Radio-TV mirror (Jan-June 1953)

Happiness to Share (Continued from page 48) This spirit starts with Burr, who entered the University of Chicago intending, on graduation, to teach — after a short time, he left school for a precarious job with a marionette theatre. The spirit continues with Iowa-born Fran, who quit teaching to test her talent as a radio singer. In the same pattern, producer Beulah Zachary — who sometimes baffles new acquaintances by being both a realist and an unreconstructed rebel — taught school only long enough to save the money required to transport her from Brevard, North Carolina, to Broadway. Almost as soon as she achieved the job she wanted in legitimate theatre production, she glimpsed television's gleam and dropped everything to come to WBKB in 1944, as a dolly-pusher. Doing every type of job in the station equipped her, by 1947, for her assignment as executive producer. Director Lew Gomavitz took his big chance when, on graduating from the University of Montana, he ignored his degree in sociology and rode a cattle train to make his first jump toward Broadway. He was stage manager for Billy Rose's Diamond Horseshoe when the Navy switched his course to the radar school then operated at WBKB. After discharge, he joined the station's staff, but Gommy — a perfectionist with a streak of solitude in his soul — never found a show he really enjoyed working on until Kukla, Fran And Ollie. Costume designer Joe Lockwood walked out of the lucrative profession of interior decorating to become Burr's backstage assistant. Indiana-born and European-educated, Joe discovered the Kuklapolitans when he worked at Marshall Field's and Burr turned up on Saturdays to operate the Children's Theatre. Musical director Jack Fascinato could well have settled down in Hannibal, Missouri— where he was supervisor of instrumental music for the public schools — but the urge to play in name bands overpowered him. This led to radio and television. For his" skill in making advertising tuneful, the Kuklapolitans call him "king of singing commercials," yet at heart he is still a serious composer. His deepest wish, he says, is "to get lost and write music." The two young women who were the last to join the family — and who, for want of more accurate titles, are designated secretaries — also have plenty of spunk. Redheaded Mary Dornheim flew civilian patrols during the war, and blonde, peppery Cathy Morgan is definitely Irish. Together, all these sensitive, gifted people pack enough emotional atomic energy to blast any show off the air if ever it were detonated. Instead of detonating, it turned into power, for — in producing Kukla, Fran And Ollie — they found both outlet for their abilities and expression for their idealism. With their backgrounds of proved talent and extensive experience, they could appreciate the genius of Burr Tillstrom when they encountered him. Here, in one somewhat shy individual, they found more than a technical skill to construct puppets and give each one a voice. It went beyond that. He also could create character which transformed his creations from dolls into living creatures. They all sensed, too, that it would take every bit of stubborn resourcefulness they possessed, to give this genius of Burr's a chance to flow out in a program millions could enjoy. The very hardships of those early days — low pay, long hours, lack of production money, the necessity of learning first and later teaching sponsors — fused them into a unit. The fusion was hastened by another genius, Captain William Crawford Eddy, then station manager, who forever preached a wise philosophy. No one, he repeated, could regard himself self-sufficient nor supremely important in television. It took teamwork, from performer down to dolly pusher, to put a good show on the air — but any egomaniac along the line could foul it up. Burr still reflects that teaching when he says, "Although it's up to me to know which way we're going, every one of us has a voice in what happens. We just haven't time for the usual employer-employee way of doing things. No one of us can tell another what to do. When we differ, we argue. We reach solutions because we grant the other fellow's opinion just as much respect as we demand for our own." Mutual respect, while admirable, is cold. A family must have heart as well as mind. Acknowledging it, Burr also says, "We never get too far apart Fran and Kukla have a way of smoothing down ruffled feelings. Fran and Kuke can always make peace." Ascribing such ability to Kukla, who in actual — but habitually ignored — fact is a cotton puppet with bulbous nose, button eyes and a tiny tonsure, is not as fanciful as it might appear. The provably practical and brilliant members of this remarkable family will tell you, straight-faced, they each joined it when they fell in love with Kukla. For Kukla — to paraphrase a description from his own favorite role in "The Mikado" — is more than a thing of shreds and patches. He also is the wandering minstrel, the classic impersonation of one who, in his journeying, has heard the heartbeat of the world, seen its sorrows, sensed its dreams, and thereby found understanding and compassion. Kukla, particularly to Burr, represents much more than the sum of his own personal experiences. Burr hints at this when he says, recalling youthful days soon after Kukla came into being, "At parties, people liked to ask Kuke questions, and sometimes they were serious. Young as I was, I had no idea how to answer, but Kukla would know." Part of the explanation for Kukla 's character is found in the rich heritage of family love with which Burr's parents, Dr. and Mrs. Burt Tillstrom, endowed their son. In his truly happy childhood, excursions into make-believe gave both parents and child easy means to express observations, desires, hopes. Animal stories Dr. Tillstrom told his boys became the inspiration for a number of Burr's characters, and his pianoplaying mother was always ready to provide a musical background. She worked regularly with Burr during the Kuklapolitans' formative years — and when, at his television debut, Musicians' Union rules barred her from the studio, her influence was felt in the attitude with which Burr approached his new co-workers. Thus Kukla becomes a symbol — a symbol which also is personified magnetically and in the flesh by Fran Allison. For Fran comes as close as anyone will find in real life to being the person every woman, in her most idealistic dreams, might wish to be. She carries both her beauty and her talent lightly. Her marriage to music publisher Archie Levington is the kind which leads friends to refer to them as though they were one person, saying "Fran-andArchie" all in one breath. Blessed with an encompassing and outgoing love of all mankind, she's the first to offer help to anyone in trouble. Quickwitted though she is, she's never been heard to say a malicious thing. She also has a gift for fun which Archie shares. Their hospitality was influential in supplying the Kuklapolitans with another thing a family needs — a place to live. When first the show went on the air, homes of the (Continued on page 76) Four of the backstage Kuklapolitans who help make up such a close-knit family: From left to right, Cathy Morgan, costume designer Joseph Lockwood, director Lewis (Gommy) Gomavitz, and Mary Dornheim. ! 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