Mantle of Barnum

At least a few folds of the mantle of P. T. Barnum now flow over the tough shoulders of Showman Mike Todd who ran four of the biggest, most popular attractions at the recent New York World's Fair (Gay New Orleans, Streets of Paris, Dancing Campus, Old Time Op'ry House). Previous wearer of the whole mantle was Showman Billy Rose, but if Showman

Rose has not been forced to relinquish it entirely. Showman Todd has at least forced him to share it. Last week in Chicago, Showman Todd opened the biggest theatre-restaurant ever, Michael Todd's Theatre-Cafe, in the old Rainbow Ballroom which housed the high-priced French Casino during the Chicago World's Fair.

Showman Todd privately refers to his food-&-fun palace as "the saloon," but it is a red, white & blue giant, seating 3,700, employing 190 waitresses, 100 entertainers in the show and two dance bands (Jack Denny's & Johnny Gilbert's), 25 barkeeps at a 400-foot balcony-bar. Todd runs this monstrous pub on the principle of low prices and big volume. He charges 50-c- admission, offers dinners from 75-c- up, a champagne cocktail for 25-c-. His publicity boasts that he makes the quarter-of-a-dollar "the largest single unit of entertainment buying power in the entire history of the show business." On opening night 3,500 customers felt inclined to agree. In addition to dining & dancing, they saw Todd's Gay New Orleans revue from the New York World's Fair.

Biggest hits were two features not in the Fair edition: Strip-Teaser Gypsy Rose Lee, and the ancient vaudeville comedy team of Willie West & McGinty (whom Showman Rose had in his World's Fair Aquacade)--the four mad carpenters who nearly wreck themselves in the process of building a house on the stage. Showman Todd, gaga with excitement at his opening, would give no opinion as to its success.

"I'm punchy," he said. "You tell me." Michael Todd, 33, is a small, dark, jut-jawed addict of cigars and green suits. He was born in Minneapolis, where he peddled papers, played a silver cornet in a boys' band until his father moved to the country to run a general store. Aged 12, Mike worked in a Chicago carnival pitch where anyone who could throw three balls into a bucket got a free duck. Mike's job was to sit hidden under a platform, jerk a string that made the balls bounce out if they happened to drop into the bucket. He got 25-c- a night. When he asked for 50-c- and was refused, he went lightly on the string, cost the boss many a duck. He passed on to soda jerking, pharmacy, shoe selling, then started a one-room Bricklaying College of America with an unemployed Assyrian bricklayer as the faculty. Moving into show business he ran a road show whose star was a trained penguin, wrote gags for Hellzapoppinjays Olsen & Johnson. For the Chicago World's Fair he devised a moth-&-flame dance in which the flame left the moth in the nude (several moths got burned in rehearsals). Thereafter he produced Broadway flops, sold Santa Claus paraphernalia to stores, raised enough money to produce his sensational Hot Mikado with Bill ("Bojangles") Robinson in the lead. Then came his New York World's Fair successes.

Today Michael Todd lives at Chicago's swank Drake Hotel, is driven in a Cadillac by a liveried chauffeur, mangles the King's English, aspires to produce the delicate dramas of his good friend Hungarian Playwright Ferenc Molnar.

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