Radio stars (Sept 1933)

RADIO STARS Microphone Magic "Honey," he said, "don't be disappointed or anytliing but . . . well, for a while it will be just me. They just want a singing banjo player. Of course, I told them how good you were and they said maybe later. But it doesn't matter, does it ?" Peggy shook her head. "And now darling, we can get married !" Pat said, looking at her. Peggy shook her head again. "But listen, sweet. I've made good. I'm going on a big program. We'll have plenty of money now . . . you don't have to work ! It doesn't matter about you." Somehow she got home and. flinging herself across the narrow little bed, she sobl)ed and sobbed. Her phone rang. She ignored it, knowing it was Pat. Someone knocked at the door and she kept very still, hoping he would believe she had gone out. She heard the person at the door call out and it was Pat. Finally, he went away. Perhaps two hours passed. She almost staggered as she walked to the window to look out on Fifty-first Street. Then she remembered she had hardly touched lier breakfast. A vtry satisfying lunch and a quiet corner in which to think things out were both found not far from the hotel. P EGGY was ambitious. Just becau.se Pat had been lucky didn't mean she was going to give up her plans for a radio career. She'd show Pat. She'd get a her^t•lf. She left tlie tea room and on the way hack to the hotel purcliased an armful of daily papers and theatrical anil radio trade journals. In the radio section of one of the cheaper theatrical papers an advertisement caught her eye. [Continued from page 37) 'Radio singers wanted," it said. Half an hour later Peggy entered the reception room of the Interstate Studios. It was a dingy little room and a sallow youth sat at the small reception desk. He looked up when Peggy spoke to liim and mentioned the ad she hafl seen. "Jussa minute," he said and disappeared into an inner office. He came back almost immediately. ""Mister Wintz will see you now." Peggy walked in the office. Mr. Wintz must be the fat, greasy looking man. "Sit down, baby," he said. '"I read your ad about radio singers." she said. She didn't like Mr. Wintz. "I see. And you want to be a radio singer ? That it ?" Mr Wintz said, picking up a badly chewed cigar and putting it in his mouth. ""Well, the first thing is to have an audition. '"Then, because you ain't had a lot of experience, we will give you special lessons in mike technique." F'eggy spoke at last. "But I don't need lessons in microphone technique," she declared. "I've had more than two years on the air!" Mr. Wintz looked a bit annoyed. "In N'York?" he asked. "No," Peggy admitted. "In Oklahoma. 1 thought from your ad that you could get me a job right away." "It all takes time, baby," said Mr. Wintz. "Now in your case, the first thing you want is a canned audition." "A what?" Peggy asked. '"You see, we give you an audition and put it on a record, like a phonygraph record, for you," Mr. Wintz explained, chewing on his cigar between words. "We arranged to send copies of this here record to all the important advertisers and you get a copy." "How much will it cost?" she asked. Wintz made swift apprai.sal of her clothes. Peggy was quite well dressed. ""Well, these here records cost plenty to make," he said, "but Pll make you a special price. For the audition and the master record, fifty bucks !" ['eggy's face fell. Wintz continued quickly. "Of course, that includes copies of the audition records to go to all the big advertisers,'' he said. "I can't afford it." she said. "Well." said Mr. Wintz, "how about registering with our artists' bureau? We place tafent with all the big network programs and only charge a small commission. "Just sign your name at the bottom of this sheet." Peggy reached for the sheet but ignored the pen Wintz extended with it. She read the form rapidly. Peggy had some experience w'ith contracts and realized that this was one. One clause in very tiny type caught her eye. It was the signer's agreement to pay to Herman (i. Wintz twenty per cent of all sums received for broadcasting. It was a cut-throat contract and Peggy knew it. Just another racket ! "I won't sign this," she said. Wintz looked genuinely disappointed. Then he smiled a very di.sgusting smile. "T like you baby," he said. "You're sweet. I can do a lot for you." Peggy arose hastily and moved toward the door. Wintz, too, got up and walked toward her. Peggy's hand fumbled for the door handle. "How about a little private audition, huh?" Wintz suggested, his face close to hers. His arm reached out to encircle her waist. Peggy's hand reached the door knob and turned it. But the door was locked ! ( To be continued.) The Things They'd Like to Forget Gertrude's mother was so young, you see. She had married when she was sixteen. VOU know the piano-playing team of Fray and Braggiotti, don't you? If Jacques Fray could forget anything he chose, he woulfl ff)rget a lnvt letter he once wrote. That love letter, instead of winning for him the love of the girl he adored, broke up their friendship completely. If Mario Braggiotti could forget just one thing, it would f)e his memories of the War. When he was just a boy of eight or nine in Italy, he used to play the cello in a hospital for the blind in Florence, city of the woundcfl. ".And yet in a way," he says, "though for my own peace of mind I would like to forget it all. I am glad 1 remember, SO {Continued from page IT) for otherwise I would never have understood what war really means." The thing that Lee Sims, of the piano-and-song team of Sims and Bailey, would like to forget if he could is the death of his mother, for which he feels responsible in a way. She was very emotional and easily stirred to tears. Often she would ask him to sit at the piano and i)lay for her. One day in the early summer in Chicago she a.sked him to play "The Rosary" for her. He sat down at the piano and played with all the beauty he could put into the music. When he had finished the last note, he heard his mother catch her breath, as tiiough in a sob. He turned around, planning to kid her a little about her crying at his playing. And then he saw that she was dead. Gone while he was playing. The doctors he called in told him for the first time that his mother had had a weak heart. Lee Sims has never played "The Rosary" since. To understand fully the thing that Ann Leaf would like to forget, you first have to understand a very strange thing about Ann. From childhood on she has had the most morbid fear of water. She does not know what caused it. When she saw huge vessels of water, she would shiver with fear, for her vivid imagination could picture what it would mean to be drowning. Ann is a brave little thing, and she tried her best to conquer this morbid fear in herself. Finally she even learned to swim a little. But the fear is there, threatening her always. S. A. by ,\rt Color Prlntlns Company »t Dunellen. N. i.