Variety (Jan 1949)

B8 PICTURES Forty third P^RI^f Amwderntry Vcdwegday, Jaunary 5, I949 'Ring Around Rosie' By LEONARD LOUIS LEVINSOM- HoUywood. Air I Rosenblatt unbolted the front door of/l^fs^"?: iVir. I., ""'''-'^"'■j'^^," ,. „ (.^^^^ Mr. RosenbLitt didn t porium and looted at the ^'f ^ ^ith smoke, It waf/l^nday morning and Mr. Rosenblatt multered .hii hi/first sale would come quickly and easily, ?„rh^ c uf/to the beUe^ that this initial transaction ^^nnld foSt the Emporium's business for the week He got t^e change out of the safe and put it in the t.U He mfde a'?ewh^f-hearted sweeps with «^fe«Vh<n-^d^^^^^^^ at the stack of su ts nearest the door. He ran up me gretii blinds Then he went outside and stood lieside the sing e window the sharp October breeze snapping at his shirt- Z^Z: Mr. Rosenblatt was ready to pull in his first cus- *°Tcoupie of Slovak miUliands slopped to admire the p4t^ trousers and squarecut coat of Ike's leader a bril- Irint electric-colored serge, known m the trade as Bo- v1"k Blue" But all of Mr. Rosenl^lalfs wheedling ef- forts to entice them inside tor a try-on were unsuccessful; Mr Rosenblatt had a feeling that the men's ready-to- wear trade was going to be rotten this week and the ner- vous indigestion from which he suffered began to distress him. The wind turned wet and he was driven mdoors by ?h™ rain. As he lit the gas mantels, Mr. Rosfbl«tt be- came bitter. He cursed his heartburn, his luck, the city of McKeesport and Columbus-the latter for discovering The"'mailcarrier came and departed, leaving five state- niv-nts from as many jobbers and a postal card from Ikes brother I n Fort W orth. _ Busmossjvas bad in Texas, too. ^ jce jreaker Yet! I ■^'aiTpainiTnrcame'and still he hadn't woken the ice with a sale. Mr. Rosenblatt's stomach felt like he had swallowed a sashweight for breakfast. Then he saw Steve, the o-jen-hearth foreman,' hurrying by in the rain. Last w-"k'steve had come in with his brother-in-law and tried on the serge -suit, but the brother-in-law had said some- thing in Bohemian and they had walked out. Mr. Rosen- blatt knew a smattering of the language but all he could pick out was "SabQldofsky." That was the name of Mr. Kosenblatt's chief competitor, the owner of the Hub Out- fitlinq Co. and a notorious price-cutter. ^, ^ . , Seeing Steve in the same old suit, Mr. Rosenblatt dashed out in the rain after him. He caught the foreman at the corn,er, and with a persuasiveness born of desperation, dragged him back into the store. / , Steve didn't want to b\i5''. He mumbled a number of ex- cui-HS. Mr. Rosenblatt made him take off his wet coat and ti-v the blue serge on again. He flattered the fore- ' nisn. He shaded the price. At last he threw in a cheap oilcloth raincoat. That tipped the scales,. . , After Steve had left, proudly wearing the new suit un- der the raincoat, Mr. Rosenblatt wiped the perspiration from his face, As he was putting the seven dirty dollar bills into the'till, he thought of his son, Bert; Bert was 10 and was begging his father for 9 violin, Sidney Mar- golis, the butcher's son, had a violin and now Bert wanted one, too. . i,' '■..(.;. ■■ ' i . Mr. Rosenblatt took out two of the dollar bills and put them in his vest pocket. He'd buy Bert a violin and hire a teacher, even if it cost 50 cents a week. After all, if Bert gi'ew-up to be a-fiddlerr-he-would have a professjon. Ike almost forgot his heartburn when he thought of that. If the boy would learn a profes.sion, he wouldn't need to run no blankety-blank store like hi.s. old man. A bright, rosy picture of the boy's future began to form in Miv Rosenblatt's mind. No wheedling and bargaining for Bsrt. No heavy heart and heavy Btomach for the boy. And 110 Blue Monday like his father had to face. No first sale to ^ break the ice. It made Mr. Rosenblatt feel a little ■ warmer. _ . _ ' ■-• ■ ■■.'- Ra^B to Gagsa are so bad that Frankenstein and Dracula have to share the same victim." , . . Rose had been against this one, but the script w'riters had rolled out of their chairs when they told it and he d left it in against his better judgment. It didn't click and the pages of Gil's script began to tremble, - "We won t wail for that laugh," he ad-hbbed and the announcer began building into the next joke. Gils wind- pipe felt like a chimney in a vinegar factory and his mouth was dry, but he put everything into his next line. "Really Woodie. you mustn't insult my looks, I m con- sidered very handsome. Why, in McKeesport on a bad day, I was often mistaken for fair weather." More PoiIl^Killing This time some bronchial imbecile in the aiidience timed a cough so that it covered the Words "fair weather." One stupid cough and the gag was last to 30,000,000 listeners. As the straight man cut into the ensuing dead air, Gil felt a cold hand on his spine. Thirty seconds gone already and not a laugh. The script stunk and tomorrow the ham- mers would be out. He could hear them at the Brown Derby chortling, "Well. Rosie is beginning to slip. Did " you hear the ostrich egg he laid last night?" Little beads of sweat began to appear on Gil's face aS Woodie picked up the cue and plunged into the weekly routine of kidding about Gil's father. They'd been using Pop as a running gag for so long. Rose was sure .they had milked the topic dry. Woodie was saying- "1 hear your, father has taken up golf. How's he doing?" "Not so good," Gill said. "The pro keeps telling him to keep his head down." "What's wrong with that?" asked Woodie. "Poppa keeps bumping into trees,'' came: the reply^ . Gil's palms were wet and his stomach was a. mass of knots. This had to be it. He turned and mugged at the audience. The gag got them. The smarter ones caught it at once and started the rcsf off. The laugh rolled into a roar. They began to applaud. Gil had time to take a handker- chief out of his bre.Lst pocket and mop his wet face. His collar was soaking but the hand holding the .script had stopped trembling: He had broken the ice and was back again on the No. 1 spot on the air. "What a life," Rosie-muttered to himself. "But thank ' goodness I've made enough so there'll be none of this show business for my boy. The minute he's old enough, I'll set him up • in some.. business where, -there's.. no- griefs—some- thing steady and reliable, like—say, a clothing store." The biggest radio theatre in Hollywood was packed, as always, for the Gil Rose Laugh Hour. In front of the curtains,- Woodie-Dunlap, the ^announcer and straight man, .was giving the audience his little set speech, telling them to'laugh whenever they-felt like, to applaud the jokes they hked best, to relax and take off their shoes, belts and girdles. Then the "Stand By" light flicked on. the curtains part- ed and everyone dutifully applauded as the band and the supporting players were revealed; In the wings, a secretary lianded Gil Rose (nee Bert Rosenblatt ) the violin that he always carried onstage but never played. Gil felt rather nervous about this week's script. It didn't .seem up to standard^the toughest stand- ard in the business. Gil was top man in all the ratings and had cknis there for three years—the longest any Star had.held the .spot. .^nd the public—they e.\pect Rosie to be boff —- socfc^ wow:^ everylime he opened hi.s mouth. Gil took a tighter . grip on his script hand and shifted the -violin under his left elbow.' It was always this way, in spite of his years in vaude- ville and on the air. Getting that audience warmed, up, .starting their laughter rolling, coaxing them to :buy his first gags was an ordeal that took the joy out of his $15,000 a. week. ■ . ■ ■.■ ' He listened with half an ear to the opening fanfare and Woodie's plug for the'product. Then came his intro- duction and he strolled oflstage with his usual non- chalance, to be greeted by a waterfall of applause. "Evening, folks," he said. "Hello Woodie. What are you doing these day.s?" "Haven't you hGardV-r-I'm an agent, the announcef fed him. ■,; "An agent?" queried Gif. "What's that?" "You know-^I make my living selling, actors*'' Woodie explained. ,■ "Okay," replied Gil, "here's $10. I'm making a down payment on Jane Russell." He turned to grin at the audience and waited for the laugh, But only a slow, scattered tiller started up. The gag was too subtle, Rosie decided. Then, as it began to build Into something solid, Woodie stepped all over it With his next line. People stopped laughing to hear what he ■.'said.. "No kidding," Woodie began as Gil silently cursed him, "don't you think I'll be a success as an agent?" "Th6se days?" asked Gil. "Why, things in Hollywood Our Minister of Humor iBy LOUIS NIZERi Phooey to the Duke of Windsor :By H. ALLEN SMITH: Allen Smith Always treat your enemy well:—you made him. Always appreciate your friend—he made you one. I am about to appreciate a friend, but there is no fa- voritism in what I write because he is the friend of more people than almost any other person in this country. There is an old American tradition which has gone quite unobserved: It is the tradition of having a humorist in every generation, who becomes a folk hero. No other natioh* vn, the; world has established :quit#such ' a line of aristocracy/:. > - Y ^ - This is significant for it is'the es- . sence of democracy thSf; we should ■ have as a folk hero .oiieT^whttJ^ us the truth about our leaders and ■ Louis NiztT ourselves without bitterness or fac- tionalism. Only a humorist can punch you and make you laugh at the same lime. We never formally elect our folk hero of humor, but he generally achieves recognition by ' long service, and popular acclaim: he becomes a sort of minister of- humor —r^-as if he -had a seat-in the President's cabinet. I don't like to use the analogy of the-.Court Jester because our folk heroes have "never been buffoons. Maybe poet lau- reate is a better comparison: It might be interesting to trace the family tree of these folk heroes. They stem from a long, line of royalty and royalties. There was .Tosh Billings, the master'of folk humor,. He- once wrote: "There are very few good judges of humor and they don't agree." There was Artemus Ward, who excelled in shrewd colloquialism like: . "I am no politician and my other habits are good." There was Mark Twain whose works are an eternal nostalgia for boyhood.' His writing was not only auto- : biographical, but part of the biography of America. There was George Ade whose fablus In slang enrielipd our language until we called it Amorrcan slanguage. He combined old wisdom with new idiom. niere was Robert Benchley who wrote the humor of the common man caught in the toils of civilization. He was America's leading writer of nonsense for nonsense's sake. There was Ring Lardner, the explorer of the American dialect, the melancholy analyst and the nrtad wag. He • created a composite ol American and English which some - called -Ringlish." And there -were Chauncey Depew, the master Of gra- cious humor; Will Rogers, the homespun philosopher; and Irvin S,. Qobb. the great story-teller. The latest in the line of this great tradition, and our )E>resent minister of hunior, is Harry Hershfield. He has been the personal friend of six Presidents of the United States but, more .important, when he walks down the street- every policeman, shopkeeper or plain Mr Citizen yells brightly, "Hello, Harry." ' He has regaled more audiences at public dinners than any man who ever lived. He is no mere jokester or come- dian but, like America's other ministers of humor, a com- mentator upon the foibles and strengths of human ex- perience. Despite a long career as newspaperman, car- toonist, author, radio artist and toastmaster, he has re- tained rare sensitivity about the feelings of his fellow man, and his outstanding trait is kindliness; being good- humored about humor. He is a unique figure in American life. All top often, we save our evaluation of OUr folk heroes until after they have gone. Let's stop hoarding our sen- timentality and acknowledge now that we haVe a minis- ter of humor moulded in the greatest tradition. Not long ago I was reading one of our metropolitan journals when my eye fell upon an item reporting that the Duke of Windsor had been paid, for his recent memoih a greater sum per word than any other writer had ever • •- received in history. . .Veh?.' ' I don't know how niuch m6ney Life gave him for thei three long install- ments, but if it caiitie to- anythih^ letj than a million bucksi jie.'s still only a runner-up. Want to know wHb the champ is? I am. ■ Perhaps you can, remembier ba6i to the days when Calvin Coolidge chose to write a syndicated coluinhi and the great publicity attending that deci. sion. Much was made of the fact that the former president: Was to. get ii . a word for every word he wrote. That was pure publicity; nobody who writes a syndicated col- umn is ever paid by the word^his income fluctuates ac- cdrding to the number of newspapers that use his column and the size of those newspapers. The fact is, Coolidge made considerably more than a dollar a word with his cblumn.. The idea got into the popular imagination, how- ever, that he was being handed a buck for every word he put down, and people exclaimed, over it and it was con- sidered a big and wondrous thing. Now, as for the Duke of Windst-- and his rate-per-word, I hereby challenge him to try to match my own achieve^ merit; I'm willing to put my cards on the table, to reveal all the details of the transaction through which, 1 feel quite certain; 1 gained the world's championship. In doing so I mufit confess that the thing which 1 wrote and which gave me the title was of even greater unimportance than anything Calvin Coolidge ever wrote at a dollar or more a word. I might even go .so far as to say that the thing I wrote was of le-sger consequente than the- memoirs of • the Duke of Windsor. One day in early January of 1947 Fred Allen was a : gue.st at my home in upper Westchester County: During the afternoon he engaged in a long and hilarious monolog concerning the tribulations of a top comedian in radio. Among other things he made mention of the fact that lie was having a terrible time getting-adequate guest stars to appear on his radio show. Impulsively 1 spoke up. "I'll be a guest on your pro- gram," I said, "provided you let me write my own .script,'' He surprised me by showing immediate intere.st, "Do you have an idea for a script?" he wanted to know. "Sure," I said. "Swell! How long will it take you to write it?" - "I can write it right now," "Oh," no," he protested. "Don't bother about it today. Take your time with it—take a week or two." I got paper and pencil and wrote one line; It was; , : .1 hove Tiot)iin.g to .sa-y. I handed it to him and he studied it with an expression of perplexity and tlien X explained how I thought it could be used. He would give me a .big slambang Introduction as. an author, and say that 1 had been on my way to . -some distant land when my journey was interrupted by an appeal from him to appear on his show, and that I had • hopped a plane in. say, San Francisco, find hurried back in order that I could make this important appearance, and then he would introduce'fne. The -studio announcer would- signal the audience for a large burst of applause, after^' which I would step to the mike and'say: • I have nothing t6 say. Fred thought it would make a good stunt and would serve as a satirical comment on thrliordes of guest stars who face the microphones and beat their gums logetlier briskly even though l:hey, loo; have nothing to say. It was good, too, because it would take up less than a minute of valuable time. Me scheduled it for a specific Sunday night and copied my live-word line into the script lor that program. ____________ f'ofosBuI Contercn«e 1 There was the usual script conference a few days before the broadcast, attended by an assortment of network people and representatives of the- sponsor and the ailver- tising agency. It is axiomatic in radio as well as in Holly- wood that no piece of writing can ever go through to the end the way it was originally written. There are too many people involved, people with authority and nothing to ex- ercise it on, Somewhere along the line everything h"-': to be changed. Thus they arrived, ^in the .script conier- ence, at my single line, and a dozen headswent to work on it, trying to puzzle out ways Of changing it. and finally one of the master minds got it. Instead of I hun' nothivg to ,s'aj/ he decided it should be J have nothinif ii!/in(«'t'r 10 say. The cljange was penciled in and incorporated in the revised script. I knew nothing about it until 1 arrivecl at the studio just, before the program; and even then 1, thought nothing of it—the addition of the word whulaxr brought neither anguish nor joy to my breast. 1 scarcely '.-■noticed it.;-. - So it went on the air and was a groat success to. 1 should say, half the radio audience, and a great enign" to the other half. I still get letters from people wanting to kno\njj.what we meant—saying they think it was awfully stupid to fly all the way back from San Franci.sco and get on a nationwide network and then say nothing; and a lew who have' a theory that 1 was so drunk that I couWn i saj any more. Such letters I noisily consign to the sepi'c tank. On the other hand those who got the point were enthusiastic and these included, strangely enough, sev- eral members of that bored fraternity, the radio co'- umnists. : v • (f- ... About a week after the broadcast I was startled wie» a letter came informing me that 1 was being paid for that one line. I protested. I said 1 had expeci«" nothing and wanted nothing and would take no'-'"''.^'^!.™ the publicity for my books was easily a sufficient wa«^ But the protests were ignored and the money was sem me and I kept it. .^.-tf Then, quite suddenly, it ocfiurred to me that this in" e was a major literary achievement. I dug up an old ai metic which my children had used in elementary sui ^ and studied it for a couple of hours, and af'""" " ,4 «at to work with pencil and paper, and in the end figuieu that I had been paid $83.33 {kcr word.