Hello!

All those nice FB posts about Veterans yesterday insprired me to dig back for these pictures for the Column. Well, that and today’s lack of good disc-related items. I used one of these pictures back in 2016, here are a few more.

That’s movie star Ann Sheridan just above, holding comedian Ben Blue in her arms, for a USO skit. Back in 1944 in Burma, my father was a flyer taking cargo ‘over the hump’ into China to support the Kuomintang; and he took a roll of snapshots at a USO tent show. The inset to the right is my father, probably in 1943 in North Africa. That would make him 21 or 22 years old. We remembered his snapshots while watching Ann Sheridan’s Woman on the Run again. I’ve never read a word about Ms. Sheridan to suggest that she was anything but a great lady, and here she is a patriot as well.

This USO tour venue appears to be out in the sticks somewhere. It looks like the company is just five or six entertainers: Sheridan, Ben Blue and two or three showgirls. Did the only music provided come from the smiling showgirl’s accordion?  In the same batch of pictures was this photo of movie star Melvyn Douglas, who is signing an autograph. He looks like he’s been roughing it also. ↑  It’s the same building as in the other photos, maybe he was on stage at one point too . . . ?

There’s a lot to see here, like the Chinese flag and insignia. The pictures just make me smile. In some kind of base camp out who-knows-where, all these guys look like they’ve been working hard and roughing it. Then a little bit of Hollywood shows up, with just enough show-biz oomph to let the women do their hair and have a clean dress for Ann Sheridan to look good for the Air Corpsmen. That gives me a good feeling.

All Photos © Copyright 2022 Glenn Erickson

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson