Variety (Mar 1947)

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' y^iiicfldgyr Mmsh 12, 1947 lost Honda IteriesDr^^^ Sice Prices to Snare Waiung Tradf While returning vacationers sport-+ i«rSida tans are resuming nitery SfJS in New Yorlc, Miami ana Beach cafes are starting what Kamount to a price war by elim- inating covers and minimums. ■ Indicative of the cafe values of- f.r^d is that at the Beachcomber Si Beach, which has dropped mSums during the run of Sophie SSr Jackie Mile? and;. Harry • Sman. This club was first to S the usual $S minimum, and S to follow suit. Siae club to hang on to such phaJEe is the Copacabana, which is «naWe to cut prices because ol its WBh talent nut for the show topped C Mickey Kooney, who's getting $16,500. However, Copa is slated to drop that fee at the end of ROoney's run, March 18. Season is beginning to fieter out in Florida, but most cafes are staying nnen, some with high-priced talent, '-jj^t not as high; as that Mvhich pre- JACK PEARL'S ?AUDE • :.:;;,:COiliBACK AT $2,500 Jack Pearl, dialect coipedian long from vaiideville,: will play his first important variety Engagement in years March 27 at Loew's iState, N. Y. Comic will work With Cliff Hall, who straighted for him for many years on the Lucky Strike air- tKow, when Pearl assumed the . Baron Munchausen role. Act is getting $2,500. TreneloiiWayFr^^ For Delayed Nitery Date Charles Trenet, French singer, will arrive Saturday (15) on the S.S. America' to complete his Com- mittment at the Embassy, N. Y., starting March 18. Trenet was slated to have started this date sometime ago, and failure to get transportation to the U. S. in time, caused Bill Miller, spot's former operator, to clamp a $5,000 suit on the Gaul. Miller subsequently sold the spot to Mr. and Mrs. Morris Schwartz, and suit was dropped. j Singer, who's slated to get $1,500 weekly, had an extended run at that spot last year, and is credited for the most profitable run club has had. ■Jrenet will follow two weelt engagement of Lehny Kent, who was sold on a deal calling for $750 base pay plus a 50% split on gross over $14,000 weekly. Jerry Rosen, Kent's manager, claims fir.st week produqed a $20,400 take which gives the comic'a salary of $3,200. Dclmonico, D. C, Folds Delmonico club, Washington, closed after a siege of bad business. Spot, operated on the site of the for- mer Club Duet, first attempted to cut down expenses by running shows three days weekly (then dropped tal- ent altogether and ran as a straight eatery. Even with the omission of talent, expenses were to<j high to pay off as an eatery. iNCY DONOVAN "Tlie Thrlllf«g Vaice" *' Currently Beadltniugt at the COPLIY PLAZA, Boston KxelnnlTC ManBeeMcnt . : M. e. A. ABTIS'IS, ltd. British Producer Due In U. S. on Talent Quest London, March 11. Harold Fielding, British producer, and his tour director Blake Bicker- staffe, are slated to fly to New York Friday (14) tc line up vaude- ville and concert attractions for England. Duo are slated to return April 2. They're dickering for Larry Adler, among others. ETHEL SHUTTA'S CAFE DATE Ethel Shutta, songstress long in- aptive, is again making vaude and She's been booked for the Colony clubi Dallas, starting April 7. SaranacLake By Happy Benway Saranac Lake, N, Y., March 11. Birthday salutations are m order to Margaret Dougherty, Mabel Burns, Joseph Lowey and Samuel Schul- man. ' , ,, Tom (lATSE) Curry, who recently mastered major operation, upped for pix and visiting privileges. "Dinner at Durgans" is a new half- hour broadcast from the nitery of the same name over WNBZ, with Eddie "Vogt emceeing. , A. B "Tony" Anderson, ex-colony- ite and now manager of local Pon- tiac theatre, nominated to succeed himself as Mayor of Saranac Lake Elizabeth Mounsey, M-G-M pub- licity staffer, in for rest and observa- tion. .. . Louise Barnes is perting up and flashing nifty clinic reports. "Hank" Hearn, ex-member of colony and now manager of the Ex- hibitor's Service, Charlotte, N. C., returning for checkup. Benny ■ Ressler, ex-vaude per- former, was again appointed chair- man of the Bed Cross drive. (Write to those wbo are ill.) N.Y. Nitery Op Held On Amus. Tax Rap Jack Greene^ one of the owners of the new Rio Cabana, N, Y., was held in $2,000 bail for the U. S. grand jury on charges of withholding the 20'b amusement taxes collected from customers when spot operated as La Conga. U. S. attorneys claimed that approximately $50,000 is due iJie Government. Count on which Greene was flagged on is the June, '4(5, returns on which it's charged that Greene withheld $4,308.40 out Of the $7,374.15 collected on patrons' checks. In ad- dition, the Goverment charges Greene with making fraudulent re- turns on July, August and Septem- ber of last year, and making no re- turns for October, November and December of that year. Hearing held before U. S. Com- missioner Isaac Piatt was prosecuted by Assistant U. S. Attorney Edward H. Rigney. Last week, Greene, who has been in on the operation for some time, purchased the interest of Monte Gardner, who bowed out of the club last week. In addition to Greene, Charles Maybruck, an attorney, is in on the club. Hattie AltM Switdies From CRA to FB Agcy. Hattie Althoff has resigned from Consolidated Radio Artists to join the Frederick Bros, agency theatre dept. Miss Althoff, last week was given her release by Charles Greene, CRA head, inasmuch as her pact with that firm wouldn't expire until end of April. • Frederick Bros, has been enlarging its N. Y. office past few months ip an effort to build up the outfit to its former status. Among those who recently joined were Tom Kettering, FB veepee who tran.<;ferred from the Coast office to head the talent'sector. 0AVES(lOClERJOiNS WAR»mEl!n'im Dave Schooler, former head of USO-Camp Shows' overseas booking dept., joined the Warner Bros, talent department Monday (10). Schooler, working under Harry Mayer, talent sector head in New York, will cover shows out of the Chicago office. Schooler resigned from Gamp Shows two years ago to do legit prioductjon. Arnold Hoskwith, formerly With David O, Selznick and Sara Goldwyn, joined Mayer's staff last week to as- sist him in New York. Selma Brookove is Mayer's other N. Y, assistant, KKMSK.MEST British Vaude Agents Shopping for Fop-Priced U.S. Acts to Play England Visiting British agents are now making the rounds of smaller cafes and vauderies in an effort to sign up lower-priced talent for dates in England, Realizing that the top tal- ent agencies are submitting estab- lished acts at prices the British traf- fic cannot bear, the visiting percent- ers are hobnobbing with the lesser agents to find suitable acts that will play at the prevailing English rates. According to Michael Lyons, head of the Universal Variety Agency, Ltd., of London, and brother of Al- fred M. Lyons, Phillip Morris Co. head, a large purchaser of radio tal- ent, currently on a talent foraging expedition, British grosses are ex- pected to drop approximately 20% over last year. Coupled with the fact that the English vauderies give only 12 shows weekly with corre- spondingly smaller takes, makes it impossible for English operators to match American salaries. • Lyons said.that the only way that top American acts can play the Brit- ish houses is to- look upon the trip as a "holiday" and take salary cuts. Lyons saw only one possibility of top names, such as Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Frank Sinatra being able to earn the herculean salaries. That's through the one-nighter route, where large concert halls would be hired for recitals at top prices. In that manner the $25,000 salaries de- manded by, performers of that calibre could be feasible. If such salaried names would be booked into the usual vaude house, Lyons said, managements would have to raise prices considerably. Should that be done, public goodwill would be sacrificed, he declared. Lyons said that American acts have frequently started at low sal- aries and have often worked them- selves into the lop money brackets, lARliWAiE'MAY RETURN TO WM. MORRIS Martin Wagner may return to the William Mprris agency after anjB- sence of two years during which time he managed Jose Iturb), concert pianist and film player. Wagner, who resigned as Iturbi's manager is currently in New York negotiatmg to return to the Morris banner, Wag*er, prior to his resignation had been with the agency for 32 years, during which time lie took charge of one-night concert tours, and mapped routes for barnstorming cowboy film stars. Bil Ro 1V s e another Rose column in PM today I, F. Stone's facts from Palestine READ dynamic different... stimulaling the newspaper p^^ . . . blame the singing commercials on me \ C;hop me up in little pieces and feed me to the lions. Lock me in a room with a radio and make me Usten to it. Whisper a round I have pink toothbrush and five o'clock shadow. Use me for a football, put your thumb in my eye^^you won't hear a peep out of me. I've got it cominr. You S«c, I invented the singing commercials! There! I've saiil it and I'm glad. I know it puts me in the .same class with the fiends who dreamed up billboards and tight shoes. But telling it is like taking a 40-pound rock of! my heart. For years I've been walking around with this secret, mingling with people who are kind to small animals and bathe every day. It got so I was afraid to talk in my sleep. Now I've come clean and I'm prepared to take my medicine. But before you put those matches to my feet, hear me out. When you know the whole sordid story, you may find it in your hea^rt to forgive, A little soft music. Professor, To begin with, I didn't know what I was doing. It was 1924. I was a simple-hearted little bloke when I first hit Broadway. My ambitions were to make a million dollars, marry Mary Fichford and get elected President. I believed what everybody believed, that V, S. Steel would hit 50«, nice gtrls didn't kiss the first timi you took them out, and Heaven was not for Democrats. Then I fell in with evil companions, t met a songwriter. He introduced me to other songwriters. Soon t wa^ sitting around with these wonderful loonies in underground delicatessens, eat- ing pastrami sandwiches and rhyming June with macaroon. Though our world was bounded on the noi'th by Columbus Circle and on the south by 42nd Street, most of our ditties con- cerned themselves with that mammy down in Alabammy. Their easy talk of easy money inflamed my imagination. They showed me pawn tickete for watches and diamond stickpins until yon eoifld hanK a derby on my eyes. I got myself » pencil and the back of a menu and said, "Willie, you're in business." Late one night I was chewing the fat and a couple ol biintzes^ with two poets named Ernest Breuer and Marty Blooni, I reached for a pickle and came up with an inspiration. The earth stood still for a moment.' "Fellows," I whispered. "I've got an idea for a song." Two hours and six cups of coffee later, we dotted the last "1'* on our masterpieces. It went like this: "Does the spearmint lose its flavor on the bedpost overnight? If you paste it on the jleft side will you find it on the ri^ht? When you chew it in the morning will it be toft Does the spearmint lose {ts flavor: on the bedpost ovenUgbt?" It was piiblished by WatersOn, Berlin and Snyder, and the crystal radio Sets of that era smallajoxed the air ivith Ifc I tried to get a little money from the chewing gum company, talked bi^ about the possibilities of singing their advertising. A tone-deaf executive drop-kicked me into the alley without so much as a pack of gum for my trouble..that was what discour- aged me from writing my next inspiration, "Commonwealth and Sonthirn; I Love You." The tinie bomb I had lit exploded in 1939 with the "JPepsi- Cola''jingle-jangle-jingle; i iindeirtta»d% of peflple«*«i*r» named "^'"^ and Johnson are aathoring uiost of the singin|r tma- niercials you hear■these'days,:^; /"^ With a contrite heart, may I repnind them Of what ^rankle said to Johnny, "Money you get that way-will do you no good." From PM. January Sth . Copi/risilit 1947 by Billy Hose I I .1: I 1