Tom Webster, Cartoonist Weds Ziegfeld Follies Girl

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 816, 9 November 1929, Page 18

Tom Webster, Cartoonist Weds Ziegfeld Follies Girl

SOM WEBSTER, the cartoonist, sprang a surprise on his friends by getting married in New York recently, his bride being Miss Mae Flynn, a brunette who used to be one of the glories of ZiegfelcVs Follies. His friend, popularly known as “Jimmy Walker, the Mayor of New York, married them at the City Hall m the presence of a really notable group of representatives of the sporting and newspaper worlds. Mr Webster went to America witn the idea of visiting Hollywood, and again met Miss Flynn, whose acquaintance he first made a year ago. “Naturally,” he says, “she looks 100 pel* cent, to me. It was an English girl who introduced me to her, telling her I was ‘the famous cartoonist.’ Mae replied to this introduction by saying, ‘Well, he will live that down. “ ‘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 cartoonists in particular. But the more she ‘panned’ me the more I lauglidd.” The first to learn the secret was Texas Guinan, who rose in her night 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 tonight. With you is Tom Webster, who usually conies oyer here 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 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 hia hand at three o’clock. Long before three o'clock an interested crowd of spectators had assembled in the Mayor's receptionroom. They included such wellknown cartoonists as Rube Goldberg, humorists such as Damon Runyon and Harry Hirshfield, sporting celebriites such as Dan McKetrick, artists of the screen, and quite a large number of women. Three o’clock came and Mayor Walker, famous for his lack of punctuality, made his appearance. But the bride and bridegroom were late. They were preceded by Sir Thomas Lipton, and at. 3.45 the couple faced the Mayor. I A few minutes later Mayor Walker, “by the authority vested in me by tbe State of New York,” pronounced them husband and wife. A battery of 18 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 for Tom,” the Mayor said as the happy pair drove off to the Biltmore Hotel, where they held a reception prior to their departure for Hollywood.