TV Radio Mirror (Jan - Jun 1956)

now a gay colfgne cologne... keeps you fresh and fragrant throughout the day! lo*-<*nt Fragrant Re|reshing Now, lavish yourself from top to toe with a famous fragrance at a delightful price! Special Introductory offer! 78 Regular $1.00 bottle now only 69« plus tax CHERAMY PERFUMER The Lawrence Welk Show (Continued from page 59) tree," he smiles. The only music lesson he ever took was a mail order course, but Lawrence does have a certificate as a piano tuner — although he's never tuned a piano. His first band was known as "The Biggest Little Band in America." It became something of an institution in the Midwest, playing everywhere, including Yankton, South Dakota, where Lawrence underwent a tonsillectomy to woo nurse Fern Renner. The Welks have three children, Shirley, Donna and Lawrence, Jr., and are happily at home, after years of touring, in a Los Angeles suburb. . . . The "Champagne Lady" is Alice from Dallas — Alice Lon, of course — and she was the public's choice in a national contest to find a suitable songbird for the title. She comes from a musical family and has been warbling since the age of six. Her first big break came when an agent sent her picture and a recording to Don McNeill and he hired her as a Breakfast Club vocalist. Alice is married to Bob Waterman, the well-known football player and aspiring playwright, and they have three sons. Oh, Alice's hobby? Collecting bouffant petticoats. . . . Like Lawrence Welk, Myron Floren lost his heart to the accordion early in life when, at the age of seven, he fell in love with one he saw in a mail-order catalog. Myron met his fellow Dakotan and present boss in St. Louis, in 1950. He met his wife Berdyne when she became a student of his. There are now three co-eds at their Westchester, Los Angeles home. . . . When most fouryear-olds were tugging at apron strings, Buddy Merrill was plucking at a Spanish guitar. At eleven, the lad from Cainville, Utah, took up the more complex steel guitar. He won his present job in a national vocal and instrumental contest sponsored by Lawrence Welk, who proudly accuses his nineteen-year-old discovery of "practically stealing the show from all of us." . . . Senior member, in point of service, is genial Jerry Burke, who joined the Welk orchestra when it was first organized in 1934. His agile fingers can skip with equal zest over a Hammond organ, piano, accordion or Novachord. He's an expert amateur cook, specializing in Hungarian goulash, is equally enthusiastic about the New York Philharmonic and Bing Crosby, and will drive miles to catch a Spencer Tracy movie. . . . Violinist and vocalist Bob Lido, of Jersey City, charms the femmes with a doublebarrelled talent and a continental air. He led his own band at New York's Savoy Plaza, once understudied Perry Como. A bachelor, he lives in North Hollywood and his heart belongs to jazz and a cocker spaniel. . . . Gypsy tunes hold the musical heart of Dick Kesner, but the Iowa violinist ranges with equal deftness from symphonies to jazz. He has an impressive background with the San Francisco and Chicago Symphonies and the ABC orchestra. Dick, his wife and two daughters make their home in Roseda, and Dick's hobbies include model railroads, gardening and astronomy. . . . Aladdin not only plays violin, but sings — in ten different languages. Born in New York, he began his professional career at three, as a dancer and mimic. But a fall which temporarily paralyzed him forced him to turn his talents in an instrumental and vocal direction. The father of two, he's been featured with such notables as Rudy Vallee, Carmen Cavallaro, Xavier Cugat and Ray Noble. His full name: Aladdin Abdullah Achmed Anthony Pallante. ... If it hadn't been for Lawrence Welk, Larry Hooper's singing might still be confined to the shower. But maestro Welk heard Larry clowning at rehearsals and prodded and needled the tall, slim, easygoing pianist until he agreed to give it a try. He's been singing a resonant bass ever since. Happily married, Larry hails from Santa Monica. . . . Jack Martin, who also sings, took to playing the saxophone as a youngster in Nelsonville, Ohio. By the time he was graduated from Ohio University, he and the sax were so well acquainted that Jack gave up plans for an advertising career to take a musical road. There are two junior Martins. . . . When Jim Roberts wanted a vocal job with Lawrence Welk, he simply walked up to the bandstand during rehearsal and asked for an audition. The Irish tenor from Kentucky was hired on the spot. Jim's story is "The Army Made a Singer Out of Me." He made his first hit in a GI show, went on to join the Earl Carroll organization, where he met his wife, the former Jane Silk, who gave up show business for a career as Jim's wife and the mother of young Steven James Dick Dale's convincing vocal duets with Alice Lon have romantic rumors flying. But Dick's three loves are his wife, their child — and the saxophone. He began tootling the sax in 1936, played with local bands after graduating from high school in Algona, Iowa. After two years in the Navy, Dick joined the famous Six Fat Dutchmen of Minnesota, started playing "Champagne Music" in 1951. Simply add one Champagne Lady, Alice Lon, to a quartet of Larry Hooper, Jack Martin, Jim Roberts and Dick Dale, and you've a bubbling music dish.