TV Radio Mirror (Jul - Dec 1956)

they began to train flying personnel on the campus. That was too much for me, and I joined up as an aviation cadet." He didn't go back to school after the Armistice. Instead he flew forest patrol for a little over a year. But, as he says, "Flying was considered rather risky in those days, and it seemed to me that, for the sake of my first-born, I'd better settle' down." He tried a number of jpbs without any specific aim. His brother, who is a composer and pianist, suggested that Mel take up the violin again. Mel did — and it was the violin which led him indirectly into a radio career. For two years, he fiddled in a pit orchestra, and then he was lifted out of his seat and handed a baton. He became a traveling bandleader and, with a large troupe, played the biggest theaters in major cities of the country. When his contract expired, a friend talked him into joining a stock company. For quite a few years, he alternated between music and stock. In 1932, when Barbara was born, the musical comedy "Sally" was on a twenty-seven-week tour, and Mel was the musical director. Barbie was born on December 23rd, in Pasadena. "I was in Minnesota a couple of weeks before Christmas," he remembers, "and sent my gifts home from there. Along with the presents, I concocted a birth announcement. It was kind of a prediction — for I said it would be a girl baby with brown eyes, and its name would be Barbara Joan. The Joan is for Joan Crawford, . a good friend of Barbie's mother, Lurene Tuttle, the well-known radio and screen actress." During the Depression, Mel formed a dance band. He was playing at the Rendezvous Room in the Biltmore Hotel, at Los Angeles, when he was offered an announcing job. It happened because his band broadcast over Station KMTR— and Mel announced his own numbers. The station manager heard him, and offered him the job. After six months, Mel gave up the band business forever. That was in 1935. He continued acting, however, and a year later, while performing with Charlotte Greenwood, Mel was signed as announcer for the famous Lux Radio Theater. "Barbie practically grew up on the Lux show," he recalls. "From the time she was four until she was ten, Barbie came down to the studio almost every Sunday afternoon. Cecil DeMille was producing, and many of our leading actors were on the show. Barbie's legs dangled .from the seat, she was that young, but she soaked it all in. She was ambitious for the theater, even as a tot. In grade school, she was always begging the teacher to let her put on shows. Taking Barbie to the studio wasn't unusual," he notes, "considering our relationship. She was like my shadow, and I loved her and wanted her with me. She was always a lady and behaved like one." Son Bob had practically no interest in acting. He loved airplanes. He drew pictures of them. He built model planes, and Mel shared his enthusiasm with him. When at home, Mel took Bob fishing in fresh-water. But, when he took Bob deep-sea fishing, it was a sad experience: "The boy got so sick, and there we were twenty miles from shore. He was begging, 'Daddy, please, let's go back,' and I couldn't do a thing. There were a dozen others, strangers, who wanted to fish and, anyway, the boat didn't belong to me. But, you know — a few weeks later, I told Bob that I was going deep-sea fishing and he said that he wanted to go again! I said, 'Are you sure?' And he insisted. So he went a second time. And he got sick again." Mel grins. "You know, I think my kids can 'take it.' They make their own decisions and take the consequences. When Barbie was in a private school she was caught by a 'no smoking' rule. Well, Barbie didn't smoke, anyway. But she was talking with girls who were smoking when they heard the teacher coming. They got rid of the cigarettes but not the smoke, and so were caught. Barbie refused to tell on the girls or separate herself from the group. She took the punishment with the others. That's not the part that interested me the most — you know, she was never vindictive toward the teacher, either." Mel, of course, can take it, too. He proved that in the early years of his career but, from the time he signed on with Lux, his success in radio was fairly constant. Among many other shows, he played the male lead opposite Irene Rich in the Dear John series and was featured in Edward G. Robinson's Big Town. With his dollars, he built Barbie what amounted to her own private country club. "We called it 'the house that radio 'jack' built.' " he says. "We put in a pool for Barbie's sake and there was a playhouse. No pony, but Barbie and I did a lot of riding together in those days. Drifting Apart . . . Another marriage might have been wrecked if it hadn't been for radio's "My True Story." For this is the program that shows you how real-life people have averted tragedy in their own lives. When you tune in to these stories — which are right from the files of "True Story Magazine" — you may easily recognize your friends . . . your neighbors . . . even your own loved ones. So be sure to listen. TUNE IN "MY TRUE STORY" American Broadcasting Stations Don't miss this double length prize story — Read "You're Inhuman" in July TRUE STORY magazine — at newsstands now! 80 Those are the things a father remembers, too: A child's first pony ride, the first dunking, the first spanking." When World War II broke out, Barbie was only nine, but Bob was in San Mateo Junior College. "It didn't seem that he had any strong ambitions," says Mel. "I remember the two of us out on the lawn, rooting up dandelions, and he was picking about one to my twenty. He was daydreaming, off on Cloud Nine, and I was thinking just as much about his future. He had natural skills. He was a good athlete and a marksman. As a child, he'd pick up a bow and arrow and hit the balloon. We'd go into an amusement park and he'd win me cigarettes with his shooting. Anyway, when the state of emergency came up, I thought of flying and it reminded me that this was what Bob really wanted too. I encouraged him to enlist in the Air Force as a cadet." Bob went in March of 1941. Mel was still on Lux and he had made two movies, "Reap the Wild Wind," and "Buccaneers." But, in 1942, he gave up what was the start of a movie career and broke his Lux contract to go into the service. Because of his World War I experience, Mel went in as a captain with the Air Force Radio Production Unit. Bob flew a B-25 with the Tenth Air Force in India. He won the Air Medal and the Distinguished Flying Cross. "When Bob came back to the States," says Mel, "he wasn't engaged or close to any girl, so we made dates for his first week home. Dates on five consecutive nights with five of the most beautiful ingenues in Hollwood. And he kept the dates, but he was completely unimpressed," Mell recalls. "Then a couple of years later, on a Sunday morning in Orlando, Florida, he was coming out of church and a girl on the church steps waved at him. He stopped, and she immediately apologized. Alice Johnston — that was her maiden name — said, 'I thought you were someone else.' For Bob, it was love at first sight, so he said, 'Won't I do?' And that was it. Today, he and Alice have three little girls." Bob has made the Air Force his career. Today, he is stationed at Wright-Patterson Field in Dayton, Ohio. It isn't quite next door to New York, but he sees his father frequently. Barbie works out of Hollywood, but gets to Manhattan often on business and recording trips. And, when she is in town, she stays with Mel and Claire. The New York Ruicks live in Forest Hills, about forty-five minutes out of Manhattan. "Claire and I chose to move out of Manhattan when we were married," Mel says. "We like grass and trees. If it didn't mean a lot of commuting, we would like to be in the country." Mel and Claire Niesen were married on March 11, 1949. They had met at the home of a mutual friend. Five hours from the moment they were introduced, Mel proposed. A month later, they were married. They now have a three-and-a-half-room apartment, but the living room is large and includes a sofa bed where Barbie sleeps when she visits. The apartment is furnished for comfort, since the Ruicks spend about six nights out of seven there. Mel is a man who enjoys a home and does his share to keep it up. Claire can count on him to wash and hang curtains, polish furniture, and even take on the vile job of cleaning grease out of the stove. \ ("That's much too dirty a job for a woman," he says.) He is very neat. Mel still plays the violin for his own amusement. His chief hobby for many years has been photography, and he has taken movies that thrill their friends. When Mel takes a vacation, alternating