Variety (December 1954)

VAtnDEVlIAE in Montreal, Nov. 30. The recently-concluded war be- tween the American Guild of Va- riety Artists and American Feder- ation of Musicians has left what may be a few permanent scars. Several spots jn this area have < begun to realise that if they; can’t get . top names, then it would be better to coast along on inexpen- sive trade and depend on -what, natural traffic there is. The first casualty to talent was the Mt. Royal Hotel, which cut out •floorshows ‘ favor of musical units. It now appears to be a permanent policy in that spot. However, the major casualty i$ expected to be the Chez Paree. This spot is reported readying to shutte* Dec.. 19 for a. three-month overhaul. The line of girls will be eliminated, and the likelihood is that the lower-priced acts will pre- vail at that spot.. The traffic in talent has dimin- ished considerably since the war between the unions; There has been some pickup in the use of musical units, but the overall en-, tertainment budgets are far less than they used to be. There is some fcr'ing here that interest in cafes, has dwindled considerably; bf course,, this, is the off-season in Montreal, where there is likely to. be some diminution of talent ex- penditures, but business drop has been greater than it has been in former years. .. The .real test on the effects of the inter-union hassle will crime in the spring, if the operators fail to restore budgets to their former opulence. That cannot be deter- mined at this point. However, one item is certain, according to one school of thought. Failure to main- , tain a flow of glamor through high- priced names will cause an ulti- mate lessening of interest in cafes —then every nitery in Montreal dll be. hit. LAMPE COMES BACK AS SCH1NE HOTELS BOOKER Gus Lampe, who resigned as booker for the Schine hotels about a year ago, is back at this post. He left for the Coast last week to study the talent requirements for the Ambassador Hotel, Los An- geles. Item that sparked Lampe's re- turn is believed to be the Bill Mil- ler incident. Miller, talent buyer for the Sahara Hotel, Las; Vegas, had been retained by the Ambas- sador to line up performers. How- ever, this arrangement lasted less than a month. Lampe will book other Schine hotels as well, Includ- ing the Florida operations of that firm. Lewis Quits as Flamingo Booker With Siegel Tiein Las Vegas, Nbv. 30. Sammy Lewis resigned as enter- tainment director arid talent book- er of the Flamingo Hotel in a move that came as no surprise to friends. Although his resignation was re- gretfully accepted by president A1 Parvin and his associates operating the Flamingo, the move was antici- pated, inasmuch as one of the new hotel partners is Dave Siegel, co- producer with. Ken Murray of the successful '‘Blackouts*’ several years ago. “The inclusion of Siegel as a partner in the • n.ew ownership of the Flamirigo,” said Lewis, “Would give, the hotel two producers If I were to remain. My four months producing shows for Gus Green- batun were stimulating. My parting with Parvin and the new group is amicable, so much so, that I hope I may soon present him with some nitery package shows which I plan to assemble shortly.” Copa’s Palsy Pitch Receipts of the Copacabana, N. Y., next Monday night (6) will be turned over to the United Cere- bral Palsy fund, Boniface Jules Podell will meet all. expenses con- nected with the evening, Including food and liquor. Waiters* tips will also be assumed by Podell. Copa has been giving one night annually to this fund for the past six years. Podell has raised more than $300,000 for this charity. Wednesday, December 1, 1954 Aussie Chain’s Suit Vs. 4 . Allan Jones Settled Sydney, Nov. 23. Suit brought by Celebrity Cir- cuit against U. - S. singer Allan Jones has been settled, out of court by Jones, paying costs of the action and substantial damages. Settle- ment was effected by the singer ap- proaching Celebrity direct. Hgrry Wren, head man of the outfit which operates Sydney Palladium vaude and - revue house, would not dis-. close the actual figure of the set- tlement, but said the payoff by the singer " into several thousand dollars. Jones was billed to. appear in Sydney at the Palladium, but switched to the Tivoli on arrival. Palladium management also hauled visiting English radio comic, Rich- ard Murdoch;, into court earlier this year and won .an order re- straining him from appearing else- where. Wren also has been doing a slow burn over, certain other U. S. name players who haven’t, he claims, lived up to contractual agree- . merits. Folies Femme Decides In Chile She’s Abused, Gets ‘Starvation Wages’ Santiago, Nov. 23., “Folies.. Bergere,” touring com- pany which gave local tabloids a nudie field day when it opened .here three Weeks ago, again hit the front pages when Xenia Monty, star of show, walked out on the production. She. charged Jules 3or- kon, company manager, with “ex- ploiting” her and the cast by pay- ing starvation wages. Appearing in front of the Vic- toria Theatre, she bared her com- plaints to a crowd that quickly gathered. Next day she held a press conference and didn’t show up for that night’s performance. Monday she went to the police witlf her allegations but apparently didn’t get far. Borkori said he was going to file suit against her for slander and breaking her contract. Another performer, Dilette Marti , backed up Miss Monty by interrupting the Sunday night performance to com- plain to the audience about Bor- kon. Show goes on with Colette Fleu- riot subbing for Miss Moiity while latter and Borkon fight their bat- tle. in the newspapers. Local em- presario, Sergio Venturino, report- edly Is trying to restore peace be-, tween them so Miss Monty will return to the cast. Peter Lind Hayes harks both to his Brown Derby Commando days with • rcmlnUcuitca of Battle Fatigue in a Doughnut Factory • O bright byline piece In this 49th Anniversary JSumber of V&RIETY DUE SOON 9 : Hollywood, Nov. 3t. Frank Sinatra has been set for first - trip to Australia, and leaves Jan. 14 after completing his N. Y. Copacabana stand starting Dec. 23.\ He opens in- Sydney Jan. 17 for one Week; then Melbourne for one, week, playing twice-night.ly con- certs, probably at 5:30 and 8:30 p.m. He ? S taking with him four key musicians, as well as longtime., factotum Hank Sanicola. Aussie promoters are paying all expenses, as well as salaries of mu- sicians, with Sinatra understood to be netting around $40,000 for the stint. KITTY KALLEN LATEST BRIT. VAUDE ‘INVADER’ London, Nav. 30. U. S. invasion by recording per- sonalities continues. Following news that Billy Eckstine, Don Cor- nell, Frankie Laine and Eddie Fisher have been booked for 4ours of British variety in 1955, comes the. first femigrant. She’s Kitty Kallen, whose disk of “Little Things Mean A Lot” has been very big here, and Lew & Leslie Grade Is setting her for a short vaude tour, about, the end of next April. Tour of the Four Aces is now finalized. They debut at the Glas- gow Empire March 28, playing subsequent weeks at Edinburgh, Birmingham, Newcastle, Liverpool and Leeds. MCA la fixing further dates for them. Reverse traffic news is that A1 Martino flies back_to the States Dec. 13, at the completion of seven months in variety on this side. Sebastian Sets Solo Concert Debut in N. Y. Harmonicist John Sebastian, bet- ter known in cafes alnd niteries (solo and with dancer Dorothy Jar- nac), will make his N, Y; concert debut Saturday (4) at Town Hall. Pianist. Albert Malver and a string quintet^wlth Claus Adam conduct- ing, will accomp. Sebastian has appeared at Town Hall before, but as assisting artist. Current date is classe/i as a solo concert debut. Sebastian will in- clude the world preem of Alaq Hovhaness* Concerto for Har- monica and String Orch in his pro- gram. He’s toured through America and abroad as a concert artist, re- cently visiting ' Germany under | State Dept, auspices. In Kansas City, Omaha By GLENN TRUMP Omaha, Nov. 30. Kansas City and Omaha are the two big nitery showcasers between St. Louis arid Vegas. But the manner in which they go about ac- quiring the buck differs so greatly that they might as well-be at the opposite poles. In Kansas City, for example, the NO. 1 spot, Eddys\ uses a cover of $1 to pad its income. Yet . in Omaha, when Angelo DiGiacomo tried the same gimmick at his ill- fated Angelo’s, the payees’ screams could be heard for miles*—even though Angelo’s talent budget would give Eddy’s a good race. The eight-piece orch of Tony DiPardo and a two-act policy keeps Eddys’ entertainment output ipt a high level. But., Ella Fitzgerald, George Shearing, etc., didn’t come cheap for Angelo—and the cover generally was blamed for the spot’s shuttering, despite the fact that the Omaha place was much more in- tifnate and entertainers did more table visiting. Other top Kaycee spots such as the Cafe Picardy of the Muehle-r bach Hotel, featuring the Joe Vera orch, alternating with Zig and Vivian Baker, skips the cover to push food—practically an unheard- of item at Omaha niteries. j Waitresses, at Don Hammond’s Seven Seas, the top plunge here, have never handled any edibles other than the olives in the mar- tinis. And the Colony Club, a plush downtown spot, went so far as to partition its eatery from the bar and entertainment sector. Entertainment, not names, is the most important ingredient in nitery shows, according to Hal Braudis, entertainment director of the Th underbird Hotel, Las Vegas, currently in New York on a talent- buying expedition. Braudis gave up competition for names a couple of years ago, he. said. Not wanting to involve either himself or the inn in astronomical expenditures, he’s gone in, he said, for shows that attempt to entertain rather than to dazzle. Braudis declared that this pol- icy has paid off. Within 10 min- utes after the curtain on the open- ing 'show, the whole town knows whether it's good or bad. That goes for name layouts as well. Bad shows*, even if capped by expensive performers, fail to lure the spend- V ers and gaining gentry, according to Braudis. Therefore, he said, the primary aim should be enter- tainment! With a total of six new estab- lishments ready tq start by next April, Las Vegas talent-buying will take a terrific spurt. Spots that will be preemlng are the Royal Nevada, Dunes, Stardust, Spa, Mou- lin .Rouge and the* Riviera. Brau- dis said that hotels will be in com- petition even for ordinary acts un- der this new setup, arid he predict- ed that the average run for an act would increase considerably. At the present .time, bills change ap- proximately every three weeks. Clubs not wanting to raise salaries terrifically will be guaranteeing longer engagements to acts so that actual earnings will be increased. Braudis is in New York confer- ring with his Gotham reps Baum & Newborn, He feels that the point is being reached where even Las Vegas won’t be able to afford cer- tain acts. $15,000,000 DALLAS INN GETS NEW HILTON NAME Dallas, Nov. 30. New 19-story Statler Hotel, un- der construction here, will open. Oct. 1, 1955, with a new name— The Conrad Hilton. Hilton him- self made the name change here last week while inspecting th $15,000,000 luxury inn, now 40% complete. Hospice, which the hotel exec bought with his- Statler chain deal, will be larger than Houston’s Shamrock, which Hilton also took over last week on his Texas trip. The. Conrad Hilton will have a sec- ond-floor ballroom, 94x134 feet, with no centre columns. Hilton started his hotel empire in Texas. His newest here faces the first hostel he built, now the White-Plaza Hotel, one block away. OUT SOON! The 49th Ahniversary Number oi Forms Usual Advertising rates prevail Special exploitation advantages Copy and space reservations may be sent to any Variety office NEW YORK 36 154 W. 46th St. HOLLYWOOD. 28 6311 Yucca St. CHICAGO 11 612 N. Michigan Avo. LONDON, W. C. 2 8 St, .Mortis’* fleet Trafalgar Square Gannon’s ‘Follies’ Mark: 16 Years Without Miss . Pittsgurgh, Nov. 30. Paul Gannon, Pittsburgh singer and a veteran of the Shipstads Sc Johnson “Ice Follies,” has either established already or is fast ap- proaching a modern run record for show business. In the nearly 16 years since Gannon first went with the rink revue—he joined it. on Jan. 13, 1939—he hasn’t missed one performance, Gannori came close once—-in New Haven, when the worst bliz- zard in that city’s history tied up all transportation facilities arid Gannon had to walk all the way to the arena. He made it at intermis- sion time to keep his attendance mark intact. ^Gannon was a radio singer in Pittsburgh when he. got ari offer early in ’39 to join the “Ice Fol- lies” for “the remainder of the sea-. sqn“ He’s been with the Shipstads & Johnson ever since. His family, wife and daughter, still live here. 26G ‘Lights On’ Benefit “Lights On,” annual benefit for the National Council to Combat Blindness, grossed $26,000 in the one-riighter held Nov. 20 at Car- negie Hall, N. Y. Joey Adams emceed the show which was to have been conferen ciered by Milton Berle, who was taken ill. This show is one of . Berle’s annual chores.