Radio daily (Oct-Dec 1937)

RADIO DAILY: Friday, October 22, 1937 AGENCIES NATHANIEL H. PUMPIAN, director of media at Henri-Hurst-McDonald, Chicago, since 1928, has been appointed radio director, succeeding Ed Weiss, who resigned to form his own agency, it is announced by H. M. Dancer, general manager. Pumpian will continue his media duties. HERBERT T. LORENTZEN, formerly associated with Young and Rubicam, has become an account executive with W. L. Post Advertising. Appointment is effective immediately. MacWILKINS & COLE of Seattle and Portland, engaged in expanding its radio activities in Seattle, has shifted Showalter Lynch, radio director of the agency, to the latter city from Portland. MRS. MILDRED G. ERICKSON, formerly with the Lloyd Spancer agency, Seattle, has become publicity director of American Federation of Labor in that city. Football Contests Sobol Brothers, users of radio time on WMCA, will conduct six weekly football contests offering 15 prizes each week to football fans and a grand prize of two tickets to the Rose Bowl game and all expense round-trip to California via luxury airliner. Twelve games of national importance are listed every week. No purchase is required to enter; blanks are obtainable at all Sobol Brothers Stations. National Contest Service, Division of Mailings, is handling the judging. Contest is being promoted via Dick Fishell, sports commentator over WMCA, and a newspaper campaign placed by the J. Stirling Getchell agency. 250 at Taplinger Farewell More than 250 friends and business associates of Robert S. Taplinger attended a cocktail party last night on the eve of his departure for Hollywood where he becomes publicity director of Warner Bros. Charlotte Buchwald on WNEW Charlotte Buchwald, conductor of the WMCA Playgoer program, is now heard Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday over WNEW in new program, "Woman of the Hour", 3:303:45 p.m. Zip at WPAY Portsmouth, O.— Gwen Fields, continuity director of WPAY, astounded the staff recently by appearing in a brilliant red frock, having a zipper running diagonally from the waist Inquiry revealed that the frock is a special creation labeled "My Operation." The staff is wondering if she was affected by the ether waves coming from the station or whether her sales resistance was low. • • • Little Shots about Big Shots: Six years ago Gabriel Heatter was engaged in the publicity business and among his clients was Sam Rubel of the coal firm. .. .Because of the depression, expenses were being cut and Gabe went with the first cut. Other clients made similar moves until he was jobless .... Some one over at WMCA told him to see Donald Flamm regarding a commentator's job, and he got it. .. .Working on a soap box as desk for the typewriter and fruit crate for a seat, he did his work .... Suddenly things started picking up and Rubel went to him and offered him his job back at an increase, but Gabe refused. Rubel said that he must be drunk or crazy to monkey with radio — and went to Mrs. Heatter with the same plea. She, for the first time, visited Gabe's office, saw the conditions he was working under, and agreed that he was nuts! .... Gabe continued, however, being "nuts" as his wife and former boss claimed ....A short time after, beer became legal and Gabe went over to WOR sponsored by Ebling's — owned and operated by Sam Rubel! • • • Recently over at the Essex House, where Dave Franklin, composer of "Merry -Go-Round Broke Down," resides (so does Richard Himber) . A call had come in to the manager asking that a rent bill be made up and have the page boy rush up to his room and pack all his things — because he had just signed a picture contract and had to catch the train for the coast in an hour ... ."Dave" promised the boy three bucks if he had all his things and trunks down in the lobby within 30 minutes — and the boy did it in 15 flat — but you can imagine the condition they were in Well, Dave returned to his hotel — went to his room, found a few honeymooners occupying his apartment — and complained to the manager, who told him of the phone call, which came from Himber's apartment . . . .Franklin hasn't spoken to Dick since ... .Here's the pay-off: It was Mickey Alpert who had used Himber's phone for the practical joke. • • • By way of New Orleans comes this belated story .... When the late Huey Long was reigning supreme there, he used the local stations for his speech-making stamping grounds .... When he was scheduled to appear on the airlanes, he'd get on the air, announce that for the next five minutes he was going to play some phonograph records, and that his present listening public should get on the phone, call all their friends to dial him in for the speech .... Huey would do just that — and when the five minutes of record playing were over. Long would come on saying: "Now that everybody is listening to me" — and would go into his speech. • • • Mark Warnow was minding his own business the other day while wider going a shave at the CBS barber shop. . . .At the very moment that Bob Taplinger walked in, he was under a hot towel. . . . Bob pushed the attendant aside and proceeded to clamp the steaming towel on Mark's face — but hard. .. .Warnow nearly scalded under the heat, threw the towel away as Bob went into the next chair, innocent-like ... .Mark raised an unholy rumpus, but finally was pacified. Bob was getting shaved, also. But instead of pulling a repeat on Taplinger's trick, Mark, when tipping the manicurist, bootblack, barber, etc., passed Bob and placed a dime in the publicity man's palm. • • • At last week's rehearsal for the Eddie Cantor show on the coast, a trombone player hit a clinker which prompted Vick Knight, Cantor's producer, to turn on the talk-back and ask him to play it right .... Of course, the offender protested and insisted upon arguing about it. . . .This prompted Knight, who went to the coast weighing 200 pounds and is now down to 140 (after he was told that "you'd be a big man once you hit Hollywood"), to remark to the trombone player: "Don't give me any of your lip — You're gonna NEED it!" MUSIC CAPPY BARRA and his Swing Harmonicas will switch to the west coast for their NBC-Red network airings when the organization opens at the Trocadero on Nov. 30. Jimmy Dorsey and band have opened at the Congress Casino, Chicago, and are on the air over NBC. Four Night Hawks are being picked up from the Bismarck hotel. Abe Lyman, who returns to New York from Hollywood next Monday, will devote this Fall to his "Waltz Time" series and the other three commercials he directs incognito. There is also a strong possibility, on the strength of his recent success as a comedian with Jack Benny, that a new variety program will be built around him, giving the orchestra leader a further opportunity to demonstrate his flare for comedy lines. With both pictures and the stage beckoning for Oscar Bradley's musical services, Phil Baker's Englishaccented bandsman has made up his mind to devote his time to radio, including guest appearances in a comic capacity on other air shows. Lyn Murray's choruses and orchestras are now heard on a total of 11 different network shows. In addition to this, one of his choral groups is making a series of personal appearances, and another is making a Paramount movie short. In addition to airing Leon Mason and his Hotel Garde orchestra six nights a week, WBRY, New Haven, will now pick up the dance music of Eugene Jelesnik at the Hotel 'Taft three week nights and dinner music on Sundays. Joe Rines, newly-inducted maestro at the French Casino, has added Frankie Parrish as vocalist. He is heard with Rines' band over the twice-weekly NBC wire, but does not appear with him on the "Time of Your Life"-Gruen watch show. Lee Grant has given a new twist to his music on the "Six Star Revue" on WMCA. He has several of his musicians do solos, each in his own style. Grant calls them his Star Stylists. Johnny Messner's showband of danceland has been signed for a series of shorts by Paramount Studios. The shorts will depict the history of swing and will be entitled "Swing Is Here To Stay." Leo Lazaro and his ork, featured in the Continental Room of the Tutwiler Hotel, Birmingham, is now being heard on WSGN regularly at 1:30 and 7 p.m. Joe Ford is announcing the broadcasts.