Variety (February 1957)

WcJnegday» February 20, 19$7 ’I As Brit. Agents Eye Sinnmer Biz 4 ^ By GORDON IRVING Blackpool, Eng., Feb. 19. Majority of vaude shows are now ‘lined up for the 1957 vacation : season at this English Coney Is¬ land-Las Vegas resort, T George & Alfred Black will launch “The Big Show of 1957,” at I plushy 3,000-seater Opera House, i June 29, with comedy duo Jimmy ^ Jewel & Ben Warriss and tv chir; per Yana as stars. Show will have a twice-nightly schedule to October. The Black brothers will feature tv panelist and comedian Bob Monkhouse at the Winter Gardens Pavilion in “Startime,’* teeing off June 22. No other acts are yet " named for this twiee-nightly show. Following up last summer’s suc¬ cess In pioneering a resident vauderevue at the Palace, the Blacks will star Hylda Baker in “The Hylda Baker Show,’’ opening June 8. Tanner Sisters are featured, Odette Crystall, French thrush, is also I likely. , , ! Hylda Baker is local north-ofI England comedienne with strong 1 Lancashire appeal. She has recentI ly gained much tv spotlighting, j On the legit side, H. M. Tennent 1 Ltd., in association with Sydney I Box, are to present Wilfred Pickles I Mabel, tv stars, in a new comedy, 1 “Ride A Co-ck Horse,’’ by William I Barrow. Wallace Douglas will di¬ rect. Play opens at the Grand Theatre here Jnne 24. Bernard Delfont is readying a strong summer show for the North pier Pavilion, where Lawrence Wright presented stars for many i summers. Layout will feature Ruby Murray, Tommy Cooper, Ken Platt, and the Four Jones Boys, ' opening June 7. James Brannan, local impresario, v.ill star Vic Oliver, vet vaude and tv comedian, at the Queen’s. An¬ nual Tower Company Circus tees off April 18 at the Tower, with Charlie Cairoli, w.k. clown, again starred. Tom Arnold is readying a new revue at the Hippodrome, with Liverpool vaude comedian Ken Dodd and a varied layout. _ — Cantor’s Birthday Bond Drive Near 320,000,000 Miami Beach, Feb. 19, Final returns of the Eddie Can¬ tor birthday party at the Fon¬ tainebleau Hotel here is expected to hit almost $20,000,000 in the sale of Israeli bonds. Bash, which marked Cantor’s 65th year, was close-circuited in 13 cities, and was devoted to raising funds for the Middle East republic. Ex-President ' Harry S. Truman was the key speaker. Cantor will be in New York for a guester on the Steve Allen show (NBC-TV) on March 10, and will co-toastmaster with George Jessel the dinner for Jimmy Durante at the Hotel Waldorf-Astoria, given by the Jewish Theatrical Guild on March 17. Highlight of the dinner was the address of former President Harry S. Truman on foreign policy. For¬ mer prexy declared in his opening remarks that Cantor has helped the nation laugh in good times and bad, and that was a public service for which all are thankful. Cantor, the former chief exec continued “has always worked to bring hap¬ piness into the lives of others. It is only natural that one of his al)iding interests should be the State of Israel which was founded and exists today to provide a refuge and a new life for the most bitterly persecuted minority his¬ tory has ever known.’’ The 13-city closed-tv hookup was arranged and serviced by TelePrompter’s new Group Communi. cations division. Among the en¬ tertainers taking part In the salute were Nat King Cole, Gloria De Haven, Jimmy Durante, Gracie •Fields, Joe E. Lewis, Hal March, Roberta Sherwood and Shelley Winters. Ruban Bleu Folds Le Buban Bleu, one of the oldest of the New York intimeries, shut¬ tered Saturday night (16). Foldo followed by a couple of weeks the closing of Theodore’s, the straight eatery adjunct to Huban Bleu. Building housing the two spots 'vas sold some time ago and will be torn down in the near future to Wake way for an office building. No Admission Tax in Tex. For 100% Charily. Shows Austin, Tex., Feb. 12. Texas* Attorney General ruled here that no tax may be levied on admissions for entertainments if 'all proceeds go to the benefit of the state, religious, educational orj charitable institutions. The At¬ torney General, Will Wilson, sub¬ mitted that opinion to Comptroller Robert, Calvert. The opinion said that if the state or other charitable institutions re¬ ceive only a percentage of the ad¬ missions charged, the exemption would not apply. It further said that no tax may be levied on ad¬ missions collected for exhibitions conducted by non-profit corpora¬ tions organized to promote agricul¬ ture by public fairs and livestock exhibitions. Oldtimers the Stars As Thespian Club in Frisco' Makes With Its 25th Anni San Francisco, Feb. 19. ' The Thespian Theatrical Club celebrated its, 25th anniversary with a banquet for more than 40Q at the Sheraton-Palace Hotel here Saturday (16) night. Presiding was club manager George Beveridge, who as George Alexander broke into vaudeville with Lew Dockstadter, went on to a spot in Sophie Tucker’s show, “The Time, Place and Girl,’’ at th^ LaSalle Theatre, Chicago. (Curiously enough. Miss Tucker was checked into hotel night of banquet, but was entertaining a few blocks away at The Village.) Among others who participated were Jeanette Yunge, leading lady of the original “Chocolate Soldier’’ company, who celebrated her 86th birthday at banquet; A1 Brandhofer, part of the Walton Bros, bal¬ ancing team which made the "Vari¬ ous major circuits; Hazel Allen Beydston (Gracie Allen’s sister); Harry Dale, dancer who played the Palace, New York, in 1910; Nita Lydia Crane, of “Ziegfeld Fol¬ lies’’ lines; and singers Hannah Davis Barron and Mrs. Florence Booth Perry, both of whom worked Frisco’s old Tivoli. Saranac Lake By Happy Benway Saranac Lake, N. Y., Feb. 19. . To Don McNeill; Many thanks to you, Aunt (Fran Allison) Fanny, Betty Johnson, Dick Noel, Sam Cowling, Clif Peterson, Eddie Ballantine and the rest of your radio gang for. taking valuable time out to come to the Will Rogers Hospi¬ tal to entertain the gang of shutins. I know of no words that can do justice in repaying you and yours for the visit here, but I can tell you that it packed a mighty wallop of mental tonic and this gang will remember this entertain¬ ment for a long time to come. “We The Patients’’ sure do appreciate this and say, “please come again.’’ Justine Benoit, former showgirl with Solly Carter’s tab company, is now a real estate broker inlhe Miami Beach sector. She recently made a comeback after hospitaliza¬ tion in Philadelphia. Eldridge Weaver, theatre owner who ma.ster€d surgery, drew a month’s furlough that he is spend¬ ing in Oklahoma City and Fmrfax, Okla. Thanks to Margaret Hasting (Panama Hattie) for her timely greetings and news items. She is formerly of the yesteryear vaude¬ ville team of Mack & Hastings and some 45 years ago was on the same musical tab with Happy (& Dayton) Benway. Write to those v/lio are ill. Omaha Auto Show Dips Omaha, Feb. 19. This year’s Omaha Auto Show, featuring the Ames Bros, and Dor¬ othy Lamour, conked out at the b.. 0., final figures revealed, last week. Attendance was listed as 54,374, although actual paid figures (at 50c.-$l scale) were closer to 47,000. Show nut was approximately $70,000. Last year’s Auto Show, starring the McGuire Sisters and Harmonicats, drew a record 111,808 paid. PARtEfr VAVBEV1I.E.B 53 Clip Galypsowner Shaw Of $4,500 at His N.Y. Apt. Ray Shaw, owner of the Jamai¬ can Room, N. Y., was robbed Monday (18) of $4,500 in receipts while at his apartment near the club. Thugs invaded his home while Shaw and manager Joe Costa were counting the receipts. Police also had a hard time at the club at about the same time. They yere sifting the green saw¬ dust on the floor seeking a dia¬ mond valued at $27,000 said to have fallen off the ring of one of the customers; The gem didn’t turn up. 0.0. Rank Deluxer InEdinbinxhTo Plug^ Vaude Gap Edinburgh, Feb. 19. TJ. S. acts and groups visiting Scotland, kept out of Edinburgh because of lack of a suitable audi¬ torium, may be featured shortly at the New Victoria Cinema, luxury house of the J. Arthur Rank Or¬ ganization. Officials of the group have been 0.0. 'ing the house and assessing its suitability for the SRO audiences that normally greet visits by vaude Stars. Jack Dunbar, an official of the Circuits Managements Assn., said: “Nothing has been decided yet, but we. are considering the question. It may well be that the New Vic will come within that group of theatres, like the Odeon, Glasgow, that cater for these one-night stands.’’ The New Victoria would require no drastic alterations since it al¬ ready has ample stage and dress¬ ing-room accommodations. Many Rank cinemas in England, and a few in Scotland ,have facili¬ ties for staging one and two-night stands by vaude acts and name groups. The.se include the Gaumont in Dundee and Odeon in Glasgow. Bill Haley & Comets opened last night (Mon.) at the 2.700-seater Odeon (Glasgow) where they are pacted for two nights (four per¬ formances). LEWIS’ SMASH 58iG IN 2ND PALACE, N.Y., WK. Second week of Jerry Lewis at the Palace, N.Y., ending tonight (We^.), scored an SRO $58,500 for nine shows. Last week, Lewis aided by the opening night’s upped ducats, scored $61,500. Comic is surrounded by The Aristocrats with first half taken over by Eydie Gorme, Wiere Bros.. Chiquita & Johnson, Arren & Broderick and The Seven Ashtons. Lewis is in for four weeks, with possibility that he may be able to hold over additionally if film com¬ mitments can be moved. Some of These D<qr$ Soph’s (jornia Love Disk Jockeys By BILL STEIF AGVA to Hear Pleas Of RCMH ‘Rebel’ Trio Case of the three chorus employ¬ ees of Radio City Music Hall, N. Y., who headed the now defunct indie union, RCMH Chorus Employees Assn., will be given a hearing by the executive committee of the American Guild of Variety Artists to determine their eligibility to re¬ join the organization. Trio. Eric Hutson, Mary Ann Raye and Violet Brecht, suspended from member¬ ship for their activity in helping to form the indie outfit. Case was aired by the national board at its meeting last week and was passed on to the exec commit¬ tee, which originally suspended the trio. Should suspension be up¬ held, the trio can appeal to the Juhe convention to be held in Miami Beach, and still another appeal can be made to the execu¬ tive committee of the AFL-CIO. ‘April in Paris,’ Annual Spree for N. Y. Waldorf Claude C. Philippe, veepee of the Waldorf-Astoria, N. Y., is keying the Empire Room’s new “A\Til en Paris’’ show to the Hilton flagship hostelry’s annual “April in Paris’* ball. Philippe runs ’em for Franco-American benevolent organiza¬ tions, among them New York’s French Hospital. The Empire’s show will comprise Juliette Greco, , first time in America for a run engagement, having been flown over four years ago especially for the “April In Paris’’ ball. Same thing had been done for Parisian diskery singcrsc-iigsmith Gilbert Becaud al¬ though, eventually, he too got Hil¬ ton Hotels’ bookings (Persian Room of the Hotel Plaza, N. Y.. and the Bcverly-Hilton in Beverly Hills). With Miss Greoo will, be theChanteurs de Paris <9). recently showcased on Ed Sullivan’s tele¬ show, featuring Varel & Bailly. arrangers-maesti’os of the vocal en¬ semble. Benny Goodman comes in next Monday (25) and either John¬ nie Ray or Eddie Fisher will be the blowolT attraction in the Em¬ pire Room. Sammy Davis Jr. will reopen the Starlight Roof of the Waldorf fol¬ lowing the socko boxoffico tradi¬ tion of Harry Belafonte, Lena Horne, Pearl Bailey and Dorothy Dandridge, all of whom .set peak business marks at the hostel. Miss Horne, who preemed New Year’s Eve at the Waldorf, has been held over twice, two-weeks beyond her original month’s booking. San Francisco, Feb. 19. Sophie Tucker, clad in a Chinese silk robe, dished up hot tea and sage advice for about a dozen KCBS staffers, including station manager Henry Untermeyer, in an informal session at her SheratonPalace suite here last week. Too many modern-day entertain¬ ers, she told the CBS workers, are “spoiled,' unprepared.’’ Pet peeve is the disk jockeys with whom, she said, “it’s all fluff, fluff, fluff, uhuhuhuh, they’re not ready to say anything.’’ Sometimes, she reported, she reported, she walks into radio sta¬ tion for an interview and the deejay asks: “‘Now what’re you gonna do?’ I work all night, mind you . . . well, you don’t ask a dame like me, ‘What’re yoii gonna do?’ ’’ Sophie, who’s packing The Vil¬ lage in a 10-day Frisco stint (“and there aren’t any conventions in town’’), urged *the radio people to learn all facets of show business. Enunciating every syllable, she emphasized! “The kidif today need enlighten¬ ing. ’Take Blossom Seeley’ “Go back 'to the old vaudeville days, and burlesque, too. It’s as important for radio as for tv. You take Blossom Seeley, who made such a hit on Ed Sullivan’s show the other night — and started right in this town, by -the w'ay— why, she’s a tried and true vaudevillian. When you ‘have a tried and true performer, you see all the differ¬ ence, there’s polish.’’ She dipped into the past for in¬ stances. “Alfred Lunt and Enrico Caruso never missed a vaudeville show. Every Monday Lunt used to be at j the Palace, absorbing, learning. jiAnd Caruso lived around the cor¬ ner from the old Riverside in New York, at the Majestic Hotel. He loved vaudeville, and he’d' be at the Riverside every Monday, too.’’ j On ‘Precision Timing’ ! She recalled the necessity for I precision timing in • vaudeville, ' with the “first of eight acts on for no more than three minutes and the star of the show on for a halfhour, 35 minutes at the most.’’ The show was scheduled for just ' two and a half hours, she said, and precision was the byword. Another thing; “If you didn't get j in and knock ’em down right off the reel, why you weren't booked again. So when the boys today tell me it takes ’em 15 minutes to warm up an a u d i e n c e’’ — she stopped, speechless and scornful. She was impressed by the KCBS operation, she said, where she walked in for interviews with deejays like Bill Weaver and Guy Cherney and “I was handed a script ... I liked that.” But “some of these kids haven’t smartened up. They don’t have time to make it a business. It's a quick buck and then they sit there and wonder what happened.” Soph & Rembrandt Miami Beach, Feb. 19. Party-tossing for their top at¬ tractions is a current trend among hoteliers, much as the independent night club operators built up their biz in the heyday of the trip'ename lineups several years ago. The hotel bonifaces, however, don’t stage the shindigs for their talent as a take-build gimmick— their affairs are strictly private and special invitation after the final shows. The Eden Roc’‘s Harry Mufson started it with a penthouse party for Hairry Belafonte, serving up lavish smorgasbord tables and liba¬ tions before giving the balladeer a handsome present. He topped that one with a soiree in the Im¬ perial Room of the hotel for Milton Berle on his closing night which, with plenty of gate-crash¬ ers, had several hundred in attend¬ ance. Berle is now wearing the expensive platinum and diamondstudded watch he received as climax. Fontainebleau’s Ben Novack took up the party-tossing theme with an even larger affair for Jerry Lewis at post-dosing show in the hotel’s Rosewood Room. But, where Mufson had eschewed any entertainment by the assembled show bizites, the Lewis Occasion led to a parade of well-wisliing (and performing) toppers, with Jackie Miles emceeing to climax¬ ing gift of assorted jewelry for Lewis. Ten days ago, even Las Ve¬ gas got into the act, the Desert Inn ops shipping a huge cake to the Fontainebleau, to be presented Jimmy Durante as a 64th birthday token (he goes into the Nacional, Havana, whose casino is run by the same group) after current date here. Cake was presented during his last'* show by Jack Carter and Milton Berle, but private party fol¬ lowed, others in attendance includ¬ ing Joe E. Lewis, Joe DiMaggio, Myron Cohen, Danny ^ (Danny’s Hideaway, N.Y.) Stradella. Upcom¬ ing; a Joe E, toasting and gift-pre¬ sentation from the Roc; another and “bigger” deal for Durante. Where it will end depends on how strongly the admission-by-telegrain list is controlled. Saxony hotel, too, got in on the party-pic along with special showing of new “East Meets West” revue for press and showbiz only. Obvious reason behind it all is piteh to keep the better draw at¬ tractions on the book-back list via the “goodwill” built by the social side of the bookings. Discussing her European dates, she said . she sails for London March 20. but won’t be able to keep the May 8 Israeli Indepen•dence Day date she’d hoped to have I because of the Suez crisis. Then, pouring more tea and pass¬ ing cookies, she remarked: “I was sitting at my table, sell¬ ing my records last night, and there were about 60 teenagers in. They looked like they’d just come from a prom.” She chuckled deeply and gave her robe a tug. “Almost everyone came up to me and said, ‘Where have you been all my life?’ They told me their fa¬ thers had talked about me. “It was as if I’d been handed down like a Rembrandt.” Ginger Joyce Back in Hosp Ginger Joyce (Bobby Joyce &) entered the Flower-Fifth Ave. Hos¬ pital, N. Y., yesterday (TuesJ for further surgery as a result of in¬ juries sustained in ao accident dur¬ ing an engagement in a Canadian nitery. Medicos preclude the possibility of her resuming her dancing career with her husband, but say the op¬ eration is necessary at this time.