1953–54 Volume 78 No 1–5 - Phi Delta Theta Scroll Archive

374
THE SCROLL of Phi Delta Theta for May, 1954
COVERING THE HOLLYWOOD BEAT
Brother Martin's assignments have been varied and beauteous film star Hedy Lamarr figured in two. Ten
years ago he accompanied Miss Lamarr on a personal shopping tour (left, above; this picture appeared in
the Feb. 5, 1944, issue of the Saturday Evening Post). Recently he covered the auction sale of the Lamarr
personal effects for the Post (right). The intervening wear and tear silvered the reportorial thatch.
throughout the years. She confides, however,
that her present tendency is to look
for news of her former dancing partners in
the wrong end of the book!
The Martins now live in Wynnewood,
some eight miles from the heart of downtown
Philadelphia, a suburb which Holiday
Magazine describes as "a green and sunny
community that typifies the new Main Line,
the home of an aristocratic middle class."
The library of the Martin home reflects
Pete's principal hobby, that of collecting
the books he has loved and read before he
was sixteen or seventeen. He is proud of
the fact that he has the best collection of
the works of G.A. Henty in the world, including
the British Museum. Henty was an
English war correspondent and author who
found his real vocation in middle life, when
he began to write excellent books of adventure
for boys, many of which had a
good historical background. Henty died in
1902.
Henty was one of the things Pete and
Bing Crosby had in common. Bing writes,
"I certainly felt that I fell into a great break
when Pete Martin was sent out here by the
Post to do a series of articles about me. Not
only because Pete's reputation as a great
biographer has been long since well established,
but because we share so many common
enthusiasms. We both like Henty, the
author; we both like the Pacific Northwest,
from whence we sprung; and we both like
French cooking, and of course the vin
ordinaire."
The Martins have two children, son
Pete, now 25, and daughter Margery, 21,
now Mrs. Norton D. Fern III. Daughter
Margery graduated from Bradford Junior
College in Haverhill, Massachusetts. Peter
went to Dartmouth, and is at present in
South Africa for the Ford Foundation, writing
reports home to the U.S.A. about the
things which interest him there.
The younger Pete wants to be a journalist
and magazine writer after his famous father.
He was the feature editor of the Daily
Dartmouth while in college and left to become
a reporter on the St. Louis Post
Dispatch.
The Martins are very proud of their son,
and Mrs. Martin is curious to know which
sort of writing he will do—fact or fiction—
when he comes out of Africa. "Had we
but known he was going to work with
words, too, we would have named him
Hemingway Martin, or Mencken Martin
instead of Peter, and given him a real
start!"
At Dartmouth, young Pete was quite
naturally rushed by New Hampshire Alpha,
but he chose 0 X. It is characteristic of his
father that he was careful not to say anything
or do anything to influence the son's
decision. There is no fraternity rivalry in
the Martin family. "It seems to me," writes
Pete, "that choosing a fraternity is a very