Radio and television mirror (July-Dec 1942)

WkcCtb JMew Uom Ooa&t Not yet seventeen, Billy Anne Newman (far left), is already one of station WBTs busiest stars. Left, Irene Rich really works on her 50-acre farm in the San Fernando Valley. A big concert tour ended, Nelson Eddy's back on the air as star of the Old Gold show Wednesday night on CBS. Below, a rare picture with Mrs. Eddy. ■ mNHmHi EDDIE CANTOR'S sudden illness and emergency operation forced him to close "Banjo Eyes," the hit musical comedy he was starring in on Broadway. He could broadcast from a hospital bed, but not even a Cantor could entertain a theater audience that way. * * * Novelist Fannie Hurst may be a summer star on the Blue network. She plans to do a fifteen-minute program five days a week, telling about people and things that interest her. * * * Jack Benny doesn't do his broadcast for an audience of service men any more, because he doesn't think soldiers and sailors laugh at the same kind of humor radio listeners in their homes do. Instead of inviting men in uniform to the broadcast, he does a second show every Sunday, for them alone. It's about twice as much work, but Jack likes it better that way. * * * CHARLOTTE, N. C— When Billy Anne Newman made her first stage appearance at the age of eighteen months, singing "When My Dreams Come True" to an audience of Charlotte theater-goers, everyone within sound of her voice predicted a glamorous future for her. Billy Anne was only seven when the great Earl Carroll of Broadway fame came to town, and she sang and rvubliBher»e htmi By DALE BANKS danced for him in the office of the Mayor of Charlotte. Carroll, the experienced showman, was so impressed that he would have hired her on the spot for one of his shows if her parents hadn't intervened. Because Billy Anne's mother and father preferred to have her at home and close to them, rather than traveling around the country, she stayed in Charlotte, went to school, and became one of the most sought-after entertainers in town. Mr. and Mrs. Newman taught dancing, and Billy Anne won a coveted dancing certificate and medal before she was ten. She sang, too, everywhere and anywhere, either alone or in trios or duets with her older sisters. There are four Newman sisters, and all are expert ballet, toe, tap and soft-shoe dancers. Naturally, Billy Anne was in radio, too. She made her first radio appearance on the King Kole Kiddie Klub over WSOC in Charlotte, and first broadcast over WBT on the Young America on the Air program. Now, not yet seventeen years old, she's a radio veteran with years of mike ex perience behind her. Programs like the Saturday Night Shindig, the Dixie Jamboree, the Grady Cole Sunday Farm Club, and a number of other regular appearances on sustaining programs with organist Clarence Etters and pianist Jack Phipps — all these keep her very busy indeed. Billy got her masculine name because her parents, already blessed with three girls, had hoped for a boy. When another girl arrived they simply didn't have the heart to change the name they had planned, so they added an Anne to it and let things go at that. But from the time Billy won a prize for being the prettiest baby girl in Charlotte until she grew up to be probably the most talented girl in town, the proud Newmans have been pretty happy that she didn't turn out to be a boy after all. * * * It's Spencer Bentley who's the new "John" in John's Other Wife. * * * Abie's Irish Rose fades from the air late in June, but only for a summer vacation. It will be back in September. RADIO AND TELEVISION MIRROR