TOM WEBSTER MARRIES FORMER ZIEGFELD STAR.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18900, 26 October 1929, Page 23 (Supplement)

TOM WEBSTER MARRIES FORMER ZIEGFELD STAR.

FAMOUS CARTOONIST WEDS AMERICAN BRIDE. NEW YORK, September 6. Tom Webster, the “Daily Mail” cartoonist, sprang a surprise on his friends by getting married to-day, his bride being Miss Mae Flynn, a brunette who used to be one of the glories of Ziegfeld’s Follies. His friend, popularly known as “Jimmy” Walker, the Mayor of New York, married them at the City Hall in the presence of a really notable group of representatives of the sporting and newspaper worlds. Mr Webster came here with the idea of visiting Hollywood, and again met Miss Flynn, whose acquaintance he first made a year ago. “Naturally,” he says, “she looks 100 per cent to me. It was an English girl who introduced me to her, telling her I was ‘the famous cartoonist of the “Daily Mail” Mae replied to this introduction by saying: ‘Well, he will live that dpwn.’ “ ‘He’s the ne plus ultra of the sporting world! ’ interjected my English friend. ‘He must laugh that off, retorted Mae, who then began to ‘pan Englishmen in general and cartoonist*, in particular. But the more she ‘panned’ me the more I laughed." The first to learn the secret was Texas Guinan, who rose three nights ago in her club and addressed the guests, saying: “We are in the habit of announcing here all the big events, but I’ve got really a new one to pull on the public to-night. With you is Tom Webster, who usually comes over here for the ‘Daily Mail’ to see the fights But this time he is going to marry an American girl.” Webster replied that this event would last a lifetime, and asked Texas Guinan to be his bridesmaid. Mayor Walker yesterday insisted on having the honour of conducting the wedding. He wished to do this, he said, because, though since he had assumed office he had presided over only five marriages, all of the couples he had joined were ridiculously happy. . And he was confident that the ceremony in the City Hall, the sixth of the kind to be performed under his administration, would guarantee success to Webster’s matrimonial venture. So it was arranged that Tom Webster should go into the ring with a wedding ring in his hand at three o'clock He then sat down and drew his “Life Sentence” cartoon, depicting his fight with the wedding-ring. It was published in to-day's “New York World”, which says: “Tom Webster, who is supposed to receive £15,000 a year, is the first cartoonist in the world to have a cartoon published simultaneously in New York and London. Twelve hours after he had drawn his. cartoon of the Tunney-Heeney fight it was radioed across the Atlantic to the ‘Daily Mail'.’' Long before three o’clock an interested crowd of spectators had assembled in the Mayor’s reception room. They included such well-known cartoonists as Rube Goldberg, humorists such as Damon Runyon and Harry ITirshfield, sporting celebrities such as Dan M’Ket I rick, artists of the screen, and quite a jlarge number of women.

Three o’clock came and Mayor Walker, famous for his lack of punctuality, made his appearance. But the bride and the bridegroom were late They were preceded by Sir Thomas Lipton, and at 3.45 the couple faced the Mayor. A few minutes later Mayor Walker, “by the authority vested in me

by the State of New York," pronounced them husband and wife. A battery of eighteen cameras was wheeled into action, and amid a storm of congratulations Mr and Mrs Tom Webster took their places beneath an immense portrait of Lafayette and, were photographed.

"It has been a delight to do this lot Tom," the Mayor said to me as the l happy pair drove off to the Biltmore i Hotel, where they were holding a raJ ception prior to their departure nr Hollywood.