Condition is very good.

Nice Budweiser ad.

EXCLUSIVE

"My Own Story"

by

BRIGITTE

BARDOT

France's

Box-office

Bombshell

----------- 2 -----------

a cat, and the feeling's

best friend is hardly ever

OUR COVER:

A dog's

mostly mutual. But this

pair have been introduced

by the best friend any pup

or kitten ever had-famed

pet photographer Walter

Chandoha-and...well...

any friend of Chandoha's

is a friend of any other

friend of Chandoha's.

----------- 3 -----------

By ALAN HYND

Corn Belt Con Man

"My Own Story" .

. By BRIGITTE BARDOT

By DAN PARKER

TV Fights-and How to Judge Them

Diet While You Eat

By WILFRED DORFMAN, M. D.

and THYRA SAMTER WINSLOW

Spaceman at Home.

By FRANCES LEIGHTON

In One Ear .

. By JOE MCCARTHY

Patterns

Wonderful Ways With Windows

By DORIS DENISON

It Should Happen to People

By JOHN CARLOVA

----------- 4 -----------

By A. I. W. DORRANCE

Health and Better Living

A round-up of the latest in medical developments

----------- 5 -----------

A New "Old" Help for Reducers

In a clinic at New York's Bellevue Hospital

recently, a series of obese people, ranging in weight

from 140 pounds to 257, were advised to go on a

well-balanced, 1,100-calorie diet. Along with the

advice, all received what they thought was a potent

medicine to take at home. Actually, half did get

real medicine-a newer form of thyroid hormone

called liothyronine-while, for test purposes, the

others received only dummy pills.

At first there were no great noticeable differ-

ences. But, as the study continued for months, strik-

ing differences showed up. With just one exception,

every patient on liothyronine lost weight. One lost

202 pounds, not in any rush but steadily over a

period of a year. Another lost 14% pounds. The

average loss was 92 pounds.

In sharp contrast, only 15 per cent of those re-

ceiving the inert pills showed any loss. A few main-

tained the same weight. More than 60 per cent

actually gained weight-as much as 12% pounds.

Does this mean it's time for a new look at the

metabolic approach to treating obesity? The Belle-

vue physician who made the study believes it does.

The thyroid gland controls metabolism, the

body's use of food and energy. Years ago, when

thyroid substance first became available, there was

a rush to use it wholesale for weight control. Then

it fell into scientific disrepute-except in obese

people with hypothyroidism, whose glands clearly

did not produce enough thyroid hormone.

Such people are relatively few, but recently,

discovery of liothyronine has focused attention on

a condition called hypometabolism which may be

much more common than hypothyroidism.

In hypometabolism the thyroid may turn out

a normal amount of hormone. Basal metabolism

and other tests may be normal. But the hormone

may do little good. The theory is that it has to be

converted into a special chemical form before it

can be used by body tissues-and in people with

hypometabolism, the conversion doesn't take place.

----------- 6 -----------

When Queen Elizabeth knighted Sir Francis Drake the idea

for an ugly scandal and a gigantic financial hoax was born.

CORN BELT

CON MAN

He swindled $2,000,000

out of 70,000 Midwesterners

who believed they had

royal blood in their veins

----------- 7 -----------

By ALAN HYND

OSCAR HARTZELL was a rogue from the

tall corn country with a tall tale-the tale that

tens of thousands of the good folk of the Middle

West were the descendants of an illegitimate son

born of a secret liaison between Sir Francis Drake

and Queen Elizabeth, and were heirs to a hidden

twenty-billion-dollar estate. Spinning the tale for

eight wondrous years, and selling shares in the

hon-existent estate, Hartzell, one of the sharpest

con men ever to hustle along Larceny Lane, clipped

70,000 investors for more than two million dollars.

Oscar, a hulking, uneducated farm boy from

Madison County, Iowa, was a born backslapper.

Until he was 47 he was a traveling drummer of

farm implements, then a deputy sheriff. By hang-

ing around courtrooms and watching clever lawyers

hoodwink juries, Hartzell decided that the average

citizen would, if properly approached, believe prac-

tically anything.

Oscar got off the ground one night in the 1920s

when, just after having lost an election for the

sheriff's job, he was visited by a couple of sharpers

who were peddling shares in the mythical Drake

estate a classic swindle that really didn't hit its

stride until Oscar took hold of it. "I don't believe

a word of what you're sayin'," said Oscar.

"Why?"

"Bęcause my dear old mother lost our farm in

this same thing when I was a little boy-but if you

pay me a commission," he said, "I think maybe I

can sell some of these shares."

Setting out on a tour of the Corn Belt in a

tubercular jalopy, Oscar informed the suckers that

research had disclosed that they were descendants

of the illegitimate Drake boy. Thus, he said, they

were heirs to a fortune that had been kept hidden

by the British Government to avoid an historic

scandal, and on which interest had been accruing

for three centuries.

Oscar was, he explained, selling shares in the

fortune to defray the London legal expenses neces-

sary to pry the money loose from John Bull. The

tale sounded genuine when the homespun Oscar

spun it.

"How much," a farmer would ask Oscar, "will

I get on my money if I go into this thing?"

"I want to be conservative," Oscar would reply,

blinking. "Let's say you'll only get a hundred dol-

lars for every dollar you invest."

With that the farmer would rush out to sell the

old spotted cow. The disclosure that they were

tainted by illegitimacy didn't seem' to bother the

donators, as Oscar began to call the victims of the

swindle. The Iowans couldn't get down on the

good thing fast enough.

As the months wore on and the swindle began

to mushroom, Oscar cut loose from the two crooks

he was working for and branched out on his own.

He hired several key salesmen-characters who

had hayseed sticking out of their celluloid collars

and who spoke the lingo of the Corn Belt.

By the time Oscar had been functioning for a

year, the Drake caper had assumed such propor-

OSCAR HARTZEL s

----------- 8 -----------

By Brigitte Bardot

EDITOR'S NOTE: Brigitte Bardot, as she herself declares i

her accompanying self-portrait, is a lady of many contradie

tions and turns of mind. Since the story was written, report

have her estranged from Sacha Distel and entangled with 29

year-old actor Jacques Charrier, with whom she has just made

a new movie, "Babette Goes to War." However, by the tima

the reader scans these words it is entirely possible that Distel

may (or may not) again be the front runner in Brigittele

unpredictable love sweepstakes. Who can tell?

I BEGAN TO MAKE MOVIES when I was 17. Now I'm

24 and I've made 24 movies. At first nothing went well. No

one wanted me. I sent photographs to producers and they all

passed me by. They said I would never amount to anything,

Then I made a melodrama in Rome, a melancholy kind of

film, the way the Italians like them. In English it was called

Love, Hate and Treason. I wouldn't go so far as to say I was

good in it, but I wasn't bad either. It was then that French

producers heard about me and began to say: “Well, it's just

possible that this little girl will get somewhere after all."

A picture called The Grand Maneuver sent my price up

enormously. Then there was Picking Daisiės and . .. oh, yes

... And God Created Woman. That was the beginning of the

beginning.

I was married at 18, at the very start of my career, to

Roger Vadim. I didn't know what to do with myself. Vadim

showed me. He made "B.B.", but Brigitte Bardot existed

before that. Even without him I think I would have become

sômeone-a dancer or a well-known cover girl perhaps.

In the movies, however, he helped me very much. He made

me change my ways and, especially, he taught me that things

don't happen by themselves, as if by magic; that you've got to

do more than lift your little finger if you want to succeed. You

must work and have patience. I owe him a lot. If he had not

been around when everything was going badly, when no one

wanted me, I think I would have abandoned the movies.

I had given myself two years to succeed. I don't do things

halfway, and for almost two years nothing went well for me.

There were some weeks when I decided to quit entirely, when

I hated everything to do with the movies.

spend my life begging producers for bit parts.

With Vadim it was work above all that mattered. We had

some hard times. No money; we lived in a seedy furnished

flat, two small uncomfortable rooms. Everything went wrong.

We had all the inconveniences that go with lack of money-

those tiresome, routine things that kill love, those absurd little

annoyances that make people fight all the time, that put you

in a bad mood.

We couldn't make ends meet. Vadim would do anything, it

didn't matter what, to make a little money. I did too. 1

posed for fashion photographs. I washed dishes. I cooked.

Now I never cook. Rather than cook, I would prefer not to eat.

I treated Vadim more like a pal, I suppose, than a real

husband. Of course we were in love, very much so, but above

all he was a friend. I owe a lot to Vadim, yes, but he owes

me something too. It was I who got him the job as director of

And God Created Woman, his first big break.

It was while we were making that film that I met Jean

I didn't want to

----------- 9 -----------

WITH MARCEL HAEDRICH

talks frankly about her private life

Louis Trintignant, the actor with whom I fell in love. We

shared the same tastes. And we never fought. When he was

doing his military service, how I wanted him near me!

I always need someone near me. Maybe that sounds like

a contradiction; first I say that it is the everyday things that

kill love and then that it is absence that does it...but there

are lots of contradictions in me, in everyone, I guess.

But I need real affection. I need to feel it and to give it.

The other day a contractor who was working on my house

nico"

said to me: "You know, you're really very nice." That made

me melt. I could have thrown my arms around him.

I really get the

I'm

wearing

Whenever I make an appearance in public I

once-over. They look at my hair. my dress. If

a scarf on my head and a simple coat, I hear people say: "With

the me

all the money she makes she could be better dressed. Look at

bear

her hair!" And if I go out in mink, manicured, coiffed, made-

up, the same people will claim that I'm affected. But I think

they must like me or they wouldn't come to see my pictures.

Still, there are lots of people who take a malicious pleasure

in saying in a loud voice: "I thought she'd be better looking

than that. If that's a star.. ." They have to insult, I suppose.

I am more sensitive to one disagreeable remark than to 10

compliments.

It is true that I am never really well groomed, When I

a young girl this made me the despair of my mother. She

used to take away my dessert and forbid me to go out. When

I began making movies they fixed my hair and made me up.

I who had never put anything on my skin now had a face

smeared with thick yellow plaster. It made me sick.

was

to be affectionate with, I pet my

I have two of them: Clown (I call him Clou-

clou) a black cocker spaniel, an anniversary present from

Vadim; and Guapa, a little animal of uncertain breeding.

found Guapa in Madrid nibbling around a garbage can.

picked her up and brought her with me to Paris and changed

her whole life. At first Clouclou was a little jealous but he

When there is

no one

dogs for hours.

Soon got over it.

One evening when I was starting out for a big party I

noticed, all of a sudden, that Guapa had begun to twist and

squirm. I telephoned Maman. She told me: "She is surely

going to have her puppies. You mustn't leave her." So I didn't.

She had three puppies, I baptized them Ding, Deng and Dong.

I have doves at my house in St. Tropez and a cat called

Monsieur Trotte. I send him postcards. When I travel I also

send postcards to my dogs.

It was at St. Tropez that I met Sacha Distel. I had known

him slightly before that and hadn't found him particularly

interesting. He felt the same way about me. We were on

vacation and I was tired, depressed and a little sad. There

were lots of people in my house when he came there one

evening. He stayed eight days. One night, a friend who was

celebrating his birthday invited us to the Esquinade. There

were lots of other people there. That evening Sacha and I

saw each other with new eyes.

(Continued on page 9)

THE BARDOTS AT HOME. When Brigitte (playing with her dog Clouclou)

and her sister Mijanou can get away from their movie chores, they rush

home for a reunion with their father and mother, Louis and Anne-Marie

Bardot, and the trimly bearded grandfather they call "Boum-Papa."

----------- 10 -----------

MIJANOU BARDOT, Brigitte's sister, is

also a movie actress who likes to play the

gamine away from the cameras.

swimming partner is Pierre Schoendoerf-

fer, who sometimes co-stars with Mijanou.

Her

----------- 11 -----------

TV Fights-

and how to judge them

A famous sportswriter says you can sit in

your living room and be as smart as the experts at ringside

By DAN PARKER

----------- 13 -----------

TELEVISION has made America a

nation of fight referees and judges. People

who a decade ago wouldn't have attended a

boxing match if you'd paid them to now

are second-guessing the ring officials at na-

tionally televised bouts.

More often than not, with good reason,

The unvarnished truth is that some boxing

officials aren't qualified to judge dog fights.

Political influence, rather than a solid back-

ground in boxing, is the chief requisite for

appointment, particularly for judges. Referees

are usually better grounded in the sport;

many of them are former fighters.

Venality, however, probably causes more

bad decisions than incompetence. The under-

world wields a powerful influence in many

cities and uses this to bring about the appoint-

ment of officials who will stand up for the

"right" man, especially in a close fight.

Some of the most odoriferous decisions of

late have come out of California and Chicago.

A particularly bad one originated in Holly-

wood last January, when Paul Armstead,

after having his ears pinned back artistically

The American Weekly-May 24, 1959

----------- 13 -----------

by Len Mathews, was declared the winner.

The howls from the home front are still echo-

ing over that one, but the law of averages

caught up with Armstead when he met Eddie

Perkins in Chicago on April 13. Though win-

ning all the way (on the home screen), he got

the short end (from the officials).

A classic in misjudgment was the decision

awarded to Gil Cadilla over Willie Pep in San

Francisco back in March, 1955. Pep, one of the

great ring craftsmen of this era, clearly out-

boxed Gil but lost the decision. The fact that

this led to a return bout in Detroit seven

weeks later, which Willie won, makes anyone

inclined to be cynical about boxing take a

jaundiced view of this particular situation.

A couple of more recent decisions which

scented the screen, in the eyes of many arm-

chair officials, were those giving Dennis Moyer

the nod over Gaspar Ortega and Del Flanagan

over Ralph Dupas.

Only those connected with boxing are

aware of the shenanigans that sometimes go

on under cover, but the New York County

grand jury's current (Continued om page 21)

----------- 14 -----------

Spaceman

at Home

By FRANCES LEIGHTON

Washington Editor

----------- 16 -----------

Lieutenant Colonel John H. Glenn,

Jr., 37, of the U. S. Marine Corps and North

Arlington, Virginia, is a 5' 8", 180 pounder

with close-cropped red hair and striking green

eyes, a flying veteran of World War II and

Korea, holder of the Distinguished Flying

Cross with four clusters and the Air Medal

with 18 clusters.

He set a continental speed record-from

Los Angeles to New York-of three hours, 23

minutes and 8.4 seconds two years ago. Like

millions of his fellow Americans, he leads a

whołesome, normal family life but there the

similarity ends. For, chosen as one of the

seven astronauts of Project Mercury to train

for an historic mission into the unknown,

Glenn may very well become, within the next

two years, the Columbus of the Rocket Age.

If so, he will be hurled 125 miles into space,

----------- 16 -----------

circle the earth two or three times at 18,00

miles per hour and, if all goes well, will return

Should this space age pioneering role no

fall to Glenn, it will go to one of his con-

freres: Lieut. Commander Walter M, Schirra

Jr., 36, of Hackensack; New Jersey; Lieut

Commander Alan B. Shepard, Jr., 35, of East

Derry, New Hampshire, and Lieut. Malcolm

S. Carpenter, 33, of Boulder, Colorado, all of

the Navy; and Capt. Donald K. Slayton, 35

of Sparta, Wisconsin; Capt. Virgil I. Grissom

33, of Mitchell, Indiana, and Capt. Leroy G

Cooper, Jr., 32, of Shawnee, Oklahoma, all of

the Air Force.

Glenn volunteered as one of the seven air-

men most likely to "get out of this world

alive" because he "thought it would be the

nearest to Heaven I would ever come."

(More piotures on page 16)

----------- 17 -----------

When the in-laws, both sets, drop in from New Concord, Ohio, it

means just one thing-a good old-fashioned song fest. "Our two

families have sung together ever since I can remember," Glenn

says. Thanks to this musical experience, he once won $12,500 on

the TV program, "Name That Tune."

Son David has designed and constructed a model plane. Here he

checks his work with the Colonel and wonders what Dad thinks

of using one of Mother's bobby pins "to stabilize the canard."

PHOTOGRAPHS BY NOEL CLARK

The Glenns are a church-going family. Mrs. Glenn, who majored in

music at Muskingum College, plays the church organ. The minis-

ter, the Rev. Frank Erwin, is a close friend of the Colonel, who was

a church trustee on his last post and who says, “Religion takes a

lot out of the fatalistic attitude that many fliers seem to have."

The American Weekly-May 24, 1959

----------- 18 -----------

By JOHN CARLOVA

HEN THE BELL RANG, the

housekeeper answered the door. "Hello.

Master Bobby," she said solicitously.

"Did you have a nice walk?"

The wealthy young heir didn't bother

to reply. He strolled through the lux-

urious apartment to an air-conditioned

bedroom and stretched out for a little

nap.

After dinner-a tasty, medium-

rare steak-he settled down in front of

the television set.

The housekeeper

changed channels as his favorite pro-

grams came on, and brought him occa-

sional snacks. Around midnight, Bobby

yawned, stretched and toddled off to

bed-just like thousands of other well-

to-do Americans all over the country.

There

is a

difference, however.

Bobby is a dog-a plain, ordinary mon-

grel, except that he happens to have

$50,000 in the bank.

willed to Bobby by a Reading, Pennsyl-

vania, man who considered the dog “a

constant, loyal companion and true

friend" during the last years of his life.

Bobby is symbolic of the rising living

standards for dogs all over America. As

the country has prospered, pooches have

become more and more pampered. In

some households it's hard to distinguish

between mutt and master.

This, in fact, was the basis of a com-

plaint by a Los Angeles businessman

who told a divorce court that his wife

made him eat at the same table with

her six dogs. "We all gọt the same food,

too," the mere human told the judge,

and the dogs all slept in our bedroom

-some right on the bed with us."

The money was

"Did you know your wife liked dogs

before you married her?" the judge