1,000% Publicity

As a self-billed "Merchant of Venus," Walter Thornton ran one of the three biggest model agencies in the U.S. He claims to be the discoverer of Lauren Bacall, Susan Hayward, Dorothy McGuire, Lizabeth Scott and Arlene Dahl, and the first to use the phrase "pinup girl." He also has shown a talent for getting publicity for Walter Thornton. Of modeling, he once said: "This business gets 1,000% more publicity than it deserves."

Last week Walter Thornton got 1,000% more publicity than he wanted. Two detectives from the office of Queens County District Attorney T. Vincent Quinn walked into Thornton's plush Park Avenue establishment and placed him under arrest. The charge: obtaining money under false pretenses in his model catalogue business.

For fees ranging from $42 to $65, Thornton published the pictures of children and adults in his "Model Photo Directory," which he distributed to advertising agencies and TV and movie producers.

Thornton, and ten of his staffers indicted with him, are charged with claiming falsely that 90% of children listed in the Thornton directory got modeling jobs (the indictment says that actually fewer than 10% did), and with exhibiting advertisements for Robert Hall Clothes, Gerber's foods, Ivory Soap and others which they falsely claimed were posed by Thornton models.

Thornton, who gave up the model agency to concentrate on the catalogue, has been in trouble before. When he was 16, he was convicted of holding up a store and taking $5, served about two years in a reformatory for armed robbery.

In defense, Thornton pointed out that all his catalogue customers had signed statements acknowledging that he had not "guaranteed" them that their pictures would be sold. Said Thornton: "District Attorney Quinn hasn't got a case in the world. It's merely for publicity. He's under indictment himself, and he's trying to make everyone forget about it."*

* Quinn was indicted in 1952 on charges of accepting fees, while a Democratic Congressman, to represent clients in tax fraud cases before the Internal Revenue Bureau.

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