Radio and television mirror (Jan-June 1942)

Olln 7/ce, below, WBT announcer, swore he would never marry anyone connected with radio — but — Continued from page 4 Margie herself is always on time. * * * Lucille Manners' sponsors and NBC joined forces to celebrate the start of Lucille's seventh consecutive year on the Cities Service Concert with a party after the anniversary broadcast. It was also the program's fifteenth anniversary, and a real white-tie-andtails occasion. * * * From now on, Washington's Birthday will have a double significance for George Putnam, announcer for Portia Faces Life, Orphans of Divorce, and Great Moments in Music — because on Washington's Birthday this year George and his wife, the former Ruth Carhart, had their first child, a boy. Ruth was a popular radio singer until her retirement. * * * Another announcer, Ken Roberts of The Shadow, expects to be a father by the time you read this. * * * Edward G. Robinson almost broke up a broadcast of Big Sister when, holidaying in New York, he visited the program. While the show was on the air he clapped a leopard-skin hat belonging to one of the actresses on his head, and looked so funny it was impossible for the rest of the cast to keep from laughing, right into the microphone. * * * HOLLYWOOD— Speaking of Glamour, as Frances Scully does on NBC stations in the Pacific Coast area — there's no one better qualified to talk about that elusive but highly desirable quality than this same Miss Scully. Ever since she left school, Frances has been writing about Hollywood and its people. She's an intimate friend of stars of radio and screen, and also of the people behind the scenes who make the wheels go 6 Flunking a radio audition is usually the road to oblivion. But to Bob Elliott of WHDH it was the doorway to success. 'round. Blonde and beautiful enough to be in the movies herself, she says she's no actress and would rather broadcast about those who are. Frances was born in Pocatello, Idaho, but received her education in private schools in Portland, Oregon, and Los Angeles. She joined NBC as a fashion expert and press agent, and first went on the air with her own program a couple of years ago. As NBC's reporter of glamour, Frances doesn't have much spare time, but whenever she gets a leisure moment she likes to spend it at home, where she lives with her parents, and in pursuing her hobby of collecting china cups and saucers, Indian art and stamps. Her cup and saucer collection is valued at $1,500, many of the pieces in it being more than a hundred years old. A born storyteller, she hopes some day to devote all her time to writing fiction, with the emphasis on mystery stories. * * * You may not hear many baseball broadcasts this war-time year. Since ball games are never played except in fine weather, broadcasting them would automatically tell the enemy, listening in, about weather conditions in the localities where the games were being played. * * * Radio's Voice of Experience, in private life known by his real name of Marion Sayle Taylor, is dead at the age of 53 as the result of a heart attack. Once one of the air's favorite personalities, Taylor had been less active in the year or so preceding his death. He died in Hollywood, where he had been living with his wife, Mrs. Mildred Taylor. * * * If you want to get a good look at pandemonium, drop in to see Eddie Cantor some time in New York. Instead of one apartment, he has three — one for his office, one for himself, and one for his family. The theory is that this helps give Eddie privacy, but it doesn't work out that way, because the apartments adjoin each other and people wander through all three of them most of the time. * * * BOSTON— Maybe Bob Elliott isn't radio's youngest announcer (we're not going to get mixed up in th-at argument again), but he comes close to it. At nineteen, he is the newest addition to the announcing staff of Boston's station WHDH. Bob has had the announcing "bug" ever since he was ten years old, when he used to put on radio programs in the cellar of the Elliott home in Winchester for the edification of neighborhood kids. He didn't have any microphone or sending set, but that didn't bother him. In high school, he presented a weekly dramatic show, written by himself, over a second-hand amplifying system which he bought himself. He drafted schoolmates to play roles in these shows sometimes; other times, he played all the parts himself. When he had graduated from high school young Bob went to New York and the Feagin School of Dramatic Art, working nights as an usher at the Radio City Music Hall and later as an NBC page-boy. After a year at the school, during which he'd only been able to appear on one or two local stations in small dramatic roles, he decided sadly that radio wasn't for him. Just as he was about to leave New York, station WINS offered him a fifteen-minute spot doing monologues for which he'd already auditioned. After two programs he drove to' Boston for a week-end with his parents and took an audition at WHDH, just on a chance. He'd hardly returned to New York when a telegram arrived, offering him a post as WHDH's newest announcer. Besides his regular announcing chores at WHDH, Bob writes a halfhour morning nonsense show. He has hopes of returning to NBC someday RADIO AND TELEVISION IMQUIOR