Radio and television mirror (July-Dec 1948)

How Santa Claus found out... THERES NOTHING] QUITE LIKE ALKA$£LTZ£R FORReLIEV/NG\ THBMISERIES, OF A COLO ^MarVtV 1 DON'T FEEL LIKE V/ OH, DON'T BEING SANTA CLAUS, /DISAPPOINT THEM! THIS COLDS MAKING I \ ALKA-SELTZER ME MISERABLE^! m^sHwxRmiY P^k BRING s~ m you < WFAST ^WR£U£F'j \ S^ m,/^22r~ DRINK IT DOWN J SEE HOW PAST ALKA-SELTZER will EASE THOSE ACHES AND PAINS rMERRY CHRISTMAS! THERES NOTH I N6 QUITE LIKE ALKA-SBLTZiR FOR RELIEVING THE MISERIES OF A COLO ! 72 Annette says. "But our days of courtship were like something out of a musical. Bert has a beautiful voice." Their favorite songs were "The White Cliffs of Dover" and "I Don't Want to Walk Without You, Baby." Together Bert and Annette had so much fun that they felt none of the desperation that often makes young couples worry about marriage. Then came the war and with it a more serious attitude. Bert enlisted in the infantry as a private. With an enforced separation they both realized their love for each other. And when Bert graduated from Infantry OCS in June 1943, Annette swooped down to Atlanta in a plane and they were married. While Bert was at Camp Wheeler, they lived the typical life of an army couple. It was impossible to find a home or apartment so they lived in one flea-ridden hotel room after another. Finally, after three months Annette found a furnished room in a private house. I WAS very excited because even a single room can be fixed up enough to call home," Annette recalls. "Bert's mother and I chased all over Atlanta trying to buy hard-to-get sheets and pillow cases but we could have saved ourselves the trouble." What happened was that they moved into their new "home" on a Monday morning. All that day Annette fussed about the room making it livable but when Bert got back from camp that evening his face was long and sad. "I knew what was wrong without being told," she said. "He had his orders to ship overseas." While Bert spent two years with "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell in the CBI Theater, Annette moved in with her parents in Connecticut and worked in the New Haven Hospital as a nurse's aide. Yet she was probably one of the few army wives who had a regular Saturday night date with her husband's voice although he was half-way around the world. Bert and Finis Farr were making wire recordings of combat activities that were played weekly over CBS on the program Yank in the Orient. But Bert wasn't that lucky. Once for a period of six months he didn't receive a letter from Annette. Only a soldier who has been in the jungles can realize his anguish. When her mail finally caught up with him, he had 85 letters. He arranged them in chronological order and read each one through to the end. In the meantime, he earned the Bronze Star and a cluster of Battle Stars the hard way. The wire recorder missions were a little more than dangerous and once took him behind the Jap lines for three weeks when several of his buddies were killed. Almost two years to the month that Bert went overseas, he returned to the states a Captain. Then he and Annette began to make their plans for a home and children, but Bert was to meet the same difficulties as every other young veteran. For months they searched for an apartment in New York, moving from one hotel to another every five days. Bert had by then become regular quizmaster on Break the Bank and announcer on Sunday Evening Party and the Guy Lombardo Show. Finally, they moved into a dingy, dank one-room apartment. The place was so dark they had to keep their lights on all day in order to see. It was rough and expensive. It wasn't the kind of home that Bert and other veterans had hoped for but nevertheless he and Annette were together and he was back in radio. And then Bert was due for another surprise one evening when he got home. "I've been to the doctor's," Annette said calmly. "Are you sick?" Bert asked, halfalarmed. Annette smiled. "Just a check-up," she said. "I'm pregnant." He sat breathless for a moment then said, "So we're going to have a baby." She grinned and corrected him. "We might even have babies plural," she said. Then with a do-or-die intensity Bert began to look for a new home. With twins they absolutely had to have a larger and better apartment. "I sniffed around buildings like a dog. I kept my ear to the ground like an Indian and even carried a rabbit's foot," Bert said. Finally, he found a friend of a friend of a friend who was moving and offered Bert his two-room apartment. Not a large home but a distinct improvement over what they had. A month before the babies were expected, they moved in. The same afternoon Annette went to the hospital for a check-up. "The babies weren't due for a month," Bert explained. "At the hospital they told me they were keeping Annette for a few days because she needed a rest." The next morning Bert was awakened by a call from his doctor and notified he had twins, both boys. "It was a twilight birth for the father," Bert said. "No pacing. No pains." Because of the premature birth, the twins required more care than usual when Annette finally got home. "You should've seen our two little rooms then," Bert laughed. "There was Annette, the nurse, a cook, me and the twins. Fifteen milk bottles in the refrigerator, a double-sized baby carriage, and two of everything from cribs to toys. What a madhouse. It really required a director and producer to cross a room." THEY call the twins their double blessing. Jeff and Joel have what they had hoped for in their children: a good sense of humor. They're beginning to talk a little in kind of a mumble that would cause Bert trouble if they were to appear on a quiz program. But they definitely have a sense of humor. When either one is asked his name, he gives the name of his brother. And they have private jokes. They mumble to each other and suddenly start laughing but no one else knows why. The twins are mad about their father and love to hear him sing. When he isn't at the studios, Bert frequently takes them to the park. Neither one of the Parkses cares for night clubbing. Ten minutes after a broadcast or rehearsal Bert is home. They still enjoy a good dinner out and a play but most of their social life is spent quietly with their friends Jack and Terry Rayel, George and Helen Zachary, and Mr. & Mrs. Music (Andre Baruch and his wife Bea Wain). On winter evenings they get together with the Baruchs and while Andre chords on the piano, Bea and Bert ad lib to a Calypso tune. "Bert and I have always had wonderful times together," Annette says. "And it seems the longer we're married, the happier we are."