Radio digest (1922)

68 isn't it?" There was a brief but very intense silence. The brother and sister sat looking at one another. "Does Mr. Enderby — play golf?" Eve asked, calmly. "Rather!" Hensham replied. "He was champion of Middlesex. I really wonder in what part of the world he's hidden himself. We shan't hear a line from him till he turns up with his new novel." Eve rose slowly from the table and made her way through the French windows and across the shadowed lawn to the laurel walk. At the end of it Stephen Glask was waiting. He stepped forward to meet her eagerly. "So you've come after all!" he exclaimed. "'I am to be forgiven, then?" She gave him her fingers and smiled sweetly into his face. "I have come to the conclusion," she said, "that it is snobbish to keep you out of sight because you are an ironmonger. You can come and sit down with my brother and his guest and drink port with them. Then if you have anything to say, later on — well, he can listen." Stephen Glask moved forward readily ' enough, but he was puzzled. "I hope Sir Austen won't be rude to me," he ventured, with obviously affected uneasiness. Eve drew a little closer to him. "It depends," she said, demurely, "upon the effect which his sense of humor may have upon his inherited and instinctive snobbery." Will Rogers and Mike (Continued from page 9) "You know, this Radio is a mighty fine thing, I guess. But it isn't 'xactly like the show. At the show the folks pay to get in and they want to be entertained. But on the Radio, besides them as really wants to hear you, there are some that just about dare me to entertain 'em. So you get all sorts of people on this microphone idee." SEVERAL months ago Rogers said that there wasn't enough money to make him give a series on the air, although, of course, he had made a good many single broadcasts . . . one of which a remote line was even strung to his former home and a mike placed in the library. So I thought we ought to find out why he suddenly changed his mind. "I'll tell you," he readily said. "You know those isolated talks of mine were all right, but not for a regular diet. You know, if I talked about subjects of the day, same as I do in my little newspaper pieces, I'd have to talk about prohibition, the senate, disarmament conference and tariff every week. People would soon get tired of that. "That's why I never wanted to give a long series. But one day I got the idea of giving a series on personalities. You know some folks would like all of the talks and others would like some of 'em. I liked the idea and sold the scheme to a sponsor for the series. That's all there is to it." But we left him rehearsing his act . . . a trifle nervous and fidgety. Six-twelve, Pacific standard time, New York signs over, the loud speaker in the studio over which he has been hearing the initial part of broadcast is silenced, the red light flashes . . . instantly Will is all attention. He keeps the lid on all the time during the talk. At the very beginning it is pulled down to the eyeglasses. Gradually, as enthusiasm increases, the brim gets pulled up in front ... in back, too . . . finally it assumes a rakish angle and totters on one side. Some day I'm afraid he will toss it up into the air when he gets excited. On goes the talk ... he looks at the clock ... he glances at his watch . . . head nods or shakes as he wants to give especial emphasis to some point . . . gives a couple of schoolboy gestures by way of variety. Pretty soon the talking is over and he calls it a day . . . rushes down to the car and back home to take his shoes off and lounge around the parlor until bedtime. I think Rogers' Radio technique is a little different from most others. He only makes his notes and talks from those. A carefully prepared message would be stilted and would sound unnatural. His first instinctive thoughts are the best. If you hear him pause, and say "er-er" a couple of times it isn't because he is trying to make you think it is ad lib stuff; it really is. WILL apologetically explains why he does this radio stuff for a living. "Just a racket, young man," he says, "a nice, genteel racket. You know I'm just trying to get along" — whereupon he goes home, clips a few more coupons, and chews more gum. While he still persists in saying he is never nervous on the air, the plain truth of the matter is that he is. We may as well forgive him his microphonitis — even the mightiest suffer from it. I think if the truth were told neither does he like the people to peek in through the window. "Makes you feel like some sorta wild animal on exhibition," mutters Will. What does he look like? Well, it wouldn't be Will Rogers without a bow tie. Then there is the soft felt hat. Old, I'd call it, but I suppose he has another at home . . . dark grey suit . . . clean shirt with attached collar . . . no vest . . . swallows hard and tries to look dignified as a plush horse, but totally without success . . tugs at hat brim to pull it down over eyeglasses. Is Will Rogers a bit temperamental? Yes and no. What happened to his efforts at phonograph recordings or electrical transcriptions when he walked out of the recorders, well, that's just another story, and it doesn't have anything to do with this brief narrative. There must be two sides to the situation. Perhaps he was justified and was not temperamental, as some believe. But I think what some people believe is his temperamentalism is merely a certain nervousness which is inherent in his makeup. What makes him con jl tinuously chew gum? He doesn't get any more for it. The gum people have i already paid him for the testimonials. | He doesn't have to endorse the gum .Hid then chew it all up to earn the I cash. I think it is because it relieves a • certain amount of tension, occupies his ■ time and acts as a sort of sedative, just ■ as stale tobacco smoke soothes the | nerves of some others. This bit of nervousness, to my mind, is an integral part of his makeup. Without it, perhaps, he wouldn't be Will Rogers. So it doesn't seem to me to be temperamentalism, but just plain, ordinary nervousness. Will wants people to like him, and the fear that they may not keeps him on edge at times. I don't think, either, that he is at all antagonistic toward Radio as having been largely responsible for the lessening of the power of the legitimate stage. He is somewhat past middle age and has tolerance. OF COURSE, his stage days go back to his first vaudeville engagement on the old Hammerstein Roof garden in '05, and his many years with Ziegfeld's Follies, as well as writing, lecture and picture work. Many of the old-timers of stageland never quite get over the feeling that Radio is a young upstart. Although the Rogers family doesn't do so very much listening to broadcast programs, still I don't think the head of tfie clan is antagonistic towards it. As a matter of act, now that he has a receiving set both at the rancho and in the bungalow at the hotel, Will is getting to be something of a fan. He didn't listen in often until he "discovered" Amos V Andy a few weeks back. "Do you know," he says, "I listen to those two boys 'most every time they are on the air now. They have a human touch and the gags they tell are not forced ones . . . just a couple of ordinary individuals." How much does he get for these weekly broadcasts? Well, I didn't have the nerve to ask him. My guess would be about $5,000 for each 15-minute talk, and how it must hurt him to make out the income tax. He tells me the brief notes he makes on Saturday nights are the only thing he uses for a memo and these are not written out at length. This apparently means that when the sponsors announce that they will have the entire series available in booklet form that stenographers have been taking down his remarks at the other end of the line and the publishing will be done in the east.