Radio and television mirror (Jan-June 1950)

Record Details:

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MY BOY! Dennis Day, according to his mother, played tricks, brought home stray pets, just like anyone else's son. But unlike other little boys, he sang — in a voice so big the family begged him to take it down cellar! By MfS. Patrick McNlllty Somebody's always asking me — and why not? — how it feels to be the mother of a famous singer. Well, I'll tell you — I don't know. Somehow, in spite of the radio and the movies and all, I can't get to think of Dennis as anything but my son, my youngest. I can't think of him any way but as the kid who was always bringing home a stray animal to take care of — an eel it was, once, of all things — or the boy who sang so loud the whole family used to beg him to go down cellar! Even when it comes to his singing, I don't think of his name up in big letters, or hearing some announcer introduce him like he's somebody — which he is, mind you, and you can't take that away from him! But I think back to the day when he earned his first money singing, and how I worried about it. Dennis had it in his mind, those days, to be a lawyer. Singing was a hobby with him, as it was with the whole family. He'd been going to enter Fordham, this time I'm talking about, as soon as fall came. But meantime he'd got sick and had to have an operation, and he didn't get well as soon as we'd thought. All in all, by that time he'd missed the fall semester and we talked him into waiting until the next year, and getting his strength back meanwhile. So there he was, with a lot of time on his hands. That was when he began to fool around with recording machines. He used to go downtown — to Broadway, in New York, where we lived then — and make records of songs he'd learned. Just to pass away the hours that were hanging heavy on his hands, now he felt better. And one day, when he was singing in a little back room, it so happened that some executives from a big Canadian corporation heard him and asked him to sell the record he had just made. "Jeannie With The Light Brown Hair," it was. They gave him seventy-five dollars for it — imagine! That was a day, to be sure! Coming home, Dennis started yelling at the corner. Yelling and waving. Waving that fistful of dollars, and yelling that he'd sold a record of his singing. Well, what could we all think but that Dennis was up to his old foolery again? Sell his singing, the boy we'd always say to, "Please, Dennis, go to the cellar!" and he would, for his voice was too big for the house. But finally the young rascal made us understand that actually he'd been paid to sing. For a moment, when I saw that bunch of money he had clutched in his hand, my heart turned over. Panic, like. You know how mothers are. "Son," I began in a worried voice, "you didn't — well, that money — it is all right, isn't it?" "Oh, you darlin'," cried Dennis, wrapping me in a bear hug. "I didn't steal it, beg it, or borry it. I earned it, Mama. For singin'!" My, you'd have thought he'd got a million dollars, such a fuss he raised about it. Patrick, his father, was as full of disbelief as I was. In amazement he said, "They give the lad money for singing? My, what a wonderful country this is — when I sang, back in Ireland, they just threw water at me!" Everyone was crowding around by that time, and laughing and talking all at once. But suddenly I felt a sense of peace in the midst of all the excitement. I felt that maybe this was the thing Dennis was meant for. Music. Not that he was unhappy, mind you, about going to law school. But it never lit up his face the way this did. I didn't say much, though. I let the boy pick his own way. And sure enough, one day a while later he came home and said, "Ed Herlihy, down at the radio station, says I should maybe get serious about my singing." He paused. "But I don't know for sure, Mama. I think I'd like it. But you, now — would you rather have me a lawyer?" "Dennis, dear," I told (Continued on page 84) A Day In The Life of Dennis Day: Sat., 9:30 P.M. EST. NBC. Dennis is also heard with Jack Benny: Sun., 7 P.M. EST, CBS. 59