The Sixteenth Critic

Most nonconformist of Broadway critics is the World-Telegram's wiry Burton Rascoe. He throws vitriol while his colleagues are pouring honey, ecstatically waves his arms while his colleagues are turning down their thumbs.

Featured in last week's Jacobowsky and the Colonel was Hollywood's pretty Annabella, wife of Cinemactor Tyrone Power. The French cinemactress--who rose to fame in Director Rene Clair's Le Million --was making her Broadway debut. Critic Rascoe charged from the show to his typewriter, abruptly started off: "An incredibly talentless actress who calls herself Annabella made me so spiritually ill last night that you can stop, right now, if you want to. . . . In my whole life (I give you my word) I have never seen or heard an actress botch up good lines as badly." Next day, with knightly gallantry, the Theatre Guild ran an ad in the World-Telly headed "Here's to Annabella from 15 Drama Critics." For her performance, the 15 had showered on her such words as "charm," "sparkle," "warmth," "appealing," "delightful," "fresh as a breeze."

Fresh-as-a-breeze Annabella herself, according to Columnist Leonard Lyons, sent Rascoe a note saying: "Sorry I sickened you," and enclosing a bottle of castor oil.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.