Radio doings (Dec 1930-Jun1932)

Dedicated to the American Housewife, the NBC Matinee Brings to Her Every Day a Spicy Hour of Variety and Entertainment Helen O'Neill, NBC producer and creator of the Matinee. the descendant of an interesting line of artists; his great-grandfather was a miniature-painter; his grandfather a landscape-painter and his father a portrait-painter. Norman Fields, favorite of the legitimate stage and master of ceremonies on the Matinee. Norman inherited enough of his ancestor's talent to make his stage characterizations famous for their realism and art. He was chosen for the post of Master of Ceremonies of the NBC Matinee out of a group of competing stars. His microphone manner, marked by the restraint of the finished actor, brings scores of letters from women listeners. When Florence Reed returned to California recently to appear in "East of Suez" she made just one stipulation with the management of the Fulton theater in Oakland — that Norman Field be her leading man. He played with her in "'The Shanghai Gesture," appearing in the role of the Englishman, in that play, and the National Broadcasting Company loaned her "Taipan" as she still calls Field, for "East of Suez." Gail Taylor, charming dark-haired, dark-eyed soprano, and Sarah Jordan, home science expert, are the only women to appear before the microphone in the Matinee, except for those occasions when Helen O'Neill can be persuaded to offer one of her inimitable pianologues. Usually, however^ Helen is kept busy with the job of producing the show, and Gail plays all the feminine leads in the Matinee skits. She is "Sister" in the Wise Family; the captain's daughter in "Captain Booth and his Sardine Fishermen," and she has discovered a flair for humor and character parts that she herself never suspected before. Gail came to NBC soon after she left high school, and her voice has developed into one of the lovliest sopranos on the air. When she first became a radio star, Gail's ambition was to sing in musical comedy, and she has achieved it, for she sings the principal roles in many of the miniature musical comedies presented in the Matinee, as well as other NBC programs. The Matinee Orchestra, a fourteenpiece group directed by Mahlon Merrick, is one of the most interesting features of the NBC Matinee. The conductor is an enthusiastic believer in mod ern melodic arrangements of classics, and there is always variety and color in the orchestral numbers he offers. Billy Cowles, who makes the arrangements and directs the vocalists, also is a thorough modernist, and he and Helen are gleeful over the fact that the Matinee artists and musicians can go from grand opera to "hot jazz" in the space of a few minutes' time. "If we appeal to women listeners with this program, it is because of that fact as much as anything else," explains Helen. "The housewife isn't a definite type any more than the business woman is, so far as her entertainment tastes go. "The woman whose vocation is homemaking likes her entertainment up to a high standard. She knows good music and she knows jazz, and she knows, too. when some radio program she hears has been obviously 'toned down' to a level of childishness, and if she resents it, she's right to do so. "Ever since the NBC Matinee has been on the air, we have kept this in mind, and have tried to shape programs to meet the suggestions which come from the many women who write to tell us how much they like this song or that sketch. The stay-at-home women is one of the most intelligent radio critics I know." Best evidence of the NBC Matinee's popularity lies in the fact that so many women wrote to ask for a night program similar to it, that the Moonlight Matinee has been added to the NBC schedule, and is presented through the Pacific network every Wednesday night, between 9:30 and 10:30 o'clock. RADIO DOINGS Page Thirteen