Variety (March 1959)

WRITER QUITS SLAVE QUARTER --—---f Disk Biz Most Drop Defensive Stand For Hard Sell of Phs Values: Marek -i----- ‘Poet’ an Unpleasant Overture; Stanley: ‘Mr. Portman, I Presume’ -:-■-f By GEORGE R. MAREK (V. P. and G. M. t RCA • Victor Records) The record Industry Is constant¬ ly under attack—from legislators, from songwriters subsisting on a diet of sour grapes, from self-ap¬ pointed arbiters of public taste. To hear some people talk, you’d think that rock ‘n’ roll was largely responsible for the problem of juvenile delinquency or that the industry deliberately sets out to lower musical tastes. When such statements are made, the record industry sulks or goes on the de¬ fensive; it rarely attempts serious, factual, “adult” rebuttal. Isn’t it about time we behaved with assurance? Isn’t it about time that we start¬ ed to talk about the good things that the industry does, the con¬ tributions to pleasanter living, the gain to civilization which it makes? .The industry needs a public re¬ lations campaign to point out a few truths: 1. The growth of the consump¬ tion of goo(Nmusic on records in the last five years. Such music has now become an integral part of our daily life. The record in¬ dustry has helped to change the attitude of many thousands of (Continued on page 62) Hawaiian Talent Stress; Charles K. 1. Davis As Mixed Media Phenom With Hawaii prospectively the 50th state in the American union, new emphasis upon Hawaiian origin and talent is foreseen. Show¬ men will recall the several' “fads” associated yesteryear with .jf the ukulele and the hula-hula. Somewhat unique in this con¬ nection is the case of the singer Charles K. L. Davis. The initials are a required part of his profes¬ sional billing to satisfy the Actors Equity Assn, “protection” rule for another member of like name. The K. L. are for real, Keonasonalau- lani Llewelyn, which partly spells out Davis’ mixed Hawaiian and' Welsh ancestry. Managed by Columbia Artists, the singer is somewhat special in that he has become established and a money-earner in cafe dates at Chi’s Palmer House, Flamingo in Las Vegas, Hollywood's Mocambo, et al, and on Jack Paar and Chevro¬ let teleTevues. Columbia would like to steer Da¬ vis toward grand opera, in which connection he recently sang 15 per¬ formances of Rudolfo for the Bos¬ ton Opera’s “La Boheme.” He’s also set for Lewisohn Stadium July 22. The question is whether he can afford opera as a matter of economics. BBC BANS BIZET-WHEN IT’S COLE’S ‘MADRID’ Hollywood, March 24. The British Broadcasting Corp. has banned the spinning of “Madrid,” Nat King Cole’s latest Capitol platter, because it’s in “poor taste.” The BBC is object¬ ing to the tune because it’s a takeoff on “Habanera” from Bizet’s “Carmen.” They feel a classic shouldn’t be tampered with. Flip side, “Give Me Your Love,” was okayed for spinning. Dot Recalls Disk ByKerouac-AUen; Beatnik Too Hot? Randy Wood, Dot Records prexy, and his veepee-artists & repertoire chief Bob Thiele are at odds over the “beat generation.” Thiele re¬ corded an album of Jack Kerquaq reciting poetry to Steve Allen’s piano accompaniment and/wood halted shipment claimirfg that certain passages “are. ii^bad taste.’ | Wood stopped shipment and pressing of the LP, called “Poetry of the Beat Generation,” after ap¬ proximately 1,000 albums with com¬ pleted jackets were in the process of distribution. However, only 130 albums Were sent out before Wood put the nix on the set. The Dot boss said that he would not allow his children to hear the album, claiming that certain lines were '“off-color” and that his disk- ► (Continued on page 56) BILL O’DWYER SETTING PALANCE FOR MEX FILMS Mexico City, March 24. Jack' Palance is definitely get¬ ting set for production activity in Mexico. Ex-Ambassador Bill O’Dwyer is arranging the actor's residence papers so *he can work and remain in Mexico part of each year. Actor is expected here at the end of this month to huddle with Mexican, officials about the film¬ ing of a series of 36 shorts. Theme of this series is based on the film, “Veracruz,” made in Mexico some timeky ago with Gary Cooper and Sarita Montiel starring. Palance expects to be associated with Hecht-Hill-Lancaster in pro¬ ducing the tele series which will use Mexican talent and technic¬ ians. Palance will star and Burt [Lancaster may co-star. TRUE COURAGE IS FILM STUDIO’S By HV HOLLINGER The new era of “adult” films has given the Hollywood writer new status, released him from his traditional well-paid hack status. His stature and responsibility are, resultantly, being tested as never before. The writer must prove him¬ self entitled to the new responsi¬ bility. So states writer-director Ranald MacDougall, who started his career as an NBC page boy turned liter¬ ary apprentice. He adds that to¬ day’s question is not one of “cour¬ age.” Writers usually face their typewriters bravely. The true cour¬ age is exhibited by producers and studios who finance the new, im¬ portant “idea” films upon which the present adult era is based. - Nor is the Hollywood screen writer suddenly as important as the Broadway dramatist. Mac¬ Dougall himself would prefer to concentrate on writing alone. He’s a director to protect his writing from non-writing directors. Recalling that his first important professional credits came at CBS (“The Man Behind The Gun”), MacDougall asserts that his whole writing style is based on the real¬ ism he learned via radio docu¬ mentaries. “I have to submerge my own per¬ sonality to present the truth of the matter without injecting myself.” Too many directors, he claimed, (Continued on page 78) N.Y. Juke Biz In Grand Jury Box The jukebox industry in New York is due for surveillance by the courts. A special grand jury (six women, 17 men) was appointed yesterday (Tues.) by U.S. Assist¬ ant Attorney General Augustus Marchetti who said, “We are in¬ vestigating jukebox and coin ma¬ chines on all levels from the time machine is manufactured to the time it makes income by putting it into a location.” According to the assistant attor¬ ney general, there’s also a possibil¬ ity that there wjll be an explora¬ tion of union connections with the coin .machine industry to de¬ termine Whether they have entered into any illegal agreements. Mar¬ chetti told the jury that the in¬ vestigation may be lengthy and that it may require a sitting of about three months. Usual run¬ ning time for an investigation is about one month. N.Y. Federal Court Judge John W. Clancy, who swore in the jury, stressed that the proceedings will be conducted in secrecy. PAT BOONE NOW A STATION OWNER Singer-tv performer Pat Boone has become a radio station owner. Teamed with Townsend Invest¬ ment, the ABC-TV Chevrolet- sponsored performer paid Wash¬ ington business man John W. Kluge over $1,000,000 for WKDA, Nashville, and KNOK, Ft. Worth- Dallas. Kluge, who just became prexy of Metropolitan Broadcasting, still owns a tv station in Orlando, Fla., and radio stations in Buffalo and Pittsburgh. Kluge said that he had no intention of incorporating these private holdings with Met. Historic Bill To Tax Jukes in Aid Of Songwriters Washington, March 24. . The long-stymied bid of compos¬ ers and publishers for a slice of the jukebox coin got a powerful lift yesterday (Mon.) from House Judiciary Chairman Emanuel Cel- ler (D-N.Y.), The influential lawmaker intro¬ duced legislation paralleling the bill by Sen. Joseph C. O’Mahoney (D-Wyo.) to remove the 50-year- old exemption from copyright roy¬ alties enjoyed by jukebox opera¬ tors. - The action by Celler, whose com¬ mittee will pass on the bill, marks a breakthrough of sorts. It’s the first time in recent years such leg¬ islation has even been introduced in the House, Paul Cunningham, president of (Continued on page 61) BULL MARKET LIKE 1929—BUT DIFFERENT By ABEL GREEN Showmen and newspapermen making the nocturnal rounds, which is occupational par for the course (“you learn more in night school than in day school”) are struck anew with the current Wall Street fever. It’s a harkback to the pre~“Wall Street Lays An Egg ” days. There is little concern of a similar debacle, if only because of the 90% purchasing base, but the pattern is the same. The saloonatics who would nor¬ mally mastermind anything from (Continued on page 78) Kim Stanley’s half-explained exit from “A Touch of The Poet,” and the attendant, repetitious and undetailed news reports on the in¬ cident, highlight the fact that the whole situation has been a well- kept secret. That the conditions have been not bad but appalling has been whispered from the be¬ ginning of the out-of-town tryout and during most of the current engagement at the Helen Hayes Theatre, N.Y. The original backstage “villain” was the British player, Eric Port- man, about whose reputed likes and dislikes a novel could be writ¬ ten (and one rumor is that one is being). Stager Harold Clurman, the wrong sort to be admired by Portman, was reportedly reduced to the humiliating position of hav¬ ing to “direct” Portman by notes delivered through producer ‘ Ro¬ bert Whitehead, the stage man¬ ager and others with the Producers Theatre presentation. Fear that the situation would erupt even before reaching Broad¬ way, and that some of the pre¬ judice-creating prejudices in¬ volved would, if published, hurt the show’s survival on Broadway, put a* silencer on the company. Agents for the several principals were caught in the embarrassment. For example Lucy Kroll, who handles both top-starred Helen (Continued on page 75) Bill Kenny Cancels Out On ‘Sermons’ in Cafes; New Act Racial Tolerance Vancouver, March 24. Bill Kenny, back on the nitery circuit after a year in which “the roof fell in”—a mess of tribulations comprising loss of voice for sev¬ eral months and two of family bereavements—states he’s cut out previous onstage sermonizing and philosophies-amid-s o n g “because I they (spenders) don’t want it in a night club.” But he has a new' act for a different aud consisting of “impassioned pleading for racial tolerance.” Singer, with bistro act .enhanced via instrumental and vocal gim¬ micks, is donating daytime hours to addressing PTA, Kinsmen and similar service orgs about ethnic bias and abuses. “I’m voluble and get ’em mad, but they call me back,” he asserts, adding that such harangues are his “special biz.” While he denies any personal problem with racial bias, Kenny, whose wife is white and Canadian, now bases in Calgary, a town that’s “color blind,” he said. He declined comment on current ac¬ tion of Vancouver Civic Unity Assn, in lobbying for statutes to stop color restrictions in publis , places. “We never had any trouble I in Vancouver,” he said.