Radio stars (Dec 1938)

Ill (Left to Right) Emily. Sally, Virginia, Frank and Louisa Vass. As The Vass Family they're heard over NBC on the National Barn Dance the National Farm and Home Hour, Breakfast Club, Club Matinee and NBC Jamboree. Singing is their specialty. The Goldbergs, include warm tributes from Protestant, Catholic and Jew alike, praising her for the spirit of toleration she is indirectly spreading by her sympathetic, comic treatment of a simple Jewish family. THE recent broadcasts of Amos V Andy from a hospital is another example of the extreme measures troupers take to avoid missing a program. With Charles Correll in the hospital, scripts probably could have been rewritten to account for Amos' absence for a few days. Nothing of the sort was considered. The program's headquarters moved from its office and studio right into the hospital, and Correll, despite weakness from an operation, missed no day on the air and worked on the writing as usual. Stoopnagle once found Budd in a state of collapse late in the afternoon of their broadcast day. A doctor frantically worked over the prostrate Budd to summon up his strength for that program. From there he went to a hospital for a couple of weeks, emerging only for the radio shows. Jack Benny, threatened with pneumonia, almost had to be restrained by force because of his insistence that he would make a scheduled appearance (without salary) on the program of his old friend, Fred Allen. The combined insistence of a doctor, Jack's wife and Fred himself was needed to keep Jack in bed. It is no uncommon sight in a radio studio to find a laryngitis-stricken singer undergoing treatment by a physician offstage between songs. When any performer does miss a broadcast, you may take it for granted, he is unable to walk or speak. A STRANGER znsiting the Kate Smith studio after a broadcast zvould go away puzzled about who is the star of that show. Kate would be quietly out of the way, dressed in the white apron to which she changes from her black dress immediately after the program ends. Chances are she would be cutting the cake that always is part of her dressing-room furnishings. Musicians, page boys, anyone who drops in, is Kate's guest at the cake cutting. She'd be asking how they are, about one who had been sick, etc. Her announcer and manager, Ted Collins, would be speaking in the florid style radio and theatrical stars usually give themselves. The "wows" of the last program, reassuring the sponsor that tonight's show was great, plans for next week are still greater — that's the Ted Collins theme and spirit. They are a strange pair, Kate and Ted. Kate is a quiet, domestic sort and Ted supplies the Broadway strut and shrewdness to the team. They are connected by warm friendship as well as business ties. Results of their association have been mutually beneficial. Ted has become a rich man; Kate has outlasted all the popular singers who rose to stardom in the seasons when she was having her own rise. In the radio business, much of the credit for Kate's enduring success is given to the wise managerial manipulations of Ted Collins. Kate never has been permitted to take a program when there itKis any possibility of its failure. FIBBER McGEE has started another season without the aid of Molly, his partner in robust comedy. In spite of a year of rest and {Continued on page 62) 35