smear? Out here . . . the reaction was boredom. He's dangerously clever, though."

What Was the Name? Leonard Lyons spent a nostalgic week among his souvenirs. Samples: Elisabeth Bergner had once read Lennie's horoscope; Iturbi had paid Lennie a backhanded compliment; Randy Churchill had paid him a small bet. People were always confusing Lennie Lyons with Eugene (Assignment in Utopia) Lyons, but that was no worry any longer because only one of them was still a celebrity. And once a mutual friend was telling a Zurich innkeeper about Lennie. The innkeeper had never heard of "one of America's most important journalists?" Point of the anecdote: the fellow was obviously an ignoramus; he had never heard of Winchell, either.

Winchell himself was off on a six-weeks' vacation. In Manhattan, Jack Lait, editor of Hearst's Mirror, filled in for his hired hand, but wanted it known that the ground rules were different when he played. At a column's end, he tacked a virtuous "Notice to many well-meaning informers:" this column, under this byline, does NOT publish obstetrical information, ever!"

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