Interview - Falk Collaborates on Play About Newsmen

Printed in Editor and Publisher September 28, 1940, p 28

Falk Collaborates on Play About Newsmen

By STEPHEN J. MONCHAK

OVER at KING FEATURES SYNDICATE they call Lee Falk "the boy wonder of the cartooning world." Falk, 29, is the author of two internationally known comic - adventure strips - "Mandrake the Magician" and "The Phantom." He has teamed with two artists, Ray Moore and Phil Davis, to produce these strips. He entered the syndicate field in 1934 with "Mandrake" and followed with "The Phantom two years later. Now, seeking new fields for his talents, he has collaborated on a play about newspaper men. "The Big Story" this week was being tried out in the Maplewood, N. J., Theater. A farce, it relates the experiences of a foreign correspondent covering Rome, gets some laughs, has a few risque lines, and, when brushed up more with a change in name, will move to Broadway, according to Falk.

First Such Effort

Teaming with Falk in writing the play is Alan Cranston, former International News Service corresepondent in Rome, London and with the Italian forces in Ethiopia. Cranston returned to this country in 1938 and now is publicity director for the Common Council for U. S. Unity. This play is the first such effort for both of the writers. It is being produced by Gilbert Miller and stars Donald Cook, stage and screen figure, in the leading role of bureau chief in Rome.

Falk, who was graduated from the University of Illinois in 1932, first worked as a refrigerator salesman after leaving college. But he soon tired of wasting his breath on eulogies to an ice-making machine, he explains.

His next step was copy writer for Westheimer and Company, St. Louis ad agency, where he wrote blurbs for newspapers, magazines, commercials for radio broadcasts, turned out prospectuses and served as general idea man.

"For two years" he explained to the column last week at the Maplewood Theater, "I was Ethel King, a mythical radio character who conducted a love-problems program. I solved thousands of intimate and confidential problems."

Falk didn't take the part on the air (having a baritone voice) but he wrote the script. In 1934, then only 23, Falk conceived the idea of a newspaper strip portraying the adventures of a master of hypnotism, who extricates himself from one tight scrape after another by dint of quick thinking, the help of his giant native servant, and the power of mesmerizing his antagonists. That's "Mandrake."

Also a Globe-Trotter

King grabbed up the strip and Falk celebrated by getting married. He's now the proud father of a four months old daughter. Falk brought out his "Phantom" strip when he was 25.

Falk also is a globe-trotter. He estimates that the total mileage covered in his wanderings would have taken him many times around the globe. He has visited 25 foreign countries.

Falk's hobbies are good music and tennis. He also is a devotee of Shakespeare and Aristophanes. In addition to the classics, he keeps well abreast of modern literature and world developments.

Falk, who was born in St. Louis, Mo., now makes his home in New York.