144     July 13, 1955
Bill, Jayne, Henry, Faye

Patrick J Larkin from Washington DC: “I make out President Eisenhower’s paycheck” 
Larkin oversees the Washington DC Disbursing Office for the Treasury Department, and among his duties is cutting the checks that the president receives on the last day of every month.  The process of paying the president is evidently quite involved and includes several layers of bureaucracy, but it ends with Larkin. He then passes the checks (Eisenhower receives two, one for his salary and one for expenses) to an assistant who delivers them to the White House.  Larkin, who also served in the Truman administration, would retire at the end of August and die less than a year later, remembered as “the man who paid the presidents”.  (Also see E477 )   

Malcolm McAllister of Miami, Florida: “I stuck a pin in the Duchess of Windsor”                 
The Duchess is American socialite Wallis Simpson, the woman for whom Britain’s King Edward VIII abdicated the throne in 1936.  The scandalous incident (Simpson was twice divorced) is a famous part of British history.  Less remembered is that the couple spent decades together as globetrotting social celebrities.  After Edward’s death in 1972, however, Simpson would become a recluse, battling a variety of medical ailments and rarely appearing in public.  McAllister is a Miami florist who was trying to pin a corsage on the Duchess at an event.  After the segment, McAllister presents Garry with a small box which contains a gift from Miami.  Inside is a baby alligator.   

Special Guest Hildegarde: “I once played a duet with Mickey Cochrane” 
Hildegarde was a popular cabaret singer and pianist for most of the 20th century.  Dubbed “The Incomparable Hildegarde” by columnist Walter Winchell in the 1930s, her oversized personality, as well as her wit and ease at poking fun at herself, served as the inspiration for entertainers from Liberace to Miss Piggy.  Cochrane was a star catcher of the 1920s and 1930s, and a member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame.  The unlikely connection here is that in 1929, in her less “incomparable” days, Hildegarde was merely Hildegarde Sills, an accompanist for vaudeville shows.  Cochrane, already a famous World Series hero for the Philadelphia A’s, had an act he performed in the off-season.  The duet is recreated here without Cochrane’s participation. However, he is seated in the audience and recognized.