Variety (December 1951)

■ ■ Mmfofiil nifa* tervkes,<xe«ttng If 4 I ntw demand* for ixtqwetitin,w*' H -flu T JL 1 I ontiy available ■ *■ * * • tor develop- fl| P| *7 B mental purposes. II — continued /M WGSf& *Wi8i1tw>- various industrial ra- . . ,;.i 4 di0 including, if the Com- gratoi had^«4 Wisston should so decide, theatre upon 1% of ^ie W&** JK-j‘ “JJ TV, expanding simultaneously and failed to 2i* JSiSSSS ■ imposing new demands on the same weekly accpdhtfiigi portion of the spectrum, it is in- $11,000 in^fjo* evitable that hew problems will which would havn given rWejn- arise each day and multiply as time stock, at best* $H0. Ho never goes by. The problem . . . will be 8 aw the show* ; certain to manifest itself to. the It’s- know* that there have’ been greatest extent in terminal areas, random, anonymous phone sails tb wherein demands of the theatre t?V the district attorney,: the Secun- service Will be greatest. In such ties Exchange Commission and to areas, a saturation point in the use the CaUtorida ^ Commissioner of of industrial Service frequencies Corporations, Who originally might possibly be reached, short cranted^the firm a* charter to sell of the establishment of a truly na- Itork No iormal complaint has tionwide, competitive theatre TV vet been made, although the Cor- service/’ norations Commissioner’s office« Hearings on theatre TV are to be said that stockholders usiially held before the full Commission w*re too benumbed, for two or beginning Feb. 25, and are expected thtee weeks to decide what action to last several weeks, they might take; i. 111 ■., .■ smsssssssssssssssssssssn ‘Tiny’ Investors . Caught in the debacle were L6Slt DltS nrohahlv more than 300 W i* _ ' 8 ? vestprs whose pieces, ranged; up- continued from page W s - wards from $1Q2. .Many *are be- gmi Gaithers production of lieved to have /invested their, en- “Dear Barbarians'' , , Richard tire life savings in the promotion. Cleary and'J. Richard Jones join Position of tire show was unique the cast of ‘*Stalag 17” this Week, in show biz history. No closing succeeding Robert Shawley and was annoimcS, Jo the variWs WUl.am .Piersoii. who withdrew to fIL* W unions still are appear-in the film version . . . talent and. Legit actor William E. Hawkes, holding on, to the ^ndSr ^ Cast who was inducted into the Navy and crew- was toio, _Uj^n arrival last year, is serving on the air- for Monday nighty, UO). perform- craft carrier Tarawa . ; . Lorella ance, that “there will he no fchow Val-Mery is pressagenting the tonight—we3l let you know/ ’‘Sleep of Prisoners” tour ■...*' Bonds, however, cover a closing Bernard Gersten will be stage only. Coin therefore still appears manager for the City Center re* to be duefor thetwo performances^ " * Qtindhv mid fxsT Monday night. : Ted . Goldsmith took .over for ^flii rntir^rned showed up Alvor d as flack on “Gentlemen since all concerned snowed up p re f er Blondes”.Etta Moten, for* ready to worn, ^ mer “Porgy and Bess” star, leaves Musicians union already has. for Liberia and then Europe for a* slapped a $5,900 attachment concert stint. against what there is of the show’s Dr. John Newfield is leaving the assets. Other unions may follow U. of Kansas City, where he is suit, although It’s understood that head of the drama department, ef- Equity had been having cast paid , He f a ?«S? en w Srfhrmattiip ind tSetti director of the University Tlay- ln cash -per perfomance and t er house since it opened in 1948; much outstanding in that sam Schwartz; Sam Levene’s direction* ■ . understudy in the Broadway “Guys During the long, intensive stock and Dolls/’ who took over Dec; 7 promotion—pitches for which fre- when the latter had an appgndec- quently resembled a “blue sky” tomy, is still playing 4he ride all operation—over a local radio sta- this week, pending Levene’s' re- tiSn and through expensJvJ bfoch- SSSL' fPt.A.iii' »n aa Wkint. talking-about a concert series .with. O^BHeii . y . Helen Jtob- Variety had. called him a “top? notch entertainer.” erts ; and Richard Walker, seen here in previous seasons with the For the record/ Trenk appeared D’Oyly Carte Co., are in N, Y. on a one-shot Iradio program on prepping a Gilbert & Sullivan lec- WNYC, New York, in March, 1942. ture-recital. tour, They’ve been on The review at that tlffie noted that ln Aus ' 44 Willy Trenk, with" engaging ac- cent, came through the mike as a topnotch * entertainer for whom there should be a spot in hiteries. He was' formerly program pro- ducer and director at the* Munici- pal radio station in Vienna/’ tralia and New Zealand. Theatre TV’s Push jsa Continued from page 3- ss s ssm board will reconsider and okay the Harald MAre<u«h alert ann*ar*d ZJ - ^ lidicuii JLvicU. v5vll a1oO : . vi biS”SCTC€DiD2 Hrti?® TNT is basing its pitch to the r?!? ,K en ? a Versus the New Academy on the fullscale public Te- Grder, but was not; singled out lations benefits which would be de- for any attention. . rived by the industry if the actors Trenk s persistent claim, that he could be shown actually receiving was a well-known European legit their Oscars on the same theatre producer and director Were not screens on which filmgbers borne out by any standard refer- throughout the country watched ence works of the theatre. their performances; ■m === m s ^^=s===s=^==!I Accordng to TNT, theatre tele- P " ' ” vising of.the event could be pro- 11 “ m " a- moted as an annual affair for the a benefit of the entire industry, |< r« on Mn*i»ii f. A M m -■ - . Arthur L. Mayer, exec’secretary of I Cratbieed (»» e»K * =S=il th ^ council of Motion Picture N. T. Time, Ad Recrd New York Times last weekend set a record for Gotham;, bec&ni&g the first N. X. daily to publish 40,000,000 lines of advertising it one year, Sheet Will probably show a gain of at least 1,500,000 lines over its previohs record vol-. ume last year* in the. classified ad field, the Times publishes as much as the other metropolitan N. Y, gazettes combined. * Straus On Housing Nathan Straus, owner of indie radio station WMCA, N, Y., WiU have his “T'wo-Thirds of a Nation;” tome on -the housing problem, pub- lished by Alfred A. Knopf Jan. 8. Straus, Who from 1937 to 1949 was the first administrator of the U. S. Housing Authority, wrote the book to guide home-seekers and those interested in housing. Buffalo Byllner Ardis Smith, former dramatib reviewer defunct Buffalo Times and later , for the NeWs there, re- turned to Buffalo as a. byline col- unihist in the News last week* ’ Smith’s last Buffalo stint was as News stage and screen critic up to the middle 1940& He left to do screen treatments for HKO in the late Frederick Ullman Productions. More recently he has free-lanced around New York. Coblentz'S Hearst Book. E, D. (Cobby) Coblentz, one of W. R. Hearst’s confidantes and pub- lisher of the Frisco Examiner, has closed with Simon & Schuster for his book on the late publisher. It will be called “The Letters of Wil- liam Randolph Hearst.” This is one of several b o o k s, biogs and “intimate recollections” ; of Hearst that aire in process of writing and'publication since his death recently. Joel To Prexy Dial Press George W. Joel, who has been managing Dial Press for past two years, has been elected prexy after buying the interest formerly held; by Burton; C. Hoffman in the. firm. Hoffman, on leave for the, past two years, retires from active par- ticipation in Dial hut will serve as consultant. CHATTER Simon> & Schuster to publish Ar- i thur Godfrey’s “My Favorite Stories” in January. Hillis Mills, who’s been in Lon- don for Time mag for the past nine months, returned to New York last week for reassignment. Paul Gardher, Young & Rubicam flack and sports scripter on NBC- TV’s “We, the People,” has piece, on skiing in January Redbook mag. . Barbara Frost, publicity manager for J. B. Lippincott Co/S.JN. Y. of- fice, authored. “The Corpse Died Twice” which. Coward-McCann is publishing Jan. 2L Mystery tome has a Coney Island background. The 1950 Music Index Annual Cumulation, guide to music as re- corded in periodicals -of ’50, has just been published by Information Research Service. List of mags has been expanded to 120; subject headings have been further devel- oped, and printing improved. Variety articles' on pop and long- hair; symph, opera and ballet »are Continued from hake i competitive, nationwide theatre ganizations, has also supported the television is to be established, be- big-screen coverage on that basis- cause of the inevitable expansion and the new exhib backing is being and technicifi growth of the serv- led by such key exhibs as Mitchell ice.” ; Wolfson, prez of Theatre Owners Petition pointed to the techni- of America, cal progress in high-definition t monochrome and color theatre TV B \ 71“ I equipment. Without exclusive ^lIRP’c II channels of sufficient bandwidth, 11DV ^ HWIJlIlllvlll I it added, It may not be possible to conttaraed from vue » 11 bring to the public the fiill bene- l “™ . , ' . fits of theke^ achievemenits bn a runs .because set circulation will competitive, nationwide basis* Or-; automatically increase. Each mar- ganizations agreed with the pos^ ket is'being sold on a firm 52-week tion taken by 20th that theatres deal, Which, means that re-runs could share frequencies with other probably Won’t be possible withiii users of the Industrial radio $ery- a year’s time after ^ the initial ice. They submitted/ however, screening. Set circulation should “that the establishment of a thea- eliinb at least 4,000,000 iu that tre television service and the alio- - year, NBC estimates, which should cation of frequencies therefore on make the subsequent-run rights a shared basis would be, St most; worth that much more since, of a decision of expediency.” course, the : time charges will in- cite Rajild- Expansion crease. , Petition pointed out that “Once “Assignment” is the first of frequencies are Allocated for thea- three vidpix series being produced tre - television, ’ the industry will and syndicated by NBC. Coming rapidly expand its service to the up next are “Fu Manchu’’-, and many metropolitan areas through- “Texas Rangers.” It's considered Out the y. S.. *This will occasion almost a certainty, incidentally, an increased demand for channels that the films will not be aired on the. part of individual theatre NBC’s o.ko. stations, even though TV systems. At the same time it is they play in the web’s o,&o. cities, hot oxpected - that there will be ho That’s because the NBC stations concomitant growth in the other have ho time available. hair; symph, opera and ballet ,are included.: Charles Ahgoff, managing editor of Mercury Publications, whose first novel of trilogy On Bos-, ton family-life, “Journey To The Dawn,” was published la$t Felwru- ary by Beechhprst Press, has Just delivered the second volume to the publisher* Book, of 900 pages, and as yet untitled, will be, published in fall of ’59, Angoff is now writing volume three. Maurice Zolotow Is doing a pro- file on film pr od uc er Louis de Rpchemont lor Saturday. Evening Post. y*tmran Editor Herbert Bayard Swope who: cortdMy shoMjd koow about thoso tlifugs, horolds thu Inevitability of electronic uewi k i ui-ewicotiou. but still reofinus Respect for the Printed Word out of . the luuuy editorial feoteres. In tho 46th Anniversary Number - of OUT SOON By Frank Scully vBfirfMdik; CsJ.* Pfic. Ific Boris Day, as friendly a character as Sdntia Clatti thou^i of course far more beautiful, even with her "hair hr curlers,vjgot a Christmas present that’s strictly from Cinderella; ^I’ll See\ You Xh My Dreams,” in which she is stanlng, is at Radio City Music Hall for the holidays. Everybody is raving about bar performance,' and around the Warner lot in Burbank she is now -officially listed as its No. I star. # Actually, the part she played in “Dreams” Required very, little char- acterization, for her. She played Mrs. Gus Kahn, widow of one of America’s greatest lyricists, and as lovely a gal herself as ever , graced the backstage of r a musical, For Doris Day that was a natural, too. It’s a beautiful picture, but there was a scene in It tbst just about , singed my curls. It involved Patrice Wymore playing a Ziegfeld star. She was making a play for Gus as portrayed by Dahiiy Thomas, him- self performing a deft nipup* Her pitch for Kahn set up a lot of back- stage gossip. But he was no more responsive than if sho were a dis^ carded lyric, For more than a year I’ve had to combat that sort of v gosslp myself. But in my case it wasn’t Patrice Wymore. It was Doris Pair. No Parson or Hopper ran items about 4 it. I*kpat on nd Curbstone chatter-writer’s gabardine regarding it. In fact, the gossip never got below the upper story of Bedside Manors which bouses the Bcsully Circus. It 'began 18 months ago. My shopworn bride had returned home from the maternity wing with her fifth precious bee : frpm heaven. There was shopping to do. So I took two of the older hornets with me to the Ranch Market bn Vine St, Coming out of the market, our arms 'loaded, I almost fan into a dame in slacks and her hair in curlers. She v also Was loaded down with shopping bags. Her : back was to me. She was talking most pleas- antly tp three Hollywood characters. I turned to get a load of her profile, which was the best I could do, hef legs being covered* “That’s Doris Day,” I said to the kids; “Where?” they whispered, loud enough to disturb the cash registers. “Over there—with those three fugitives from Skid Row. Producers, probably.” * From there the thing began to build. Within a month I caught snatches of dialog in which the words “Daddy’s girlfriend” figured prominently,; * What were they trying to do—run a dagger of jealously inlo their poor mother’s heart? Or did they think that crack I made about the Three Muskrats surrounding Doris Day wefe prompted by x jealousy on my part? ... Buck Teeth Ride Again Once I heard two moppets, in conversation below my, office window. One was our Npnny, named after Anon, the greatest poet who ever lived. ‘•Daddy’s girlfriend - has not got buck teeth!” “She has, too,” countered the rival. “You got buck teeth,” shouted Noriny. “Okay, Doris Day has buck teeth, I got buck teeth. But all you got is a big hole where we got buck teeth.” Smack! I had to rush out and bust them up. This fight, fortunately, was kept out of the papers because We’ are not on a party .lino* Now once before in history a guy passed a dame in a market place and we’ye never heard the end of it. That was Durante AUghleri- Dante as he was known among the; Florentine word racketeers in the 13th century, not wanting to be confused later in the history pf let- ters with Jimmy Durante. Dante once looked back at a looker named Beatrice, whose last name eludes me. I think it was Kappeihoff. From, then on he carded a torch for Beatrice, She was his Unrequited love* He already had a wife and six children, remember! . The deadly parallel Was not going to he lost on me. It reached a climax when one day in another market Nonny and Patt pointed Out a fan magazine featuring Doris Day. The headline promised to ex- pose “The. Men In Her Life.” “Look, Dad,” said Patt, 14, beautiful and a sucker for this sort of intrigue. The Men In Her Life The “men” turned out to be Marty Melcher, her agent, to Whom she*s married, and Terry, her 8-year old son. That’s all. I wasn’t even among the men under the designation of “Mr. X.” H I had so few women in my life I would bury the disgrace in a time capsule. Then came “I’ll See You In My Dreams.” By now ! simply had to oee this homewrecker vis-a-vis and ask her in the presence of wit- nesses if (1) she had ever , seen me in her life, (2) if she had ever heard of me and (3) had ever read a line I had Written. (This last was likely to be the most humiliating for both of us.) So Alice, my office wife, was ordered to set up. a luncheon with this starry-eyed Cup of gold of the picture biz. We both dressed our best—Alice in a two-tone gray flannel en- semble, I a symphony in brown, in a Harris tweed suit. Miss Day ar- rived in the studio eatery 20 minutes late. Through no fault of her Own, I assure you. She was detained by makeup men. After that by prop men, v doormen, directors, producers, press , men. From the door to table she did some table-hopping. But she arrived. She arrived with her hair in curlers, which were fairly Well covered by mosqult? netting^ (I think they call it tulle.) She smiled^ apologized and smiled again. She hasn’t got buck teeth. She’s a dental delight. You can com- pare her to Shakespeare’s summer’s Day. You can sing, “When, the blue of the night meets the gold, of the Day, some one waits for Doris.” You can do it. But not me. I’m tied down O to the facts. These were a little hard to get froin her as she was waving, calling and talking to ail sorts of well-^shera around the Green Room. Her director came over and told her they’d be shooting some stuff the next day on her next picture, which is a biopic of Grover Cleveland Alexander, the old Phillies pitcher as portrayed by Ronald Reagan. She Pitches For Writers, Too ” • \ • ■ .. _ . v But I did manage tp discover one small secret of her success. She is, loyal even to-scriptwriters. I was remarking that one ’scene in “I’ll See You In My Dreams” gave me a laugh. That was when she blew her top because Gus Kahn burlesqued one of his own songs to pick up 10 bucks in a honkytonk. I thought the parody was better than the original lyrics and advanced the; idea that great men are .quite capable of poking fun at themselves. But Mme, Scully and Mme, Melcher assured me that women Would not take such degradation of the talents of their men and play it for laughs. ¥ Some day I suspect Warners will do “The Story of Doris Day, .1 hone they don’t glide over the fact that her mother took in sewing to pay for her dancing, lessons and by % .the time she was 12 she was good enough, to make a Fanchon & Marco stage-, .unity only- - to get-, padjy mangled in an automobile wteck near Hamilton, O., that left -one leg so smashed it hospitalized her for 14 months. - She had to give up dancing and try singing in radio. She worked up from there to singing with dance bands—Barney Rapp S,» Bob Crosby’s. Fred Waring, Jimmy Dorsey’s and Lea Brown s. - She was a sucker for musicians, having mamed,and divorced two before she got some sense of proportion and'married an agent. Her rise in pictures began With “Romance on the High Seas and for* some time afterward Mika Curtiz, who put her under personal con- tract. got a part of her weekly pay check. I suppose that s„au Changed now, or Marty Melcher isn’t the man I think he is. And’ he is.