Photoplay (Jan-Sep 1937)

What is even more amazing to us is the story broughl us by one of our alert cared scouts that Deanna whoa year ago was just a kid in school will probably, next August, sing before the King and Queen of England in a command performance. IT is interesting to see how Man Pickford has moved right in and taken command of Mr. Charles (Buddy) Rogers' career. Mary's awfully smart about careers and we wouldn't be surprised if Buddy, who has done right well for himself in a quiet way, made really sensational strides with Mary at the helm. First indication along radio front that Mary's shrewd brain / LJ was behind Buddy's work came with the re-alignment al the eleventh hour of his radio program for National Biscuil Co >i pany. Buddy went home one night with a transcription of the rehearsal of the show as finally okehed for broadcasting tucked under his arm, came back next morning with plenty of new ideas. Said Buddy, "I want to make some changes. Mary says — I mean I think it would be better if there .were a little love story running through the series. It might be a good idea to engage a girl to play opposite me, build up a little radio romance." To NBC it seemed a swell idea — no matter where it came from — so Mary Martin, whom you now hear over the air with Buddy, was engaged. The show went on and apparently is most successful with its little romantic twist DING CROSBY is still top matinee idol along the radio front. For a time it looked as if Nelson Eddy might edge him out but the ushers at NBC tell us, off the record, that nobody can beat Bing when it comes to having girls flock around him. Some regulars show up for every broadcast, and what a fuss they make if they can't get in the studio! Recently two girls, barred from Kraft Music Hall show because of no ducats, stopped Bing when he drove up and were so impassioned in their pleas for tickets that finally (unable to get them any) Bing tucked them into the back seat of his waiting car and had the chauffeur turn on the radio for them. Poor Fred Astaire still suffers trying to escape fans. He's now adopted what some publicity writers call a " disguise, " but what we think is just an old worn-out suit that has seen better days, and which he wears with a brown number that is really pretty slouchy. He tops this off with dark glasses, runs out of his station wagon — where he hides in the rear — and bounces in the front door of the NBC building as if he were a demon reporter (the kind you read about in fiction but never see) racing to an assignment. Nobody recognizes him as he pushes his way th ough the waiting crowds, and I guess that is what he wants. We inquired why he did not use the back door, but it seems that is kept locked from the inside. Our gold-plated tin cup for this month for the most frightened Hollywood star at a broadcast goes to the hardy, adventurous soldier of fortune, George Brent. Mr. Brent who has been through a revolution in Ireland, and pilots his own plane blithely over treacherous Saugus mountains, had shaking knees when he appeared in " God's Country and the Woman" on Hollywood Hotel. He considered, he confided to us, asking for a chair, but he thought better of it He decided that if others could take it, he could too. Just the same, his knees quivered much in the same fashion as the nursery rhyme describing old Santa's belly shaking like a bowl full of jelly. Ha! Censorship raised its bossy head along the radio front this month and for what we consider a very silly reason. George Burns and Gracie Allen received a letter from the Mexican Embassy in Washington protesting their humorous skit, "Th'e Private Life of Mrs. Pancho Villa," on the grounds that it was disrespectful. George and Gracie were awfully [ please turn to page 112 ] Fred MacMurray, Carole Lombard, Louella Parsons, Cecile Cunningham and Mitchell Leisen on the Hollywood Hotel broadcast of "Swing High. Swing Low." Fred is our radio hot shot of the month for a very good reason, and Carole's conduct had hilarious results on audience and players 47