Word: bernsteining
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Edouard Bourdet is director of the Théâtre Français, better known as the Comédie Francaise, which is the haughtiest and most famous theatre in the world. Recently the Comédie Franchise was delighted to honor French Playwright Henry Bernstein's Judith. But not, in Bernstein's opinion, to rehearse it properly. Thereupon Bernstein naturally insulted Bourdet. Bourdet naturally challenged Bernstein to a duel. It was Bourdet's first, Bernstein's ninth...
...daybreak one morning last week in a Neuilly garden near Paris, the duel did not begin until lunchtime, because both swordsmen overslept. Arriving first, Bernstein found a policeman trying to forbid the encounter.* Said Bernstein, brushing him by: "You're not going to forbid anyone to do anything." As the challenged party, Bernstein had choice of weapons, chose épées; as winner of the toss, had choice of position, chose the sun at his back...
From the word Allez, 51-year-old Bourdet was fighting mad, lunged wildly at 61-year-old Bernstein's chest and abdomen. At first Bernstein took it easy, then gradually matched his opponent's aggressiveness, finally gave Bourdet a poke in the arm. This ended the fight. But not for Bourdet. Snapped he: "This is only a theatre duel." Begging in vain for another go, he finally strode fuming off the field, without shaking Bernstein's hand...
...along on a $6.25 weekly allowance. Day before his 21st birthday he got $1,000, heard his mother say next day, about the rest: "You haven't got a cent. There never has been one cent belonging to you. It's all mine." Year later Arthur Bernstein married Lillian Coogan. One day the Kid hauled off, knocked Arthur rump over teakettle. From that day on, the Coogan mansion was not big enough for both of them...
Meantime Jackie was trying, and failing miserably, to make a living as a grownup. He wanted to marry blonde, lissome Actress Betty Grable. Mrs. Bernstein telephoned Betty's mother. "If Betty thinks she's marrying a rich boy," she piped, "she is mistaken. He hasn't a cent. He's a pauper." Last November Betty married Jackie anyway, began to support him on her Paramount Pictures salary of $500 a week. Since then Jackie has earned exactly $1,000, the result of two weeks' work with his wife in Paramount's College Swing, released...