By Jack Walsh
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, Aug. 10, 1969; Page C6

George Preston Marshall, who died yesterday, seldom provoked indifference.

People either admired him or violently disagreed with him.

Marshall was a flamboyant personality, one of the last of the genuine nonconformists.

He seldom let his controversial opinion go unexpressed.

He could be vain, uncompromising. At other times he could turn on the charm and captivate a stubborn adversary or audience.

By his own admission, he was a frustrated actor. This may have been the motivating factor which drove him to stay in the public eye most of his life. Marshall liked it that way.

Whether having a shampoo in the Statler-Hilton barber shop, dining at Duke Zeibert's or holding court on the Shoreham terrace, Marshall considered it a lost opportunity were he not the center of attention.

He launched an acting career in New York in 1914 but said he "wasn't much actor." It was one of the few undertakings in which he wasn't successful. And, even in this venture, he recalled a big moment.

Marshall recounted with a laugh: "Once I brought a house down. I doubt if any actor ever got the wild, spontaneous ovation I got from delivering just one line.

"It was at the Walker Theater in Winnipeg in 1917, and I had only a small part in a play called "Fair and Warmer.' During intermission, the stage manager asked me to make an announcement.

"I walked out in front of the curtain and said: "The United States has just declared war on Germany.' Boy, those Canadians went crazy."

Aside from revealing a sense of humor, this anecdote has significance in that it also proves Marshall had a remarkable memory of names, dates and places. This faculty made him an entertaining story-teller.

Marshall made his biggest mark as a professional football team owner and promoter. That's what he will be remembered for here and throughout the country. The Washington Redskins and Marshall, over a period of more than a quarter of a century, became synonymous. And he made many important contributions to the National Football League.

Marshall dabbled in other fields.

He had moderate success here producing and directing plays and owning a theater.

When his father, T. Hill Marshall, died, he inherited the Palace Laundry in 1918. It was a modest two-store business.

Marshall immediately began outperforming his father. When he sold out in 1946, he had built a chain of 57 outlets. Even in the staid laundry business, Marshall's flair for promotion was much in evidence.

In the 1920's he had the laundry sponsor a pro basketball team. He also got mileage out of an advertising slogan, "Long Live Linen." There's still talk of the full-page ad his laundry took in the papers here. It was an all-but-blank page. At the bottom, in agate type, was the line: "This page was cleaned by Palace Laundry."

But the booming laundry business couldn't keep the restless Marshall completely occupied. He took part in an ill-fated venture to popularize auto racing at Roosevelt Raceway, Westbury, N.Y., now one of the biggest harness racing plants in the country.

In 1936, he served as the $1,000-a-day director of the Greater Texas and Pan-American Exposition at Dallas. The following year he became publisher of Hearst's Washington Times.

Marshall's newspaper career is remembered mainly for the running feud he had with the late Cissy Patterson, then publishing the sister Washington Herald.

Marshall married Elizabeth Morton, former Ziegfeld Follies girl, in 1920. They had two children, Catherine and George P. Jr., before separating in 1928 and being divorced in 1935.

The following year, Marshall married silent-screen star Corinne Griffith. They were divorced in 1957.

Marshall still had the laundry when he made his first, fateful step into pro football. That was in 1932 when he was part of a syndicate that put the old Pottsville, Pa., franchise in the National Football League in Boston.

For the franchise, now valued at more than $15 million, Marshall confessed he and his group agreed to pay $1,500 plus posting another $1,500 as a guarantee the Boston Redskins would finish out the season. He also revealed that he never got around to contributing either amount to the hard-pressed league treasury in those depression years.

Marshall's original partners were Vincent Bendix, Jay O'Brien and M. Dorland Doyle. With Boston either not ready for pro football, or not ready for Marshall, the team wasn't a howling box office success.

After winning the Eastern title in 1936, Marshall out-raged the Beantowners by shifting the championship game with Green Bay to New York's Polo Grounds. And then he transferred the club, which he controlled, to Washington.

With the Boston press still screaming, Marshall coolly arranged an exhibition game back in Boston before the 1937 season. Naturally, indignant columnists wrote up a storm. Marshall said with a smile: "We had a sellout."

Then began the long and financially successful reign of the Redskins in Washington. If ever there was a one-man business operation, this was it. Starting with a championship club in the initial 1937 season here didn't hurt the cause and neither did the acquisition of a lean Texan named Sammy Baugh. Perhaps the best passer football ever has known, Baugh established many records, including one for pro longevity with 16 productive seasons here.

Baugh came from Sweetwater, Tex., where his dad was a railroad man. Baugh was a Texas city boy. Sweetwater even had trolley cars.

But Marshall couldn't visualize him as anything but a cowboy. He instructed him to wear a 10-gallon hat, which Baugh had to obtain, and a pair of boots, which Baugh never wore, except for the signing ceremony here. Baugh wound up with sore feet. Bur the publicity was good, and Marshall was happy.

The taciturn Texan and loquacious promoter had an unusual relationship over the years. Marshall became Baugh's personal manager and handled just about all his finances. They say Baugh never bothered to worry about his bank account and merely would call to see if he had enough money to buy some cattle or add acreage to his Rotan, Tex., ranch.

Marshall never displayed overwhelming affection for many of his athletes but Baugh's sculpted passing hand long stood on his desk.

Artistically, the Redskins had great success here early. In their first nine years, they appeared in five championship games. They split four of them with the Chicago Bears, including the memorable 73-to-0 defeat in 1940, and lost to the Cleveland Rams in 1945 by a 15-14 score.

Marshall wasn't above making a suggestion to his coach of the moment, but also devoted much energy to promotion and ownership, including the formation of an impressive volunteer band — the first to represent a pro club.

The season-ticket sale for that first Redskin year is recorded as 958. With success on the field, the number rapidly grew, and by 1940, the total reached 10,951.

The high for the club while playing in Griffith Stadium was in 1947 when all seats, 31,444, were sold out on a seasonal basis.

That 1945 divisional title was the last Marshall won. In the last 23 years, the Redskins managed to have only three winning seasons.

During this famine, Marshall best demonstrated the importance of good promotion. He was fond of saying that the Redskins never had a losing financial season.

As much as he like football for itself, Marshall, the showman, believed the sport also should be entertaining. He felt strongly it should be enjoyable for women and children as well as the male sports fan.

"For the women, football alone is not enough," Marshall said. "I always try to present half-time entertainment to give them something to look forward to — a little music, dancing, color, something they can understand and enjoy.

"The thing is that if you get the women to come out, you'll get the men, too. The women will bring them. And the women add class to a sports gathering. They'll discourage a rowdy element."

In Washington, a Redskin game still borders on being a social affair. Many groups hold Sunday brunches or post-game dinner parties. Largely, the crowd is fashionable dressed. Many come to be seen as well as to see. This always was Marshall's design and he priced the entertainment high.

Marshall long offered Broadway acts at half time, specialty singing or dancing numbers, and even the National Symphony Orchestra with Howard Mitchell conducting. The symphonic group also recorded a stirring rendition of Marshall's favorite tune, "Hail to the Redskins."

An old standard is the Christmas Show, staged at the last home game and always featuring "Santa Claus, Himself." Marshall got as much mileage out of Mr. Claus as the department stores.

The annual guessing game was how Santa would arrive at half time. He made it just about every way imaginable and once missed. In a special parachute drop, Santa didn't land in Griffith Stadium, helplessly drifting out of sight over the right-field wall.

With advent of TV, Marshall indulged himself in a new role. A planning session in his office, no matter what the team's record, became a dizzying thing.

Marshall would be surrounded by his producer, musical director and a TV producer. The main topic was timing and the language and sound effects from another world, the world of show biz.

Marshall was apt to start off the session: "Okay. The gun has sounded. What does the P. A. man say now?"

When it was dutifully read, Marshall would concur or perhaps suggest a change.

Marshall again: "Where are the TV cameras? O.K., bring it by them. Now the drums start beating."

About here, Marshall imitated the drums. He then switched to the beat on the first number.

As an observer remarked: "It got so realistic, it was all I could do to keep from marching right out of his office."

Marshall never engaged in Bill Veeck. "I've always been legitimate," he said in the best theatrical manner. "We go for straight music, dancing and like, nothing silly."

Marshall didn't confine his showmanship ideas to the entertainment side. In 1933, he sold his fellow club owners on separate divisions in the NFL and an annual championship game.

It was Marshall who in 1951 originated the annual Pro Bowl in the Los Angeles Coliseum.

Marshall became a TV expert early — his Redskins were the first to have a network — and gave the league valuable advice that helped lead to lucrative TV revenue of today.

For that matter, Marshall took credit for the Cleveland Rams' move to Los Angeles and the advent of big-league sports on the West Coast. For 17 years, his Redskins played the Rams in the L. A. Coliseum in an exhibition game sponsored by the Los Angeles Times that netted more than $1.5 million for boys clubs.

Marshall teamed with George Halas, of the Chicago Bears, to change the forward-passing rule to allow a throw from anywhere behind the line of scrimmage instead of 5 yards behind it. He was in the forefront of any move to make the game more wide open and to speed up play.

Once accused of being an enemy of college football, he snorted: "How ridiculous can you get? I've been making a living off college football for more than 30 years. How can I be an enemy?

"The only time I get sore is when college authorities do things that slow up their game."

Until his illness, Marshall generally was a stormy figure at National Football League meetings. He always was plumping for some idea or other, either cajoling or haranguing the owners to get his way. He did battle with a zest.

Marking his 25th year in the NFL, the owners passed a resolution praising his great contributions to the league and citing him for his integrity, honesty and forthrightness.

In later years, he said: "So many things have developed I haven't concurred in, I feel I'm better off staying out of it. The young Turks seem to think they can run things better.

"I've just about settled for talking on the phone to the commissioner who's running things."

Marshall was one of the 17 charter members voted in pro football's Hall of Fame at Canton, Ohio.

With his own team, Marshall never became lackadaisical but here, too, he grew less mercurial and bombastic.

Asked during his last year as the active head of the club if he felt he was mellowing, Marshall said: "I don't feel a bit different than I did 30 years ago. I guess I'm more intelligent, not as wild. If I don't blow up as much as I did, it may be because of better balance.

"But, my boy, that's what is known as the 'voice of experience.'"

Marshall probably had ample reason to explode after that first triumphant Redskin era faded. After all, the Redskins had been Washington's darlings and Marshall was just the man to bask in the reflected glory of the deeds of Baugh, Millner, Pinckert, Smith, Battles, Wilkins and the rest.

It was in the team's first year that Washingtonians were so captivated an estimated 10,000 wild-eyed rooters accompanied the club to New York for a vital game with the Giants.

That's when the late Bill Corum wrote the memorable line: "George Preston Marshall slipped unobtrusively into town today, at the head of a 100-piece band."

But a postwar decline in Redskin fortunes on the field set in and brought on a period when it was suggested the coaches' quarters should be equipped with a revolving door. On the record, Marshall's first coach here was his best. Ray Flaherty delivered the most and brooked the least interference. When Flaherty left in 1942 to join the Navy, Marshall never made a determined effort to get him back. No successor equaled Flaherty's 7-year term with four divisional titles and two championships.

Arthur J. (Dutch) Bergman served only a year as an interim wartime coach, but delivered an Eastern title. Then, in more or less rapid succession, Marshall hired and fired Dud DeGroot, Turk Edwards, Rear Adm. John E. (Billick) Whelchel, Herman Ball, Dick Todd and Curly Lambeau.

In 1954, Joe Kuharich replaced Lambeau after the coach and Marshall had a pushing-and-shoving tussle in a Sacramento, Calif., hotel lobby after an exhibition loss. Kuharich enjoyed a warm relationship with Marshall and was here five years before leaving to return to his alma mater, Notre Dame.

Mike Nixon followed in 1959, had a 3-9 year, then slipped to 1-9-2 and out.

Bill McPeak replaced him and Marshall experienced his grimmest year in 1961.

This was billed as the Redskins' Silver Anniversary and the team moved into the magnificent 50,000-seat D. C. Stadium which Marshall helped to build.

It also was the worst year in all Redskin history with the team winning only its last game and posting a 1-12-1 record.

Marshall said lugubriously: "We have the stage, this beautiful stadium, now we've got to get the cast."

In 1962, with the acquisition of the Redskins' first Negro, Bobby Mitchell, and the maturing of quarterback Norman Snead, there were signs of an upward trend.

The Redskins were the last major professional team in either football or baseball to employ a Negro player.

On the racial question Marshall always was quite careful about what he said on the record and what he put in writing.

He had a stock answer: "I'm not in the business of exploiting any race or religion. I'm solely interested in fielding a winning football team."

However, it seemed more than coincidental that his Redskins never gave as much as a preseason tryout to Negro before 1962 when seven went to training camp and four made the team.

McPeak was replaced by Otto Graham in January of 1966 after posting a five-year record of 21-46-3. Graham had a tree-year record of 17-22-3 before yielding to Vince Lombardi in January, 1969.

While most fellow NFL owners never were disturbed by the formation of the Player Association, Marshall constantly railed against it.

"A union has no place in a competitive physical contact sport like football," he often grumbled.

He often was contradictory. In 1932, as a District of Columbia delegate to the Democratic National Convention, Marshall made one of the seconding speeches to nominate Franklin D. Roosevelt for President. Marshall didn't stay a Roosevelt admirer long.

Marshall was too positive to have maintained extremely cordial relations with the press. At one time or another, he had running battles with just about every sports columnist in town.

The most celebrated and enduring split was with The Washington Post's Shirley Povich. Marshall, in 1942, pulled the unorthodox maneuver of suing Povich and The Post for $200,000 for libel. Marshall objected to a critical column by Povich pointing out that a wartime "benefit" for servicemen's widows and orphans netted the Redskins more than $13,000.

The case went to a jury and Marshall lost.

Although the men didn't talk for about 15 years, they patched up conversationally. Marshall later said: "I'll say this: Povich may have made a few mistakes about us, but he's always been fair to the team."

Marshall didn't attend college and was defensively distrustful and scornful of "egg heads." Due to years reading, he had knowledge of a wide range of subjects. Marshall would think nothing of telling someone how to run a railroad, and that's not a mere figure of speech.