Radio and television mirror (July-Dec 1942)

Grade Allen is a morale officer of the Hollywood unit of the American Women's Voluntary Services. It's her duty to serve hot coffee — and a smile too — to soldiers in nearby camps. With only brief interruptions to make some Hollywood movies.Zeke Clements has been singing, composing and playing on WSM's Grand 0/e Opry program for these past ten years. TT cost Norma Shearer just $1500 -* when she made her recent appearance on the CBS Lux Theater of the Air. The sponsors paid her $5000, and she added $1000 to that sum so she could donate a thousand dollars apiece to each of the six service canteens near Hollywood. The extra $500 she had to pay was her agent's ten per cent charge for booking her on the program! * * * Marjorie Hannan, who plays Ruth Ann Graham on Bachelor's Children on NBC, won't be on the air for several weeks during July. Reason: an appointment with the stork. . . . And it's a September bassinet for Pennx Singleton, radio's Blondie. * * * Arturo Toscanini and Leopold Stokowski will divide the job of directing the NBC Symphony next season. Each will conduct twelve of the twenty-four broadcast concerts in the series. * * * Radio actor enters politics: Arthur Vinton, who appears regularly in many network dramatic shows, has announced that he'll be a candidate for Congressional nomination. Wkcttfe J\ew U«ym, K^OXJLSt to C-XKX6t Mary Mason has left Maudie's Diary, on which she played Maudie, to have a baby. It was a sad month for radio, in which it lost two of its leading stars — first Graham McNamee, then John Barrymore. Both will be missed. In these days when laughter is so precious it will be hard for Rudy Vallee to find quite the perfect substitute for the friend with whom he used to exchange affectionate insults. * * * Helen Menken, star of Second Husband, must be radio's busiest war worker. She's chairman of the Radio Division of the American Theater Wing War Service and keeps regular office hours, devoting all her time to this activity that she can spare from rehearsals and broadcasting. The Theater Wing's biggest project just now is selling a booklet it has prepared called "America Goes to War." The price is fifty cents, and all the proceeds go toward paying expenses of the Stage Door Canteen on Broadway, where service men are entertained free every night by famous stars. Helen hopes to sell a million of these booklets, so if you appreciate her work as Brenda Cummings on the air, don't write her a fan letter — send in fifty cents and an order for the booklet instead. By DALE BANKS NASHVILLE, Tenn.— Zeke Clements has been one of the stars of the Grand Ole Opry, over station WSM, for the last ten years, with brief interruptions when he was in Hollywood making movies. Not only that, but his radio career has carried him into forty -four states, and he has been featured on all major networks. Zeke is of mixed English and Cherokee Indian descent, and was born near the town of Warrior in central Alabama. It was a case of a man's birthplace having a big influence on his future life, because Zeke began his musical training by learning old ] time songs from the residents of his neighborhood. Today he plays the guitar, violin, bass viol, 'cello and Hawaiian guitar, sings, and composes his own tunes. Some of the hit songs from his pen are "Blue Mexican Sky," "Left a Red Cross on My Heart," "I Dreamt I Spent Christmas in Heaven," and "Just a Little Lovm' Goes a Long, Long Way," Between WSM appearances, Zeke" has managed to cram enough movie work into his life to entitle him to the epithet of "Hollywood veteran." He has sung, played or acted in more than two hundred films, and the high point of his movie activities was being chosen to be the voice of "Bashful" in Disney's "Snow White." Remember "Bashful's" yodeling in the Silly Song? That was Zeke. * * * That's an interesting experiment RADIO AND TELEVISION MIRROR