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Bennett CerfBennett Cerf
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Session:         Page of 1029

said, “Listen, Bob, you had an article in this month's Cosmopolitan Magazine. What did they pay you for the article?” Bob said, “I still tell you that I don't want anything, but since you ask, they paid me $1,000 for that article.”

She said, “Okay,” and hung up the phone. Two days later, Bob Considine got a check for $750 from Cissie Paterson with a little note pinned to it. The note read, “Dear Bob, I telephoned Cosmopolitan.” That's the story. It's a beauty!

Well, later we did several more war stories about all of the various fronts. A particularly good one covered the Aleutians operation. We also had Edgar Snow working for us. I think that Random House had more successful war books at that time than any other five publishers put together.

We ended up with a crazy number called Four Jills in a Jeep, which was written by Carole Landis, a movie star. She and Kaye Francis and Mitzi Mayfair and I've forgotten who the fourth girl was. These four Hollywood stars went over to entertain the troops, and wrote a very funny book about their adventures. It became a very successful movie, too. Carole Landis was the girl who killed herself presumably because of Rex Harrison. Knowing her was lots of fun. I've always loved movie people and theater people.

Q:

May I just ask another question that comes to mind? You said that King Features had sent you some of these books. They were not really agents, were they? How did they get ahold of the books?





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