Radio mirror (Nov 1936-Apr 1937)

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"y\&* fctft ^jiwwv&yrL (M/wpe RADIO MI RROR The O'Neills and the late Frank ParkerAnn Leaf combination. * * * The final figures weren't available when this was written but it is estimated that over 520,000 persons will have visited the NBC studios in Radio City during the year 1936. This is 55,000 tourists in excess of last year's record. And at forty cents per capita, it means the tidy little sum of $208,000 was expended by a curious public for a peek behind the scenes of radioland. YOU never can tell what is going to happen in this cockeyed business of broadcasting. Late last September Morton Bowe, tenor soloist of the summer Jello program starring Tim Ryan and Irene Noblette. found himself out of a job when that combination was replaced by the return of Jack Benny et al. It seemed too late in the season to land a new connection and Morton, pretty blue about his prospects, went on a personal appearance tour of movie theaters. Then unsuspected jobs began to pop up on every side. First he was engaged for the CBS show with Ray Sinatra's orchestra. Then Iodent toothpaste signed him for the Joe Rines-Mabel Albertson set-up on NBC. Hardly had his signature dried on this contract when a third was placed before him. It was to sing on Smith Brothers' Melody Matinee with Muriel Dickson, the Cavaliers' Quartet and Victor Arden's orchestra. And right on the heels of that came his fourth engagement, to sing with Jack Pearl on the revived Baron Muenchausen proceedings. So, Morton Bowe instead of being jobless is so busy with so many programs he has had to hire an attendant-secretary to make sure he doesn't miss a broadcast or two every week! * * * THE MONITOR MAN SAYS OZZIE Nelson's mother named him Oswald in the fond belief it couldn't be corrupted into a nickname. Her heir was just two days old when his dad started calling him little Ozzie and Ozzie he has been ever since. So what happens? A son is born to Ozzie and Harriet Hilliard and they promptly christen him David Ozzie Nelson, knowing the futility of labeling him Oswald. Harriet, by the way, lost no time in getting back to Hollywood after the stork's visit. She is engaged in filming "An Apple a Day," in which she will be supported by Joe Penner, Parkyakarkus, Victor Moore, Helen Broderick and Jimmy Gleason, a most promising cast. . New uses of the radio are being discovered every day. A band of boy burglars employed it most successfully to ransack Brooklyn, N. Y. apartments, introducing a novel technique in looting. Entering a flat while the owner was away they would snap on the loudspeaker to cover the sounds of their activities and make the neighbors believe the occupants were home. They burglarized scores of places before the police got wise to the stratagem and nabbed them. Jack Benny and Mary Livingstone live in a twenty-threeroom house in Hollywood Until radio and then the movies removed him from the vicissitudes of a trouper's life, Jack had spent a lifetime in hotel bedrooms . . . Reinald Werrenrath, Ir son of the soloist, is a Radio City page. Young Werrenrath has no aspirations to sing. vp. ^ 'P Ian Peerce's right surname is Perlmuth. His parents still reside in Ludlow Street in the heart of New York's East Side, and stoutly resist -all. efforts of their son to remove them to a more fashionable neigh borhood . . . Lately there has been so much duplication of topics and themes kidded by radio comics that they contemplate establishing a clearing house where ideas to be burlesqued will be registered two weeks in advance of the broadcast date. Unless you know the ropes, about the hardest thing to get is a ticket to a big broadcast. And if they keep on enlarging the shows provided for the studio spectators, ducats for same will be as difficult to obtain as reserved seats in Heaven. Sponsors are no longer satisfied to present just the artists on the programs. Take the Chevrolet Sunday night session projected from Columbia's Playhouse No. 1, for instance. The stars— RubinofT, Virginia Rea and Jan Peerce— are seen in the regular broadcast and then Chevrolet entertains its guests with motion pictures. Nine out of ten announcers can sing — most mikemen got their start as soloists— but very few singers qualify as announcers. Two exceptions are Basil Ruysdale and Walter Cassel, both baritones. Cassel began his radio career as announcer at Station WOW . . . Clarence Muse, Negro composer-singer-actor heard with Irvin S. Cobb on the Paducah Plantation, carries a Hebrew mazuzah for good luck. * * * POSTSCRIPTS Phil Spitalny's all-femme Hour of Charm band is co-operative, which arrangement raises the weekly wage of the girl instrumentalists considerably above the musicians' union scale. The United States Office of Education is spending $113,000 to produce those educational programs on the air. The money goes to the writers, research workers, musicians and actors involved; not a cent is received by the stations which broadcast the programs without cost to the government . . . George Burns and Gracie Allen, going from (Campbell's) soup to (Grape) nuts so far as sponsors are concerned, make the switch April first— and that's no April fool gag, either. Gloria Grafton Knapp, widow of Maestro Orville Knapp, killed in an airplane crack-up, who sang on the air as prima donna of "Jumbo," is appearing in a New York night club. Lind Hayes, son of Grace Hayes, of stage and air renown, has won a movie contract as a result of his success as a singer and an impersonator on Eddie Cantor's program . . . Don Johnson, whom dialers know as Professor Figgsbottle, is a busy radio script writer. He does the Andy Gump serial, contributes comedy to the Sunday night Community Sing sessions, and aids and abets Goodman Ace in preparing those Easy Aces dialogues. Radios are now being installed in baby carriages. What next? . . . Leo Reisman (or his secretary) writes regularly to his fans regardless of how regularly they write to him . . . Add Lee Wiley to the long list of radiorioles making pictures. Irene Rich is losing a lot of money because her radio contract expressly forbids her playing mother roles in the movies . . . Myrt and Marge should be back on the air by the time you read this. Vera Van will be a bride before you read this .,. Radio's own Dorothy Lamour scored such a success in the "Jungle Princess" that she has been assigned the starring roles in two more movies. The Marx Brothers set a value of $10,000 on their services for radio. . . . Ona Munson, of the cinema, is a member of the Cavalcade of America cast . . . Another newcomer to radio is Lola Lane, elder sister of Fred Waring's Priscilla and . Rosemary Lane. Lola is well known to moviegoers. 72