Zit's

Names make news and, in some instances, names--even when not printed-- make whole publications, notably the papers of the "show business," of Manhattan's Broadway. This intensely personal form of journalism was notably demonstrated last week by Zit's Theatrical Newspaper (commonly known as Zit's Weekly).

A month ago Editor Carl Florian ("Zit") Zittel devoted the entire back page of his paper to the story of a young Manhattan doctor whose showgirl fiancee had gone to Hollywood. The girl had broken her promise of marriage, refused to return the doctor's gift of jewelry, worth $18,000. Names were omitted but the girl was advised to "do the right thing and save a lot of unnecessary scandal and gossip . . . involving big men." Last week Zit's proudly announced that Catherine Moylan, formerly of the Ziegfeld Follies, had returned the jewelry to Dr. Morton I. Berson, that "releases were signed ... all letters destroyed."

Few are aware that Editor Zittel is a nephew of Henry Morgenthau., Wilsonian U. S. Ambassador to Turkey. His mother was Bertha Morgenthau; his father Gustav Zittel, son of the late Professor Karl Alfred von Zittel, famed paleontologist. Zit is proud of his popularized nickname, has had it painted on the door of his automobile; wears in his lapel a diamond-studded "Z."

Like Editor Sime Silverman of Variety (TIME, April 7), Zit began his journalistic career on the New York Morning Telegraph. In 1904 he started a vaudeville department in the Telegram, switched to the now-defunct Evening Mail where he originated the "racetrack chart" form of reviewing vaudeville bills.

In 1906 Zit was hired by Hearst's Journal. He was not aware until starting work that the Journal, like all other Hearstpapers, could get scarcely a line of theatrical advertising. Following the disastrous Iroquois Theatre fire in Chicago (1903) Hearst papers cartooned the showmen Marc Klaw and Abraham Lincoln Erlanger sitting in electric chairs. A Hearst boycott by virtually every important producer was the result. By sheer nerve and persistence Zit placated Erlanger, broke the boycott.

It is Zit's boast that in his 14 years on the Journal he made more than $3,000,000 profit for the paper in theatrical advertising; that he was responsible for the $5,000,000 contract between Hearst and Famous Players; for the $2,000,000 contract between Hearst's newsreel and Universal Film Corp.; for various successes of Hearst's Cinemactress Marion Davies. He left the Journal to start Zit's Weekly in 1921, with the gratitude of Publisher Hearst who continued to pay him $1,000 a week until two years ago.

Zit has turned his hand at many a trick besides advertising. At one time he ran a factory for making papier mache, artificial flowers, etc., etc. He once organized 75 musical laborers into the "Royal Band of Rome to H. M. Victor Emanuel III," and directed them through a long engagement in a Harlem beer garden. Later he furnished the "Naval Reserve Band of Italy" to Luna Park. Of this band, 35 members could play. The other 40 were drilled to puff convincingly at plugged-up instruments for $1 per day.

With increased advertising in view, Zit often ventures the role of impresario, claims to have "discovered" Sophie Tucker, Belle Baker, Eva Tanguay. He also writes songs. Extravagantly he boasts that "more individuals in the amusement field owe their present positions to ZIT than to any other single agency."

The "rottenest break" of his career, says Zit, occurred last year. A rich syndicate had offered him $4,000,000 commission if he could persuade Showman Erlanger to sell his theatrical enterprises. Erlanger refused because he "couldn't live if he gave up his business"--and died ten months later.

Another "personal" publication appeared last week in The New Broadway Brevities, a monthly edited by Stephen G. Clow who once styled himself "the most famous and wicked blackmailer in world history." In 1919 Editor Clow acquired the weekly Broadway Brevities, made $150,000 from it in six years, went to Atlanta Penitentiary for blackmail. Emerging penniless in 1928, Clow wrote his "confessions" for King Features Syndicate. Of him Variety's Editor Sime Silverman said: "After Clow had been used by hundreds on Times Square to settle their personal hatreds, they stood by and allowed him to be stuck up against a wall to be shot." In his new venture, backed by Wall Streeters, Editor Clow makes no apology, no reference to his book's notorious predecessor. The first issue is a potpourri of Broadway gossip, interspersed by smoking-car humor.

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