Radio mirror (Jan-June 1948)

all the jokes my pals tell on the radio, but I just turned 59 in May. And the docs look me over, and they check me and thump me, and they all say, 'Al, we don't know what you've got to keep you chugging along at the pace you chug, but you've got something!' "And I betcha I could go in a room with Cantor, Benny, Fred Allen and all of 'em for a little scrap and I'd be the one that'd walk out at the finish! Haven't felt so good in twenty years. . . ." And he looks it too. Tanned, fit, full of the old jump and get-up-and-go. That old inexhaustible Jolson energy, keeps him from sitting still for long at a time. Typically, on one Monday evening he appeared as star of a national broadcast of "The Jolson Story," and after that appeared at a starjammed banquet to receive his Photoplay Gold Medal Award because "The Jolson Story" was the year's most popular film. He was up that evening until after midnight — but at 7 A.M. Tuesday he was en route with Erie for breakfast at the Hillcrest country club! Al loves to pick up and travel. And while Asa's arrival and Al's work have kept the Jolsons close to home lately, one of these days they will probably be hitting the road again. "Just the other day," says Al, "my wife was saying, 'Hon, you've got that restless look in your eye again. You've got that itching foot.' And I have. "Sometimes I think I'll just haul up stakes and take the wife and boy and find me an island somewhere. Get away from all the confusion and hustle-bustle and wonders of modern civilization that're likely to kill you any minute. Just get some peace. But then I ask myself, 'Al, old boy, if you hide out like that, what'll you do for an audience when you gotta sing those songs? What'll you do, huh? You'd have to take a piano-player along, anyway, in case people ask you to sing — and if they don't ask you to sing then you'll be hurt.' "So I figure I'll stick with it, and we'll just travel a little now and then, and when the kid's big enough, we'll pack him along, sure!" And there's a new baby song Al sings, a song that sounds as if it might have been written especially for Asa. It's "Nearest Thing to Heaven." "Oh, that?" says Al. "A song writer named Bene Russell brings me some lyrics and asks me to give him a tune, and I come up with one like this — da, da, de, da, de, da, — and I play around with it some more and I get this — da, de, da, da ... I don't play a note myself, just sing a tune to a piano-player, with a try-this and a try-that ... So this song sounds pretty good and I try it on the air and it goes over great and so we're publishing it. . . . "But don't say I was writing it about the kid, willya not? That'd sound kinda sentimental and we wouldn't want that." Asa's Pappy sentimental? Who would ever suggest a thing like that? Alma Kitchell (Continued pom page 51) made her perfect for conducting that type of show. In her early days of radio Alma Kitchell found herself much in demand as a speaker at women's clubs, college groups, and other gatherings, on the almost unknown medium of radio. Now, more than two decades later, the same thing is happening again. She is constantly being asked to speak these days about the new phenomenon on the entertainment horizon — television. In the early spring of 1947 her chance came. Nash Kelvinator had been searching for someone who had charm, showmanship, and could cook. Alma Kitchell was made to order. As Mrs. Kitchell says, "I am not a home economist, and I run my program as any normally good cook would. Cooking has always been a very special hobby of mine. I think you'll find that tiue of a great many singers, painters, musicians — artists of all kinds. That's because cooking is a creative art — much like writing or painting." Over the years, her loyal radio listeners have sent her more than 200 cook books; these comprise her recipe library. If you should ask Alma what one thing she finds most satisfying about television work, she would tell you: "The highly personalized relationship between the performer and the televiewer. You are not just heard in people's homes — you are there. You are welcomed into the family circle. My mail reflects this feeling very definitely; and let me tell you it is a response that is very close to every performer's heart." To point out how sensitive video is, she tells about the first time she hummed to herself as she prepared the dish of the week on her program. She wasn't thinking about it — just engrossed in fixing the ingredients. Well, mail flooded in from her audience (which includes a surprising number of men too) about how natural and homey this touch was. Each type of television program presents individual camera problems. Mrs. KitcheU's most outstanding one was the fact that scraping things out of bowls, which is done in the course of her show each week, must be done with the bowl facing the camera. After years of automatically doing it towards yourself, this was a difficult trick to master, but now she does it naturally. And though her performance seems effortless, the placing of each cup and bowl and box must be carefully rehearsed to please the all-seeing eye of the television camera. Four sets of ingredients are used for every dish. Since it is a fifteenminute show, and most of the recipes take longer than that to cook, it is necessary to have a pre-cooked finished product on hand so her audience can get the complete effect of the recipe, from beginning to end, in the short program time. After the show is over, you'll find cameramen, directors, technicians, and everyone else nearby, crowded into the beautiful kitchen unit her sponsor built for Mrs. KitcheU's program, sampling the cake or biscuits or whatever happened to be featured that night. The food is really as good as it looks! New as television is there's a still newer field, and that is movie shorts made exclusively for television. Already Alma Kitcthell is getting offers for that kind of work. Judging from past performances the pioneering spirit should be taking hold any day now, and Alma will be off to meet the challenge of the unknown again. ARE BEST FO"* ' YESI If you have an oval, long or heart-shaped face. NO! If your face is round, square or diamond shaped. Bongs give your face a feminine rounded look, minimize length, make your eyes the center of attraction. WRITE FOR FREE BOOKLET, "HAIR STYIES THAT GLORIFY YOUR SHAPE FACEI" f,H BEST FOR EVERY CURLERS GIRL-' Back again! 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