Radio stars (Oct 1934-Sept 1935)

RADIO STARS LLCk! THE next time you get sick, Mademoiselle, don't weep — just sew a pretty smile on your face and think of bonny, blond Dick Leibert. Because it was a spell of sickness, forty-six weeks of it, that made him the most popular, the highest paid organist in radio ! What would have sunk most men simply lifted Dick from the ruck into the amber glow of the big time. His whole life has been that way. A series of episodes demonstrating the art of turning hard luck into good luck. If a black cat crossed his path, he was sure to find a horseshoe and if he knocked over the salt cellar, it invariably spilled on a rabbit's foot. His illness is simply a case in point. Before it happened he was, to use his own words, "a cocky youngster." A fair to middling organist, exploiting his gift for dramatizing the instrument, at the Penn Theatre in Pittsburgh. He was especially successful coddling the kids at the matinee performances, so much so that one woman naively informed him that if he ever lost his job she would give him one taking care of her children. Then came a narsty old germ. The illness that followed, or rather the suffering that went with it, changed him — and for the better. That is the way of Dick Leibert. For twenty-six weeks he lay in a hospital tortured by arthritic puns, too weak to hold a sheet of music in his hand, too wretched to listen to the radio. He lost his hair — long since returned more golden and curly than before — and his legs and amis and fingers gnarled and knotted. Added to his burden was the fact that his wife, an expectant mother, could visit him only at rare intervals. W hen he left the hospital, he did so only to start a long, slow period of convalescence, which lasted another twenty weeks. It isn't fun at the age of twenty-four to see a year chiseled out of your life by a mere germ! His daughter Maryette, the same for whom he recently wrote a song, had l»een born in the meantime, but it. was six long DICK LEIBERT IS THE BONNY, BLOND MUSICAL LAD WHO FINDS FOURLEAF CLOVERS IN THE MUD by George Kent Dick at the organ of Radio City Music Hall in New York City. weeks before Dick saw her. Never will he forget the day he returned to an organ console. Something had come out of those seemingly wasted weeks in the hospital, a new understanding, a greater depth, a remarkable power. Where formerly he was simply entertaining, he now laid a magic spell on his listeners. BUT observe how hard luck and good played tag in his life. A general strike was under way in Pittsburgh and he couldn't get his old job back. Instead of hanging around, he went to Washington to take a job as organist in the Palace Theatre. Nothing in that, do 1 hear you sniff? It may help you change your mind when we tell you that's the theatre Mr. and Mrs. Coolidge liked to attend in their vice-presidential days Mrs. Coolidge liked music and used to ask him. via the usher, to play her favorites such as the Dawes' "Melody," Dvorak s "Humoresque" and others. After a time, the ushers would tip him off and when the Coolidges arrived they would be greeted by their favorite airs. It was a courtesy amply repaid for (Continued on page 7 Hi 25