Weeper for the Losers

It was a command performance, and Broadway responded with its best. While no fewer than nine understudies carried on in Manhattan, stars from five smash musicals, including Sally Ann Howes (My Fair Lady), Thelma Ritter (New Girl in Town) and ten-year-old Eddie Hodges (The Music Man), entertained White House guests last week in a special musicale at a dinner for the Supreme Court.

But after the bravos, for stars and host alike, there was one sonorous boo from the Washington Post and Times Herald's drama critic, Richard L. Coe. What cooled Coe was the common practice among actors of skipping performances for benefits, TV appearances and the like. That, he argued, is false advertising, since the public is never told in advance that the stars they paid to see will not appear--even when, as in this case, the arrangements were made six weeks ago.

"The public's loss," cried Critic Coe, "is the more ironic because of all recent Presidents, President Eisenhower has done less for the theater than any other. Only once has President Eisenhower been inside a legitimate theater since he entered the White House. That was in New York to pick up his wife after My Fair Lady. He saw the musical's last 15 minutes. But last night at the White House some of the top hits' leading players were willing to disappoint their paying customers to perform before a President of the United States who has not, as yet, deigned to cross a street to see their fellow Equity players."

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