Variety (February 1959)

Weekly At ISA West 46th Street. New York 36. N. Y* by Variety. Inc. Annual subscription. $15. Single copies. 35 cents. Second Class Postagft'Pald at New York. N. Y. COPYRIGHT, 1959, BY VARIETY, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED VOL. 213 No. 11 NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1959 80 PAGES GLADHANDING THE SAD SONGS - ——:— - -—— = —— * ■ ■ •* — — - itji TiflilTi “Redhead,” Broadway* newest musical smash, is due to recover j iti investment by the first week iA, Jqi& yhafi on tiie basis of an anticipated operating profit of $12,000 a Week and an opening- night.cost of$216,000. The latter figure }$ unusually modest for a IgusicstL show, by contemporary standards. . The Robert Fryer Sc Lawrence Carr presentation was financed at $300,000' and according to general manager Ben Stein's tentative figuring, involved a production cost of $225,000. That was reduced $19,000 by operating profit on its five-week tryout tour, but involved about $10,000 preliminary and opening-week expenses at the 40th Street Theatre, N.Y., Where it premiered last Thursday night (5). : Although “Redhead” can ulti¬ mately gross about $63,000 a week with standees, theatre party com¬ missions ~ will limit the receipts to artfund $61,000 for the first several months. The show breaks even at about $30,000, with;the production retaining about 55% of the differ¬ ence between the break-even and the gross. The royalty setup calls for a theatre rental of 30% of the gross to $20,000 and 25% thereafter, plus 8V£% to the authors (Herbert and Dorothy Fields, Sidney Sheldon Jihd_, David Shaw, book; Albert Hague, music; Dorothy Fields, lyrics),. 7 Mj% to the star (Gwen Verdon), # 3% to the director- choreographer (Bob Fosse) and 1% to the producers. (Go-libret¬ tist Herbert Fields, Dorothy’s brother, died a year ago.) When the show pays off, Fosse’s royalty goes to 3V4%, while Miss (Continued on page 74) Goldeason Reiterates Opposition to Pay-TV ErenonTrial-Rist Basis & Stooges Shorts Back On Screen in TV Wake kesurgence of the Three Stooges, via the closure of their old two- reelers on television. Is resulting id in almost 200% increase In bookings of their new shorts fn theatres, according to Maurice Grad, Columbia’s short subject sales manager. Grad noted that in past few weeks, as Stooges became more prominent through Screen Gems release, of their old comedies, most Columbia branches have been able to book* solidly available Stooge shorts. Key city first-runs houses are also asking for the Stooge two- reelers, Grad said. Tin Pan Alleys Private Eye: IBM International Business Machines techniques will be called in to set¬ tle plagiarism suits under a scheme to punch out the first four bars of a million tunes on IBM index cards for ready reference. George Goodwin, head of the Tune-Dex and Song Dex operation and owner of the largest private music research library, estimates that it will take IBM about Six months to index the base material -needed to research.any “you stole my song” suit. Goodwln.recently bought out the nine-ton music collection of the late Alex M, Kramer, who carved out an important niche in Tin Pan Alley as the leading researcher in plagiarism actions. Kramer’s li¬ brary has been added to the exten¬ sive holding of Goodwin who has done massive anthologies of public (Continued on page 62) . On the heels of boara chairman Robert Samoffs statement that JJBC would go the pay-video route if the Government okayed it and it was a success, Leonard H. Gol- denson, the topper of American Broadcasting-Paramount theatres; said last. week that he was dead set against it on any basis, even a limited trial run. This was a re- iteratioh of his previous state¬ ments, this latest one evidently prompted by the Sarnofi stand; Goldenson, whose company em¬ braces ABC-TV, declared that sub¬ scription tv would “eventually lead to tiie destruction of free televi¬ sion. Permitting a test of pay television is equivalent to starting an epidemic to test a new vaccine. Even ‘limited’ tests,, because Of the investment required, would create economic interest which once established would be virtually; impossible to, dislodge.” ■■ Bede Best Singer of Yore And Blind, Co-Developer Of Braille Music-Method Bostont-Feb. 10. Bede Best, who sang with the Joe Rines orch at the St. Regis Hotel in New York 25 years ago, and Whose falling sight halted a career in radio, has developed, with .Larry Berk, director of the Berklee School of Music here, a method of simplifying the teaching of jazz and pop music to the blind. Their system will become part of the curriculum at Berklee next September, and Miss Best, now Mrs,. Elizabeth Welker, will teach the new system, which boils down an entire song to one .sheet. The new symbols, they report, (Continued on page 18) i Hollywood Wrestles With Tormula By MIKE GROSS There’s beema shift in the mood of the record-buying audience] that’s turning unhappiness into a- thing called dough/ Tunes dealing; with hanging (“Tbm Dooley”),, gtmr j play . (“Don’t Take Your Guns Tn Town”), burying (“Springtime In Alaska”), prison (“Life To Go”) and solemn vow* (“I Walk the Line”) are moving out of their folk and country % western origination and into pop areas long dominated by rock ’n’ roll. The “unhappy” or “cry in the beer” songs, as they are sometimes called, are piling up nefty disk sales around the U. S. and also are importantly berthed In "Such diver¬ sified areas as Canada and Aus¬ tralia. The “unhappy” songs haven’t made their mark in Europe yet but it T s expected that there will soon be a crying jag on a global scale if the songs continue the cur¬ rent pace of their pop projection. One of the top exponents of the new disk mood is Johnny Cash who was recently wooed away from the Sun label by Columbia Records. Incidentally, it was the same Sun company that incubated Elvis Presley before his worldwide. splash via RCA Victor. Columbia is banking on a splash for Cash, a 26-year-old composer- singer-guitarist. He’s already come through with a elicko single, ‘Don’t 1 Take Your Guns To Town,” and] (Continued on page 62) Zeckendorf Would i St. Regis & Roxy | On the heels of Mayor Robert ; Wagner’s formal announcement (from a .Gracie Mansion setting) of the new $66,000,000 48-story Zeck¬ endorf Hotel in Rockefeller Cen¬ ter, N. Y., the head of Webb & Knapp, William Zeckendorf, , is known to be interested also in acquiring the posh St. Regis from the Vincent Astor estate and also the Roxy Theatre. The latter would be either for Investment or, the more likely alternate, to be razed for an addition to the adjacent Taft Hotel, which was recently joined to the string of Zeckendorf Hotels. This now gives .him more rooms in New York than both the Hilton and Sheraton chains com¬ bined. Zeckendorf Jr., long groomed as head qf the hotel chain to bear the family name, already has the Astor, Manhattan, Commodore, Drake, Berkshire and Taft under i (Continued on page 24) EMTs Louis Sterling Left $1,400,000 Estate London, Feb. 10. Sfr Losofe Sterling, who came to ; Leadwi from the lower east side of 'Stew York as a yesing man and who became the head of Electrical Sc Music Industries, and who gave away more than $3,000,000 in his lifetime, left about $1,400,000 when be died last June. Inhis will, he remembered al- jhosfc everyone from whom he had received personal services. The managers of the Savoy restaurant and the Savoy Grill, waiters at the hotel and at the Caprice restau¬ rant as well as his barbers at the Dorchester received $280 each. His secretary received $7,000; his bank manager,- $1,400 and he gave a similar sum to his masseur. To his wife he left $28,000 free of duty, plus all his personal chattels. He was 7$ when he died. Phi to Restore Ford’s Theatre Washington, Feb. 10. Tbette’s a Ford in Uncle Sam’s future. The National Parks Service yesterday- (Mon.) unveiled plans to restore Ford’s Theatre by April 14, 1965, the centenary of Lincoln’s assassination there. The agency has authority, but not the neces¬ sary $1,750,000 for reconstruction. Sen. Milton Young (R-ND.) is fronting Congressional effort to get part of money this year, and figures that the anniversary angle may lead Congress to vote for it. After restoration, Ford’s Theatre could actually house plays on special occasions. A long-run especially- written Lincoln play is being dis¬ cussed for anni-opening year. ] The theatre proved a disastrous! (Continued on page 77) j Big Factor in Havana Casinos’ Reopening Are 10,000 Now Unemployed Havana, Feb. 10. The reopening of Havana’s lux¬ ury casinos appears to be a likely possibility, although they’re closed more than a month after the over-; throw of Dictator Fulgencio Batis¬ ta. Nevertheless, when and under what conditions the casinos will reopen is currently under study. Nine casinos are presently shut tight A three-man commission, con? sisting of the prime minister and the ministers of labor and social] welfare, are at present studying the (Continued ot* page 54) 1 By FRED HIFT After a long period in which it viewed the American Negro almost completely in terms of his conflict with the white society around him, Hollywood is gradually changing its approach. Tendency in a num¬ ber of upcoming films is to present the colored man either within his own surroundings, with the color of his skin no particular dramatic importance, or to “integrate” him into the broader American scene as just one of many characters. This is not to say that the black- white “tension” pictures are being shut off, although even here the approach—as in United Artists’ “The Defiant Ones”—tends to be different, with the Negro treated and presented less and less as a stereotype and more as a human being caught in the web. of preju¬ dice or some other social situation under which he i$ made to suffer as an individual. Regardless of which way its added up, there’s no question that the public today appears more primed to respond to the image of the dramatic figure of the Ne¬ gro on the screen, and that the number of pictures with bi-racial themes offer a considerably widened scope of opportunity to Negro actors in films. Two current films in which Ne¬ groes play prominent parts are “The Defiant Ones“ and “Anna Lucasta.” In the former, with its (Continued on page 22) Cloak & Dagger ‘Jazzster’ Pagers 3O0G Drug Ring la Bestoa ‘GoofbalT Case Boston, Feb. 10. How an investigator of the Massachusetts food and drug divi¬ sion, a former Hub policeman, posed as a jazz musician to expose members of a $300,000 illicit drug ring was revealed here 10 days ago with the arrest of a family of four, including two teenagers and a Beacon Hill couple. It was the second major drug case to break here within 24 hours. The first was the theft of $250,000 in drugs from the Massachusetts General Hospital. The ring, one of the biggest in the state’s history, was nabbed by the undercover of¬ ficer who frequented Hub jazz spots. The investigation was spear¬ headed by the pure food and drug division of the state department of public health. It was launched by George 'A. Michael, director of the division, with the cooperation of state and local police. Michael said the probe resulted from hospital reports of increased admissions of persons suffering from overdoses of harmful drugs. Investigator Richard Kafil, posing 1 (Continued oo page 54)