Radio-TV mirror (July-Dec 1954)

Easy to Live With 72 (Continued from page 62) it lately and — while I know basically he hasn't changed a bit — still, he's not exactly the same. More mature, I guess you'd call it. I know he's grown a lot, inside. As a kid, Eddie was interested only in singing and didn't have time to think about anything else. He was going to school and, besides the nightly radio show, he had one on Thursday evenings and another on Saturday mornings. He's busier than ever now, of course, but more grown-up, and eager and interested to know about everything. All his experiences and his traveling have broadened him. He reads several papers a day, and magazines and books. Has he become accustomed to success? Maybe this will give you the answer. When he received a recent award as the most programmed male vocalist in the 1953 discjockey poll, he said, "It's incredible!" When we're riding in his car and we tune in the radio and one of Eddie's records comes on, we both get a kick out of it. We don't get tired of hearing the records over and over. Even his father isn't tired of hearing "Oh, My Papa." He says it brings back old times. laddie still can't take his fans for granted, either, and I don't think he ever will. He talks to them and he knows a lot of them by name. Sometimes a group of them will try to reach him while he's rehearsing at the studio, and the studio people won't let them see him or telephone him. So they'll send him a telegram saying, "Eddie, we're down here with a pizza for you and it's getting cold." He'll have those fans sent up, and he'll sit down with them and order Cokes for everyone. Once, some of them waited a long time for him at an airport and he dug down into his pockets so they could go home in style in a taxi. If Eddie is good to his fans, his fans are certainly good to him. The thing is, I guess, that Eddie isn't just using his voice to win fame and earn a lot of money. Eddie loves to sing, and he loves to have people like to hear him sing. He sings his head off around the apartment all night. He often spends his weekends singing at benefits. One night, a little while ago, after he'd rehearsed all day and done his radio show and his TV show, we drove to a small town, grabbing a bite at a diner along the way. Then he did a show at the local high school — and, after that, he did another one at a VFW post, until one in the morning. We got home at 2:30 a.m., and he was on the plane for California at one p.m. the next day. He spent his ten-day Christmas vacation, last year, entertaining the G.I.'s in Europe. Eddie thinks soldiers are the greatest audience of all. Eddie still feels a strong tie to the Army. I think the Army changed him a little, too — I guess no one could be in the Army without being affected in some way! Eddie went into the service just as he was reaching the top and had headlined the show at the Paramount Theater on Broadway. The Army was an entirely different thing for him — he went through basic training in Texas, but he loved it. He used to write me at least once a week, pretty excited about his experiences. I'll never forget how different he looked when he came home on furlough. He used to be a skinny kid with a mop of hair and a voice so big for his size he'd knock the audience out of their seats. After several months in the Army, he was all tanned and he had gained weight and had a crew-cut and he looked like a million. Later, he was sent to a post near Washington. D. C, where he sang with the U. S. Army Band, and sometimes Joey and I would go down to see him weekends or Eddie would come up here whenever he could. I guess you know how he opened at the Paramount again, the first morning he was out of the Army. He was discharged at midnight, April 10, 1953. After he had finished his last Army show, we all went to a farewell party for him in Washington, and we got into New York at six in the morning. There were photographers at the station and when we got to the Paramount, at seven, the lines were already forming at the box office. It was pretty exciting. He did his first show at 10 A.M. Incidentally, Eddie's uniform with the Pfc. stripe still hangs in his closet for good luck. What's it like, living so close to Eddie Fisher? Pretty good. He's one of the nicest guys in the world, very easygoing. We've never had any real arguments. Maybe at the studio he'll get a little edgy now and then, but that happens to anyone working under pressure. He doesn't try to tell me what to do — although he does say, "You don't eat right." This is something new for Eddie. He never used to eat anything but sandwiches himself, but the Army taught him to eat a balanced diet and now he's trying to convert me. The apartment is very comfortable. It's like Eddie, I guess — easy to live with. There's the modern furniture which came with the apartment, and Eddie's blondwood TV set, and his upright Steinway piano — set against the wall where it doesn't take up too much room. There's a desk that juts out into the living room and hits the eye as soon as you enter, but the piano is just sort of tucked away. I guess Eddie lacks the flair for dramatizing himself. He's made a stab at it by putting some of his awards on the mantel over the fireplace, but you have to get up pretty close to them to see them. He's got his three gold records hanging up, too, the ones RCA gave him for the three tunes that passed the million sales mark, "Any Time," "I'm Walking Behind You," and "Oh, My Papa." And there are some of his favorite photographs, like the one of Al Jolson — whom he has always admired tremendously — singing to the troops, accompanied on the piano by Harry Akst, who has recently been Eddie's accompanist, too. There are pictures of Eddie shaking hands with President Truman and President Eisenhower — at different times, of course. The only pictures of women which he has around are photos — with himself — of his mother and sister and Princess Margaret Rose. That's how he's marked the living room. In the bedroom, I guess the only thing of his that hits the eye is the big pink piggy bank which he won somewhere when he was out on a date, and which he keeps on top of the chest of drawers. Every morning, Willard Higgins puts Eddie's change into it. I don't know what he and Willard are saving for. None of us uses the tiny little kitchen much. Willard fixes breakfast on a twoburner hot-plate. Eddie usually eats dinner at Toots Shor's or La Vie En Rose with people from the show. There's only one thing wrong about living with Eddie Fisher, and I guess this would apply to living with any singer or musician. He plays records at an earsplitting pitch. I don't know anything about music, so I don't know what he's listening for. I hope I'm not scaring off any gal that Eddie might want to marry in the future, but I doubt it. It's a pretty small drawback, when you're getting a guy like Eddie. At the moment, there's nobody Eddie's planning to marry. He usually goes out with a girl in large parties, then he's so busy the next day that he doesn't have time to think about her and, if you can't think about a girl, it's pretty difficult to work up a romantic mood. Occasionally, a girl gets aggressive and calls him, and that's bad, too. Sometimes he dates girls from the show. Sometimes at benefits he'll see some pretty girls he'd like to ask for dates but he doesn't know when he's going to be free, and that's an obstacle. Sure, he wants to get married and have a family some day. He likes kids — he comes from a big family himself. Personally, I think if he really falls in love, he'll find time for the girl. Eddie always finds time for the people he loves. Like I said at the beginning, all this success has changed Eddie only in little ways. Basically, he's just as he has always been — nothing complicated, just a guy who loves to sing, just a guy who's loyal to his family and friends, who's easygoing but eager to learn, who will sing his head off for you for nothing, but who's ambitious, too. Eddie would like to make a film, but he tries to be realistic about himself and he doesn't feel he would make a good cowboy or singing bartender— some of the parts which have been offered to him by the film companies. He'd like to play something closer to his own life, something he'd know about and could be real in. No, Eddie hasn't changed much, but circumstances certainly have. Not that we were ever really down and out — we never starved; we never were without a place to sleep. We were fortunate, too, in that we knew we could always go back to our families. They were always behind us and encouraging us. I don't know but that the most uncomfortable time of Eddie's life was the night we were at Atlantic City. He had taken off his shirt because it hurt his sunburn, then we took a ride on a ferris wheel and he got chilled and tried to put his shirt on — but he couldn't. Did you ever try to put your shirt on in a ferris wheel? But what really convinces me that circumstances have changed is the memory of helping Eddie get ready in a single day for his first appearance at a big night club in metropolitan New York. Fran Warren, the scheduled vocalist, had suddenly taken sick, and Eddie was invited to appear. He accepted, but he was really worried. He had just come back from his tour with Eddie Cantor, his first real break, and his records were just beginning to sell. He wasn't at all sure he was ready for a New York appearance. Besides that, he didn't have an act or anything to wear. While Eddie was rehearsing, I was off being fitted for his clothes. We're the same size — both 5' 8" — we both wear a 37 or 38 jacket and have a 29-inch waist. The night he was to go on, he was supposed to be at the club by six to rehearse with the band. Well, we came back to his hotel room to get the tuxedo and found the door double-locked. We had forgotten to pay the rent. Eddie had a check waiting for him at his manager's office, but he hadn't picked it up. We pleaded with the clerk, and then the manager, to let us in, and finally they agreed — after we had sweated buckets. Well, I guess you know Eddie was a big hit that night and really got launched on his way. Yes, circumstances have changed — but not Eddie. He just gets nicer all the time.