TV Radio Mirror (Jan - Jun 1955)

The kids once woke Tom Lockard gleefully to tell him the yard was flooded! when he is home weekends, dog him around the house and through the dogwood in the yard. But from Natalie — for whom he lear-ed to eat soft-boiled eggs — Nat got a knuckle-rapping. She and her brother were arguing over a book — a book that didn't belong to either. Father, angry, snatched it out of her hand. "She didn't say a word," Nat recalls. "At least a halfhour went by, and then she came up to me and noted. 'Daddy, you shouldn't grab things from people. It's ill-mannered.' " Nat adds: "That's the first time I had the feeling she was really growing up. I think very soon now Ellen and I will have our independence." Ten minutes away, in New Canaan, with Norwegian spruce instead of dogwood, lives big Jim Lewis. Jim is the man who submerges for those low bass notes. Jim is tall and handsome. His appearance generally belies his intensity. Jim was born and raised in Birmingham. As a child he studied music and, by the time he got to high school, was singing solo and leading the school orchestra. He graduated from Talladega College with a major in sociology. . But, when he got to New York, he auditioned for Bill Robinson's Broadway production of "The Hot Mikado" and was hired. Afterwards, Jim played the Ruban Bleu and Cafe Society night clubs. Jim was working in the recreation office of the U.S. Coast Guard station at Manhattan Beach, New York, in 1942, when the Mariners first organized. Each of the boys was performing individually at camp functions until an officer asked them to sing as a group. "Even though each of us was kind of a prima donna," Jim recalls, "we tried it and liked it. We thought we'd like to stick together." An admiral heard them and decided that they would. So for 70 Martin Karl works on his music when not performing — or attending the PTA. the duration of the war, as the Coast Guard Quartet, they performed at hospitals, canteens, theaters, bond rallies and on radio programs. Even then, Jim Lewis began to handle the business end of the quartet. Maybe that's why he was the last to marry. Jim didn't marry until well after the war. When he met Janice Brooks, she was at Columbia University working on her master's degree. Her major was public health and she held a B.S. degree from the University of California, besides being a Registered Nurse. Jim found her charming, intelligent and nice to look at. "We kind of stalled about getting married," Jim says. "We were in love, but I wasn't ready. Then Janice went back to her home in California, for she had really come East only to study. She was back there a year when I proposed by phone." They married in 1948 and, until a year ago, lived in New York. Now, in Connecticut, they have a handsome, white, split-level house that is loaded with J's. "We're not superstitious or anything," Jim says, "but it just kind of happened. We named our first baby Janeen, after her mother and her grandmother Jane. That was four years ago. Last Christmas day, we had our second little girl, and she is named Jacyn." The names, Janeen and Jacyn, are inventions of Jim and Janice. So is the name of their Airedale, Juba. Jim is keen about dogs and, until recently, raised shepherds. He's taken courses in training and breeding but, for lack of time, has given it up as an avocation. Their home is furnished in what Jim calls "conservative modern." They have designated one little room as the television room so that it won't monopolize everything else. In the dining room there is a piece described as a "long, low highboy," which Jim himself designed to hold dishes and which he calls a "China boy." He also designed another unit which is the storage spot for his bar paraphernalia and record collection. Jim collects mostly old recordings of great singers — discs like those of Battistini, Caruso, Chaliapin, and others from the golden age of singing. He is kept fully occupied on weekends by such elemental plantings as shrubbery and rhododendrons. This past spring, he started a rock garden. "Collecting rocks in Connecticut is like carrying coals to Newcastle," he notes. Jim's main outside interest is the union. He is national vice president of AFTRA, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, which includes almost all regularly employed entertainers in the TV and radio business. "I have been doing my best to get Negroes a better break in radio and TV," he says. "The resistance is all concentrated in the industry, from the top to the bottom. It's not the public at all, so far as I can see." He adds, "My success has been small, but I keep trying." Jim's efforts in this direction are, he considers, strictly personal. His work for improvement of race relations is never done in the name of the quartet. While he feels strongly and talks persuasively about a world where people can work together, he is not emotional — just intelligent and fair. He is by nature a soft-spoken, pleasant person and he is well liked. Last but not least of the Mariners is Tom Lockard, who was a cook in the Coast Guard before the quartet was formed. Tom's prior experience as a cook was just about as extensive as that of most "chefs" in the services. He began to study piano seriously as a youngster — and, after each day's practice, his mother gave him cookies and milk. In his teens, he turned to voice — and his teacher lived Photography is Nat Dickerson's hobby and his favorite subject is his family. in a house that was only five blocks from a restaurant. He attended El Monte High School and Pasadena Junior College — both schools had cafeterias. Later, he majored in music at U.C.L.A. — and walked by a diner almost every day. He sang on concert tours and radio; he had an engagement with the Los Angeles Opera Company— and at this time met a baritone who cooked spaghetti. So, naturally, the Coast Guard made Tom Lockard a cook. Tom is one Mariner who never stopped "marinating." He has always lived near or on the ocean. He has had boats whenever he could afford one. Today, he has a twenty-five-foot Owens cabin express cruiser. His home is so close to the sea that occasionally the tide comes halfway up his terrace. Tom's wife, Ginny, is a petite blonde, one of the founders of the Chordettes. Tom and Ginny met when the Chordettes were members of the Godfrey family. They were married in 1952. Ginny continued singing until the Chordettes went on the road. Then she quit and became a housewife. They live in a single-level, white brick house. It originally had seven rooms but they have added two. "Had to do it for the kids," Tom explains. Every weekend and during vacations, they have four children in their home. Ginny and Tom have both been married previously. Tom has two daughters from his first marriage, Paula, almost seven, and Marlayna, ten. Keith, nine, is Ginny's first child. Tom's and Ginny's baby is Kathleen, who is one-year-plus. During the past winter, Ginny taught the children a little barber-shop harmony. Tom gave lessons in ice skating. With warm weather, they will have the boat out and begin their excursions to the cottage Jim Lewis baby-sits when his wife is busy helping Girl Scouts and Red Cross.