Radio and television mirror (July-Dec 1949)

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Advertisement A Place Called Home {Continued from page 54) special things at their price. The main house is set well back from the highway and red geraniums line the walk to the front door. The oldest portion was built 250 years ago of bricks made on the place. A second part was added twenty-five years later, a third after another twenty-five years or so. But the small wing that houses Ted's study is only ten years old. From the wide flagstone terrace at the back you get a sweeping view of the distant Jericho Mountains and, nearer. Bowman's Hill. Below the terrace is a grove of four fine old trees, a shady place to play and picnic. The master of the house may greet you in well-pressed shirt and slacks, but that doesn't fool anyone for a minute. You know he just got out of some dirty old work clothes when you see the evidences of fresh transplanting and the well-mowed lawns. Doris has been preparing lunch for the guests. Sue, seven, and Sally, six, won't get dressed up until we are ready to take their pictures. They have been shopping and can hardly wait to show off their finery. "Sally has eight brand-new dresses," Doris Steele explains, "and she would like to wear all eight at once. I found only four that looked as cute on Sue, because she's growing so tall and thin, but there was a yellow dotted swiss with a matching parasol that she loved, something Sally didn't get and they decided it was a fair arrangement." It started to storm before we got Sue's picture with the precious parasol, so we finally took one with it opened right in the middle of the living room, a big square room furnished in the spirit of the Pennsylvania Dutch tradition to which the house belongs. Doris painted and papered the whole first floor herself and then had a man come in to do the ceilings and staircase. You wonder when she finds time for any of this. Besides being Ted's agent and business manager, she writes the scripts for the big Bucks County Party program he puts on over the DuMont network every Tuesday night from 9:00 to 9:30 EDT. She works too on the Monday through Friday noon show over CBS-TV, and she not only writes but co-emcees their Monday through Friday Mr. and Mrs. Music radio show over WMCA, New York, from 9:15 to 11:45 A.M. EDT. Cabinets in the study are piled high with pamphlets. "My agricultural library," Ted explains. I glance at a row of leather bound books. "My correspondence course," Ted says. "Sure, I took it after I left school and was working my way up in radio." Titles include Salesmanship and Com,mercial Law. Ted started as a page boy at National Broadcasting Company in New York and in five months worked his way up to sales promotion. While he was still a salesman someone told him about the new musical instrument, the Novachord, and he used to spend his noon hours practicing at the offices of the company that handled it. When NBC asked them to recommend a Novachordist for the Cities Service Program the company said the best one available was right on the NBC sales staff. He played thematic music and bridges on as many as twenty commercial programs a week, and began to make Novachord recordings. His first big conducting job came on the Screen Test radio show, and then he went on to the Chesterfield Supper Club, in 1944-45. But before that, in the late 1930's, something happened that was to influence his career even more than the Novachord incident. He walked into an advertising agency to talk over a show and he met Doris Brooks, who was just long enough out of Montgomery, Alabama, to retain a soft Southern something in her voice. When Ted opened an office she became his business manager and script writer. It worked fine— nfcr about six months. "Ted was going with a girl I didn't care much about, and since I kept the books and the checkbook I knew he was spending too much money. One day I told Ted I was going back home to Montgomery. A few days later I went to the office to clear things up when I thought Ted would be out. I found him standing utterly helpless in the middle of the room. " 'Where were you?' he demanded, and I began to cry. Of course I went back to work, and just about then he started to ask me for dates. A year later we were married." When, five years later, following his MGM Screen Test and Chesterfield shows, Ted came back from a stint of writing and arranging music for the movies in Hollywood, they decided they just had to get out into the country. Ted started to buy calves and heifers at auctions while they were still staying with friends in Bucks County, boarding his animals out. He was trying to rent only the barn on his present farm so he could take care of the animals himself, when the caretaker suggested that the Steeles buy the place. Ted was doubtful. As if they could dream of having a place like that. But Doris has a motto, that reads: "You can do anything you want to do." "I didn't even have to go in to make up my mind," she says. "When we drove up to the door I knew we wanted it." "Then I struck it lucky with the cattle," Ted broke in. "I bought and sold for twelve months, getting the cows in good shape and re-selling them and I finally built up a three hundred dollar investment to ten thousand dollars. And everything else began to come our way." We were sitting out on the terrace in the late afternoon while the Steeles were telling this part of their story. The wind was mounting swiftly and Henry Mignot, their herdsman and farmer, was racing his tractor back to the barn to call the cattle in before the storm would break. Mr. Mignot hails from the Isle of Guernsey and had helped to bring over some of these famous cattle, including the Steeles' fine breed bull, Vagabond's Valiant. But Mr. Mignot is the only person in the neighborhood who is as interested in Ted's television career as in his cattle holdings. "Was your wife watching the show last night when you had to kiss that beautiful girl?" he had asked Ted a few days before. "She sure was. She hired the girl," Ted told him. Small wonder that Mr. Mignot thinks television is wonderful. And Ted and Doris agree with him. But Guernseys rate high too.