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Let Reader Sanderson's sorry suspicion subside. TIME'S Letters Supplement is conceived quite simply as a larger rostrum for TIME'S readers, not as a megaphone for TIME'S editors.—ED.
Hollywood Swine
Sirs:
Hollywood, like a hotel baggage-label, leaves an imprint which the most arduous soap & water scrubbing cannot eliminate.
So it was with Blue Boy (TIME, Jan. 29) who died ''in Hollywood" (TIME obit). In other publications, victims of Hollywood publicitis, death notices of this only silver-screen porker read "near Hollywood," "in the vicinity of Hollywood," "at a stock farm close to Hollywood," etc., etc.
Quibbling over the death place of a dead hog, even as worthy a Porcine as Blue Boy, shows to what extent live mortals will go. It also shows to what lengths a Hollywood publicity man will go.
Blue Boy's contract terminated Jan. 1, 1933. Oddly, a veteran film actor can be turned into the street as his star fades—but not an 800-lb. blue-ribbon Hampshire boar. Hollywood cast about for a home for its animal star, finally presenting Blue Boy (with appropriate Hollywood glamour, Will Rogers' wisecracks and camera-clicking) to the high-school vocational agricultural students (Future Farmers) of California. Hizzoner was housed at the California Polytechnic School, the state vocational agriculture institution 209 miles from Hollywood where he lived and died. As an unemployed film actor, he was at least a "white-striped elephant," and Hollywood breathed a big sigh of relief to have him off its hands. Nevertheless, he continued to be good copy. When his first progeny appeared, (353 miles airline from Hollywood) the 15 piglets were also born "near Hollywood." His travels about the State to get acquainted with mamma pigs were "in the neighborhood of Hollywood." As a herd sire A. H. (After Hollywood), Blue Boy was a bust; as a publicity medium for the ag boys, he was a success, provided Hollywood did not get its licks in first. Blue Boy has gone to his reward. A post-mortem showed that he was suffering from more ailments than a surgeon could find in a millionaire's interior—the price Blue Boy paid for having been kept in show-ring condition for the months of filming. While Hollywood has its oddities, this is probably the first time it has ever taken to its bosom a dead hog it had given away with a sigh of relief. When Blue Boy's ethereal self projects itself into some spiritualist gathering (you can't keep a good hog down), you may be sure that he will bring a message "from Hollywood."
RAY O. HAMILTON
President
California Polytechnic Chapter
Future Farmers of America
San Luis Obispo, Calif.
Farthest South
Sirs:
Your excellent review of Katherine Mayo's Soldiers What Next? in the Feb. 12 issue of TIME harks back to Isles of Fear and the annoyance it caused Filipinos. Did you ever hear of the annoyance it caused Philadelphians?