Silver Screen (May-Oct 1939)

had actually come in. Eddie shuddered when he was told about the incident. "I can't possibly see every single person who comes to me. If I did, I actually wouldn't have time for my own work. As for this boy, I don't care how much talent he may have, I simply won't see him. just to discourage any other such crazy action. The great pity of it all is that his stunt was so unnecessary. If he's got the goods, there are regular channels by which he would have been given a fair hearing to get into radio, and there was no sense in trying to sidestep them. If he hasn't got what it takes, why does he bother me? I can't make a polished professional out of a rank amateur." Eddie's experience, while rather drastic, is by no means unusual. One of the prices of fame that the topnotchers pay. and about which you hear so little, is that they are usually the object of somebody's screwy attention in the hope that they will smooth the way to radio fame and fortune for the applicant. The folks who pull off these stunts simply won't heed the wise and experienced advice of the stars who say: "Stay away unless you have something on the ball, know what to do with it, have a lot of patience, and plenty of money to take care of yourself while you are waiting." If they would only listen, they would spare themselves a lot of headaches, heartaches, and actual physical pain. But no. They've read somewhere that James Melton got his chance by singing in a corridor outside the late Roxy's office and the showman was so impressed that he gave Jimmy a job; that Jane Froman sang at a party and wowed a radio executive there; and that So-and-So got on the air by pulling a grand bluff. So they go ahead, plunging into bigger and better (they hope) plots to bring themselves to the attention of the person they have picked on to help them. How do you think Fred Waring felt, for instance, when a traffic cop stopped him in the wee sma' hours as he was driving home after a late broadcast, and told him he had a stowaway on his spare tire? Honest Injun, that's where he was perched. This boy's story was that he wanted to sing in Fred's glee club but felt he didn't have a chance to register on Fred merely by auditioning in the regular way. So he conceived the idea of snuggling around the rear tire as Fred backed out of the parking lot. He didn't know that Fred lived up in Westchester, a good long drive from the broadcasting studio, but it probably wouldn't have made any difference. He had already been more than an hour in that back-breaking position when the cop stopped the car. All he said when he crawled out was: "I wanted to see you alone and this was the only way!" Instead of winning admiration for his courage, all he got was a load of disgust. Fred gave the cop some money tc put the nuisance on the train for home and wearily resumed his drive home. And you can well imagine announcer Milton J. Cross' surprise when two bedraggled little girls came looking for him at NBC one morning, stating they were ready to work with him on his children's hour broadcast. About nine and eleven years old, they certainly looked out of place in the radio studio. Drawing them aside, he soon got their story. And a pitiful one it was. They came from Georgia, they said, where their mother had scrimped and saved to give them elocution When Martha Raye hires a servant she has to weed out the crooners and harmonizers. and music lessons. With her last meagre few dollars, she had put them on a bus for New York, armed only with a box of sandwiches and the address of the broadcasting company. The announcer got in touch with the Travellers' Aid Society, who sent the children safely home, and then he wrote a rebuking letter to the mother. Did you think it ended there? You should know better. A few months later she wrote to him stating that the children had improved considerably and she was sending them North again. Only by notifying the local authorities was he able to get her to refrain from again subjecting those two little girls to such a cruel experience. Not all stories of how not to crash radio are quite so bleak. Kate Smith's favorite deals with a girl who took a logical means of approach for a singing job on her program, but over-reached herself so far that she didn't get. it. Which often is the case when a gal gets too smart for her own good. It seems that every week she'd send Kate a recording of a popular song, accompanied by a note requesting a personal audition. When about a dozen of these recordings had accumulated, Kate decided to play them off to see if they were any good. To her surprise, they were grand. And no wonder — but that's getting ahead of the story. Kate set a time for the audition and was all set to tell the world of her new find. But to her dismay, in person the girl had a thin, reedy voice utterly unlike the lush, velvety contralto tones of the recordings. Finally she confessed that she had taken recordings done by Frances Langford and had gone to the expense of having them re-recorded so that the introduction giving the real name of the singer was omitted. And she was naive enough to hope that once she heard her, Kate would like her own voice better than the recording. P. S. She left, a sadder and wiser girl and minus a job. Really, there is no expense or lengths to which some determined would-be artists won't go to make an impression on the established folks in radio. Lanny [Continued on page 64] for May 1939 33