TV Radio Mirror (Jul - Dec 1958)

Sullivan's Canadian Laugh Men (Continued from page 18) Terming their performances "the highlight of the 1958 season," Ed signed them for a minimum of sixteen appearances and a maximum of twenty-six, at the highest rate per performance that has ever been paid on that high-priced show. While the exact figure has never been announced, its impressive total can be judged by the fact that it exceeds the rate of Elvis Presley's $50,000 for three. Wayne and Shuster's quick acceptance in the States is the more remarkable because they specialize in a daring, off-beat brand of highbrow humor which would be doomed on sight by any believer in the story that the TV audience has a twelveyear-old I.Q. Their secret is that they also have a genius for lowbrow slapstick. Put the lofty words and earthy action together, and the effect is laughably ludicrous. "We're eggheads," Johnny Wayne confesses, "but I think you have to call us scrambled eggheads." And Frank Shuster adds, "We don't believe that a college education necessarily is a handicap." Intellectual comedy though it is, audiences love it. Viewers have conferred on them the summa cum laude of comedy by incorporating Wayne and Shuster payoff lines into everyday conversation — a recognition won by few TV comics. First of their phrases to gain common coinage came from a sketch done last May, when they applied the TV-detective treatment to Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" and evolved a preposterous opus titled, "Rinse the Blood Off My Toga!" In it, Johnny Wayne portrayed Flavius Maximus, private Roman eye, license number IXIVLLCCDIXMV, retained by Brutus (Frank Shuster) "to get to the bottom of the Julius Caesar caper." Even a viewer whose struggles with English Lit and Latin plurals have been dimmed by the years could chuckle over the phrase which has since been repeated in many a cocktail lounge. Private-eye Johnny, ostensibly in search of clues, stepped into Claudius' Bar and Grill — "just a small place with a few tables and guy in the corner playing a hot lyre" — and said, "Gimme a martinus." Said Claudius, "You mean a martini." Said Johnny with dignity, "If I want two, I'll ask for them." No academic background, English or Latin, was required to savor another lasting line, for it reduced to ultimate absurdity a man-wife situation which sometime, somehow, has been played out in every home. When Calpurnia entered, mourning, and Johnny deferentially said, "Pardon me, Mrs. Caesar . . . what do you know about this?" she wailed, "I told him, Julie don't go ... I begged him, don't go. Julie, don't go, I said. But would he listen to his wife? No." The "Don't go" line convulsed the audience a second time when Ed Sullivan, in Europe to scout new talent, turned the show over to Wayne and Shuster to emcee. Since, in Johnny's phrase, they were "just minding the store for Ed," they decided to follow Sullivan's style and introduce the acts straight. But when it came to the familiar spot where the camera pans the audience for visiting celebrities, they couldn't resist. CBS public relations man Gene Schrott was drafted to occupy, momentarily, the seat next to that of their long-time stooge, Canadian actress Sylvia Lennick. Miss Lennick, who was the Calpurnia of their Julius Caesar bit, was now presumably the wife of a Julius Melnick who — as devised by Wayne and Shuster— had been in Mr. Sullivan's audience every night for ten years, yearning to have a few seconds of glory on camera. But when, in recognition of Mr. M's loyalty, he finally was to be introduced, Gene had scuttled up the aisle and the camera found only an empty seat. Agitated, "Mrs. Melnick" explained that her husband had gone outside for a minute. Then, in an agony of frustrated foresight, she cried, "Julie, I told him — Julie, don't go!" The exuberant Wayne and Shuster spoofing which has the freshness of a college revue and the polish of long collaboration, began when they were fourteen and first tasted success by earning forty dollars' profit with a play they wrote and produced for their Boy Scout troop. Both laugh men are natives of Toronto. Johnny, eldest of Charles and Sarah Wayne's seven children, was born May 28, 1918. His father manufactured sportswear, and Johnny's first ambition was to become a journalist. In contrast, Frank tasted show business early. Born September 5, 1916, to Jack and Bess Shuster, he was that most-envied of kids, the one who could always get in free at the movies. His father was a motion-picture projectionist. Frank recalls with particular fondness the period when his family owned a theater in Niagara Falls, Ontario. "Dad ran the films, mother sold the tickets, my sister Rose collected them, and Geraldine, who later became a concert accbmpanist, played piano. I had a permanent claim on a front seat. Harold Lloyd and Chaplin were my babysitters." On the family's return to Toronto, Frank met Johnny and they followed their Boy Scout premiere with revues at Harbord Collegiate Institute. Johnny recalls, "One of our teachers, Charles Girdler, organized the group. He was a Gilbert and Sullivan fan and we were, too. Any resemblance between G & S and us was strictly not coincidental." Johnny and Frank wrote script, lyrics and even the music. The fact that they had limited musical knowledge did not daunt them. Frank had studied violin and piano, but today hastens to explain, "I'm no Van Cliburn." Johnny could only play by ear, but adds, "I'm making up for it now. My son is teaching me music." They continued their shows when they entered University College of Toronto University, but regarded them as amateur fun. They took seriously their editorial positions on The Varsity, the college newspaper, for they were majoring in English and wanted to make writing their profession. Satire and humor were their specialties. They were seniors when a student show changed their careers. An advertising manager saw the production and offered them a radio program on CFRB. Untrained but blithe, they went on the air. Says Johnny, "We didn't know anything about radio, but we bought a book." Says Frank, "It taught us which side of the mike to stand on." Their three-a-week became a daily morning show and, within a year, they were on CBC network with what Frank calls, "a wife-preserver sort of program. We gave them household hints — somewhat scrambled, of course — but, nevertheless they were hints." Johnny adds, "We had some help. My girl was a household economist." Johnny met pretty, dark-haired Beatrice Lokash on a blind date. Encountering her brother on the campus, he had confided that he needed a girl to take to a Beta Sigma Rho dance. The brother suggested Beatrice. "Call her up. I'll vouch for you," he promised. Beatrice recalls how excited she was over the invitation from a college celebrity. "I got a new dress and had my hair done. I was coming home on the bus, worrying whether he would like me, when I met a girl I knew." Told of the dance plans, the girl asked, "Who's your date?" "Johnny Wayne," said Beatrice proudly. "Not the Johnny Wayne who's on The Varsityl" the girl exclaimed. "Oh, don't go with him. You'll have a terrible time. He takes girls to parties and just forgets about them. He wanders away and plays piano or sings or something. He's the worst date on the campus." Frightened and rebellious, Beatrice demanded that her brother call Johnny to say the plan was off. "You can't do that," her brother insisted. "I arranged it. You've got to go." Beatrice says today, "I suspect he talked to Johnny, but neither of them has ever admitted it. Anyway, I went, and I had a wonderful time. I'd never had a more attentive boyfriend." Johnny wanted Beatrice to be a reporter on the paper so that he could take her to staff parties. She says, "To be sure I made it, he rewrote my tryout story. He was furiously embarrassed when the editor, before running it, rewrote his rewrite. I did the next one myself and it ran, word for word. I've never let Johnny forget it." r rank, too, found his girl in a somewhat unorthodox fashion. As one of Canada's ranking amateur tennis players, he was working out on the court when first he noticed her. He recalled this when, at a University party, he was introduced to Ruth Burstyn, a gifted art student and hat designer. "So that's who you are," said Frank. "I think you're the worst tennis player I've ever seen." "What does that matter, since you're the best?" Ruth replied. At last, Frank had found a girl who could cope with his sharp -tongued humor. By the time the boys took their bachelor's degrees and began study for their master's, both romances had reached the serious stage. The outbreak of World War II gave them a setback. On enlistment, Frank was assigned to the Algonquin Regiment; Johnny became an instructor at Camp Borden. For the first time since they were fourteen, they were separated. Then, summoned to Montreal for special service, they again found themselves face to face, receiving an order, "Write a show." Irving Berlin's "This Is The Army," was playing in the States. The Canadian Army wanted a similar one. Wayne and Shuster were only too glad to oblige. They wrote it, produced it, and starred in it, touring for a year. Their climax performance was at the Quebec Conference. Breaking the troupe into five small units, they then went overseas. Frank had married Ruth Burstyn on December 27, 1941. Their daughter Rosalind was born on June 19, 1946, and their son Stephen on March 8, 1949. Johnny had married his Beatrice Lokash on June 28, 1942. They have three sons: Michael, born April 18, 1947; James, born March 23, 1950; and Charles Brian, born December 25, 1951. Never have the two families lived more than a mile apart. The Waynes bought their home in the Forest Hill Village section of Toronto. The Shusters built theirs. "Ruth's brother is an architect," Frank explains. "I guess we were his first clients, and the most I asked for in the plans was that he build in a writing room." Their writing has been going on, nine t ? y five, ever since. Their Veterans' Affar ~ * radio series paved (Continued on page 61) 57