HER “PERFECT MAN”

Waipukurau Press, Volume XXIX, Issue 88, 9 April 1934, Page 3

HER “PERFECT MAN”

GANDHI DISCIPLE MARRIES “STARLIGHT ON THE WATERS” NEW YORK, March 28. Far from the scene of her meditations as a disciple of Gandhi, Nila Cram Cook was married to-day to her “Starlight on the Waters.” “Starlight”—who is also Nila's “Eternal sunshine baby,” “Some boy,” “Ruby in the Rock,” and “Angel child” —looked a trifle dazed. Things had moved rapidly since the tropical afternoon when the homeward-bound Gandhi disciple spied him aboard the freighter City of Elwood and claimed him for her own. When they appeal ed at the license bureau just before noon she announced, “He’s t'-’.e perfect man. He’s my ultimate and infinite ideal. We want a marriage license.” For the purpo-es of record, she identified herself as born at Davenport (Iowa) twenty-five years ago, the daughter of George Cram Cook, poet, and founder of the Provinceton Players, and the divorced wife of Nikos Proestek. “Less Than the Dust.” Of Proestek, a well-to-do- Greek and father of her six-year-old son,

she said, “He is less than the dust. Why must we talk of him? There must have been a divorce. Put down ‘Divorced in Athens, March, 1932. “Starlight” said he was Albert Hutchins, twenty-eight, a native of Chicago. “And now let us go, my beloved,” pleaded Nila. “The hours are fleeting and we have waited years—aeons.” They left the municipal building for the Greek Orthodox Church, which Nila announced would be the scene of her nuptials. But there was no church ceremony, for reasons which she failed to make clear. Late in the afternoon they appeared, breathless, at the door of the municipal chapel two minutes before it was due to close for the day. The official looked at the clock and frowned. “Ah, you sweet white dove —you essence of myrrh,” Nila purred. I can see compassion welling in your eyes. You cannot refuse me. You will be performing a marriage watched by the god on their thrones.”

Nila Cram Cook espoused Gandhi’s religion and joined his “Ashram” (model colony) because of the “false and illusory pleasures of life, as lived by Americans.” After allegedly posing in Delhi as a famous cinema “star,” she arirved in Calcutta and was kept under police surveillance.