The Vanishing Stripteaser

Radio dreads the verbal burp; television, the unbuttoned button. Last week, television preserved the decencies just in time by shutting its eyes. True to the old code, it apologized by explaining that it was a cinder, or something.

The occasion was an Air Force Association reunion at Manhattan's Madison Square Garden. For most of the evening the TV camera dwelt fondly on a long succession of performing celebrities: Jimmy Stewart, Bob Hope, Marlene Dietrich, Lena Home. But as Cinemactors Margaret O'Brien and Walter Pidgeon were announced, the camera gazed tactfully elsewhere, in deference to the stars' M-G-M contracts, which forbid their appearance on TV.

Then who should appear on the stage but tall, bouncy Gypsy Rose Lee. She had given up stripteasing for authorship--but you could never be sure, with Gypsy. The camera gave her a nervous glance. Sure enough, as she got well into her song, Psychology of a Stripteaser, she began to pluck at her shoulder. That was enough: the picture wavered and vanished in a hysterical band of jiggling lines. Startled televiewers found themselves staring at nothing but the initials CBS, while in the background, Gypsy's voice trilled on, and enthusiastic Air Force veterans shouted the traditional "Take it off! Take it off!"

At the end of Gypsy's number, CBS got the cinder out of its eye, and the rest of the show (including a parody striptease by Bob Hope) was perfectly clear.

Next day, stoutly denying any intent of censorship, CBS officials mumbled about "technical difficulties." Gypsy's sudden departure from the screen was just "a very odd coincidence." Said Miss Lee: "It was nearly midnight. Surely the kiddies aren't watching at that hour!"

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