TV Radio Mirror (Jan - Jun 1957)

Tommy Sands: New Singin' Idol (Continued irom paae 44) because I can't exwress myself." So speaks handsome teenager Tommy Sands, the most promising male discovery of the year. In the past few months, Tommy has been signed on as a feature singer on the NBC-TV Ernie Ford Show and he's joined the roster of Catjitol's recording artists. He received star billing on Kraft Theater's "The Singin' Idol," and is under option there to do three more teleplays — and he has been contri^cted by 20th Century-Fox to make his first film. He is suddenly burning star-bright. "I don't know what it's like, being a star. Right now being what I am, whatever it is, it's kind of lonely. Most afternoons I go walking by myself. Maybe I'll stop off and see a movie or go into a record store. Maybe I'll sit at home and read. And it's not that I don't like people. It's not that I wouldn't like to be going to a dance. When I do go, I'd like to dance every dance and close the place. I'd like to go on to a drive-in hamburger place with my date and get something to eat and sit and talk. I like that. It's just that I haven't found the right girl to do these things with, and I've been looking for her a long time." Tommy grins as he recalls his first big love. "At eight, my heavy crush was Elizabeth Taylor. I was in love with her until I was twelve. No one at the time loved her more than I, but she didn't know it. But all my friends in Shreveport knew about it. When she got married the first time, one of the little girls in school said, 'You know that girl you love married Nicky Hilton.' I said, 'Don't worry. What's meant to be is meant to be.' I thought that when I did get to Hollywood, Elizabeth Taylor would just look at me and know from my eyes that she was meant only for me." Tommy hasn't yet come face to face with Liz Taylor, but he arrived in Hollywood about a year ago. He was eighteen then, with ten years' professional experience behind him. He began to work when he was in third grade. "My kids aren't going into show business until they are out of high school," says Tommy. "It's no life for a kid. Not that I have any grudge against my parents. Nothing could stop me from playing guitar and singing when I was a kid." 1 ommy's father, Benny Sands, is a wellknow pianist in Chicago. In the past he has played with Ted Lewis, Art Kassel and other name bands. Tommy's mother, a slender and fair woman, sang with name bands under her maiden name of Grace Lou Dickson. She had retired from the business when Tommy was born. "From the time I was very young, mother and I were practically commuting between Chicago and Shreveport, Louisiana. My mother is from Shreveport and my uncle and aunt had a fine, big farm there. They had raised my mother and she was very close to them, and so was I. And I'll never forget what it was like . . . acres and acres of cotton fields and lots of old-fashioned, horse-drawn wagons. Then my aunt had at least five acres of gladiolas right behind the house — bright and beautiful. I remember my aunt used to teach me stories and poems when I was about three and take me around to the neighbors to show me off. I was about four when I joined the church. Sunday after church I'd round up some of the neighbor kids and take them behind the house. I'd climb up J on a box and repeat the sermon to them." V Although Tommy's parents were idenB tified with formal music. Tommy was first drawn to country music and the guitar. It happened at Shreveport in his eighth year. At the time, he was ill and co'^fined to bed, with a radio for companionshin. He woke at 5:30 A.M., with the rest of the household, and tuned in Shreveport's KWKH and its morning star, Harmie Smith. "Harmie sang and talked and played guitar. Years later he was to become a good friend of mine. But even then he represented a warmth and friendship to me just from hearing him on the radio. And he was, you might say, responsible for my career. Listening to him play guitar made me want to do the same. I begged mother for a guitar for Christmas and she got me one. It was a cheap instrument, but I got onto it right away. I liked to play so much that she decided I could have a good guitar. Well, we priced a good one. It was about $60 and we couldn't afford it. We had to buy it on time. Every Saturday morning I'd go into the music store and make my payment and they'd take the guitar off the shelf and let me play it awhile." Tommy smiles and goes on, "It took about four months to pay for the guitar and by that time I was playing pretty good. I made the final payment and I was carrying the new guitar in a new case for the first time. On the way home I passed Station KWKH. Well, I walked in and got talking and played and sang for the station manager. He gave me a program of my own, once a week singing Western songs, and paid me five dollars. I used to spend the five on lessons and music books and records for a wind-up phonograph we had. I was eight years old then." Tommy's parents thought his interest in the guitar and country music would pass. They weren't keen on his being a musician or entertainer. When they found that they couldn't discourage him, they tried coaxing him into taking piano instead of guitar lessons, but Tommy wouldn't coax. Even in Chicago he spent hours playing Western music. "When I was nine I wanted a cowboy outfit in the worst way. They tried to talk me out of it but my heart was made up. Well, for Christmas I got cowboy togs — a tan hat, green shirt and brown pants. I wore them everywhere and carried along my guitar. I remember a friend of the family's once tried to explain, 'We don't dress that way in Chicago, Tommy,' but it made no difference to me." Tommy's parents are divorced, but Tommy got used to being separated from his father even as a tot, for his father was often on the road for weeks at a time with bands and his mother made frequent extended trips to Shreveport. "I'm close to both parents," Tommy says. "Dad came to see me on the Coast and then he came into New York when I was on Kraft in 'The Singin' Idol.' But I've always made my home with my mother. We've never been separated. I think she's probably loved me too much for her own good. What I mean is that she's had to make so many personal sacrifices for my sake. She'd go without stockings for herself to buy me clothes. I can remember a five-year stretch when she didn't buy anything much for herself and yet she always took good care of me. I always had a good Christmas, no matter how hard up we were." Tommy's mother, who had trained as a registered nurse upon retiring from professional singing, worked in a doctor's office in Shreveport and then in Houston. They lived in Shreveport until late 1949. That was the year the network radio program Louisiana Hayride premiered out of Shreveport, and for six months Tommy was on the show. But he was making only $12.50 a week, and his mother's income was down. "I was twelve and Mother decided we should move over to Houston. She thought she could make a better living there and yet it wouldn't be too far from her family in Shreveport. Of course. Moth ^ i er never counted on my income. Such jobs 1 as I got were always on my own initiative. * ' In those days I wanted to be an entertainer as much as I do today." In Houston, Tommy immediately got a job as deejay and singer on Station KLEE and he was there nearly five years. He began to work in TV and night clubs. He made up to eighty dollars a week, but ri not regularly. "It seems like deejays got 1 to be my best friends. In Houston, it was II Biff Collie. Biff used to come on the air, still does, I guess, and say, 'This is your bellerin', bow-legged boy. Biff Collie — Collie, spelled just like a dog.' Well, Biff was like a father or a big brother to me. I'd always take around my troubles to Biff, if I were broke or lost a job. I went to him the time I was upset because they told me I was too Ught for varsity football. Biff had the knack of helping me see the other side, the bright side and my positive talents. Through Biff and my school friends, I grew to love Houston." In 1951, the director of the Alley Theater in Houston heard of Tommy and asked him to try out for their major dramatic production of the season. The play was "The Magic Fallacy" and Tommy played the part of a sensitive child who is emotionally disturbed. Tommy's superb performance won him the Sidney Holmes Memorial Award, a rare tribute for a fourteen-year-old. Three years later, his high school's dramatic production of "Our Town," in which Tommy starred, won first prize in all-state competition in Texas. That was in 1955, but it was in 1953 that Tommy met Colonel Tom Parker, who was also managing Elvis Presley. Tommy says, "I was singing in a night club during the Houston Fat Stock Show. Colonel Parker, who was then managing Eddy Arnold, dropped in the club where I was working. He liked me and was my manager until September of 1956, when I went to Hollywood. I think he's one of the greatest guys I've ever known." Colonel Parker got Tommy his first recording contract and took him out on tour. His buddy on some of these tours was Presley. Tommy says, "Elvis is regular. He's never let success go to his head. He's as nice today as he was when I first met him. And he's a fine musician. He's got the beat and feel for down-to-earth blues. When I was a kid I got interested in rhythm and blues as sung by Negroes. They originated what we now call 'rock 'n' roll.' But now it's grown very commercial. Some recording companies think that as long as they get the words 'rock 'n' roll' into the lyrics that it's the real thing. It isn't and you'll never hear Elvis sing that commercial kind of rock 'n' roll. He sings authentic blues." Tommy left Houston in 1955. His mother had been ill and a friend in Shreveport phoned and offered him a steady paying job as a deejay. "He gave me less than twelve hours to make up my mind and made me a good offer. Well, I didn't want Mother to work any more the way she was feeling, so I quit school and took the job." That was in September. Back in Shreveport he got to be a close friend of his first idol, Harntiie Smith. He kept the job a whole year and saved his money. July of last year, Tommy and his mother moved to Hollywood. Tommy auditioned for Cliflfie Stone, who, besides being Ernie Ford's manager, has a five-day-a-week radio