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MORTON DOWNEY chews his fingernails
MORTON DOWNEY is a superstitious Irishman:
After almost every sentence he knocks wood. Once, he agreed to sing for a business man’s lunch club. When he reached the scene he learned that the club was composed entirely of Jews — and he knew nothing but Irish songs. He knocked on wood, sang them . . . that time he got away with it.
One subject he knows through and through is German police dogs. He raises them and gives them to his friends.
After a particularly trying broadcast, the nails on the thumb and forefinger of his right hand, are bitten down to the quick. It’s an old, old habit.
He carries a silver-backed comb in his vest pocket (he’s had that comb for eight years) and it’s one of his manner¬ isms to comb his hair every few minutes like Edward G. Robinson did in “Little Caesar.”
He has two cars — one imported, one domestic — and he loves them. If anyone else drives, he is nervous. When he drives, everybody else is nervous.
Twenty-six years ago he was a baby in Wallingford, Conn. He began to sing immediately — if you don’t care
what you call singing. After a while, he improved. At fifteen, he sold newspapers on a railroad train. When he got a job in a freight yard running a donkey engine he was in a seventh heaven . . . but they fired him for speeding.
His first theatre appearance was in New York where he sang “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” in a cowboy suit. A few weeks later he undertook a vaudeville en¬ gagement and was doing fairly well at it when he went into a section of New York that is exclusively Jewish. Morton knew nothing but Irish songs — and he sang them. His engagement was terminated immediately.
He tried other businesses. Once, he peddled insurance. His first real break came when Paul Whiteman signed him up at $70.00 a week.
Jobs as entertainer in a Palm Beach cabaret and a Havana night club eventually landed him in the European Cafe de Paris. That was in 1927. There, under the sponsorship of Lady Mountbatten, he was a big success. One night he sang “You Took Advantage of Me” eleven times at the request of the Prince of Wales.
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