NBC Transmitter (Jan-Nov 1942)

MAY 1942 5 CALIFORNIA CINDERELLA # III tlie liltle valley lown of Livermore, pop. .'5,000 soiil.s, set down in the rich California wine country and completely surrounded hy snow-capped mountains, Saturday, April 4, was marked as a red letter day. In the center of town, rigged out on the street from the radio store, was a loudspeaker and standing around below, quiet, anxious, was the majority of Livermore’s citizens. The only folks missing were Dolores Maurine Miller, 16 years old and one of the 300 students of the high school, and Maurine’s father, manager of the Livermore J. C. Penney store, her mother and her ten-year-old brother, Douglas— known to his friends as “Superman.” The Miller family, complete, was in the NBC studios in San Francisco where Dolores, winner of a Western regional audition, was ready to compete in a nationwide Red Network broadcast held as the finals of a violin scholarship contest jointly sponsored hy NBC, the Juilliard School of Music in New York and the National I cderation of Music Clubs. Listening in, along with the 2,996 citizens of Livertnore, was the far-flung radio audience and a j)anel of five judges, scattered about the country oti the important business of being distinguished musicians. These judges were Pierre Monteux, conductor of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra; Leopold Stokowski, former conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra and this season identified with the NBC Symphony Orchestra; Louis Persinger and Albert Spalding, both famed concert violinists; and Ernest Hutcheson, President of the Juilliard School. At the conclusion of the broadcast, the tow’tifolk of Livermore cheered, whistled and settled down into that still |)eriod of waiting until their judgment had been officially confirmed. The judges acted immediately, however, and s|)eeding wires to NBC headquarters in New York named Dolores Miller as unanimous winner of PRINT COLLECTING DOLORES TAKES A BOW Hollywood’s Sound Effects Department was turned into a fingerprinting bureau in accordance U’ith the ruling that all NBC employees be photographed and fingerprinted for identification. Guest Relations Manager Bill Andrews took a course in the fine art at the local FBI office, and is seen here getting the prints of Betty Boyle, of auditing, while Lew Frost, assistant to vice-president Sidney Strotz, wipes ink from his fingers. the contest. A hig day for Livermore! For her brilliance, her technicjue and her musical maturity, Dolores will receive a otie-year scholarship in violin study at Juilliard, contributed by the school, with her living ex|)enses paid hy NBC. For her junior miss warmth, her enthusiasm for living and her all-embracing excitement about just j)eo|)le, Dolores received the whole-hearted admiration of everyone she met in New York duritig the exciting week she and her mother enjoyed as NBC’s guests. It was her mother, also a violinist, w ho started Dolores on her amazing career. At the age of three, at her own insistence. Dolores began the study of v iolin w ith her mother as teacher. At the age of eleven, Dolores won her first contest, thereby starting a winning streak, in which the scholarship contest was number five. .Number four, two years ago, was a six-montb scholarship to study with Henri Teniianka. currently concertmaster of the Pittshurgh Symphony, which she has rewon everv six months since. Dolores and her mother arrived in New York on April 17 and began a round of activity and honor-getting that was previously heyond the imagination of the little school girl from Livermore. The climax was an appearance as soloist with the NBC Svmphonv, Leopold Stokowski conducting. which was specially presented over the nationwide NBC— RED Network. She also played for service men at the Stage Door (]anleen, the first serious musician to a])pear there, and was a brilliant success. She saw several examples of real, live threedimensional entertainment and— “gosh, it was wonderful”— went to the circus and met the performers.