Radio-TV mirror (July-Dec 1954)

Record Details:

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smiles his bright smile, "that people keep secrets. If you are planning to give a surprise party — who, after all, is going to spoil it by telling? And what, after all, is This Is Your Life but a surprise party?" It's an interesting sidelight on auburnhaired Mr. Edwards that he really loves surprise parties, surprise presents — never comes home from a trip without wonderful surprise presents for his family, and for the office staff who didn't make the trip— and will thank his family and office staff if they, upon returning from a trip he didn't make, will do the same for him! This love of surprises may well be the clue to the brilliance, the ebullience, the eagerness and warmth, with which Mr. E. surprises his guest of honor and viewers. "Our best bet in preserving secrecy is, of course," Ralph continues, "that we very seldom contact the principal directly. When we do, it's always with a red herring in hand. And of red herrings — in addition to those we used to delude Dinah and Joan — we have an ample supply! "For instance, when we did Jeanette MacDonald's story, we used the gimmick of asking Jeanette to be on our show for the purpose — we told her, straight-faced — of presenting me with a plaque from the Optimists Club. Since Jeanette's appearance with us was during the early days of the show, we figured that she wasn't liable to be overly suspicious, but, since Nelson Eddy, who played so large a part in Jeanette's career, was also to be on the show — along with a number of other big name people — we were at pains to warn everyone who might come into contact with Jeanette, including the parking lot attendants here at the studio, to take care what they said to Miss MacDonald if they should speak with her before air-time. "Which, as it turned out, was a stitch in time! For, as Jeanette drove onto the lot the night of the show and began maneuvering for space, one of the attendants told her: 'Park right over there. Miss MacDonald, next to Mr. Eddy's car.' 'Mr. Eddy?' Jeanette said, thinking out loud, 'I wonder what he's doing here?' Whereupon the attendant — remembering, just in time, the warning given him — said briskly, 'Auditioning for a new TV show, Miss MacDonald.' Which made sense to Miss MacDonald, and allayed her suspicions! "Fifi Dorsay, the clever French comedienne, accepted an invitation to appear on our show in order to win an award — so she was told, in all seriousness — from TV Radio Mirror, and to present a similar award to me. We had two plaques made, one for Fifi, one for me. But when I presented her plaque to Fifi, it was with these words: 'For falling hook, line and sinker for our little joke — This Ees Your Life, Fifi DorsayV J ean (Dr. Christian) Hersholt was led, like a lamb to the fold, by Neal Reagan, one of our co-producers — who told Jean that a new sponsor for the Dr. Christian series wanted to meet him, and that Neal would be happy to arrange the meeting ... at say, the Hollywood Knickerbocker Hotel (which is a stone's throw from our studio), on . . . say, the next Wednesday evening. Jean and Neal were in the lobby of the Hollywood Knickerbocker waiting for the 'new sponsor' to turn up when suddenly, from a mike planted among the potted palms, my voice rang out: 'Jean — This Is Your Life, Jean Hersholt!' Whereupon the good Dr. Christian, stuttering in his native Danish, was hustled by Neal to our studio and our waiting mike! T "Awards to be made to the principal v (or to me) . . . people who wish to meet R the principal (always near-by the studio) for some legitimate but urgent reason . . . some help they can render us in preparing a specific show . . . these are the ruses commonly used when we contact the principal directly. Usually, however, our contact is a close friend or relative. "When we did the Life of restaurateur Toots Shor, we told Toots we were going to do the Life of his good friend, author and foreign correspondent Quentin Reynolds— and would he, Toots, help with the research, get all material together, and, furthermore, keep Quent in tow until show time, get him to the theater on time? With the vast good nature for which — as much as for the vast amount of good food he serves in his famous eatery — Toots is justly renowned, he 'researched' Quent with a will. He talked with all Quent's friends within reach, dug up old friends Quent hadn't seen in years, kept the wires hot with some bit of Reynolds lore he'd just unearthed, kept Quent in tow all day Wednesday, got him to the theater on time. This was a real dilly. For, all the while, Quent— who was actually our contact — knew it was Toots' Life we were doing. He was in on the whole deal, did the same amount of research on Toots — that poor Toots did on him, played it poker-faced to the very end — which was when, on camera, Toots said in booming tones, This Is Your Life, Quentin Reynolds!' To which Quent's quick comeback was: 'That's what you think, Toots— This Is Your Life, Toots Shor!' 1 he ruse we used when we were preparing the script of Pat O'Brien's Life was also a pretty elaborate one. We asked Fay Wray, a good friend of Pat's, to tell him that she had a chance to do a new TV series, to be titled (we thought this was pretty sharp!) Fay's Day. Going along with the gag, Fay said, 'Look, Pat, I'm doing this thing with Johnny Mack Brown. But we need some help, and if we could just get you to — oh, Pat, would you help us by cutting the kinescope with us next Wednesday night?5 " 'Why, sure, honey,' said Pat, whose Irish heart is as big and deep as the Irish Sea. "And sure, that's just what he did! Timing it carefully, they had just about finished cutting the kinescope in a studio adjoining ours when we cut in on them. The instant they heard my voice and realized that This Is Your Life was about to go on the air, they were hep — or Pat and Johnny were hep — that it would be one of them. But which one? Even Fay wasn't too sure we hadn't been pulling the wool over her eyes. Minutes later, 'This Is Your Life, Pat O'Brien!' ended the suspense. Foregoing the phony kinescope they had been making (there was no film in the camera), Fay and Johnny hustled a redfaced Irishman into our studio, onto our stage, face to face with our mike! "I'm still waiting," Ralph laughs, "for some guy to say, 'Not me, buddy!' and walk out. Or for him to say, 'You can't mean me' — and run out. "A funny thing that happens quite often — when we're doing the Life of some show business personality, and other celebrities are involved in the show, each one thinks it is going to be him, or her! "When the Life of Don DeFore — who appears on Ozzie and Harriet Nelson's TV show— was on the agenda, Ozzie and Harriet were our contacts. And from the moment we first contacted them to the moment we went on the air, we had to keep convincing them it was not one or both of them, in order to get them to work along with us. Until they actually heard me say 'This Is Your Life, Don DeFore!' they had That Expression," Ralph laughs, "on their faces! "We had quite a 'do,' one way and another, with the DeFore show. We dared not tell the DeFore children until the last minute, in case they might inadvertently make a slip in front of their father. (We are as careful as the FBI about those we take, dare to take, into our confidence.) Then Don tried to reach his mother in Iowa and she (being on the way here) didn't answer the phone — which, so Harriet reported, upset him. Also, he was annoyed because, at the last minute, Ozzie and Harriet told him he'd have to work late Wednesday evening, at a hamburger stand, making a film for their summer show. Don had made a previous engagement for that evening, he is not a hamburger man, he was definitely not in hamburger 'heaven' when, as he stood at the stand gloomily munching away, I cut in, on the concealed mike, with 'Don DeFore, This Is Your Life!' "All was well, however, that ended so happily. Harriet and Ozzie hustled and jostled Don to the studio. And there, safe and sound, was his mother. Also his sisters and brothers. It was the first time all the DeFore sisters and brothers had been together at one time in twenty-five years — and the program played on the senior Mrs. DeFore's birthday! "Rounding up the DeFores was child's play, however, compared to what we went through assembling the McLaglen brothers when we did the Life of Victor McLaglen. Two of the brothers were in Africa, but in different parts of Africa. One was in the Mau-Mau country; the other was hunting crocodiles, no one knew where. Through our association with TWA, which has offices all over the world, we arranged to get drum-beaters out in order to get the brothers out and, subsequently — it was just like a fiction story— to our mikes. But, watching big Vic's eyes light up, it was well worth it. "It is a source of great satisfaction to us when a show brings happiness, of one sort or another, to the person whose life we are honoring. Lillian Roth's appearance with us has created, she's been nice enough to tell us, a whole new career for her. She has headlined at the Palace in New York for the first time since, thirty years ago, she first headlined there. Her book, I'll Cry Tomorrow, is a best-seller and she has enough bookings to keep her busy for another year. And so, on tiptoe, finger to lip, we go . . . when Mack Sennett appeared on our show, he thought he was to do an interview on film about his book, King of Comedy ... in order to lure Pat Kelly — who, up until his retirement last spring, had been supervisor of announcers on NBC in New York for twenty-five years — out to Hollywood and on our mike, we arranged for him to give a lecture to the Radio Department of UCLA. Since Pat had also taught an announcing class at Columbia University for ten years, the head of UCLA's Radio Department was delighted to have him speak. And he did speak. It was all perfectly legitimate — up to the moment when he sat in our audience, supposing that in the audience was where he would remain, and heard, incredulously 'This Is Your Life, Pat Kelly!' "When, quite recently, we did Gilda Gray, it wasn't hard to get her to the studio, because we asked her, quite matter-of-factly, to come to the show and make a suggestion as to what 'repeat' show she'd like best to see during the summer. When, at the given moment, I announced, 'This Is Your Life, Gilda Gray!' she said, suiting the action to the words, 'I'm shaking more now than when I do the shimmy!' " And so, on tiptoe, as Ralph says, finger to Up they go . . . and if you have that eerie sense of being shadowed, if your best friends won't tell you. well, we've told you, haven't we?