TV Radio Mirror (Jul - Dec 1957)

Ann lost. "I felt terrible. The elevator girl told me to stop crying. She said, 'Honey, a boy who lost on the show a couple of years ago comes on TV in fifteen minutes with his own show! She was talking about Vic Damone." The next morning, the sun came out again, when Arthur invited Ann to appear on the morning show for a week, and then a second week. She was signed by Capitol Records and, this past summer, she began a series of club dates. "That's the great thing about Talent Scouts," says Danny Costello. "Even if the audience doesn't vote you in, you have a second chance, for Arthur may ask you back. Besides, talent scouts for the movies and recording companies, talent buyers for clubs and TV have great respect for the Godfrey show. They watch, too." 1 wenty-seven-year-old Danny Costello, handsome six-footer, was a winner on Talent Scouts — but he auditioned six times, over a period of several years, before he was accepted as a contestant. Danny, for all his charm, has guts and perseverance. He was born and raised in Jersey City. "I lived in an old-world Italian neighborhood," he says, "and the people had great love and respect for operatic music. Music was not something incidental. Singing was an art to be appreciated and taken seriously. At ten, I was put in the Holy Rosary Choir. It was a fine group. We had two choir-masters who gave us special tutoring. Look — anyone who can sing Gregorian chant can sing anything." But Danny was also a top-flight ballplayer. He was playing "pro" ball from seventeen until twenty. He was under contract to the Pittsburgh Pirates when he broke his arm. That did it, and he made up his mind to be a singer. He sang in clubs and local radio. He got experience with a G.I. dance band. He began to audition for Talent Scouts about 1951 and in August, 1955, got on the show with the song, "Something's Got to Give." Something did — he won. The thrill was shared by his wife, the former Mary Truitt, of Tallahassee, who now lives in Jersey City with the Costellos' two boys. Danny says, "I owe a lot to her putting up with me for the past seven years. Sometimes there was very little money. Or I was on the road and she had to care for the kids all by herself. But, most of all, she had the right words at the right time." Danny speaks of Arthur with real affection. "I remember," he says, "the first day I was in his office asking for advice on a recording contract. Not only did he put on his glasses and read all of the little type, but he spent an hour explaining the recording business to me." Danny adds, "And Jan, well, she's the greatest. Any problem I have — whether it's with a new sheet of music or a job — I go to her." One of the newest talents on the Godfrey show is Anita Bryant, who was born March 25, 1940, in Barnesdale, Oklahoma, and now lives in Tulsa. If you're going to be guided by Anita's career, you might as well give up if you haven't succeeded by the time you're ten. Yet Anita herself hasn't been pushing — she's been enjoying herself. "I'd give up a career instantly for marriage. I've been thinking that I might give up 'pop' to sing with an evangelist. But, no matter whether I'm married or sitting at a typewriter, I'll be singing." They say that when Anita was a toddler, not too long ago, her grandfather bounced her on his knees and said, "Sing!" and she did. At six, she was among the first-grade . children auditioned for a high-school v operetta. She got the role and, during the R following three years, she was asked to sing at high-school banquets. When she was nine, she won a talent contest and be „ , came Red Feather Girl for the state. 64 "I was eleven when my father took a cut in salary to move to Oklahoma City so I could study voice with Allen Clark, who is my manager," says Anita, who is as vivacious as she is pretty, with brown hair and very big and dark brown eyes. "Mr. Clark," she continues, "is head of music at WKY-TV and Radio. He was once arranger for the Phil Harris band. He knows music and singing. Every Saturday, we worked five hours." At twelve, Anita made her TV debut on the Scotty Harrell show in Oklahoma City. Mail response was such that she was invited back week after week. When Harrel went off, Anita starred on her own show for an additional six weeks. Her sponsor paid her twenty-five dollars a week for the fifteen-minute show. She also sang in church, in school and with dance bands. She took dance lessons and played in every school dramatic show she could. "When I heard auditions for Talent Scouts were being held in Oklahoma City, I wrote in, asking for a date and stating my experience. It was last winter that Mark Russell came out. I sang for him and he told me then that I'd be among the finalists. In April, I sang again and this time I was among the several people chosen to come to New York as a contestant." Anita smiles as she recalls, "We all won that night, May 20th. Arthur said it was so close that there'd be no losers." A gal who remembers very little of what happened when she appeared on Talent Scouts is Miyoshi Umeki, a pert Japanese doll who sings jazz ballads with a husky, intriguing quality. "Everything got started from the Godfrey show," she says. "That was January 9, 1956. I didn't feel anything, I was so scared and nervous. I was petrified. That night, I sang, 'If I Give My Heart to You.' Afterwards, my agent, Edna Whiting, told me I had won. I couldn't believe it. I said, 'It's not true. Don't tell me.' When I got back to the hotel, I sent telegrams back to Japan. Then I believed it." Miyoshi, with black hair and lovely black eyes, is a fragile five-foot-one. She still sings in a kimono, but her favorite dish is now pizza, and her favorite singer, Frank Sinatra. Her admiration for Sinatra dates back to her residence in Japan. Miyoshi was born twenty-two years ago on the small island of Hokkaido. Until she was fifteen, her voice was so husky that she could hardly talk, let alone sing. She went on to music college after high school, and it was there that she learned her first American song, "I Walk Alone." Her brother, an interpreter for the American Military Government, brought some G.I. friends home to hear his baby sister. Some of the Americans played in a band. They, in turn, arranged for Miyoshi to sing with them on a radio program. "I had my first job at seventeen," she smiles. "I never worried about how much I was paid. I liked to sing. I worked wherever there was music and a microphone. My mother didn't object to my singing with bands. She had put all the children before me through school, and my father died when I was thirteen. I was the last of nine children and I think she was too tired to tell me 'no.' I was lucky and could do anything I wanted." Miyoshi practiced hard and listened long to American records. She began singing with top Japanese jazz bands. She became the first Japanese singer to record for RCA Victor, and made some forty "sides." She was in five Japanese movies. And then she gave in to an urge to visit America. Shortly after she arrived here, she had a chance to audition for Talent Scouts. She won on the show. And Arthur was so charmed by her that he has called her back many times. Miyoshi believes the Godfrey appearance led to all of her recent breaks. She has been singing in the best clubs in the country, and has a starring role in the Marlon Brando film, "Sayonara," to be released in December. It was just about a year after Miyoshi's debut that Arthur reached outside the States for another exciting talent. That was and is Canadian Tommy Common. Tommy is twenty-four, born on September 21, 1933, in Toronto. He is good-looking, with blue eyes and light brown hair. He stands five-seven. And, like Miyoshi, Tommy is indebted to a brother for his start. Tommy was eight and his brother ten. One day, the brother bowed out of a singing spot at church, explaining, "Tommy is better." From that day on, Tommy was singing. He worked in a church choir. At ten, he sang a solo before fifteen thousand people. "I was saved from stage fright," he notes, "by the glare of footlights — I couldn't see anything." At Boy Scout age, he was singing for hospitalized war veterans. As he got older, he sang with dance bands. He was in the University of Toronto, studying electrical engineering, when he began to realize he had bitten off more than he could handle. Class work took thirty-three hours a week, and the dance bands kept him up until two in the morning. He quit school. But then he had to fortify his income, and he went to work in a Ford plant as a press welder. lhe turning point in Tommy's career came about when he appeared on a Canadian TV talent show, Pick The Stars. Tommy won the first night and came back, five weeks later, to appear in the semifinals. He lost. Two weeks later, however, the Canadian Broadcasting Company signed him to a year's contract. Since then, he has become one of Canada's brightest TV stars on Country Hoedown. "I was accomplishing some of the things I had hoped for," Tommy says, "but one of my ambitions was to get on Talent Scouts. Well, I had auditioned twice in New York and had been turned down both times. But when auditions were held in Toronto — at a time when I had the benefit of more experience — I was chosen to come to New York as a contestant." Tommy won, and he says no small part of it was due to Jan's help. "You know," he says, "even though I'm on TV every week in Toronto, there were still things Miss Davis pointed out that helped my presentation. I'm sold on her. I doubt that you'll find a more able, sincere woman in the entertainment business today." Though admitting that he is serious by nature, Tommy notes that he is happy and content with his life. Three years ago, he married a girlhood sweetheart, Doreen Stevens. They have a year-old son named Jamie. "My philosophy toward show business is simple enough," he says. "I've heard that, if you can start at the top, then start at the top. But, if you can't, then start at the bottom." The only complaint many gals have had with Tommy Common, Danny Costello — and Pat Boone, too, for that matter — is that, although they are handsome and personable and young enough, they have wives and children. But, this past spring, Talent Scouts came up with the answer to a maiden's prayer. He is nineteenyear-old Steve Karmen, born in Manhattan and raised in the Bronx, a blond sixfooter with blue eyes. With him, music is a must. "Music is my hobby, my work and my life," says Steve. Steve was one of the losers on the show of April 15, 1957. That night, the winner was a singer, Bob Dini. "I was watching off stage when Bob's name was announced," Steve recalls, "and my face fell a mile. Then I heard Mr. Godfrey saying, 'You don't mind if I take this other young fellow along to the morning show, too.'