Radio and television mirror (July-Dec 1949)

^^ m an Guarding a back door where the chief deliveries are talent and glamour is still an adventure for Ralph Stephen By RALPH STEPHEN Keeping out' people who don't belong is a headache, but Ralph knows all the big names — like Dennis Day — on sight. In nearly any business building, the back entrance is where deliveries are made. The building where I work, NBC's Studios at Sunset and Vine in Hollywood, is no different from most others — we take oiu* deliveries at the back door, too. Only we call it the artists' entrance, and because oxu business is entertainment, the deliveries we accept there are for my money the world's most interesting commodities — glamor and talent on the hoof. All the famous names, not only of radio but of movies and stage, at one time or another come through the door I guard — and after fifteen years, I still get as big a bang out of them as if I'd only arrived in Hollywood day before yesterday from Nebraska. I've had people say to me: "I suppose your job is just routine to you. Having to do with aU those big stars day in and day out must make them seem pretty commonplace ? " That's when I'm likely to blow off a little steam: Don't kid yourself that the top^flightentertainers ever seem commonplace, even when they're just going in and out of a back door. They may not differ a lot in physical make-up from more ordinary people, but there's one tremendous difference — ^personality! I wish anybody who thinks my job is just routine could be around when Jimmy Durante and his gang conie tearing in to do their show. "Hi ya, Pop," hails Jimmy, and he gives me that big grin and once in a while a cigar, which I always half expect to be loaded but which never is, and next minute he's over pleading with the switchboard girl, "Say, Gawjuss, couldja spare fi' minutes to hold muh hand?" Then he's off down 44