Model Copy

Ed Sullivan writes a Hollywood gossip column for the New York Daily News, syndicates it to some 50 other papers. Never celebrated as a reporter, he got his start as a sports columnist for Macfadden's late Manhattan tabloid Graphic. One day last fortnight Ed Sullivan set out across continent with a troupe of actors (including Horror Man Bela Lugosi) to do a vaudeville turn. In St. Louis he dropped off between trains, decided to pay a goodwill call on his St. Louis paper.

Wrote Newsman Sullivan from Terre Haute two days after: "I visited the plant of the St. Louis Star-Times, in which the column has appeared for some years. . . . I had a pleasant visit with Newspaper Veteran Larner. ... To my unbounded amazement, he told me that he uses some of this column's original typewritten copy to drive home to young reporters the importance of submitting 'clean' copy to the Star-Times composing room. . . . The joker in it, to this reporter, was that composing-room foremen for the past 20 years have berated me for single-spacing my typewritten copy. ..."

Joker in it, to St. Louis newsmen, was that Ed Sullivan's column does not appear in the Star-Times, but in the Post-Dispatch. Another joker was that Columnist Sullivan got his names mixed: "Newspaper Veteran Larner" turned out to be news editor, William R. Miner.

Said Editor Miner with a straight face: "He [Sullivan] said he had only a few minutes--it was nice he could spend them in our office." Said the Post-Dispatch, preoccupied with weightier matters (see p. 56 : nothing.

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