Radio and television mirror (July-Dec 1950)

GREYHOUND AMAZfNG TfiTTD AMERICA lUUn Come away to carefree adventure this Winter—on any one of hundreds of different Greyhound Amazing America Tours! These low-cost pleasure trips include hotel accommodations, sightseeing, entertainment — everything planned in advance by experts. Whether you have a weekend, a week, or a month, you'll find just the Tour for you! 12-Day MEXICO TOUR . . . $124.85 A special escorted Tour from San Antonio to Mexico City, Cuernavaca, Taxco, Puebla, and dozens of other romantic Mexican attractions. Eleven nights' hotel, 19 meals included. 11-Day FLORIDA CIRCLE . . . $81.05 See "everything under the sun" in this fabulous Florida adventure. Begin at Jacksonville, swing through St. Augustine, Miami, Key West, other spots. Ten nights at smart hotels. NEW YORK CITY, 5 Days $25.05 BOSTON, 3 Days 13.75 WASHINGTON, D. C, 4 Days . . . 19.75 LAS VEGAS-HOOVER DAM, 3 Days . 9.25 CHICAGO, 3 Days 12.00 LOS ANGELES-CATALINA, 6 Days . . 25.05 YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, 3 Days . 45.50 COLONIAL VIRGINIA, 6 Days . . . 40.45 EVERGREEN CIRCLE, 3 Days . . . . 21.85 DETROIT, 3 Days 12.10 HAVANA, 3 Days 50.50 (By Bus from Miami to Key West, air to Cuba) To all prices shown above, add Greyhound round-trip fare from your city. U.S. tax extra. Prices are subject to change. What's So Funny? (Continued from page 54) R M 82 FREE! "AMAZING AMERICA" TOUR FOLDER Greyhound Information Center, 105 W.Madison, Chicago 2, III.— Send me your illustrated Greyhound folder telling all about Amazing America Tours. Name Address.. City & State... And I could imitate everyone who came into the store. When I wasn't trying to be a comic, Coney Island was a fascinating playground. The beach in winter was an air-conditioned desert to be endlessly explored. My pals and I climbed on the silent, ghostly rides and wandered through the empty amusement concessions, now stripped of their summer glamour. The long hallway that led from the store to our apartment seemed dark and sinister in the late winter afternoons, and the seltzer machine gave off a weird whirr in the dusk. One day when I sneaked back into the store for candy, the machine caught my leg and held me. After that, I never again tried to help myself to anything, without waiting for my parents' O.K. In fact, I used to look forward to being sick, because after the castor oil was down my father would let me choose any toy in the store. But when I won a fine fire engine at a Saturday afternoon movie, he promptly put it on sale. No castor oil, no need of a toy, was his philosophy. By the time I was eleven my candy store and party clowning began to pay off. My father decided I was ready for better things, and we approached the local children's radio show. I became a member of Aunt Shirley's Kiddie Hour, you might say on a coast to coast hookup — from the Coney Island coast to the beach at Far Rockaway. There must have been forty kids doing imitations of Lionel Barrymore. I have to confess that Lionel was my star act too. I got a chance to work with a little girl who did a Betty Boop number, and came into my own when we all joined in the finale and sang, "Let's All Sing Like the Birdies Sing," because I got to do a solo whistle at the end of each line. I also got the bird. The weekly big deal of the program was a cake, a sort of seven-layer custard payoff (topped with marshmallow) to the youngster who got the most applause. The week I finally won the cake I brought it home proudly, and quit the show figuring I had now hit the heights and there was nothing more to strive for. My father put the cake on sale in the store — probably to show me that you can't have your cake and eat it too. When I got into New Utrecht High School I began going half a dozen ways at once. Of course I was in with the jitterbug crowd, but I also joined up with the Great Intellects, the students of Serious Drama, the commercial art crowd, and a couple of others. I was still a comic at heart, and pretty soon my favorite subject got to be recess, when I could clown around. Finally, it got so my mother was spending more time in school than I was, and I figured she'd get the diploma. So I straightened out and kept my marks high. All except my marks for conduct. They were never too good, because I couldn't resist playing everything for laughs. My imitation of the principal really killed them. And finished me. Utrecht had no amateur theatricals, except for the annual play. I did Cyrano in a super production of that classic and won a scholarship to the Feagin Dramatic School, but after six months under good teachers I got restless and decided I knew enough. With three or four other students I migrated to Christopher Morley's MillponH Playhouse, at Roslyn, Long Island, and got a bit part in "The Trojan Horse." I was a Greek Eddie Arcaro. For twenty weeks, at five bucks a week and room and board, I blacked my face and played a slave. The trouble was I'd interrupt a rehearsal to give a Jolson imitation of "Mammy." Morley would remark that even Jolson didn't date, back to the Greek era, and for a while rehearsal would proceed. Finally, half in friendship and I suspect half in desperation he told me I should be doing comedy, preferably a single. He gave me an introduction to Major Bowes, who in turn auditioned me for his Amateur Hour. I won three times and went out on tour. Those tours with the Major Bowes units forced me to develop a fast line of patter. Then if a joke died, I had another ready to follow it. I learned how to hold an audience and put across a comedy song, and in six months I was hitting my stride and doing club dates and small theaters. Also a few super market openings. I dropped the regular run of impressions that all the other mimics were doing and developed my own comedy style, using fresh new material, interspersed with a few imitations. By the time World War II broke out I was touring with name bands and hitting the big theaters. On Pearl Harbor Sunday I was playing a theater in Pennsylvania. There was a Japanese juggling act on the same bill and the manager asked me to introduce them as Hawaiians. It didn't work too well, so next show I called them Filipinos. The audience decided they were Japanese, so we gave up and the act did a quick folderoo and spent the duration in barrels. I joined the Hollywood Victory Committee bond drive at nineteen and was sent to the Aleutians and Alaska. Finally, my draft notice caught up with me there, and I went back to New York to report and take my physical. Three days later, after being needled and reneedled, I wound up back in the same camp as Private Carter, singing "There's no place like Nome." The doc said my eyes were bad, but they'd put me in the front line so I could see everything. The outfit I finally landed in was the Medical Corps. I couldn't figure out why, except that for years I'd been making jokes about doctors, or I'd done Dr. Kildare once too often! After a year of this, I was sent out with Flying Varieties, an air force entertainment unit, and flown all over the world to do shows for servicemen and work for bond drives. Then came the desperate period of The Bulge, and I was thrown into combat training. Rehearsing a raid one day, in the wide open spaces of Texas, I got hit with a grenade, and on V-J day I got a medical discharge. When I got back to work I did theater and nightclub dates and brought a brand-new Army act into Loew's State, in New York. I thought I was through with uniforms, when a call came through to Las Vegas, where I was working in a club, offering me one of the top spots in "Call Me Mister," which was opening on Broadway. I learned the part on the flight to New York and went on the following week, back in uniform for a full year. Then I was back in clubs, and hoping for Broadway.