Radio doings (Dec 1930-Jun1932)

He Beat fcroad»«i> [Continued from Page 10] ter an amazing variety of jobs. Hi* first was as grocery and delivery boy. After listening for a while to exacting wives he gave up in despair, and landed a job in a curtain rod factory. "There." he explains ruefully. "I expected to get $15 a week, which seemed like a fortune to me then, but I was put on piece work,' and at the end of the week was the possessor of only $6." Not a very exciting training school for a tenor! Downey next landed a job in the lunch room, but admits today, with a glow of amusement, "Between the proprietor and myself, as soon as we made any money, we spent it!" Then came the donkey engine job. Next Morton had a really good job in Hartford, Conn., with an insurance company. Just as he was doing nicely, the United States entered the world war, and he turned down the job to join the Navy. Because of his immaturity, Mort's father believed him to be too young to be of service. Accordingly, he notified the authorities to waylay his son and they, in mistaken zeal, lodged the young patriot in jail to await his irate but proud parent. So Morton got another job. What else could a guy do? It was with a suave furniture man of the fifteen dollars down variety. The gentleman went bankrupt and Morton was again bereft of a job. "If you want any pointers on bankruptcy," added Mort magnificently, "ask me!" This doesn't read much like the road to "Wabash Moon," but the fates do strange things with their weaving. In the next step he really used his voice as "news butcher." Burdened with articles so that he leaned, like the Tower of Pisa, on one side, he would enter the train, face a hostile sea of faces, and coax them into buying his wares, candy and magazines. Can vou imagine lilting a line like that?' In case you don't know what kind of a kitty that is, it's a gasoline engine which runs around the railroad yards like an errand boy, dragging coaches to make up trains, etc. 'The thing of it was!" Mort recalled with an infectious smile, "that I got bored to blazes with a discreet speed, and started burning up the tracks like Barney Oldfield. One day I jammed on the brakes, jumped the tracks — and there I was, perfectly intact, but not at all beloved by the officials. AND WAS I FIRED!" Mort still drives fast, but he pilots Rolls-Royces, not donkey engines. However, during his period on the railroad, he had saved enough money to go to New York! Once there, he patronized, as his favorite hotel, the Grand Central Station— and even consented, on hot nights to patronize Battery Park. He looked up an old friend of his who had visited Wallingford, and tried to get an entree into various musical publishing houses, but they wouldn't even listen to him sing (excuse us while we laugh up our sleeve; they are all now clamoring for his patronage!) In the midst of despair, another friend got him a job singing first for the Knights of Columbus, then for the Elks. He took a room in Brooklyn for $3.00 a week. "It was so small," he says, "that you had to open the window to get your arms in your shirt." Soon he began to get more lucrative bookings, so he shifted his headquarters from the ghastly hole of Calcutta in Brooklyn, to more desirable lodgings. Mr. and Mrs. Morton Downey. Mrs. Downey is a sister of Constance and Joan Bennett, movie actresses. Shortly after this a Brooklyn politician, Jimmy Hagan, who was always 'Uncle Jimmy" to Mort, gathered the young troubadour into his own home where he remained for two years. He sang his first theatrical engagement in a theatre downtown, dressed in a cowboy suit, and that song which came from his heart, was the beginning of a career which is now making history. After drifting around from one $30.00 a week job to the next, he was spotted by Paul Whiteman's manager, and engaged at once. His job consisted in running his fingers over a shiny saxophone that didn't make any noise, the object of this deception being that when young Morton stood up to sing, everyone would exclaim, "Doesn't he sing well for a saxophone player!" The Whiteman band played vaudeville for ten weeks before being as leconditioned. On these voyages back signed to the Leviathan which had been and forth, Morton made many friends who later did a lot toward getting his career well-grounded. Among these was one Jack Donahue, and many other celebrities. After that engagement terminated, he played as a "single" in moving picture houses from San Francisco to New York, introducing new songs and rein Albany, after a performance, he calling old favorites, was driving out-of-town at a terrific clip. His car turned over — he saw stars and tasted infinity — and when he came to he learned that he was in for a period in the hospital. While there, he entertained the inmates, nurses, and doctors— but the time dragged. After Mort emerged from his hospital, he was engaged by Florenz Ziegfeld to sing in his Palm Beach night club. He finished the season at a casino in Havana — and then there followed, in several years succession, trips to Europe in the summer, and bookings at Palm Beach night clubs in the winters. Back to America, from eight months on the continent in night clubs of Biarritz, Copenhagen and Berlin, he made three unfortunate pictures. Being among the first of the talkies, these pictures were not nearly all that might have been desired, but he certainly was lucky in love. He fell madly in love with one of Richard Bennett's lovely daughters, Barbara, and married her within three weeks. He is still just nerts about her. And while we are on the subject of the Bennetts, Mort is singing a song over the radio, occasionally, entitled "My Yesterdays With You." It was written by Phil Plante, divorced husband of Constance. Mort now sings his brother-in-law's song over the radio — to Constance. Mort had a marvelous time in Hollywood, but nothing was accomplished. As far as making pictures went — he was a good horseback rider. So poor Mort decided he was losing ground. People forget so easily, and the name "Morton Downey" was no longer chanted in connection with night clubs or theatres. If you heard of him at all. it was that he was making pictures. And Downey just didn't want to be judged by these. The cap of the climax was a comment which appeared in a New York newspaper one dav with the words, "Poor Morton Downey, he's all washed up." Reading them, Mort was reduced to a state of wrathful determination. "That just burned me up," he says, and forthwith made for the Kit Kat Club ;is fast as he could get there, bringing Bar \Next Page] l*n pe Forty RADIO DOINGS