Modern Screen (Dec 1954 - Dec 1955)

music from Hollywood (Continued from page 20) record as Jeffrey Clef. Tommy Lynn, who sang with Charlie Spivak's band, is now at Mercury as Tommy Leonette. And did you know that her nibs Miss Georgia Gibbs, who just had one of the hottest songs in the country, "Dance With Me Henry," sang in night clubs as Freda Gibson? • Betsy Palmer, who is appearing with Joan Crawford and Barry Sullivan in Columbia's Queen Bee, has her heart set on singing in a musical film. The blonde actress is taking singing and dancing lessons like mad. "Twice a week I go to ballet classes," says Betsy, "and twice a week I study tap. The singing lessons are sandwiched in between." She adds, "I hope to develop a sexy style of blues vocalizing." • Back in 1930 two young musicians playing in the pit band of a New York musical got together in the band room and were discussing their abilities to lead bands. One, a sandyhaired trombonist wearing glasses, looked over the black-haired clarinetist, also wearing glasses, shook his head sadly, and declared firmly: "You'll never make a bandleader. You don't have the right approach." The New York musical was Strike Up The Band. The sandyhaired trombonist was the late Glenn Miller. The clarinetist whom Miller believed did not "have the right approach" was Benny Goodman, whose fabulous rise as the King of Swing is the basis of Universal-International Pictures' The Benny Goodman Story. Valentine Davies, who scripted the stories of both bandleaders for the screen, did not use this incident in either for fear that the public would say: "There goes Hollywood again, lousing up somebody's life with corn." But it's the truth. • The television networks are begging Fernando Lamas and Arlene Dahl to become the next Mr. and Mrs. Video comedy team. Currently starring with Rosalind Russell, Eddie Albert and Gloria De Haven in Paramount's new musical The Girl Rush, Lamas revealed that he and Arlene have received several attractive offers to do a comedy series on tv. The offers have been pouring in since their recent appearance on the Milton Berle show. "Frankly, the money is good but we just don't know if we care to tie ourselves down to a steady series," he explained. "We don't mind an occasional guest shot but a weekly show might be too difficult. If we did it, it would have to be on film. We would never consider a live series." Grinning, Lamas added: "Arlene suggested the title / Love Lamas." Month's Best Movie Albums LOVE THEMES FROM THE CINEMA by the Spen cer-Hagen Orchestra Label "X" 45 EP EXA161. Four songs: "Not As A Stranger," "Forbidden Love" from the film Tight Spot, "How Can I Tell Her?" from the film Lucy Gallant, "You're Here My Love" from the film The Seven Little Foys. Four lovely renditions by the Spencer-Hagen Orchestra treated in a light and suave manner. pop parade — Volume Five with Gene Sheldon, Leroy Holmes, Billy Eckstine, Art Mooney, Ginny Gibson, David Rose, Billy Fields, Cindy Lord. "Unchained Melody," "Hey, Mr. Banjo," "Love Me Or Leave Me," "Honey Babe," "Whatever Lola Wants," "Take My Love," "Young And Foolish," "Cherry Pink." MGM E313. A ten-inch 33y3 LP with contributions by top MGM artists of current hits, most of which are from the movies. MUSIC FROM JACK WEBB'S MARK VII LTD., production Pete Kelly's Blues. Ray Heindorf directing the Warner Bros. Orchestra and Matty Matlock and his Jazz Band. A twelveinch 33Y3 LP issued by Columbia Records CL-690. "Pete Kelly's Blues," "Smiles," "Sugar," "After I Say I'm Sorry," "I'm Gonna Meet My Sweetie Now," "Somebody Loves Me," "He Needs Me," "Breezin' Along With The Breeze," "Hard-Hearted Hannah," "Bye Bye Blackbird," "Oh, Didn't He Ramble," "I Never Knew." Not a sound-track record from the picture, but it might as well be since it's the same musicians and the same songs. This album is a feast for lovers of jazz and the blues. Excellent record fare. Disc Jockey Choices "My Favorite 'MUSIC FROM HOLLYWOOD' " Ray Schreaner— WRNL— Richmond, Virginia "Big as CinemaScope, warm as Technicolor, Love Is A Many -Splendor ed Thing is, in the words of Hollywood, sensational." Lee Case— W AYE —Baltimore, Md. "My favorite all-time Music from Hollywood is 'As Time Goes By' from Casablanca. My steady listeners like music from Hollywood old and new." 70 Ed MeathWHEC — Rochester, New York "My favorite music from Hollywood is 'Honey Babe' by Art Mooney. I'm an ex-Marine, and every time I play the song it reminds me of many happy moments. It's high on my listeners' request list." Stan Dale— WJJD-Cfticago, III. "My favorite music from Hollywood is 'Rock Around The Clock,' as it brings out the current heartbeat of America's teens. Well chosen for Blackboard Jungle. If anyone didn't know who Bill Haley was, they know now." happy though married (Continued from page 55) she knew would come from them. And she had her work; work for which the financial rewards, as I she had come to learn in these days of j super taxes for super salaries, were not i half so important as the opportunities it gave her to be useful. No, things hadn't turned out badly at all. Not at all. So she swung back to Ben and said, "Oh, | go on and smoke it if you like." And, of course, with the cigar still firmly clenched between his teeth, Ben had to act as if he were surprised he hadn't thrown it away. j Which is the kind of play-acting which ' goes on between lots of happily married couples — the Ben Gages included. Esther williams has learned, as she has told many of her friends, that there are I no clear-cut victories in marriage, as there i are none in life. She is happy that she and ! Ben are in business together, setting up their lives for a future after her career is over, yet she is sorry that this means too much of their time is spent talking dollars and cents, instead of just Ben and Esther. In the middle of an important discussion with him one night recently, dealing with their plans to tour Europe next summer with a mammoth aquacade show in which Esther will star, she interrupted him sud I denly to cry, "Oh, Ben, I don't want to hear any more!" And she got up from her chair to walk through the house, checking the furnishings, the linens, pulling the covers up over the children in their beds, and finding a deeper comfort from attending to these little things in her life than in the so-called important moves to which she and Ben had committed themselves. Such sudden reactions are not unusual in the lives of professional people, Esther insisted, when she told about this incident. "Marge and Gower Champion, whose whole lives revolve about dancing, tell me there are days when they must talk and think about everything but dancing," she said. "They just have to turn their interests to ordinary things, the more ordinary the better." The reason Esther hasn't wanted Ben to smoke cigars, she said, is that he is a big man, and a big cigar in a big man's face gives him an arrogant air. "But then, if Ben were a small man I'd say he looked ridiculous smoking a cigar," she shrugged. "I better let well enough alone, and take my gains with my losses." Ben is by instinct a night owl, a man who would have time turned into just nights, instead of wasting half of it on days. For a wife who is also a movie star and has to report to work at sunrise, having such a nocturnal-minded mate has its awkward aspects. "You could spend your whole lives passing each other going in different directions," Esther points out. But on the other hand, when they ran their restaurant The Trails, a place that didn't close until the small hours of morning, Ben made an ideal manager. He was the most wide-awake man in the place, with watchful eyes on every detail of the operation. Just as Esther has had to compromise with developments as a wife, so has she had to be satisfied with less than a whole loaf as an artist. She was gratified to be invited to the Cannes Film Festival as a guest star early this year, she says, but vain enough to be a bit piqued because the Cannes judges rarely look with favor on the popular type of films in which she usually stars. And being Esther she even took the subject up with the director of the festival, an imposing Frenchman named Favre Le Bret whose regular post is that (Continued on page 72)