A Woman’s a Fool – to Be Clever

It’s too bad this play had only seven performances.  According to the critics, it was a flop.  However, the critics were in agreement that, Eddie Green as “the cast’s lone Negro actor” gave the best performance.  Eddie, in the role of butler and coachman for the Foster family, was “genuinely funny.”  The newspaper articles mentioned also that Eddie had appeared many times as a guest on Rudy Vallee’s radio hour, and that he had also held a spot with Gee Gee James over the airways with Louie Armstrong and his revue.

The Pittsburgh Courier said “Even Walter Winchell, in his review of the play published in the Daily Mirror agrees “that the most popular member of the earnest little troupe is Eddie Green.”  And “to him is entrusted a few sallies.”

Walter Winchell worked for the New York Daily Mirror where he became the author of what would be the first syndicated gossip column, titled On-Broadway.

Using connections in the entertainment, social, and governmental realms, he would expose exciting or embarrassing information about celebrities in those industries. .  His newspaper column was syndicated in over 2,000 newspapers worldwide, and he was read by 50 million people a day from the 1920s until the early 1960s. His Sunday-night radio broadcast was heard by another 20 million people from 1930 to the late 1950s. It was a big deal then to get a thumbs-up from Mr. Winchell.  My mom did not have a lot of information about Eddie before she married him , but she did know about the mention from Mr. Winchell, so this was one item I grew up having knowledge of, and I knew, even as a child the importance of a Walter Winchell mention.

Growing up I knew so much less about my father than I do now, but I always had a sense of pride in his accomplishments, though for a long time I wished he hadn’t died and left me.  Anywho, Eddie did die in 1950, and with the book I am writing I have gotten as far as 1940.  Soon I will need to have a title, something like “Eddie Green, Star of Stage, Screen and Radio” or, Eddie Green, Renaissance Man, or “Who Was Eddie Green?”, or “An In-Depth Look At A Forgotten Star”.  I have had sixty different titles in my head. Suggestions are welcomed.

Thank you, for stopping by.