Sammy Davis Jr. To Leave Hospital
SAN BERNARDINO, Nov. 25 — (INS) — Sammy Davis Jr., night club singing and dancing star, will leave San Bernardino Community Hospital late tomorrow, eight days after an automobile accident cost him his left eye.
December 21, 1954 —
(INS) — NEW YORK, Dec. 20 — Jackie Gleason, from Brooklyn, snatched an 11-million-dollar contract today to make television history. Jackie’s three-year contract with Columbia Broadcasting System was the largest ever negotiated.
Gleason confirmed the contract is renewed for a record in television. This breaks an earlier record, Lucy & Desi, for their “I Love Lucy” show, signed for $8 million for two and a half years.
HOLLYWOOD, Dec. 21 — (INS) — Maxine Andrews denied taking an overdose of sleeping pills in an attempted suicide. Andrews was escorted from the hospital today by her sister.
Police, however, gave a different story from a maid who found her. Maxine Andrews said she was trying to get some rest after a long day of work.
Miss Andrews, taken from her home in Chatsworth to Valley Hospital after the incident, described it this way: “I took two sleeping pills which I washed down with a drink of Scotch. I was nervous. I sat down to watch television. I became violently ill—so sick I remember walking outside into the driveway and all I remember is Bill and Vera (the household employees). That’s all I remember until this morning.”
Dr. Wallace Richmond, the singer’s physician, said Maxine suffered from a “mild nervous breakdown.”
Police, however, gave a report of the near tragedy quite different from the story told by the victim. Officers said she had taken 18 sleeping tablets in a suicide try which climaxed a year of wrangling among the once harmonious trio which broke up last January.
SLUMPED ON FLOOR
Police officers B. C. Ryburn and R. C. Marshal said they were called to the scene by “Bill and Vera,” Mr. and Mrs. William Sziga, who found the curly-haired Maxene slumped on the kitchen floor.
Ryburn and Marshal rushed Miss Andrews to the hospital, where she was pronounced in good condition after treatment.
The officers quoted the Sziga couple as saying Maxene had seemed “despondent and very tired” recently and that when they found her she told them, “don’t let me fall asleep—I’ve taken 18 pills.”
Maxine’s blond sister, Patti, who broke up the Andrews Sisters trio last January to go it alone, said at Las Vegas, Nev., she doubted that the trouble among the sisters would be solved if they resumed singing together.
Liberace Has Mild Heart Strain
HOLLYWOOD, Dec. 22 — (A. P.) — Liberace was under doctor’s orders to take a vacation because of what was termed “a mild and temporary heart strain due to lack of rest.”
Marilyn Merely Visiting in East
HOLLYWOOD, Dec. 28 — (N.S.) — Twentieth Century-Fox movie studio says its prize performer, Marilyn Monroe, has not gone into hiding to lick her divorce wounds, but is merely visiting in New York and will report back to work in Hollywood next week.
The studio made the announcement yesterday in an apparent effort to put at rest rumors the “blonde bombshell” had secreted herself to recover from the emotional bumps of her breakup with Joe DiMaggio.
Reconciliation Fails
HOLLYWOOD, Dec. 29 — (INS) — Former boxer Buddy Baer, 39, and his blonde wife, May Mann, 37, failed in a reconciliation attempt in court today, and he was ordered to pay her temporary alimony. *Buddy Baer, brother to actor Max Baer.
HOLLYWOOD, Dec. 29 — (INS) — The wife of Gregory Peck painted a black picture of married life with a movie star in court today as she divorced the dark, lean actor and grabbed a big chunk of his earnings.
Mrs. Greta Konen Peck, 42, ended her 12-year marriage claiming Peck was a cruel husband. Superior Court Judge A. Scott granted her an interlocutory divorce decree, custody of the Peck’s three children and an apparent property settlement that should keep the wolf away from her door permanently.
HOLLYWOOD, Dec. 29 — (I. N. S.) — A former parking lot attendant at the Moulin Rouge night club in Hollywood has filed suit against bandleader Horace Heidt for more than $10,000.
Billy Lee, 26, claimed Heidt pushed him hard against an automobile in the parking lot during a dispute over whether Heidt should drive his vehicle. The plaintiff asserted he suffered severe injuries which made him unable to work.
December 30, 1954 —
Jackie Gleason just furnished a new apartment and invited Art Carney up to envy it. The place is crowded with all colors of the rainbow and plush drapes. Gleason says “It is so swanky it even has it’s own switchboard”… “Well, Carney bemused and hawed, “it’s nice, but I don’t think I’d want to live here. If the Rockefellers had an opium den — it might look like this.”
