Radio and television mirror (July-Dec 1942)

Grey, was selected as the prettiest dance band vocalist of the year, by the Kappa Phi Kappa fraternity. Woody's band is now playing on the West Coast. Perfectionist in Swing A GOOD portion of our current, top-flight music makers planned to follow other professions than music when they started out in life. Eddy Duchin was to "be a pharmacist, Joe Reichman, a lawyer, Tommy Tucker, a teacher, and Xavier Cugat, a cartoonist. But lithe, light-haired Les Brown, whose powerful and popular dance band is coming up faster than a bounce tune, had his musical career mapped out before he saw the light of day. "I didn't even have a chance to make up my own mind," Les explains. "My dad did it for me. If I'd been a girl, my father would have just made the best of a bad situation and probably signed me as a member of Phil Spitalny's orchestra." Les' father played a trombone himself, but not professionally. He made a modest living running Lykens, Pennsylvania's leading bakery. But he tooted away in the town band, often playing side by side with the father of Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, who lived forty miles away. When Les was six years old, he was blowing away on his tiny saxophone in the back of the bakery. Six years later he was playing professionally. Thanks to his musical ability, Les got a good education. He won musical scholarships to New York Military Academy, where he wrote the music for the annual show, the Conservatory of Music at Ithaca, N. Y., and Duke University. "Duke in 1933 was a red hot jazz sanctuary," Les recalls. "The Duke Blue Devils were the rage of the campus and when Nick Laney graduated I took over the baton." Unlike his Blue Devil predecessors, Les met stiff competition when another undergraduate formed a rival band among the sweet music enthusiasts, who stubbornly worshiped at the throne of Guy Lombardo. The leader of the enemy camp was Johnny Long. During summer vacations, Les kept his band intact, playing in nearby ballrooms. In those days few of the big, professional bands toured that part of the country. Their success spurred Les and his boys to try keeping the band after graduation. "Everything was going along fine," Les says, "but one night we had a terrible experience.. During one particularly sizzling set, a group of the boys' parents charged into the ballroom and took their errant offsprings home." Les kept on going. He had accumulated $700 and decided to go to New York. Before his capital ran out, he found work as an arranger and saxophonist with Isham Jones, Ruby Newman, Red Nichols, and Larry Clinton. His weekly income averaged $125. "I was lucky. I never came up the hard way." Les even fell in love from the bandstand. He met his wife, the attractive Claire de Wolfe, a sandyhaired, brown-eyed blonde, in a New Jersey ballroom. It wasn't easy courting Claire. She Continued on page 78 AUGUST, 1942 Is this a Honeymoon or a Rest Cure? HONEYMOON HEARTBREAK? Too bad, sweet bride . . . but your love is doomed, unless you learn this feminine secret . . . there's a gentle, fragrant soap that gives you "double-protection" against body odor! Therefore you no longer have to risk your daintiness with an unpleasant smelling soap! Before tonight, discover "double-protection" in your bath . . . UMAAMJ HEAVENLY SUDS.' HEAVENLY PEKFUME ! BUT WHAT IS "DOUBLE PROTECTION"? !*•> .*•*. IT'S THE TWO-WAY insurance of daintiness Cashmere Bouquet Soap gives you! First, Cashmere Bouquet makes a rich, cleansing lather that's gifted with the ability to bathe away body odor almost instantly! And at the same time it actually adorns your skin with that heavenly perfume you noticed — a protective fragrance men love! wm / THANKS FOR THE TIP.' AND HERE'S ONE FOR EVERY GIRL .' SMELL THE SOAP BEFORE YOU BUY... YOU'LL PREFER CASHMERE BOUQUET/ SMART GIRL! Now you've learned how Cashmere Bouquet's "doubleprotectipn" not only banishes body odor, but adorns your skin with the lingering scent of costlier perfume! And remember, Cashmere Bouquet is one perfumed soap that can agree with even a super-sensitive skin! Better be real smart . . . and get Cashmere Bouquet Soap — today. Cashmere bouquet THE LOVELIER WAY TO AVOID OFFENDING