|
 The
Gals
Hey, Fellas, If You Think You Ain’t Got
Competition, Read This!
By Phyllis Perlman*
We’re Press Agents in the
theatre – just press agents. If anyone so much as whispers "a girl
press agent," we see red, for we think of ourselves as professionals,
and not as a sex. When we were youngsters, we may have felt that we had
the short end of the stick, because the boys had more freedom and
therefore more power. But that’s all over. The sticks are equal length
now. We hold as many jobs simultaneously, we work as hard, we get paid
over scale as frequently, we get fired as often, and we enjoy equally with
our male colleagues the stale jokes about the producer who blames the
failure of his production on the inefficiency of the press agent.
We even look back upon those
days when producers hesitated to hire female press agents. "They can’t
go places where men can go," the impresarios used to say. "They
can’t stand up at the bar with drama editors and drink their way into a
column of type the way the men can."
But the dozen or so girls who
are members of ATPAM have made the producers eat those words, and if they
have had to swallow some bicarbonate of soda afterwards, we don’t care.
Let them put the cost of the medicine on their swindle sheets.
Which reminds me that even
our swindle sheets are just as big as those of the men. We have taught the
Victorian males all over the country that they need not blush if we grab a
check, and that they don’t have to remove hats in the office or rise
when we enter a room.
I remember and instance where
a producer of a hit show hesitated to send a woman agent ion advance on
the road. Unfortunately he was stuck in midseason, without a single
trousered gent available, so he had to swallow his fears while his New
York representative took over. In one city, the agent went for a night on
the town with an important newspaper editor and a couple of other press
agents who were doing their advance work at the same time. By 2 AM all the
others – did I mention they were all of the alleged stronger sex? –
had dropped out one by one, while the woman, thinking only of the space
she could procure for her show in the Sunday section, kept going like a
Spartan, even though the carousing was a bore to her. The end of the jaunt
found them assembled in a suspiciously tawdry hangout. It seemed full of
strangely assorted couples who arrived every few minutes, disappeared
behind closed doors where they remained fore short visits, and then
departed – a procedure which puzzled her mightily. Only after her play
had left the town with reams of publicity in the newspaper and
correspondingly large grosses in the box office, did she realize where she
had innocently gone in the line of duty. That producer, hearing of the
episode, apologized, conceded the round to the ladies, and has had a woman
press agent in New York and on tour ever since.
GALS MAKE CRITICS PAY
The male press agents are
fine – we gals don’t deprecate their ability – much! We merely
insist that by and large we’re just as good, not because we are
feminine, but because we are professional workers.
There are some who say our
sex gives us an advantage. Well, maybe we are slightly more
aesthetic-looking –what with Sally Victor hats, new look dresses, slim
nylon ankles in high heeled shoes and bright lipstick. But if we have an
advantage, it is only because as women, we have been trained to some
extent as housekeepers. We like to keep expenses down, and we are trained
as hostesses, so we develop an edge in tactful treatment of editors as
well as actors. And since the boys can more easily stand at a bar, we must
perforce spend more time inside the theatres, watching our shows and
convivially mingling with the actors in our casts.
We don’t like to blow our
own horns. But consider the page advertisement in this book in which all
of the drama critics and drama editors on the metropolitan papers are
listed. Two of us girl press agents – anathema to the man who first
voiced the phrase – collected that roster. It being leap year, we weren’t
embarrassed at asking them for their love – at two dollars apiece.
Printed here are excerpts from their answers to our requests, which tell
better than any defensive article what position the girls hold in the
field of press agentry:
Mrs. Marian Byram
Mrs. P. Perlman Bamberger
Ladies:Two dollars will buy, in a cut-rate place I know, ten gallons of
gasoline. With these ten gallons in my old Buick I can get 120 miles away
from New York, which isn’t quite far enough but will do. For $2 I can buy four bonded bourbon highballs in a place I know, and
the bartender will buy back once, making it five in all. This isn’t far
enough either, but it isn’t to be sneezed at. For $2 I can buy a carton of Chesterfields, which will impede my
circulation, eat away some more of my lungs and bring me closer to a
blessed demise. This isn’t quite close enough but it will do. For $2 I can take my wife to a movie, which isn’t quite far enough.
For $2 I can go from Jamaica to Coney Island and have $1.95 left over.
Then I can go back to Jamaica and have $1.90 left over. This, as you can
see, can go on for a long time. Not long enough, but something. For $2 in nickels I can telephone forty press agents, discover that all
their lines are busy, and save the entire amount. Believe me, I cannot
think of a sounder, safer savings plan. Yet, such is my love for you and your ilk, and even your husbands, that
the best thing I can think of to do with two bucks is to send it to you
for the welfare fund of the ATPAM. Affectionately, (signed) John Chapman
The money is marked. (signed) Brooks
I, for one, would gladly promote either of you two gals out of the $2
class. Love (signed) Bob Sylvester
I love you too. All of you. But don’t you think two dollars sounds a
little suggestive. After all, my wife sees these checks, so I may add a
quarter and be on the safe side. Incidentally, greetings! (signed) Tom Wenning
Dear "Peoples": Why not make it five dollars next time? With
love. (signed) Kelcey
Now that inflation has made $2 checks respectable again and in view of
the fact that I have been waiting patiently for your appeal for weeks, it
gives me great pleasure to enclose two dollars. (signed) Richard P. Cooke
Thank you so much for bringing it to my attention that I can become a
celebrity for two bucks. Cordially, (signed) Thomas Brailsford Felder
I am unspeakably touched. (signed) AEF (Arthur Folwell)
Gals like you ought to be asking for more than two bucks. I love you
madly. (signed) Joe Pihodna
I certainly love you 2 bucks worth and hope your benefit unearths a
rich hoard for the Welfare Fund. (signed) Mildred Gordon
Thanks for asking me. (signed) Arthur Pollock
I am honored and delighted to contribute to your souvenir book, whether
you use my name or not, just to have been asked is enough for me. Fond
regards. (signed) Willie Priory
Though this will impair my Feb. budget, and perhaps break me, I part
with it cheerfully. I can’t think of a cause or group that rates my
support more. (Get the "support!") And for only two bucks! Sincerely, Hal Eaton
I am enclosing two dollars for the Press Agent Fund and do so with
great pleasure (deleted pleasure and wrote in) reluctance. Fondly, (signed
Ward)
|
