Radio romances (July-Dec 1945)

What's New From Coast to Coast (Continued from page 11) around trying to get over another new program idea, which he's keeping a secret for the time being. When Hollywood citizens speak of a movie as a quickie, they aren't always kidding. Harvey Harding, more familiar to you as a song star on Mutual than as a movie actor, reports that not so long ago, he went through the shortest life span in history — anyway, in the history of movies. He began working in this quickie movie at 9 A.M. one morning, playing the part of an eighteen year old boy and died, aged 78 in the script, at 3 A.M. the next day. Hugh Studebaker, who plays Dr. Bob on Bachelor's Children, sometimes feels as though he had taken the Hippocratic oath when he first started on this job. He's been playing Dr. Bob for ten years, now. And it's no accident that Studebaker sometimes feels as though he were really a doctor. Bess Flynn, the writer of the show, patterned Dr. Bob after a well known pediatrician who is a personal friend of hers and many of the incidents, illnesses with which Dr. Bob is called upon to deal, are real life stories which she's gathered from her friend. The finish of a radio program is always a source of great relief to the participants. The strain is over and no matter how it went, it's over. Expressions used by radio personalities are indicative of the tension they've been under. After the finish of a Truth and Consequences broadcast, for instance, Ralph Edwards invariably says, "Okay, boys — wrap it up." Jay Jostyn, Mr. D.A. to you, always wipes his brow and says, "Well, that's another." And maybe he's got a right to that "sweat on the brow", because he's one of the very few radio actors who insists on memorizing every script. Kate Smith's first words after the show is off the air are, "How did it go?" And two seconds after the final note of his broadcast, Danny O'Neil says simply but expressively, "Whew!" The sidelines of radio people are very interesting. Take Nathan Van Cleave, the musical director for This is Your FBI and star of his own show. Variations With Van Cleave. His sideline is not only interesting — it's lucrative as well. Van Cleave wasn't satisfied with the recordings of his broadcasts and, in experimenting with new methods of making them, perfected new types of recording needles and devised new ways of measuring wave lengths and of cutting records. He also developed a way to reduce the vibrations of motors used in recordings and reproductions, and, in the process, created new tools. Many of these tools were utilized in the war effort. * * * Jerry Wald is always being compared with Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman. Personally, we think he's due to be '10 Jerry Wayne, bobby-soxers' delight, has his own new variety show Fridays, CBS. Frances Greer of the Metropolitan is singing star of MBS's Music for Remembrance. called the Dorothy Parker of the clarinet. He's very fast on the snappy comeback and the neat phrase. He's the one who originated the crack that he hated "Brass that was louder than it was funnier". The piece of doggerel we like best though is, "I hate drummers who rush, announcers who gush, musicians who lush and swooners who mush." :■: * * Here's a public spirited man. Delcevare King, board chairman of the Granite Trust Company in Quincy, Mass., has bought three hundred copies of Norman Corwin's "On a Note of Triumph", the special program that Corwin wrote for V-E Day. The books are being distributed to all the members of the U. S. Senate and to servicemen in King's home town. Our hat's off to Mr. King. It's our feeling that everyone in the country ought to read and re-read Corwin's script. That way, we'd keep before us always the things that need to be done to have a permanent peace. * * * Sometimes you can find that you're able to do too much. Tony Barrett, for instance, who specializes in accents on Cornelia Otis Skinner teams with Roland Young for the new NBC Johnny Presents show. the radio, recently found himself with two parts in the same show. That would have been all right. But he had to play two kid gangsters — one with a foreign accent and one that was a "Dead End" type — and for three solid pages of the script he had to talk back and forth to himself, shifting from accent to accent. * * * GOSSIP FROM ALL AROUND . . . Ralph Edwards has bought Groucho Marx's home in Hollywood and will remain on the west coast. . . . Dick Todd has been signed to a five-year contract by the sponsors of the Hit Parade. . . . Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians are working in an MGM movie, titled "No Leave, No Love". . . . Goodman Ace. Easy Aces star, is now doing the scripts for the Danny Kaye show. ... Ed Wynn retired from radio because of ill health. . . . Sinatra will probably settle permanently in California, too, provided his sponsors okay the idea. Frankie says it's better for the kids out there. . . . The American Forum of the Air, over Mutual is in its 18th year now. . . . Charles Irving, narrator on CBS America in the Air was made an honorary chief by the Chippewa Tribe of Indians in Minnesota. The name given him on his recent trip out there is Chief Haha Ota, which means Laughing Boy. . . . THOUGHTS FOR THANKSGIVING . . . that this year, we can really be thankful . . . that this year, maybe the large percentage of our boys will be home to celebrate the holiday with us . . . that this year, Thanksgiving Day should be an international holiday, not only an American one. For all over the world, the guns are still, the destruction has stopped, the people are turning their minds to building, not tearing down, the children don't cry out in the night with fear, terror of death-spitting darkness, the men and women are able to plan for the future . . . that this year, the peoples of the world are beginning to learn how to live and work together in peace and decency . . . that this year marks the beginning of a new era among men on earth, the era when peace will be the concern and the precious possession of all people, to be guarded by them, to be built by them, to be developed by them — together — into liberty for all men and equality for all men and hope for the world.