Radio stars (May 1933)

RADIO STARS and down the back roads of vaudeville circuits. Working their way to the front. And finally getting a job on Broadway. It was a show called "Polly," and Portland was so weary of acting the goof that she stayed home and read books while Actor Allen went out and sang for his supper. And how Fred missed her. He begged her to come back. So she bravely took up the yoke of her stoogedom in the memorable "First Little Show" and "Three's a Crowd." I N the "Little Show," Portland wore a pair of shorts and a satin blouse. One night she heard gales of laughter. She got quite cocky over the way she was getting the laughs. In fact, she was planning to call Fred's attention to it later in the dressing room. As she was about to jump into her dance routine, husband Fred placed firm hands about her waist and walked her off. Not until then did she discover that her velvet tights had split, and a white silk inner lining that looked, like something else had stimulated all the laughter. WORKING night after night on Broadway soon exhausted both of them. They decided to Get Away From It All. They decided to go to Europe, to the gaiety of gay Paree. They went. Somehow, it wasn't what they had expected. Within a fortnight, they were back in the U. S. A., basking on the sun-drenched sands of Atlantic City. Home-folks, those Aliens. From that day on, they bought American. In 1932, Fred brought his dry conclusive voice to radio. Portland, too. And suddenly life became for her a matter of being quiet while her husband worked. The old bugaboo of New Material stared them in the face, and threatened to separate them. Resigned ly, Fred retired to his office and began to dictate to Portland's younger sister. With him, gags are a science, and he revamps such wheezes as used to give Caesar hysterics, and applies them to modern conditions. While he writes programs and magazine stories, Portland keeps quiet and works jig-saw puzzles. Sunday nights, she speaks her pretty piece, mentions Schenectady again, and heckles ol' Mister Allen. Fred's used to it by this time. No matter how it sounds, it's all put on. It's all just a gag. A gag of five years' standing. Actually, they're closer-thanthis, and the love that brought them together and helped to conquer Broadway is still the talk of the Big Town's radio row. And that is my little tale's happy ending. It's the only kind of ending possible when the girl is a goil like Portland and the guy is a feller like Fred. Radio's Forgotten Men the annual regatta on the Hudson River. Despite the storm, engineers and announcers stuck to their posts. Lightning struck the lines which were carrying the program from the remote points to the transmitter, and the terrifically high voltage went through the body of W. R. Brown, assistant field supervisor. He was knocked off his feet and down a fifteen-foot embankment. Yet, ten minutes later he was back at work. Recently, Engineer Jacobson grabbed 550 volts on a short wave transmitter at the beginning of a boat race. There was no medical attention available, and no time to take it if there had been, so "Jake" twirled his dials with three cooked fingers for four hours, until he could get a doctor to dress them for him. TED HUSING barely escaped from death during the broadcast of the Olympic diving tryouts at Jones Beach. Husing was stationed atop the high diving tower, seventy feet above the water. Three sides of the pier were railed in but it was open at the back. Ted perched on a camp chair, with a board lying across its arms. A microphone on the board, and a spare "mike" was lashed to the iron railing in case of emergency. Everything went along fine until Ted tilted back in his chair and his toe slipped. The microphone plunged down into the water below. The camp chair shattered on the concrete pier. The board just missed one of the girl divers at the foot of the ladder. Husing made a wild grab at the iron railing and hung there by one hand. Swiftly, he pulled himself back to the platform, grabbed the spare "mike," and went on broadcasting. AIRPLANE accidents are another hazard of the broadcaster's daily life. Oddly enough, these are funny (Continued from page 29) just as often as they are perilous. When Wallace Butterworth was stationed at the flying field in Chicago during the Hunter Brothers' endurance record flight, it seemed as though the plane was going to stay up forever. Butterworth stood it as long as he could, but on that red hot Fourth of July the need for a cooling shower became overpowering. He took it, and just at that time the Brothers decided to land. An engineer holding a "mike" dashed madly into the shower room, and with the microphone in one hand and the soap in the other, a blushing Butterworth addressed his unseen (and, fortunately, unseeing) audience. CERTAINLY you have heard the ^* Philharmonic concerts from the Lewisohn Stadium. Two telephone lines are kept open between the stage there and the studio during these concerts; the former to carry the music to the control room and transmitter; the latter to enable the engineer and announcer at the Stadium to get the switch-over cue from the station. Just before a broadcast last year, the studioto-Stadium line went dead. There were the remote control men, stranded at the Stadium with no means of knowing the instant when they were to take over the airwaves. An assistant engineer was inspired. He dashed to a telephone booth located way behind the seats at the far end of the giant bowl. He called the control room, explained his plight and awaited the cue word. When it came, he waved to the announcer, who had moved into the wings of the stage, and the announcer wigwagged the signal to the engineer in the backstage booth, then turned to the microphone. The program went on without a listener realizing that anything was wrong. Sometimes the audience does hear things. Take the time the National Farm and Home Hour was being broadcast, and one of the very best Senators was delivering a talk on this and that "from the Chicago studio. In another studio an announcer, gettings things ready for his next program, tested his mike with the usual, "Woof Woof ! How's this mike? Woof woof!" All of which went into the Senator's speech as he afterwards found out. Another time, about a year ago, somebody bumped a switch while Milton Cross was introducing Stokowski. The "Omigawd!" that the bumper gasped was broadcast, too. Once again, an eager engineer wandered into the studio while Kathleen Stewart was playing a group of piano solos and started out the door with her microphone. He thought she was rehearsing, when she was really broadcasting, and only a lot of frantic signalling to him saved the day. Engineers may do stupid things occasionally, but almost invariably they are forgiven. And why not? Many a night they are asked to go without sleep in order that broadcasting may not be interrupted. Many a date is broken and many a dinner spoiled because the air show must go on. Who can forget how the networks handled the broadcast of news concerning the Lindbergh kidriapping. Sixty hours in that first grim stretch. Afterwards, days with twenty working hours in them. There were no complaints. It was their job. There is never a broadcast without them, remember. Not one. When a trans-Atlantic flyer lands in New York, when a political convention holds the nation's interest, when President Roosevelt speaks at the White House . . . think then of the men who lay the wires and set up the mikes and get precious little glory. They are radio's "forgotten men." 4-!