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Bennett CerfBennett Cerf
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Session:         Page of 1029

looking for that pet shop, and of course she couldn't find it. When we got to the station, it suddenly dawned upon her I had brought her back on a different street, and we had quite a battle. But we got to the game, and Miriam had never seen a football game, so within eight minutes there were 20 Yale boys explaining football to Miriam--everybody in front of her, everybody behind her, on all sides. She was immediately the center of attention, and that was not because she was a famous girl because she wasn't--nobody had ever heard of her. It was because she was so irresistible. Now, I fell--oh, did I fall for Miriam. She then got a part in a show called “Excess Baggage,” in which she played the lead. One of the things she had to do was partially undress in this play. And her mother came up from Georgia to see her, and when she saw her in that costume--wow!

Q:

Did her mother make her quit the show?

Cerf:

Oh, nobody told Miriam what to do. She was a determined little girl. I had said what an important part The American Tragedy played in my life. A boy named Pat Kearney made a play of The American Tragedy, and the girl who played it was Miriam Hopkins. By this time she was becoming famous. Then years later it was made into a movie, and a girl who starred in it later became my bride: Miss Sylvia Sidney. So The American Tragedy just weaves through my life.





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