Radio stars (June 1933)

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THE LARGEST CIRCULATION OF ANY RADIO MAGAZINE WHY AL JOLSON QUIT! How one man defied the radio world

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Can You Put Her Together? iirvta iinrho has simply aonv to pivees! 31CSAVI PUZXLE — And it9s up to you to set her riaht • JJJERE'S real fun— Movie Mix- Up, a fascinating new kind of jig-saw puzzle! If you're a movie fan, you'll love it. If you're a jig-saw fan, you'll get a big kick out of it. If you're both , (and who Dell Publishing Co., Inc. 100 Fifth Ave., New York City, N. Y. Please send me the Movie Mix-Up which I have checked below. I am en- closing 10'' in stamps or coin for each one desired (15<- apiece for Canadians- coin only). □ NORMA SHEARER □ GARY COOPER □ GRETA GARBO □ CLARK GABLE Print NAME here. Street Address City State. isn't?), you'll get a double break! Try it tonight! And see how long it takes you to put your star to- gether. Get a Movie Mix Up today — at the nearest S. H. Kress Store or Newsstand. They're only 10<\ If you can't get the Movie Mix-Up you want at your Kress store or newsstand, fill out the coupon and send it with 10Y in stamps or coin ( ISt in Canada, coin only) for each Movie Mix-Up desired. MOVIE M/X-UP/ Radio Stars published monthly am! copyrinhted. 193.', by Dell Publishing Executive and editorial offices, 10(1 Fifth Avenue, New /\ ork N. Y. Gee No 3, June. 1933, printed in U. S. A. Single copy price 10 cents. trub< year. ForeiRn subscriptions $2.20 a year. Entered as second class matter Ai 1 The publisher accepts no responsil on and South Avenues, Dunellen. N. J. ice-Pres.; M. Delacorte, Secfy. Vol. 2, i year. Canadian subscriptions $1.50 a N. J., under the act of March 3, 1879.

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Latest news and tit- bits about the radio players and other personalities HAVE YOU HEARD? FANNIE BRICE, the totem-pole tomboy on the Royal Gelatine hour, has one bad fault. She will forget names. T'other day, she started to introduce her husband, Billy Rose, around the studio. But for the life of her, she couldn't remember his last name. So Billy had to introduce himself. WHAT sort of programs do your kiddies like? Many a mother is thinking seriously about just that ques- tion these days. Many a kiddy is having nightmares be- cause of some of the "horror" yarns on the air. Two programs that most mothers seem to like are "The Singing Lady" and "Buck Rogers." It's the bucket-of -blood and clutching hand stuff that drives them nertz. ELIZABETH FREEMAN is the girl who owns the canaries that supply the chirps for "Cheerio's" morn- ing set-me-ups via the NBC network. The other day, she came to the studio, hung the covered cages near the mike in their customary case and then took off the coverings. And guess what? The canaries weren't in the cages. Shrieks! Mystery! Panic! She rushed to the street and hailed a cab that took her home. A hopping canary met her at the door. It was Dicky. A yellow streak that whizzed into the bathroom was Pet. She got the two of them and taxied back to the studio. IF you had walked into New York's broadcasting studios * on a certain Sunday night in March, you would have noticed an unaccustomed air of soberness and sorrow. If you had asked the reason, you would have been told just this: "Eddie Lang is dead." Eddie Lang's name never winged across the skies to your loudspeaker. It never burned in electric lights above theatre marquees. But you heard his music many a time. For Eddie was a guitar player, the best in the business, and his sorcery with chords made him the choice of such artists as Bing Crosby, Ruth Etting, the Boswell Sisters, and Singin' Sam. That Sunday in March, Eddie went to a hospital to have his tonsils removed. A simple operation, surely. But something went wrong. A few hours later, he was dead. The doctor said a blood clot had got into his blood stream and reached his heart. Bing Crosby was Eddie's closest friend. Bing could hardly get through his next broadcasts without breaking down. Eddie was a popular person, a grand guy. 3

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RADIO STARS Youll find the fascinating story —by Edwin C Hill— of the tre- mendous part radio is going to play in official life from now on. Above is Robert Trout, official CBS announcer for the President ON THE NEXT PAGE- 5

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RADIO STARS RADIO'S NEW DESTINY President Franklin D. Roosevelt is the first President to utilize the radio for keeping in close touch with the people. Will it lead to a new order of things? AT 10 p. m. on the night of Sunday, March 12, radio , definitely became a powerful instrument of the Government of the United States. It took its place among the most effective assets of the Presidency. The date will become historic in the whole chronicle of broad- casting. On that tense Sunday night, Franklin D. Roosevelt resorted to radio as the most direct, complete and "hu- man" method of lining up behind him the American people to support him in the tremendous tasks to which he has set his hand. In simple, friendly fashion our new President "went on the air" to explain to those who might not have under- stood the subject why banks must put to work the money of their depositors. He made it clear that the solidest and soundest banks cannot possibly have on hand, at any one time, the cash necessary to meet the sudden demands of all who entrust their cash to the banks. n w C H \A/ I He asked for faith and loy- D 7 C U VV I alty and courage. A remark- able talk, perhaps the most C H I L momentous that was ever broadcast. Possibly 50,000,000 American citizens heard that sane, friendly human talk from their President. The response was immediate and magnificent. When the banks opened eleven hours later there was a rush on the part of the people to return the money they had withdrawn in fear and panic. Within eleven hours after the President had finished his radio speech there was a miraculous transformation of the public mood. Confidence and cheerfulness had replaced the doubt and gloom of many months. It was not that single talk by the President on the night of Sunday, March 12, that worked this national miracle. Bold, striking and almost revolutionary deci- sions and orders by the President and his financial lieu- tenant, the Secretary of the Treasury, William H. Woodin, had preceded that talk. But the talk was "the clincher." The orders and the proclamations had been written on paper and published in the press and even put on the air by radio speakers and persons connected with the government. But on that historic Sunday night the people heard the voice of their President, just as if he were sitting among them as one of the home circle, tell them what was nec- essary and right and just, and assure them that all would be well with the old U. S. A. if they played the game. NEVER before had radio been used by the chief of the Republic in such intimate, human, direct and powerful appeal straight to the heart and understanding of his fellow citizens. Never before had a President's voice on the air carried a message of such thrilling im- port. Never had it penetrated so intimately into the homes of the people. It was as if a wise and kindly father had sat down to talk sympathetically and patiently and affectionately with his worried and anxious children, and had given them straightforward things they had to do to help him along as the father of the family. That speech of the President's over the air humanized radio in a great governmental, na- M tional sense as it had never before been human- M ized. The response that flowed back to the White L House was magnificent and uplifting. Probably the President's secretaries have not yet had time to read, much less answer, all of the thousands and thousands of appreciative and thankful telegrams that were the vibrant echoes of the President's talk. The President was so moved and gratified, so im- pressed by the magical power of radio as an indispensable facility of his great office that the announcement has come that he intends to use radio in reaching the people "as often as circumstances warrant." It is known that Mr. Roosevelt believes in going di- rectly to the people in explanation of his programs and plans, and that radio is the simplest, most effective me- dium for reaching the people. Now what is likely to occur is this: the time will come, perhaps within a few months, perhaps not until more time has passed, when certain groups or sections, or cer- tain selfish interests, will pluck up courage enough to oppose the President regarding certain legislation or poli- cies which he believes are in the interest of the whole people and not for the benefit of any group or section or selfish interest. Human nature being what it is, and politics being what they are, it is at least unlikely that any President, however decisive and determined he may be, can have smooth sailing (Continued on page 43) 7

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Was it money trou- ble? Did he flop on the air? Was it interference from sponsors? Or be- cause he was sick and tired? Here is the truth about Al Jolson's departure from radio

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RADIO STARS The true story of why JOLSON QUIT (Right) As he looked when he appeared on the stage some years ago in "Big Boy." (Opposite page) At the microphone and in comfortable shorts he wears on the beach at Miami. Good tan, that! By CURTIS MITCHELL THE startling news spread like a prairie fire that Al Jolson was going off the air. Rumors flashed the length and breadth of Radio Row. He's walking out on his contract . . . he's flopped ... he wants more money . . . he's fed up with interference ... he hates broadcast- ing . . . he's been taken to a hospital suffering from a nervous collapse. Al Jolson had come to the air waves with the biggest ballyhoo ever given a personality. Chevrolet's Big Six program introduced him to America as a super-super- super sort of entertainer. Ranked everywhere as the greatest single attraction in the world, he was Broadway's miracle man. For his services, motion picture cathedrals had paid him as much as $20,000 a week. For one half- hour performance Chevrolet was paying $5,000. And now he was quitting. Broadway's Big Boy was tossing away his throne. Why? Why? WHY? Excited questions popped like bombs in every broadcaster's office. Before the day was done, a dozen different answers were printed in a dozen different newspapers. Was it money-trouble? Listen to this : Al Jolson has enough money salted away to keep him and his wife, Ruby Keeler (you've seen her recently as the tap dancer in the movie, "Forty- second Street"), for the rest of their lives. Was he flopping ? If he was. it's the strangest flop in history. Not many entertainers quitting a job that brings them $5,000 a week are immediately offered another engagement at twice as much. That happened to Al ; another advertiser wanted him badly enough to offer $10,000 a week. And Jolson refused. Did he walk out on his contact? Was he fed up with interference? Was he sick? Sure, he was sick. Influenza. But who wasn't, last winter? That wasn't the reason.' But he did quit. He did walk out on a $5,000-a-week job. Why? James Can- non, the New York World-Telegram's invariably accurate radio editor, interviewed Al just before his last broadcast and published the story in his column. "I couldn't stand it," Cannon quoted Al. "They wouldn't let me alone. I will never come back to radio unless I have a contract which absolutely forbids inter- ference by sponsors. "I was all set to fly to the Coast this week. I wasn't going to say a word, but just to run out. I have done it before, and I was all fed up. But my friend, Lou Holtz, pleaded with me. He said it would look bad. We argued all night. Finally, I agreed to make this farewell broadcast. "All they wanted was the name of Jolson and nothing else. I wanted to do great things on the radio. I wanted to dramatize 'The Jazz Singer.' There's nothing more beautiful than that. But they wanted me just to sing songs. "I wanted to dramatize incidents in my life . . . my courtship and other things. It would make grand radio material. But they wouldn't let me. I offered them jokes. They edited them and said they weren't funny. I paid J. P. Medbury and Julius Tannen each a thousand dollars in advance. But they didn't like them. They had me so every time I did come to a punch line, it went blah. I'm only a human being. What more could I do? "I'm in love with my wife. Ruby Keeler. I've got more money than I'll ever spend. Why should I let some more money come between us? I'm going out to the Coast and then 111 take a trip around the world with Ruby." And that, believe you me, is one of the answers. But there is more to it — much, much more! You see, I was acquainted with Al Jolson in the old days before he found fame and fortune as a Yitaphone star. I knew him as a brilliant {Continued on page 4S) 9

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RADIO STARS SHE CRIES FOR A LIVING Sallie Belle Cox, who has cried more often over the air than anyone else, is twenty-two years old and weighs one hundred and five pounds. Sallie Belle Cox became a radio artist through an unusual ability on her part— an ability to imitate the crying of a little baby. Can you guess how she learnt it? By WILSON BROWN HAVE you heard the eight-months'-old Maxwell Show Boat bahy? Well, I've just seen the little darling. She's blond and cuddly and very attractive. But she is twenty-two years old. And weighs 105 pounds. Miss Sallie Belle Cox is her name. A score-and-two years ago, on a bright, blue day, she did her first crying on any program in Parkersburg, West Virginia. Since then she has cried here and there over this and that, but it wasn't until two years ago that people would pay her for it. Now she's crying for the "Show Boat" ; for Peter and Aileen Dixon in the "Raising Junior" skit ; was little 1933 crying on the "Cuckoo" program ; and has played other parts on such programs as the A. & P. "Maude and Cousin Bill" yarn, with the Romantic Bachelor, in "Wheat- enaville" and for the "Goldbergs." Now that crying is her profession, she wishes that script writers would decide to have more blessed events sprinkled through their pages, because blessed events mean more money for Sallie Belle. Yes, her part is unusual. I heard her in the studio. Not satisfied, I went to her apartment in the modernistic Barbizon-Plaza Hotel in New .York. "How about crying for me?" I asked a bit sheepishly. 10 After all, it isn't always proper for a fellow to ask a girl to cry. She picked up a little pillow and put it to her mouth. The pillow was to muffle the volume. She cried. She cried as though her heart would break. When I looked away it seemed as if a real baby were there. She gasped. She gurgled. She goo-ed. Yowza, she's got the trick down pat. Sallie Belle is a real baby, through and through — that is, professionally. She can goo, gurgle, laugh and talk just as babies would do. And it all sounds so realistic that hundreds of persons have written to NBC to inquire of the "baby." While Sallie Belle was playing a part in "Raising Junior," one woman wrote in to say : "How I do envy Mr. Dixon because he can have that darling baby always with him. I just know he must be the most ador- able little thing." Some of those who know that the cooing and the cry- ing are from the talented tonsil region of Miss Cox and not from a real baby write as did this young deb: "I'm sure you'll be responsible for an increase in the birth rate. Anyone who hears you is sure to want an adorable and cute bouncing baby." How did this business of crying start? It's an odd story. Here is Miss Cox's own version : She has always been asso- (Continued on page 45)

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RADIO STARS HE BARKS FOR A LIVING Bradley Barker set out to be a big business executive. But fate had other plans for Bradley — of which he could know nothing. Bradley Barker is his name- actually! Of course, he does more than just bark like a dog on the air. But that barking got him a start and he still does it By JOSEPH KENT WHEN they told me that it was Bradley Barker who barked over the air, I wondered if they were trying to put something over on me. But they weren't. Bradley Barker is a barker — of the woof-woof variety — which automatically nominates him for a niche in Mr. Believe-It-or-Not Ripley's hall of fame. To me, he illustrates a lot of things. For one, he proves that you never can tell about this thing called life — that a career all carefully planned and executed may vanish in a cloud of dust while life turns into a thunderbolt that knocks you into all sorts of odd alleys. Exactly that happened to Bradley Barker. And it makes one of the oddest stories ever told along Radio Row. It makes you sort of shudder, too, and wonder just how secure are all the things in which we put our trust. This business of barking is a curious way to earn a liv- ing, isn't it? It is one of the alleys down which Barker was knocked. In the beginning, he had other ideas en- tirely. And he still has — but life keeps him woof-woofing away. You have heard him often, though you never suspected it, I'll bet. Remember the dog in "Moonshine and Honey- suckle"? That was Bradley Barker. It isn't his only talent. He also grunts and chatters. In' the "Doctor Doo- little" broadcasts he was a pig, a parrot, and a monkey. In the Betty Boop comedies, both those on the screen and on the air, he" is the "odd" voice. Not often does one meet a man with such a menagerie in his throat. But the funny thing is this : it all began as an accident. As a kid, Bradley Barker never thought of noise-making as a way of keeping the wolf from the door. He'd have screamed with laughter if anyone had suggested it. In his brain were images of captains of industry and giants of commerce. He would be like them, when he grew up. His start indicated his purpose. He became an adver- tising man. Somehow, he strayed into the ranks of the acting profession. Since then he has never been able to escape the lure of greasepaint. This man's love for acting is a pulsing, genuine thing. You have to hear him talk about it to understand. Today, he is a radio actor on many a program — just one of an army of radio actors. And here is the little drama into which life has flung him: Though it is acting that he loves and which he calls his life work, it is this other thing — this woof-woofing and growling that makes him famous. And he detests it. You see, he was once very much of a movie actor, playing in support of such motion picture stars as Lionel Barrymore, Constance Binney, (Continued on page 45) 11

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RADIO STARS NTIMATE SHOTS (Left) Florida is no place to believe in signs — even if Eddie Cantor and Walter Winchell are standing at the corner of the world famed streets. The little girl is Walda Winchell. (Below) More celebrities vacationing. Jack Benny, Al Jolson, Husing, Vallee, Irene Bordoni and Lou Holtz. (Above) The old gentleman is Jack Pearl's father. The girl is his wife. And that's Jack himself. (Right) You'll never guess who this is. It's a gen- tleman who has been lost for a long time and has caused everybody much consternation. Meet Gracie Allen's brother — actually. From the sunny coast of Florida come pictures of your radio favorites at play 12

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RADIO STARS OF YOUR FAVORITES (Below) Way back when the President was still only a Governor. Shaking hands with Arthur Tracy in the good old Albany days — last fall, to be exact. (Right) Lanny Ross, Charles Winninger, Annette Hanshaw and (standing) Pick and Pat — all of Captain Henry's Showboat. (Left) This boy has a charming voice — yes, he's something of a crooner. He's also the brother of a famous band leader. Tom Waring. (Above) Eddie and Ralph (seated), who are also known as the "Sisters of the Skillet" are made Kentuck' colonels by Governor Ruby Laffoon. The "Showboat" crowd at bridge—Sisters of the Skillet become Colonels 13

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RADIO STARS Rudy Vallee, Ed Wynn, Fred Waring, Tommy McLaughlin and Morton Downey— in photo flashes from here and there Wide World (Above) Skiis don't even make Rudy feel self- conscious. And they wouldn't you, either, if you'd been born and brought up amidst the snows of Maine. It can get awfully cold up there. (Below) Two irishmen — Tommy Mc- Laughlin and Morton Downey — can't resist getting next to the Irish national emblem. Wide World (Above) How would you like Ed Wynn to put out the fire in your house? You would, would you! Well, you evidently don't have much re- spect for your property. Ed's getting so he simply can't resist a firetruck. (Below) On the previous page you saw Tommy Waring. Well, here's brother Fred, leading his orchestra.

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RADIO STARS TO BE A RADIO STAR? THIS is not a recipe for success. This is not a plan for turning ten-cents-a-dozen parlor enter- tainers into mike-wise radio stars. But it is good advice from a man who has listened to over 15,000 would-be celebrities. His name is Paul Whiteman. There is no denying that Paul Whiteman knows talent when he hears it. Look at the roster of his "finds." Mor- ton Downey was one of the first. Ferdie Grofe, George Gershwin, Bing Crosby, Mildred Bailey, Jack Fulton, Ramona, Irene Taylor, Peggy Healy — these are just a few. Others by the dozen are working up and down the land on radio stations and vaudeville stages because he once said a friendly and helpful thing that spurred them on and gave them some pertinent advice. And now he has something else friendly and helpful to say. You need two qualities in this broadcasting business, according to Paul, and if you've got them, noth- thing else matters. What are these two magic qualities? Whiteman says they are faith and sincerity. "Look at Morton Downey," he told me at the Biltmorc the other night. "Mort was a kid when he went to work with me. But he knew — knew, get it? — that he was going to be another John McCormack. Nobody could tell him otherwise. That's what I mean by faith. It got him to the top." And what of sincerity? Some would-be entertainers write the word with a dollar (Continued on page 44) 15 By CECIL B . S T U R C E S

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RADIO STARS 4 (Above) Mr. Theo Albans, who has received $450 a week every week for four years for singing the same song. See the story. (Right) $250,- 000,000 went for this. RADIO CITY! That's the house that jack- built — John D. Rockefeller's jack. About $250,000,000 of it. Today, Radio City stands a par- tially realized dream and a monu- ment to the amazing business of broadcasting. Yes, it is an amazing business. Its story is a saga of achievement that compares with driving the first line of rails westward across the Rockies. Go back just a half a dozen years and you are at the beginning of his- tory as far as network broadcasting is concerned. And at the beginning of an era of topsy turvy prices and big money hi-jinks that have turned the entertainment business upside down, converted unknown clowns into national figures, and feathered the nest of many a songbird. To begin with, you — you, the public. I mean — buy on an average of $10,000,000 worth of radio sets each year. That's the reason peo- ple like Philco can afford to put Boake Carter and the Philadelphia Symphony orchestra on the air. And Crosley with its great station WLW can afford to build a new broadcast plant that will be ten times stronger than anything else in America. Never before has there ever been such an agency for attracting a mass response. On the night in March that President Roosevelt spoke 1G MONEY! MONEY! MONEY!

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RADIO STARS B. A. Rolfe — his or- Thomas D. Curtin, They say Jack Pearl chestra rates $1500 author. $500-$750 gets $3500 for each per week. for each effort. broadcast. Have you ever stopped to realize the tremendous cost of putting on your favorite programs? Or the amount which radio's favorites earn every week? about the banking situation, it has been estimated that 50,000,000 Americans were listening. One voice ringing in 100,000,000 ears ! Imagine ! IT is just that power that persuades our makers of cig- ■ arettes and soups and sedans to buy the air. Pepsodent "tested" its audience not long ago by offering an un- breakable drinking cup in exchange for the top of a Pep- sodent carton. The offer was made over only eight stations. Immediately, the Post Office was swamped with mail. Pepsodent was forced to order and re-order fresh sup- plies of drinking cups until over 650,000 had been dis- tributed to people who had bought toothpaste. Responses like that help us to understand how the Pepsodent company can afford to spend one-and-one-half millions a year for its kilocycle advertising. D y DA And if you call that big business, listen to this : Have you any idea of "j" Q what those time-talks cost ? I mean the ones that say, "It is exactly thirty seconds past nine, B-U-L-O-V-A, Bulova watch time." Well, it's a deep dark secret, but about a year ago an expert estimated that those words were costing the Bulova ballvhooers over a half million dollars. The Big Boy of broadcasting, of course, is the fellow that Walter Winchell used to call "Mr. Lucky Strike." Here is the proof. In 1931, Lucky Strike spent $3,500,000 solely for advertising on the air. In 1932, the figure slid to $3,250,000. This year, on account of the price cut, somewhat less will be spent. Even then, though, Mr. Lucky Strike is still the papa of the business. Where does his money go? Hold onto your chairs . . . and listen ! Jack Pearl is reputed to be drawing $3,500 for every one of his sixty-minute appearances as Baron Munchausen. He's the biggest item on the bill. Walter Winchell got that same sum for making "Okay, America" a national byword. Each week, a dance orchestra receives from $1,250 to $1,500. Twice a week, fifty-two weeks the year, that item runs into important money. Actors who played in Tom Curtin's famous police dramatizations drama drew $10.00 an hour for rehearsal . . . and Lucky Strike rehearsals last a full ten or twelve hours. For the performance itself, by the way, the price dwindled to $25.00. And Curtin, the author, we understand cleared between $500 and $750 for each of those thrillers. The announcer — Howard CTaney has had the job re- cently— rates a plum worth $75.00 for each broadcast. With Claney working thrice a week as he did all winter, he was getting $225 for this program alone — and there were others that paid him just N N Y as much. Walter O'Keefe's word juggling built up Jsyj C his bankroll at the rate of $1,000 a week. The gag man who writes the jokes that Baron Munchausen springs on "Sharlie" is worth $500 to Lucky Strike for each week's work. And "Sharlie," he gets between $100 and $250 for hearing the Baron's, "Plizz, the Baron makes the funny answers." PROBABLY the most amazing fellow in connection with the entire Lucky Strike set-up is Singer Theo Albans . . . "Lucky days are here again." Twice — thirty-five seconds each time — each program, he sings his soul away, identifying Mr. Lucky Strike's program to Mr. and Mrs. Tuner Inner. For almost 1,000 consecu- tive programs he has done this. Four years of it. His contract provides that he can do no other singing. For those seventy seconds of singing, he gets $450 a week. The orchestra that supports him through the theme song plays all of two and one-half minutes. It rates from $500 to $700 a broadcast. And here is a funny thing. Around the studios, they (Continued on page 46) 17

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(Left) At one year. (Above) From the family album. Father, Gertrude, Thelma, Elsie (center) brother Edward and Mother. Elsie was the "different" one of the family—just sort of tolerated. But curiously enough,that attitude towards her made her a success By D E N A REED HAVE you a little inferiority complex in your make- up? Fine, because ten to one it's making you "show the world" and you'll develop a talent you never thought you had if that darned complex hadn't started vou off. ' That's how Elsie Hitz began — she whose remarkable speaking voice got her the title role in Ex-Lax's "The Magic Voice" sketches and the lead in Bourjois' "Mys- teries of Paris," together with an exclusive contract with options and an unheard of salary. Elsie's complex was far from little for she started out ■ in life — in Cleveland where her family lived — under the I unhappy illusion that she was the one "black sheep" of 1 a flock of very white and woolly ones. There were five girls and one boy and all of them except Elsie had natur- ally curly blond hair which they had inherited from their beautiful English mother. Even Edward, who didn't need it, had sunny hair that fell in ringlets. This was a thorn in Elsie's side inasmuch as her own dark brown hair was as straight as a poker and had to be put up every night in curl papers so that some semblance of a wave might

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As Elsie looks when broadcasting her "Magic Voice" series. Before this series, Elsie played in "Joe Palooka" and "The Eno Crime Club." Elsie and Thelma Marsh. Miss Marsh is a young stage actress who has been chosen to understudy Elsie. Their voices are similar. THE SUCCESS STORY OF THE LITTLE ODD ONE be evident. But it never was as pretty as the others'. To add insult to injury there was a blond strand of hair on the right side of Elsie's head in the front and she had one blond eyebrow. To hide the blond hair she in- sisted upon wearing a big rosette over it because it seemed to be there by mistake. Besides, when Edward was the youngest and Norma and Isabelle hadn't arrived yet, everyone in the family except Elsie and Dad had the bluest of blue eyes. Elsie had dark brown eyes and even Dad who loved to tease the children couldn't imagine where they came from. It wasn't quite so bad when the two younger girls came upon the.scene because they turned out to have dark eyes, too, but unfortunately for Elsie, they had golden, natural curly hair like the others. AND so began Elsie's inferiority complex. As if Dad's teasing were not enough, Mother, who had the kind- est heart in the world, innocently helped the complex to grow, for whenever she introduced her flock to company she said, "And this is Elsie, the little odd one." Poor Mother ! She meant only that little Elsie was the most serious of them all, with her great tragic brown eyes but Elsie brooded and brooded on being the "little odd one" and finally consulted a school chum who said darkly : "If you don't look like the others, you must be adopted. I think I am." Elsie, with large tears in her brown eyes, asked Mother that afternoon and the poor woman was horrified. She tried to explain to the child what she had meant and to console her as best she could. Brown eyes were just as nice as blue and already her face showed a lot of charac- ter for a child. But Elsie at nine, preferred beauty to character. Gertrude, the eldest, was like a little girl in a fairy tale and Thelma, Norma and Isabelle were much too beautiful for Elsie's peace of mind. She was sure that she must be some strange baby adopted out of the goodness of Mother's heart. After a long session, Elsie was practically convinced that she belonged to the family. But since she was sure she couldn't compete with her sisters where beauty was concerned, it was clear that she would have to do something quite wonderful to attract attention. She could sing rather (Continued on page 47) 19

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RADIO SOB STORY It takes more than talent to sing sad songs the way Ruth Etting does. It takes bitter experience and real suffering By PEGGY WELLS DO you know the mystery behind Ruth Etting's sad singing? I think not, for Ruth has guarded her secret. Only her intimates have understood, during the sensationally suc- cessful weeks of her Chester- field contract, the reasons be-* hind the sob in her voice. Just the other day, Ruth told me her secret. And I am going to tell you. It is a sob story, and a real one. A wise man has said, hasn't he, that real art is a con- sequence of deep suffering? Let that be a warning to every boy or girl who wants to become a radio star. Let each one who hears Ruth sing and thinks that he could do as well take this story to heart. For her place in the top flight of celebrities is not by chance. Ruth left David City, Nebraska, to study art in Chi- cago. Imagine the child in her teens, pink of cheek, with honey-colored curls, athrill to the tempo of the big city. For her, each day was a dance of excitement ; each night was a glittering and pompous pageant. Watching it from the window of the modest bedroom she rented for her- self, or from the street-car she rode homeward from the art school, she longed to become a part of it. So many of us have that longing. It comes with youth, of course; and, with most of us, vanishes under the ris- ing tides of marriage and children and household duties. In Ruth, though, there burned a brighter flame. WHEN the opportunity came to be a part of that gaiety, she seized it with all her slim, young strength. She was so eager, you see; so hungry for the resplendent life in which books and magazines had taught her to believe. You've seen that eagerness, haven't you? It is a terrible vet glorious sort of thing. Look about and you find boys and girls whose faces glow with it. And like moths flying into a flame, those same boys and girls rush pellmell into a morass of poverty and (Continued on page 46) 20 It is no wonder that Ruth knows sadness. The insults she went through as part of her job in Chicago night clubs would have conquered ambition in a per- son less determined. (Below) on her farm.

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RADIO STARS COME- BACK Culver Service From the top of the heap, Norman Brokenshire slid right down to the bottom and then faded com- pletely. But he came back! By ROBERT EICHBERC (Above, left) Broken- T HEY never come back !" shire as he looks as That's what people say. you read this. (Cen- But Norman Brokenshire ter, left) With Ruth has proven that there are excep- Etting, the sob- tions to every rule, songbird. (Left, be- Here is a story of a man who low) Norman Bro- rose to the top of his profession kenshire discussing and then, falling into its sloughs, a script with come- sank into oblivion only to rise dian Tom Howard. again through grit, ability, and a woman's love. Not so many moons ago, "Broke," as his friends call him, tramped the streets wondering where his next meal would come from. Not many moons ago, the word was spreading from man to man among those who matter in the broadcasting business that he was through. "Unreliable," they called it. Without a friend — save the one whose love saved him from himself — he started to fight his way back. That fight nearly broke his heart. The story really begins with his first job in a little Canadian school house back in 1907. It paid him $25.00 a year, and he had to walk three miles a day to tend to his duties. His father, a minister, was also the school teacher. When his father got a call to go to Massachusetts, young Norman, of course, went along. He got a job in a shoe factory there, and at the outbreak of the World War, enlisted in the infantry. When he returned, he took a course at Syracuse University, and then came to New York. Every Sunday he read the Help Wanted ads in the papers. One day, in 1923, he saw a call for radio an- nouncers up at old WJZ, then located in Aeolian Hall. HE answered it — and found himself one of a mob of four hundred ambitious young men, all eager to break into radio. An audition was held, and Broke was the one selected to fill the job. He became AON, for in those days announcers were not known by name to the audiences, and all announcers were identified only by this sort of lettered code over the air. (Continued on page 50) 21

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DOWN THE YEARS WITH EDDIE CANTOR ABOUT the time that Eddie Cantor hegan to find plenty ^ of money in his pockets, he also found that he couldn't say "no." He was with Ziegfeld now, a fixture in the Follies. He had become important. But every Saturday night, either backstage at the Follies, or in one of the hotels around Times Square, there was a quiet little crap game. Eddie couldn't say "no" to these crap games, although the dice said "no" to him, consistently. Worse still, he found he couldn't say "no" to the old neighbors from Eldridge Street, the fellow actors down on their luck, all the acquaintances from here and there in his busy life, who waited for him at the stage door with their hands out. Result : Eddie went home broke and Mrs. Cantor won- dered how to pay the landlord. They were living in the Bronx, where Eddie's passion for wider and more open spaces had driven him. And Eddie was going to work in his car, just like a regular 22 actor. But he wasn't saving a nickel. The first two inmates of the Cantor Home for Girls, Marjorie and Natalie, had arrived. And Eddie, with a good salary, and no major dissipation except an occa- sional bout with the rolling cubes was well on the way to being, like many another actor, "a good fellow while he had it." A jolt of pleurisy in Chicago, which left him in hos- pital without funds, woke him up. He confessed his plight to a boyhood friend, Dan Lipsky, who had since become a banker. Lipsky showed him how, if he would live on so much and invest the rest, he could soon become a rich man. Cantor fell in with his proposal and was presently able to buy a modest home in Mount Vernon, thus accomplish- ing another move toward fulfillment of his dream of blue sky, without any noticeable dent in his fortunes. Meanwhile, at the New Amsterdam, he was making Cantor history. He worked in blackface still, using the

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With Lyda Rober+i in "The Kid from Spain." How success turned out to be a boomerang for Eddie... His Ziegfeld years... Learning to say uno" . . . That passion of his to live in the country and where it got him By EDWARD R. SAMMIS white spectacles, white lips and white gloves that had be- come tradition, talking now Bronx, now Oxford English, but never using darky dialect, and never, be it said to his credit, singing a mammy song. AND he learned to use his eyes. Most comedians have some feature which is their trade mark — Chevalier's lower lip, Durante's nose, Ed Wynn's silly-ass grin. The rolling, bulging, expressive eyes are Cantor's trademark. He first used them to advantage in one of his early Ziegfeld shows singing a little number called : "That's the kind of a baby for me." An innocent enough song, you would think, if you heard it over the radio. But Eddie put in unsuspected meanings with those eyes. And the eyes had it. The song was a panic. He used to sing nine and ten encores of it night after night before they would let him go. Eddie was one of the first (Continued on page 42) 23

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COME INSIDE TO By OCDEN MAYER (Top of page) Jimmy MacCallion, Ted di Corsia, Audrey Egan, Marian Hopkinson, Amelia Earhart, Edwin C. Hill, Josephine Fox and Daniel Frawley during the broadcast. (Right) George O'Donnell, Ora D. Nichols, Henry Gauthier — the people who supply the amazingly realistic noise effects. THE Socony- Vacuum Corporation presents Edwin C. Hill, ace reporter of the air, in the "Inside Story of Names that Make News." We're booked for a behind-the-mike peek into one of radio's richest programs, which makes it a big Friday night in anybody's life. Ordinarily, it's a secret presen- tation. No visitors permitted. Oh, maybe people like the King of Siam or Kingfish Huey Long, but no com- moners like me and you. Tonight, though, we sit in with Edwin C. Hill whose newscasting you've heard for months, and one of the greatest women in the world, Amelia Earhart. Ed Hill has brought a bright parade of personages be- fore his magic mike . . . John McCormack, Babe Ruth, Ethel Barrymore, Ely Culbertson, George Gershwin — and now Amelia Earhart. Each week he introduces a new one, and a new inside story that reaches into the past and re- creates the little unknown dramas of life that, added to- gether, make history. So come inside and see as well as hear the inside story. Columbia's main studio is used, for the cast of actors is big and the orchestra is bigger. There stands Nat Shilkret on the podium. Podium — there's a word for you. It's the little black box on which orchestra leaders always stand. THE far half of the studio is jammed with musicians. A line of grand pianos, three of 'em, makes a bulwark between us and them. Along the studio's front, a few feet back from the glistening plate glass that separates studio from control room, are the mikes. They are the Come and watch Edwin C. Hill— famous newscaster— interview Amelia Earhart 24

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w THE INSIDE STORY newest type, small and brown and a lot more friendly than the big Robot-looking mechanisms that used to give every new performer mike fright. That row of chairs is for the actors. Bridge chairs. I call them. They're uncomfortable after the first half hour but happily most programs don't last longer than that. There is Hill . . . Edwin C. Hill, champ newscaster of the far-flung CBS net. Leaning on a piano, his lips mov- ing swiftly, he silently reads the words he will soon shoot to the ends of the earth. Pince-nez glasses on a black ribbon, graying hair and a gray suit, blue shirt, column- ists have dubbed him America's best-dressed newspaper man. Look! In the corner! It's the girl of the moment. Amelia Earhart. The dark, tallish gentleman beside her (Left) John McCormack. He was one of Mr. Hill's subjects for interviewing. (Further left) Amelia Earhart. This story tells about the time she was interviewed on the air. is her husband, George Palmer Putnam. But listen ' Music is drifting from a wall-mounted loudspeaker. It's the preceding program. Shilkret drops his baton and turns to a mike and talk- so ftlv to it. The engineer in the control room grins and nods. Shilkret goes back to his podium and turns over a sheaf of music. A sleek young man steps up front. "Twenty seconds." he says. Hold onto your chairs, you sightseers. We're back- stage with Edwin C. Hill. We're seeing something for which you can't buy a ticket. We're a part of it. almost. Sit tight ! We're going on the air. it. instru- One i- SHILKRET'S music wells out of a score ments. Two men are at the mikes, talking Daniel Frawley. a veteran radio player. "Amelia Earhart," he is saying. "Have you heard tin inside storv of her solo flight across the Atlantic?'" "No." "Chances were ten to one against her . . . but . "Go ahead. Let's hear the inside story." The music thunders into a (Continued on page 40) Learn how the sound effects and other tricks are done in this radio series 25

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To identify these pictures, look for the number on the picture which corresponds with the num- ber here. I. Tom Howard, of NBC's Musical Grocery Store program, takes a couple of orders. 2. John P. Medbury, Hollywood's pet humorist, came East to add his quips to Fred Waring's music for Columbia's Old Gold program. 3. Attractive James Melton — now doing a series of tri- weekly song recitals on NBC. 4. Josef Lhevinne, world famous pianist. If you like the best, you can hear him Thursdays at I 1 :30 p. m. on NBC. 5. Tiny Welcome Lewis of the deep, deep contralto. She does her stuff for NBC on Sunday, Monday and Friday evenings. 6. Raymond Knight, in the role of Editor Billy Batchelor of the Wheatenaville News (NBC) is coaching his adopted twins, Peter (Bobby Jordan) and Pan (Florence Halop) in the newspaper game. 7. Tony Wons is so crazy about jigsaw puzzles that he makes 'em as well as solves 'em. 8. Irma Glen, lovely organist of NBC's Chicago studio, having fun while it lasted. 27

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RADIO STARS 0 7///L Emily Post has never had an embarrassing moment RECENTLY, an en- terprising writer asked Emily Post what was her most em- barrassing moment. Mrs. Post's reply was, "I'm afraid I can't think of one. I really can't re- member a time when I have heen embarrassed." In that answer, which was undoubtedly sincere, lies Mrs. Post's success. She has never been afraid to be completely herself, and at no time has she ever allowed her- self to become stilted or unnatural. You know Mrs. Post as a famous authority on etiquette and good taste; as the author of "Etiquette." And now you hear her twice weekly over the air as the princess charming of the Du Pont Cellophane Company's program. Believe it or not, Mrs. Post's first book had nothing to do with the right fork and the wrong spoon. As a matter of fact it was a book called "The Flight of a Moth" and was composed of letters written by her to her father when, following her debut, she had taken a trip abroad. It was published in 1904. "Etiquette," the book for which Mrs. Post is famous, was by no means the first volume of its sort. As it hap- pened, this book might never have been written had it not been for the publication and exploitation of a book on etiquette which was so misleading and uninformed in its contents that it infuriated Mrs. Post. On one previous occasion, she had shuddered at the thought of herself as an authority on good taste, but when the suggestion pre- 28 sented itself as an answer to this misleading volume, she wrote a work which was published five months later as "Etiquette." It so happened that not one cent was ever spent to publicize or promote it. So eminently authoritative was it that it at once became a best seller. Mrs. Post lives in a beautiful New York apartment, each room exquisitely decorated. Her father, Bruce Price, was a well known architect who built some of New York's first skyscrapers. Her life functions like clockwork. Her usual rising hour is 5 a. m. Usually she is in bed by 8 :30 p. m. Her day is crowded with writing a newspaper column, radio script, answering perplexing social problems and caring for her home. Even while on the air she holds a stop- watch in her hand that she may keep track of her own time. Now we know why she is never embarrassed. With all that, she probably hasn't the time.

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Harry Reser first broadcast from the Statue of Liberty OF all places for a radio debut, Harry Reser, Chief Eskimo on the Clicquot Club program, chose the Statue of Liberty. That was in 1921 and his music went out over a United States Army transmitter. Now Harry is an old guard at the job. He has been glorifying Clicquot Club for seven years, making his band one of the oldest on all commercial radio programs. Dur- ing that long time he has made himself internationally known, always the man behind the golden strings of the banjo amid the jingle of sleigh bells and the barking of the Clicquot huskies. Piqua, Ohio, was the town where this "old timer" was born— January 12, 1896. After his graduation from high school, where he led the school orchestra, he got his first job in the musical world through an "ad" in a newspaper. It was a job as a pianist in a summer resort in Rhea Springs, Tennessee. While he was a pianist there, he noticed that the banjo was gaining in popular- ity and so he always kept one handy. After his second summer in the South, he saw that it would be profitable for him to devote more time to the strings, even to the detriment of his piano playing. He started out then and there to become an expert banjoist, soon graduating into the dance band field and winding up as banjo virtuoso with Paul Whiteman and his orchestra. In the meantime he went back to Ohio and married his grammar school sweetheart. She's still his sweetheart. Harry was engaged on programs over WEAF before that station became the New York key to the National Broadcasting Company. He is known to his friends as "Chief" and "Joe" ; he's a sociable chap and loves to entertain at his Long Island home. Aviation is a hobby and he has flown more than 5,000 miles. He is fond of boating and golf, and owns his own yacht. One of his weaknesses is a high-powered car. And if you look in at his home in fair weather, you'll find he is also a gardener. His most devoted fans are his pretty daughters, Betty Jane, twelve, and Gertrude Mae, eight, and Mrs. Reser. Five feet, eight inches tall, weighing 148 pounds, he has a fair complexion and brown hair. Usually, he retires at 1 1 p. m.. often reading in bed. Although three radios are in his home he doesn't listen in regularly. And he admits that he has cold feet in bed but no other vices. 29

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RADIO STARS 0 2//71 Jack Smart takes all parts, the more the merrier JACK SMART is the versatile radio actor and March of Time star who can sound like anything from a blood- hound to a Chinese ser- vant to a Negro chauf- feur to Huey Long to D'Artagnan. He's al- ways diving into some- thing different, even to the extent of learning hits of the Japanese and Chinese language to make a dramatization sound authentic. Jack was a Thanks- giving Day gift to his happy parents. Novem- ber, 1902, saw the smil- ing black-haired boy born, and Philadelphia was the city. It was with regret that Jack saw the passing of the days of Robin Hood, so he decided then he'd do the next best thing and become a Naval officer. However, his histrionic and comedy abilities came to the front and he accepted the unheroic part as clown in school and Y. M. C. A. plays. One of Jack's earliest and most significant hobbies was making up one side of his face one way, the other side another way, and talking to himself in the mirror. He seems to have been schooled from coast to coast, taking scholastic experiences at Peabody High School in Pittsburgh and at the Miami Military Institute in Florida. He was later offered a "football scholarship" but mag- nanimously turned it down. During those school days he earned his way into fraternity dances by entertaining with his one-man ballets. The City of Buffalo was the scene of further early 30 development where he did everything from working in the lumber camp of the father of Colonel Stoopnagle (F. Chase Taylor) — in which he lasted ten days — to playing drums in an orchestra. There he also made his radio debut on the Columbia network in 1929 as Joe in "Joe and Vi." From then on he was slated for a career as radio actor. Says Jack of his early days as comedian and actor, "My friends always seemed to enjoy my dancing and nonsense. They hastened my end. My father also bought me a set of trap drums to help me on the downward path. I was only discouraged when I walked up to the piano to sing." He's a clever cartoonist and many of his works have been published. His pet hates, he admits, are "modem (alleged) artists, high hat people, mike hogs, the 18th Amendment and interviews." Whenever ruffled, sym- phonic jazz makes him feel a whole lot better.

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RADIO STARS Sigmund Spaeth is a very remark- able fellow HERE is a life that reads like a novel ... a darned good novel. Sigmund Spaeth, NBC's amazing Song Sleuth and Tune Detective, started life in Philadelphia, 1585, as the seventh son in a minister's family of eleven. At school — Germantown Academy — he sat alongside William Tilden, II, who was later to he tennis champion. At Haverford, he got a B.A. and an M.A. Still hungry for alphahetic distinction, he spent two years in Prince- ton's Graduate School and hecame a . Ph.D. During his stay at Princeton, he became a member of Woodrow Wilson's faculty and taught German — or tried to — to such soon-to-be-distinguished gents as David Law- rence, Henry Breckenridge, James Boyd, and an assort- ment of- All-American football players. At Princeton, too, he organized a faculty music club, became president of the Princeton Choral Society, concert master and violin soloist of the Orphic Order, composed music for Shakespearean presentations, and wrote musical criticism for the Daily Princetonian. Which gives you an idea of what a two-fisted young feller he was. Eventually, New York got him. A boat coming back from Europe where he had spent the entire summer ($400 expend- ed) dumped him ashore and there he was. At first he wrote fiction, living in a dingy hall bedroom. The day he spent his last cent, he discovered that a previous tenant of that selfsame hall bedroom had been O. Henry. He got a job, presently, with a music publishing firm. But he wanted to work for a daily paper, so he wrote a letter for an opening about which he heard. For one day he was considered — and then rejected in favor of a chap who calls himself S. S. Van Dine. In 1917, he got married. To fill in odd moments, he wrote sports events and went into musical war work. After the war life speeded up. He was hired to make America Ampico-piano conscious. That took six years. Broadcasting interested him and he began to talk about musical appreciation. Strangely enough, he isn't a long-haired music-master sort of man. He might be an ex-half -back. Sports have long been an obsession. His broadcasts of the Notre Dame-Stanford football game and the Greb- Walker fight are high spots in his life. He's one of the guys visitors talk about when they say. "I don't see how you New Yorkers keep it up." 31

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RADIO STARS There is a reason why Singin' Sam is such a popular radio favorite. That reason is "naturalness." And there's a reason for that naturalness By DONALD COPPER ON a broad, quiet street in Richmond, Indiana, there lives a smiling little lady with whitening hair. The seasons of three-score-and-twelve years have run their course and left a gracious mark on her. Near the end of her life, she is happier now than she ever has been. Why? I'll tell you. W herever she goes, people know her as the mother of Singin' Sam, the Barbasol Man. She and Sam's father live in a cozy home that Sam bought for them on their favorite street in Richmond. ( hit at the edge of town, Sam has a farm. Sometimes, when the weather is good, they go out to look at the early corn and wheat. At the ages of seventy-five and seventy- two, one doesn't go about much. One date that they always keep, though, is the one they have three times a week with their boy. Singin' Sam broadcasts from New York, but they're always in their parlor listening. I talked to Singin' Sam the other night — his real name is Harry Frankel — and he told me how his mother helped him with the broadcasts that have marie him famous. 32 T H E PEOPLE'S CHOICE (Left) Harry Frankel, better known to you as Singin' Sam. (Below) The namesake Sam didn't know he had until he stumbled across this old print. Singing Sam of Derbyshire — an old character who sang his way across England in the seventeen-sixties. You've heard him, haven't you? "Barba-sol . . . Barba- sol .. . no brush, no lather, no rub-in . . ." The home- folksy bass voice so full of friendliness. One old-time number after another; forgotten tunes and words pulled out of a memory chest. Harry FranktTs mother supplies most of those words that you hear on the air. Harry told me that when I asked him where he got them all. "I just write home," he said. "Ma always knows the words and sends 'em back to me." It's a unique partnership, isn't it? It accounts, I think, for a lot of Singin' Sam's charm and naturalness. For the friendliness of his voice. (Continued on page 38)

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RADIO STARS (Above) Juano and Rose McClendon being di- rected by Geraldine Garrick. These negro players are immensely popular. (Left) Juano Hernandez again, doing his stuff. Juano Hernandez is the man who plays that famous negro char- acter, "John Henry" on the air. And Juano understands that part better than anyone on earth VOODOO on the AIR By HILDA COLE JOHN HENRY" is on the air. To those of you who don't know the South, and its folk legends, this must mean nothing. To South- erners whose roots are deep in the history of slavery and emancipation, it means a fresh and startling program to take the ragged edge off today's hi-de-hi and vo-de-o-do "scat" singing that has heen, up to now, the Negro's principal contribution to entertainment. Yes, ''John Henry" is different and startling. Nothing approaching this Black River legend has ever materialized, flesh and blood, in the ether. For John Henry is a per- son, a legendary giant of prodigious powers conjured in the minds of many generations of black folk. Roark Bradford. the writer, was the first white man to under- stand him and put him on paper. From this book these radio plays are adapted, ft was no easy job, this pen- and-ink capture. For John Henry was a man! "The night he was born," Bradford wrote, "the moon was copper colored and the sky was black. The stars wouldn't shine and the rain fell hard. Forked lightning cleaved the air and the earth trembled like a leaf. The panthers squalled in the brake like a baby, and the Mis- sissippi ran upstream a thousand miles. John Henry weighed forty-four pounds." It took no time at all for this new-born babe to show his mammy and his pappy and the nurse woman that he possessed a bass voice like a preacher, shoulders like a cotton-rolling roustabout, and blue gums like a "conjure man." It was shortly after his birth that he "reared back in his bed and broke out the slats." "Don't make me mad," said John Henry, and the thunder rumbled and rolled. "Don't make me mad on de day I'm bawn, 'cause I'm scared of my ownse'f when I gits mad." (Continued on page 49) 33

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RADIO STARS Local boys flop in home town —make good in big city . . . How do Amos V Andy do it? . . .The saxophonists who don't play saxophones . . . (Left) Vic and Sade are giving Rush a lively time — with the help of the whisk broom. Vic's real name is Art Van Harvey. Sade's is Bernadine Flynn. And Rush's is Billy Idelson. (Below) Lawrence Tibbett in the title role of "Emperor Jones" — the modern opera which made such a sensation both at the opera and over the air. (Below, left) Meet Borrah Minnevitch and his Har- monica Rascals. You can hear them Friday and Sunday evenings. (Op- posite page, nearest picture) Pro- fessor Jack McLallen, Sara and Sassafrass are the latest comedians to join the NBC ranks. They're heard Tuesday and Thursday eve- nings. (Farthest picture, opposite page) Jeannie Lang, Vivian Hart and Ann Leaf are all small enough to stand under the outstretched arms of William Hall and William O'Neal. All of them are singers ex- cept, as you probably know, Miss Leaf. She's an organist.

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RADIO STARS LET'S GOSSIP ABOUT YOUR FAVORITES OUT in Barnesville, Ohio, six months ago, Johnny Ruffell was a grocer, Paul Cordner was a hay and grain expert. Bill Kearns was a malted milk slinger. One sultry afternoon, with nothing better to do, they be- gan to sing. And discovered that they were good. Some- body told them that station WHK in Cleveland gave audi- tions. They drove down the pike in their flivver and got one. Station WHK did not want them. But fate or something did. Charlie Bayhe, an NBC booker, had mar- ried a Barnesville girl and was in town. One night he heard them singing to the moon. The upshot of it all was an invitation to New York. Rudy Vallee gave them their first break. After they had bowed in on the Fleisch- mann hour, another broadcaster signed them up. And now the citizens in Barnesville are burning red fire because the hometown boys have made good. GREELEY se"t them West, but California Melodies sends them East. California Melodies is one of the big West Coast programs. From it have come such stars as John P. Medbury, Bing Crosby and the Boswell Sisters. Just now, Raymond Paige is directing the show, and underground predictions say that he will be on a coast-to- coast network ere long. Maybe there really is something to this California sunshine. | T is hard to get ahead of those two trouble-dodging comics, Amos 'n' Andy. Since they went on the air they have done sixty-five different characters. But their high water mark was reached during Madame Queen's breach of promise suit against Andy when they simulated thirteen different persons in a single broadcast. And here is a unique item. In all their radio history, Gosden and Correll have permitted no other person to participate. I F you don't believe that radio is a crazy quilt business, listen to this. Louis Katzman, famous orchestra leader, has in his band three of the world's most famous saxo- phonists. They are Andy Sanella, Arnold Brillhart and Laddy Ladd. Taken together, no other trio in the world can out-play them. But not one of them plays a saxo- phone during Katzman's broadcast. He keeps them busy- handling clarinets, flutes, oboes and piccolos. "f*HE next time President Franklin D. Roosevelt broad- casts, we need not fear for his life. A present recently given him by the Columbia Broadcasting System was a bullet-proof speaker's desk. Equipped with four micro- phones, and lined with sheet steel, no assassin's bullet can possibly penetrate it.

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RADIO STARS LET'S GOSSIP ABOUT YOUR FAVORITES Gertrude Niesen, whose gorge- ously rich voice is heard over Columbia several times a week. Gertrude actually admits to being born in Broolclyn. She very recently turned twenty. You really shouldn't see this. However, it's a moment in the private life wash-day of Doctors Russell Pratt and Ransom Sher- man. You can hear them any Sunday evening — NBC. Gloria Gunther sings with Joe Haymes and his orchestra. Gloria was born in New York but she hails from Hollywood where she worked in the studios until radio called her. ^^ND here is another Roosevelt item. Do you know how it happened that Guy Lombardo and His Royal Ca- nadians were invited to play at the Inaugural Ball in Washington? Last summer a testimonial dinner given for Candidate Roosevelt had the Lombardos as its princi- pal feature of entertainment. During the dinner Mr. Roosevelt beckoned to Guy and said, "Mr. Lombardo, how would you like to play at my Inaugural Ball next March — if we win in November?" The orchestra leader gulped and expressed his profuse pleasure. "Then the date is yours," said Mr. Roosevelt. So, on Saturday evening, March 4, President Roosevelt and Guy Lombardo kept to that date. JaNE FROM AN, who left the NBC studios in Chicago to join Columbia's Manhattan melodists, has been a sen- sation in the Big Town. Originally engaged for only two weeks, she was rehired for the duration of the Chesterfield contract. As a result of her extraordinary singing she was offered a role in a revival of the Ziegfeld Follies — but, believe it or not, she prefers going to Europe with her husband. RUMOR going around says that "Chandu," now sponsored by the Beechnut Packing Company east of the Mississippi River, is going off the air. News comes to us that this is absolutely untrue. Chandu stays just where it is. So all of you irate fans can breathe easily, lean back, and wait for the next thriller. VlCTOR YOUNG'S orchestra— that's the outfit that plays with the Mills Brothers — was in a recording studio the other day waiting to make a record. To pass the time, they started clowning with that grand, grand opera number "V Pagliacci." Then turning it into a dance tempo, throwing in thrills, trills and whatnot, they them- selves had one swell time. All unknown to them, an engi- neer in a nearby booth had switched on the recording ap- paratus. The phonograph company officials were so pleased with the improvised recording that they ordered the group to polish up the tune and an hour later it was recorded for general sale. A NOTE about the Marx Brothers. They were an- noyed, it seems, when Marlene Dietrich started that fad of wearing men's clothes. To retaliate they startled Holly- wood one bright afternoon by sauntering about town wearing kilts of brilliant Scotch plaids. By the time they got home they were leading a parade. And the dazed little cinema city is still talking about those knobby, nertzy Marxian knees. ClARA, LU 'n' EM, the soap suds girls, made a grand tour of the East recently. Starting with the Inauguration in Washington, D. C, they proceeded to New York, where they took the town by storm. A special tea held for them at the Waldorf-Astoria produced practically every celeb- rity in Manhattan. Most any day now, you may expect them back in Chicago safe and sound, turning on the heat about their adventures. AdD oddities— Charles Carlisle, the Bath Club tenor, sings his lyrics from short hand notes that he makes on small pieces of paper. With a stick of spearmint be- tween his molars, too. Jane Froman spurns an offer for sentimental reasons . . . Chandu not quitting 36

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RADIO STARS LET'S GOSSIP ABOUT YOUR FAVORITES Remember the article we pub- lished a month or so ago on the Mystery Chef? Well, this is the Mystery Chefs wife. Mrs. John MacPherson. Do you suppose he ever lets her into the kitchen? Every time Charlie Chan, Earl Derr Bigger's famous Chinese sleuth, comes before the mike, thousands settle back to be en- tertained. This is Walter Con- nolly who impersonates Chan. And the latest and funniest stage personality to come to the microphone is none other than the famous Fannie Brice. She made her debut with Olsen. We'll have a story on her, soon. E VERYONE says it is a shame that George Olsen and Ethel Shutta have been separated. Big business did it, of course. Together they were able to get only a so-so salary. Separately, Miss Shutta will be able to clean up a tidy fortune — while the wide-wide world knows that Olsen's orchestra is one of the ace bands of anywhere. pRED WARING, leader of the Old Gold orchestra, and his ace drummer, Poley McClintock, are known as the Damon and Pythias of Radio Row. It's because Fred and Poley used to live in neighboring houses in Tyrone. Pa., joined the Boy Scouts on the same day, fell in love with the same girl at the same time, and later became members of the same fraternity at Pennsylvania State. ^*HE other evening, when Ed Wynn came to the end of his program, Graham McNamee began to read some of those letters received from fans. Picking up one, he said, "And here is one from Baton Rouge, La." Wynn could not find the answer he had prepared. So he turned quickly to another. "What do you mean, Graham?" he said. "That isn't Baton Rouge. Here let me read that. You always were bad at geography. It's Dubois, Ind. Anyone could tell that that was Dubois. Dubois means twins." The show rolled on, and the studio howled. H ERE is a tale from the Bayou country. It concerns a Louisiana man who read in the newspapers that Captain Henry's Show Boat would tie up at a certain river village on Thursday night. As the town was only thirty miles away, he decided to make a day of it. With his wife, he packed the lunch, dressed the kids, and rode the old Ford down the road to the river. In town, they went down to the dock to watch the boat come in. It was hours before they knew the truth. The Show Boat did come in — but only through a loud speaker. So the fellow and his family got in the flivver and went home. It was a nice ride, anyway. E VIDENTLY, someone cannot make up his mind. First, we heard that General Pershing was to go on the air, and then we heard that General Pershing was not to go on the air. The sponsor, a huge automobile tire manufacturer, was paying a pretty penny for our war leader's services. Even a pretty penny, however, does not seem to interest the General so much as his dignity — and as yet the whole plan is up in the air higher than those sausage balloons Black Jack sent aloft to watch the Germans during the YRT, of "Myrt and Marge" is sore. Some low-down dawg has stolen her flivver named "Lovable." It hap- pened just the other evening in Chicago during one of her broadcasts. If anyone meets a car that answers to the name "Lovable," please write Myrt at the Wrigley Build- ing in Chicago. With Myrt. if isn't the intrinsic value — it's the sentimental attachment. J UST to show you how fast some songs can he written and distributed, look at that bouncing number called, "Roosevelt's On the Job." Jack Nelson, a radio execu- tive, started writing it on a Monday night. By 7 p. m. Tuesday he had sold it to a publisher. On Wednesday it was printed and by Thursday it was distributed to most of the leading singers and orchestras in the East.. Yes, Koosevelt is on the job — but so was Jack Nelson. Why George Olsen and Ethel Shutta have separated — professionally 37

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RADIO STARS A famous band leader and fhree of the feminine members of his en- semble. Fred War- ing is the gentle- man's name — just in case you didn't recognize him. Old Gold is his sponsor. The People's Choice MATUR ALNESS of delivery is an obsession of Sam's. Do you know he won't sing a song standing up? It makes him sound stiff, he says. Sitting down on the piano bench by the side of his accompanist, he relaxes and lets his personality flow into his music. The announcements he makes aren't written for him, either. Just notes, that's all. He phrases his own sentences, and if he feels like saying "ain't" or "h'aint," he says it. There is no denying people love him for it. In a world of broad A's and clipped R's, his drawl and his "down- home" sort of talk gets close to the heart. Listening, you know he knows the folks to whom he sings. To me, it is amazing how well he knows them. Still, when you think of it, why shouldn't he know them? He climbed all the small boy trees and broke all the small boy bones that are usual and in- evitable with small boys the country over. He fought his mother for four solid years because she wanted him to wear shoes and stockings and he wished to go barefooted. The first time he ran away from home, that dispute was the cause. He and a pal left, he told me, and marched seven miles up the Ohio river from Cincinnati where he lived before their naked feet betrayed them. A passing farmer gave them a lift back home, to his mother and her regime of shoes and stockings. Somehow, life often arrays mothers and sons on opposite sides of questions. At first Sam and his mother were no exceptions. Until the time he dis- 38 (Continued from page 32) obeyed her and she set out to punish him. Women in those days wore broad patent leather belts with huge glittery buckles. Sam's mother took off her belt and started to whip him. By mistake, she caught hold of the wrong end and the beavy buckle bit like a bullet into his young side. He fainted dead away. CORTUNATELY, he was not hurt badly. A doctor who came in re- sponse to the mother's panic-stricken plea assured her about that. Sam told me that the accident brought him closer to his mother than any other single ex- perience. Afterward she never whipped him again. And Sam never disobeyed. During those growing years she be- came his staunchest champion. Even when he played hooky from school, when he threw over a business job after putting in a year learning shorthand and typewriting, when he joined a min- strel show and got himself stranded without a cent to his name, even when his father prophesied he would come to no good end. Most of his hardships Sam never told her about. Those weeks in Chicago, for instance, when he had to "busk" for iiis food. "Buskin'," you probably don't know, is the old minstrel term applied to down-and-outers who go into a saloon's backroom and sing to the patrons for a free lunch. It's a meager way of (lining, Sam told me, and I can believe it. There were other days when, with an uncertain job as a minstrel end-man, he jumped from cross-roads village to country town. Poverty-dodging Sam calls it. Sometimes he was too poor to buy the burnt cork that is a minstrel's inky make-up. The emergency was met by scraping together a roll of news- paper and burning it. In those days, theatres had almost no running water backstage. To remove their make-up, the minstrels were al- lotted a pail of water apiece. Many a winter night in mid-western towns, Sam went back to his bucket and had to break the ice in order to wash. Of those things, he said very little when he wrote his mother. On the other hand, his successes were faithfully chronicled. And she gloried in them as only a mother can. L-JIS first appearance in New York was an unforgettable triumph. That was eighteen or twenty years ago at Min- er's Bowery Theatre. She still has the clippings he sent her. Sam took a room across from the stage door and didn't stray away once during the week he played. He was afraid if he ever got beyond sight of the gaudy vaudeville house, he would never find his way back. When I learned all these things about him, I began to understand why he is the people's choice as an entertainer. Maybe it is because fishermen have a way of getting down to fundamentals that puts life's frills in their proper place. Or maybe it is that boys whose mothers back them up when they leave home to face the world, as Sam's backed him up, somehow keep their feet pretty solidly on the path they have been trained so carefully to walk.

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RADIO STARS ANY news that takes a sock at ^ Old Man Depression is good news. That is just what we heard the other day when the Colum- bia Broadcasting System released its new survey on radio set ownership. In these days of breadlines, moratoriums, and salary slices, you'd think people wouldn't buy so many receiving sets. But this survey shows just the opposite to be true. Remember the government census man who visited you in 1930? He asked if you owned a radio, didn't he? And you told him the truth — or did you? Anyhow, he discov- ered about twelve million receivers. This new investiga- tion was designed to learn what had happened since his call. And the answer is — plenty. Since 1930 almost nine million new receiving sets have been bought in the country. Of that total, almost five million have gone into homes that never previously owned a radio. And today's staggering total comes to seventeen million. That's a crowd, isn't it? And that is the audience for which radio networks and advertisers are fighting with the best talent they can buy. Ed Wynn and Cantor, Jack Pearl, Fred Allen, Burns and Allen and Bing Crosby . . . there's enter- tainment that can't be bettered. And the best part is that those seventeen million sets pick it all up — abso- lutely free. Yowsa! Interest in radio is climbing steadily. Now let's look at some of the new sets on sale. AN automatically tuned model is being featured by the Zenith Radio Corporation, 3620 Iron Street, Chicago. It is called the Zenith Model 420 (Open) and sells for $145.00 complete with Zenith quality tubes. It's a ten-tube set including the latest type new tubes and three of the new seven-prong tubes. The automatic tuning feature is a honey. All you have to do is touch a button and in comes the station you want. Notice the picture above. The door is open showing the tuning buttons. There are other good features, too. There are two large dynamic speakers, full range tone control with visual indicator, between station noise suppressor, image rejection circuit, oversize power transformer. Another good looking and (Continued on page 41) 39 By CORDON S T A R R E T T

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RADIO STARS The Three Moods in Blue of WLW. Flora Fran Blackshaw, Marion Clark and Kresup Erion. Their modern arrangements of songs are grand. Come Inside to the Inside Story (Continued from page 25) fanfare. Shilkret dances on his podium, arms jerking, eyebrows raised high — a habit of his. A third actor steps to the mike. Dark, suave-looking, slim, he's one of Radio Row's best voices, Webster Van Vorhees by name. On this program, they call him the narrator. His job is to introduce Mr. Hill. Hill is already at a mike bending courteously toward it. Amelia Ear- hart rises and walks to another one. Hill starts to question her, but he talks to the mike. She answers, talking into another mike ten feet away. He tells her that Nat Shilkret has written a piece in her honor named "Skyward." He asks Nat to play it. Van Vorhees steps up. "Here we go. Are you ready, Miss Earhart?" "Wind it-up," she answers. IN a far corner, three people spring into action. A squarish black box begins to shake and dance and from it comes a noise like an airplane motor. There are sputterings and barkings and the rumble steadies into a roar. Mrs. Ora D. Nichols and her two as- sistants, George O'Donnell and Henry Gauthier, a trio of sound wizards, are making us believe that' we're in an air- plane. The noise fades into Shilkret's composition. Don't you hear it? Feel it? Rushing wind and blinding speed! Miss Earhart smiles appreciatively from her chair. At its end, Hill takes over a mike. "It has taken a million years for men to get it through their heads that women are people." This is the Hill we ex- pect. No courtesy now to that brown tin gadget. He punches his words across — right into the mike. "They were willing to grant a few gleams of intelligence to a girl only if she had a face that would frighten cows, and a figure like a gargoyle " He tells how women have conquered the air. It's an introduction to Miss Earhart who stands again at her mike. Hill's dynamic voice, "You may have seen her pictures in the newspapers and magazines, but they utterly fail to re- veal her feminine charm and attractive- ness. "They give an imperfect idea of her pretty complexion, her steady, blue- gray eyes, her charming mouth, her easy, graceful bearing. "There is an inescapable resem- blance to Lindbergh . . . one wonders where all her endurance comes from, this girl who has twice leaped the At- lantic. . . ." She grins at the sheaf of papers in her hand; grins like a school girl on a rostrum, with red-cheeked embarrass- ment. |_| ILL turns to her again, shoots ques- tions. "You don't believe, do you, that woman's place is in the home?" She replies, "I don't believe that a woman should be a prisoner of her home any more than a man should he. A home is no longer just four walls. Women, as well as men, want to as- sume responsibilities of a larger life." In a moment, she is telling of her girlhood. Three newcomers step to- ward the mikes. Two are children, those kiddie prodigies you read about. Audrey Egan and Jimmie Maccallion are to recreate, with Josephine Fox as the mother, a scene from Miss Ear- hart's life. "Was there anything in your child- hood that pointed to your future ca- reer?" Hill asks. "Well ... I always jumped the fence instead of going around by the gate." That introduces the scene. Those kids, watch them. Their chins are tilted toward the mikes and they read their lines from printed scripts as in- telligently as any adult. When it is over, Mr. Hill brings us to another scene. Here, Miss Earhart is resigning from her job as filing clerk. Her manager can't understand it. "I'm afraid you're making a- mistake. Miss Earhart. There's a real future in this office for a woman. If you remain and are industrious and apply yourself, it shouldn't be many years be- fore you would be the head of the filing department. And that's a good job for a woman, you know. It pays thirty dollars a week." Amelia's mother had just bought her a second-hand airplane and there was no stopping her. We come, then, to the fateful night when a stranger called her at her home in Boston and asked the most amazing question ever put to a woman. "Would you fly the Atlantic?" She had never thought of such a thing seriously. But if he was serious, why . . . yes ! T HAT conversation was the beginning of the adventure that took her across to England in 1928 as a passenger in the sky-cruiser "Friendship." The next scene put her on her own, poised at the brink of the Atlantic for the first solo hop to Europe ever made by a woman. Waiting for weather re- ports. Now, actors swarm about those busy mikes. One is a girl who im- personates Miss Earhart, Marion Hop- kinson. Messenger boys arrive with telegrams. Bernt Balchen is imperson- ated by a glib chap with a Swedish accent. Night is falling. They make everything on the plane ready for the take-off. In her own corner, Miss Ear- hart leans forward, absorbed in the drama. A messenger arrives. "It's from George," the girl says who is impersonating the flyer. "Doc Kimball reports bad weather moving in from the south. 'Immediate start urged.' Well, that's that. 1 might as well be on my way." "Everything's set." "All right. Wind it up." The studio fills with the noise of an airplane. That is Mrs. Nichols again at her sound wizardry. We hear the bump and boom of a take-off . . . and Ed Hill sets himself before a mike. Every line of his body shows his concentration on his job. This is the climax of his show. His legs are apart and his knees bend to a half crouch as his lips churn these words into the mike. DERNT BALCHEN watches the red and gold ship dwindle into the eastern haze as the girl sets forth on her 2,000 mile adventure. Death, in the darkness of the night reaches for the girl as she races her plane east- ward." The sentences come to us 40

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RADIO STARS Almost everyone of any kind of fame at all has been a guest artist on the Rudy Vallee's Fleischmann Hour — including the breery Mae West. Your Radio Corner (Continued from page 39) through thunder, Mrs. Nichols' thunder that sounds so orach like a real airplane in full Sight that Miss Earhart has risen from her chair, trying to get a look at the machine that produces it. Hill blazes a trail of narrative. "Near midnight, the moon disappears. A severe storm, shot with lightning, buffets the plane. She fights to hold her course in the rough and pounding wind. This lasts for hours." A man with a drumstick pounds it against a taut steer-hide bigger than a dining room table. Thunder, that ! Our ears ache with the tumult of noises. Hill tells of fog. "It forces her to rise. And ice forms on the wings of her plane. But these are the least of her perils. The ex- haust is slowly burning through from a defective weld. Tongues of fire appear in the darkness and pieces of metal drop away. . . ." But with the new day she runs into sunshine, and Ireland. Her way barred by thunderstorms, she decides to land. The motor noise suddenly ceases, for a moment the sound of a landing gear making contact with bumpy pasture land, and then silence. What a silence ! Here in the studio, it is like a vacuum. Abruptly, we are aware of the clink and tinkle of cow bells. Somewhere, a girl sings. Mrs. Nichols' magic, that. Then, Miss Ear- hart's voice: "Hello, there. Can you tell me where I am ?" "Shurrr! You're in Derry, sir." This in rich Irish brogue. "In Derry? Oh, Londonderry?" "Yis, sorr. Heaven help me ! It's a woman." Amelia Earhart chuckles delightedly in her corner. George Palmer Putnam puts his hand on hers for a moment. She gets up and goes to her mike. Hill says : "Miss Earhart. haven't you often thanked fortune that you stuck at the thing that gave you so much fun?" "It usually works out," she answered, "that if one follows where an interest leads the knowledge or contacts some- how or other will be found useful in time. I learned to fly, and kept with it because it was the thing I wanted most to do. Of course, today, there's more responsibility attached to it, but I'm still flying for the fun of it." Shilkret's musicians sweep into a lively melody. Hill grins at Miss Ear- hart and wipes his forehead with a blue handkerchief. A moment later, Van Vorhees introduces the commercial an- nouncement. All across the country, in a half-dozen different key points, an- nouncers are plugging into the broad- cast to mention the particular brand of Socony- Vacuum product sold in that territory. The music from this studio forms a background for all their words. And now the half hour is over. George Palmer Putnam holds an even- ing wrap for his wife. Ed Hill crosses to shake their hands and bid them good- night. Some of the musicians crash their instruments into cases and sprint through the doorway to another studio where they are scheduled to appear. Miss Earhart and Mr. Hill follow them. good sounding radio is the Lyric, manu- factured by the Rudolph Wurlitzer Manufacturing Company, North Tona- wanda, N. Y. Model SA-130, which is pictured, is a good example of this make. This particular model is forty inches high, twenty-five inches in width and thirteen inches in depth. It sells for $149.50 complete with tubes. It is the tuning of this set to which the manu- facturers point with pride. They call it the "channel control" Lyric, and the makers say that with this set there is not the slightest sound between stations — no overlapping of programs. THE Philadelphia Storage Battery Company, Ontario and C Streets. Philadelphia, have a new development for their Philco radio which is note- worthy. They call it the Lazy-X. It is a remote tuning control affair. Here's how the company explains it: "Place the convenient Lazy-X tuning cabinet, with complete remote control, beside your easy chair. Place the attractive Lazy-X sound console anywhere in the room. Relax — change programs, adjust volume, control tone— all without stir- ring a foot or disturbing your mood by moving." Tonal excellence and fidelity of repro- duction is being emphasized more strongly than ever before by the Strom- berg-Carlson Company. Four new models have just been announced by this company and each of these utilize an audio output system which is so new, says an official, that new tubes had to be designed for them and a new type speaker created. The General Electronics Corporation, 15 Laight Street,. New York City, manu- factures something unique in all-wave receivers. The set pictured is the Baird model 50 which gives efficient reception from 15 to 555 meters. It has a super switch control for changing to various wave length ranges and uses no plug-in coils. I HAVE been attracted by Model F-12, a six-tube superheterodyne, in look- ing over the products of the Pilot Radio & Tube Corporation, Lawrence, Massa- chusetts. This table set is in a bakelite cabinet which was especially designed and perfected and said by the company to be the largest bakelite moulded prod- uct ever attempted. The finish is per- manent, moisture-proof, A distinctly different midget radio model, Lilliputian in size, is introduced by the General Electric Company, 1285 Boston Avenue, Bridgeport, Conn., in The Little G-E, Model K-40, with a tuned radio frequency circuit using four tubes. It can be operated on either al- ternating or direct current and provides adequate facilities for full, clear recep- tion where great volume is not required. THE Crosley Radio Corporation, Cin- cinnati, Ohio, is out with a really new idea. It's the Crosley Fiver Book- case, library model. This receiver repre- sents a set of books, each book with an appropriate title. The bookbacks are covered with a good grade of leatherette of antique coloring and the backs and two sides are embossed and embellished with gold. The book backs are mounted on two doors which swing open and permit the radio to be operated in the same manner as the conventional table model receiver. The Crosley Fiver Bookcase employs a five-tube superhete- rodyne chassis. Only $25.00 complete. 41

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RADIO STARS Down the Years with Eddie Cantor among the comedians to have the nerve to kid himself. He would get off gags like the one about the little boy that he found waiting outside the theater to ask him for an autographed picture. Eddie gave him one and the boy came back each night for a week asking for an- other. Finally Eddie said: "Say, you must like me pretty well to want all those autographed pictures of me." "Naw," the little boy replied, "I like Valentino and there's a kid down the street will give me one picture of Val- entino if I give him ten of you." IN the Follies, too, Eddie met Will Rogers. Will Rogers was getting a hundred and twenty-five a week then and glad of it. Now he gets more than that a minute. Besides being pals, they did a lot for each other. Eddie used to take Will out after the show to Kosher delicatessens. At that time Will was a "dumb act"; just a cowboy who twirled a rope. He used to sit and talk to Eddie in his quiet, humorous drawl. And Eddie convinced him that his conversation would go over big on the stage. Had it not been for Eddie, Will Rogers might still be a "dumb act" today. Rogers also did a lot for the come- dian whom he terms "My favorite non- Methodist actor." He taught him the value of the topical gag, the gag built on timely subjects, rather than played straight for a laugh. Eddie snapped up the idea. His first efforts in that line were some of the early "front" gags, during the war, such as: "Ziegfeld says you've got to go and be shot at the front." "I don't care whether it's front or back, just so it's painless." But Eddie went his mentor one bet- ter and where Will confined most of his gagging to politics, Eddie made use of every subject of popular interest, such as his recent radio quipping about Technocracy. Perhaps that is one rea- son why he has far surpassed Rogers as a radio attraction. QNE of the most lavish displays of comic talent ever seen on the stage was to be found in the Follies in the trio of Cantor, Rogers, and W. C. Fields. These three were inseparable. They played constant tricks on each other. When Eddie was to come rushing on the stage with a straw suitcase, he would find that Fields had filled it with bricks. Or when Rogers had a pet gag, he would find that it fell flat because Cantor had already used it, unknown to him, to get his goat. Cantor is no Pagliacci. There is no tear-behind-the-smile with him. Yet I find a curious sort of pathos in the fact that this kidding and horseplay, the same sort of thing he does on the stage, is his only offstage recreation. He has (Continued from page 23) no other hobbies, although now and then he will go out and dub around a golf course, just to get the sunshine. As a boy on the East Side and later, in the theatre, he had to make his own play. With the Kid Kabaret, he and Jessel used to demoralize the other acts by popping out of the wings or the pit in the weirdest outfits ; as even now he will demoralize a Rubinoff rehearsal for the Chase & Sanborn hour by snatching a violin and conducting the orchestra. Clowning has always been his only fun. It still is. When he is at home, he passes the time clowning with his wife and the five girls. Well, to get back to the story : He went ahead steadily, although he had fast company in the Follies: Fannie Brice, the late Bert Williams, (with whom Eddie was always "Sonny" and Bert "Papsy") as well as Rogers and Fields. Ziegfeld had such confidence in Ed- die's opinion that he used to send him long wires asking advice about the show. But Eddie had to fight to get Ziggy to star him, just as he had to fight in his early years with the Follies, to get out of blackface. Ziggy refused and refused, and then, just as he seemed about to give in, along came the famous Actor's Equity- strike of 1920 when De Wolfe Hopper lead the street parade up Broadway. Eddie joined the all-star walk-out and thereby lost a chance to play oppo- site Marilyn Miller and incidentally a contract which would have netted him four hundred thousand. But it finally did bring him to stardom, though under the Shubert banner. When the strike was over, the trio broke up and Cantor was left without prospects. LIE went with J. J. Shubert in a revue called "The Midnight Rounders." But it wasn't until the show opened and he went around front to look at the mar- quee, that he found he had been starred. During this time Eddie was hopping, howling, clowning, all over town, at banquets, benefits and private parties. "I'd open a theater on Avenue B where they came eating sausages and bringing their pushcarts," says Eddie, "and on the same night I'd hop over to Mrs. W. K. Vanderbilt's and enter- tain her swanky guests." Ziegfeld was willing to star him now all right. He did so, in "Kid Boots" and Cantor hit a new high. "Kid Boots" was a sensation on Broadway, a hit road show, and finally was made into a picture by Paramount. How the golden flood poured in ! Eddie's brokers got the most of it and added to it and multiplied it — on paper. And Eddie slaved. The son of the lackadaisical violinist who hated work, put more work into his clowning than a dozen other actors. He labored to develop new gags, new situations. He would get up in the middle of the night to jot them down in his note book. Out on the stage he was never still, giving it all he had — always the nervous little guy at the mercy of the doctor or the dentist or the aviation instructor, the tough traffic cop or the golf "pro" ; the same nervous little guy he had been on the East Side, kidding and making them like it — to the tune of several thousand a week. Meanwhile, on Broadway, he was Eddie Cantor, the wise guy. The wise guy who had turned his back on the bright lights, worked hard, stayed home with his wife and family and let the money roll in — but not out again. THEY had heard about his luck on the market. Oh, the moochers didn't ask for hand-outs now. They asked for tips on American Can. About this time an old dream came back to trouble Eddie — a dream he must have had on his tenement cot on the first night back from Surprise Lake Camp. It was a dream of blue sky with fleecy clouds and trees. Mount Vernon was getting pretty crowded. Building up fast. So he got his big idea. He would turn his back on the theatre, the drafty dressing rooms, the crowded clanging streets. He would retire and for once he would get all of the fresh air and sunshine he had craved all his life. Where? Why, in Great Neck, on Long Island Sound, the heaven where good actors go when their work is done. Hence the idea of the Great Neck house. What a house! They say, all fancies aside, that he laid out $600,000 for it, in cold hard cash. Countless rooms, a cabaret in the basement and a bar for his friends, a completely equipped theatre where he could caper for the fun of it. And all those acres of green grass with plenty of sky above. He built that house — out of the two million dollars that he had — on paper. He moved in. He was living there, late in 1929. You must know the answer already. "Oo, how the market broke !" Crash ! Zingo ! Zowie ! It took him twenty years to earn it — and twenty days to lose it. It was all gone, all but the house, for which he had paid cash. When the smoke had cleared away he took inventory. He found that he had the following: Liabilities — Five lusty, hungry daugh- ters; one overwhelming useless estab- lishment ; any number of pensioners, pals, hangers-on, pet charities, that he Iiad developed in his fat years and could not let down. Assets — One sweet, understanding, trusting wife; one undamaged sense of humor. Can Eddie Cantor come back? That's what everybody asked. You'll find the answer in the smashing conclusion to this story in the next issue of Radio Stars. 42

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RADIO STARS Radio's New Destiny (Continued from page 7) after any great national emergency passes. That being the case it seems certain now that President Roosevelt will go straight to the people over the air waves and ask for their support against any faction in Congress which may be blocking his plans and purposes. There- fore, as I say, radio has come now to have a great new function, to be a strong arm of the Presidency. OF course, Presidential use of radio is by no means new. The first President who ever spoke over the air was Warren G. Harding. This on the occasion of his inauguration March 4, 1921. On January 15, 1921, however, Herbert Hoover broadcasting as a pri- vate citizen, made an appeal for Eu- ropean relief funds. And in the past dozen years every President, I believe, has used radio to some extent. All have used it for cam- paigning purposes, to further the in- terests of their parties or of their own elections. And some have used it for governmental purposes and in support of policies. But never until the night of Sunday, March 12, did a President so frankly and directly employ radio as a means of rallying behind him public opinion of the people. It required a President with intuitive understanding of the American mind to seize upon radio as an effective instrument of government. The question will be asked, probably : Well, if radio is so useful to a Presi- dent, why cannot it be used by those who oppose his policies, or by factions and groups of Congress or by any other section or group? Of course, it can be so used, but it is extremely doubt- ful— in. fact, extremely unlikely — that any individual or group of individuals could ever use radio with such telling effect as the man who is responsible for the destinies of the nation. After all, the Chief Executive is our only national figure. He is responsible to no section or group, but only to the people as a whole. Radio is our only national means of communication and loses much of its influence and power when directed only to a group or a sec- tion, or is employed only by a group or a section. And that is why, I think, radio will become the Voice of the Presidency, the surest means of calling the people to his support in time of trouble, and the most effective means of giving the people from time to time the informa- tion which is their due and right. DON'T FAIL TO READ THE LAST INSTALMENT OF EDDIE CANTOR'S LIFE STORY IN OUR NEXT ISSUE Sit down and have a chat with DOROTHY JORDAN I OVELY Dorothy Jordan through the eyes of a famous *— and discerning novelist. There's an article you'll want to read! But it's only one of many absorbing features in the latest MODERN SCREEN . . . Rupert Hughes, another great writing name, revealing "The Hollywood Nobody Knows" . . . Claudette Colbert demonstrating with word and picture her new wardrobe . . . Jack Oakie and Peggy Hopkins Joyce — and what Jack's mother thinks of Peggy . . . Clyde Beatty, lion tamer extra- ordinary, takes his pen in hand: "When Wild Animals Become Movie Actors, Be- ware!" . . . But we haven't space to tell you about everything in that new issue. If you know MODERN SCREEN you know you can expect many other fascinating, "inside-stuff" articles and scores of pictures, most of them exclusive from our own Hollywood photographer. If you don't know MODERN SCREEN, now's the time to discover that it's the biggest screen magazine value in the world. Prove it with the June issue! MODERN SCREEN The Biggest and Best of All Screen Magazines Look for Sally Eilers on the cover I 43

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RADIO STARS Alex Morrison, authority on golf technique, gives the cast of the Rich- field Country Club program a lesson. Left to right: Jack Golden, the orchestra leader, Morrison, Ernest Glendinning, master of ceremonies, and Betty Barthell, blues singer. Want To Be a Radio Star? (Continued from page 15) sign. Like this — $incerity. You can't do that in the radio business. Somehow, the microphone always finds you out. If you want to go on the air, don't figure that it is merely a short cut to fame and fortune, for you will get no- where. Above all, believe in what you are doing. Your job on the air must be the most important thing in the world to you. Listen to Whiteman : i know a guy who tells bedtime stories to kiddies. He gets thousands of letters a week. He is everybodys' uncle. To you and me that sounds sort of silly, doesn't it? But it's not to this chap. You can't talk to him thirty sec- onds without hearing about those kids. He carries their pictures and their let- ters with him. Whether you like it or not, you've got to read those letters be- fore you get away. He isn't putting on an act, either. He's downright serious in thinking you arc interested. To him, those youngsters are more important than anything else under the sun." That's sincerity. And that's a part of what it takes to be someone on the radio. ILyou really want to be a radio star, there are many ways in which you may go about getting a job. Finally, how- ever, they all boil down to an audition. Almost every studio has an audition room. In them, careers are born and hopes are killed. To them troop the fat and the lean, and the weak and the strong in the hope that they may get on the air. Sometimes they do, but more often it is like this : In the NBC audition studio, a petite, pretty girl stands in front of a micro- phone. Faintly through tightly closed doors seep the. sounds of Manhattan traffic. The girl is dainty and charming with curly brown hair, vivid coloring and a happy smile — a treat to look at. She has been in vaudeville for a year or two singing blues songs. Her first number is a "skat" song of the day. Within the darkened control rooms, three people are listening — but not^ looking. And that is the point. On the stage, her youth and good looks counted heavily, and her songs got by. On the air, they count not at all. And her just-average voice is that of "just another blues singer." There are hun- dreds like her. She leaves the studio disillusioned, puzzled, and wondering why she doesn't click as she always does before a theatre crowd. Li ERE is another audition. A big, strapping man, witli a mellow bari- tone voice. The song comes into the control room rich and vibrant — but so full of poor phrasing, errors in breath control, and other defects that it's ex- cellence is obscured. He will not do. But here is a young lady who imitates children. She imitates a little girl of four in an adventure with her dollies. Terrible as this may sound in print, her work really is remarkable. The audi- tion director, for the first time, beams like a man who has found a five dollar bill. Sometimes it happens, you see — but only once in a blue moon. Paul Whiteman has listened to over 15,000 just such auditions. He has helped more budding stars, probably, than any other man in radio. But when I put to him the problem of the talented youngster in a small town or city out- side of New York or Chicago, he was stumped. To the point-blank question of "How can he get on the radio?" he answered, "Frankly, I don't know." h>\0 ! He doesn't know, and that is a disappointment. And he doesn't bold out the hope of stardom at all. Of all the 15,000 hopefuls he has heard, apprbximately fifty have had the talent or time to continue in the business of entertaining. The odds against the individual are terrific. Fortunately, though, there is always that long-shot chance of crashing through. For there are opportunities, as real as they are rare. Whiteman feels that something should be done about Amer- ican music. Almost none of a lasting quality is being composed. Yet, daily; hundreds of orchestras are on the air, performing all the songs that have been written from antiquity down to now. The centuries have given us a vast reservoir of music, yet Whiteman feels we are fast approaching the bottom. And new singers must be found. You can thank the latest microphones for that. More sensitive and more ac- curate than the old ones, they make a singer sing these days. Now, Lawrence Tibbett sounds like Lawrence Tibbett. And a crooner sounds like — well, just let it go. So, between creating music and delivering it there are chances that will be grasped by those who have, as Whiteman advises, both faith and sin- cerity. I WISH I could make you understand ■ the emphasis which he puts in that word faith. Faith in oneself, he means. Listen to him: "Look at Bing Crosby and Mildred Bailey. When they first started with me. I couldn't give them away. No- body wanted them on the air. Once, they even paid Bing not to sing. And look at them today. They're tops — not because they are any better today than they were then, but because they had faith in themselves." Now here's something. Last year, Paul Whiteman held an audition in the Biltmore Hotel and discovered a little girl named Peggy Healy who, up to the time she sang for him, had never sung in public in her life. Vaguely, she had meant to be an actress, and this audition was merely a lark. When she won it, she was the most amazed person in the studio. The other night, Paul predicted to me that Peggy Healy will be one of the big stars of the air 44

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RADIO STARS within a year. And this is the reason. Peggy has been smart enough to wait until she is ready for her big chance. She could have had a network spot months ago. Managers swarmed around trying to buy her services. If she had accepted, she would have made a few ready pennies — and then, because of her inexperience, become a flop. In- stead, she waited and studied and pre- pared herself, gaining confidence and poise, until now Whiteman says she is ready for success — real, lasting success. That, I think, is one of the best tips that Paul Whiteman can give anybody. And there you are. The road is ugly and rough and your chances of reaching the top are remote, but if you've got the faith that nothing can diminish, you may get there. Paul Whiteman knows no sure recipe for suc- cess— and don't let anyone tell you that there is one. But he knows what has happened to others. The same thing, if you get the breaks and have the talent, can happen again. She Cries for a Living (Continued from page 10) ciated with babies. At home in Parkers- burg there was a much younger sister and brother. After she left finishing school, she went to Cleveland and worked in an orphanage. All this time, she never once thought of radio a*s a profession. She was doing something for the world by means of social service work. In the orphanage she would mimick the children. If a two-year-old tuned up to cry, Sallie Belle would beat her to it — do the crying, thereby shaming the child or amusing it. After that job, she went into girls' camp work as a counselor of dramatics and swimming. Immediately, she be- came known as the girl who could mimick. Imitating babies, she found, was a sure way of entertaining. Two years ago newspapers carried a story about the trouble the National Broadcasting Company was having in its search for a person who could imi- tate a baby. Of course she was amused. She thought it silly that such an easy thing would be hard to find. So she wrote NBC a letter. The answer came rushing back. Yes, NBC needed a baby mimicker and needed it badly. Would she come for an audition ? She went. Peter Dixon and a radio official listened. Peter needed her right away for "Raising Junior." She was on the air within the week. Sallie doesn't always expect to cry for her supper. She has another bigger ambition. No, it isn't marriage and babies of her own. She wants to be an actress. Even now, when she isn't needed for the baby work, she plays dramatic roles. Some people might expect her to be slightly ashamed of her "work." Or embarrassed when she stands before the mike in a crowded studio. But she isn't. She knows that the audience is, without exception, amused. Inside, though, she isn't satisfied. She wants to move those listeners emotionally, not with baby tears but through the art of acting. That's what she wants, really. Well, some day she may. She is plucky — and up to now, she feels she has been lucky. He Barks for a Living (Continued from page 11) and Marguerite Clark. They made si- lent films in those days. The invention of the "talkies" thrust him into his new career. A comedy called for the sound of an egg frying on a stove. No one could supply the sound, no sound expert would even attempt it. Barker took a deep breath and pursed his lips close to the mike. The result was perfect. The step from the "talkies" to radio was logical and short. He made it as an actor, thinking so little of noise- making that he didn't even mention it to his new employers. Fate overtook him the night a script came into the studio calling for the barking of a crazed, angry dog. Everyone tried his hand at barking, and each was dis- missed. Barker finally took his turn, and his husky yelp sent one woman into hysterics. And got him a permanent assignment as the "dog" of that par- ticular show. Since then, he has amplified his stock in trade and improved his technique. Mostly through accidents, too. Once, a hot electric iron was supposed to be thrust into a glass of water, but the iron failed to heat. So Barker sizzled. On another occasion, a rooster was sup- posed to crow at a given moment. It didn't. But Barker did. His hardest job was the time he imi- tated all the animals on Frank Buck's "Bring 'Em Back Alive" broadcast. He was everything from birds to gorillas. Incidentally, he still wonders if his gorilla imitation was authentic. He's never heard one in his life and he sim- ply made up the noise as he went along. Barking for a living does have its advantages, he admits. Men with men- ageries in their throats don't grow on every tree and in consequence he gets most of the bow-wow business at NBC. When he takes a holiday, he goes to the zoo or the farm of a friend and spends his days memorizing new noises. So that is what life does to you in this radio business . . . takes you out of your chosen profession and makes you a jungle echo. Bradley Barker still can't understand it. But he can under- stand the pay check he gets for it. 2Sx4.6O.20 2.10 80x4.50-21 2.15 28x4.76- 19 2.20 0.96 1.76-20 2.25 0.96 ..00-JJ 2.SO ..Sb* 28x5.26-18 2.6S ■ 19 2.75 -20 2.75 15.26-21 2. || 2^5 2.9S 1.16 2.95 1.16 I 3.20 DEALERS t WANTED SEJNDPNJr,V*100 DEPOSIT with e,ch C. O. D.De. H2'.95 L16 15 34x4*2.95 1.16 ' - 3.25 1.36 III 1.16 35x6 We snip - t S D*r cent if cub in full ALL TUBES BRAND EW— GUARANTEED YORK TIRE & RUBBER CO., Dept. 240- A 3855-59 Cottago Grov Aw, Make $35 to $60 Weekly Service Radio Sets Learn at Home in Spare Time Mail a post card today for free 64-page book. Many Radio Experts make $35. $50, $75 a week. Find out about the spare and full time job opportunities in Radio — howl train you quickly to ser- vice sets, operat Radio stations: and for other jobs in manufacturing, selling, and servicing Radio, Television and Talking Movie Apparatus My free book explains amazingly practical 50- 50 method of home-study]training, gives *j*eM' letters showing what N. R. 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RADIO STARS Sob Story drudgery from which only a few are fated ever to escape. Ruth, we know, did escape. But there were dark days when she lay on her bed. her feet afire from too much danc- ing, sobbing, sobbing. . . . For by now, life had her in its grip; and she was tasting its dregs. With her chin up, you may be sure; her back as straight as a soldier's whenever eyes could see her, but alone — alone, she be- came a tired kid who wanted desper- ately to go home to the folks at David City. The same thing had happened before, and will happen again. But happening to her— enduring it, it was hell. She could have gone home, yes. She might have written for money and got- ter it by the next mail. But that would have been failure, and her letters to her parens h never even hinted of that. Leaving, home, she had promised that she would succeed. Deserting the study of painting against her parents' wishes for the gaudier atmosphere of the theatre, she had sworn that she would succeed. Now, singing in cafe back- rooms and basements — with the thought ever in her mind that she need not en- dure this if she would only give it up — she discovered new depths to her soul and unsuspected levels of agony. Listen, you sceptics ! Listen, you who think that Ruth Etting's kind of sing- ing can be imitated by any frog-throated miss in a college glee club. Ruth was experiencing things that ninety-nine out of a hundred women never even im- agine. Call it life, if you will; call it pain, or purgatory, or heartbreak. It put the sob into her voice. This, for instance. . . . She sang in Colisimo's, Bishops, and other torrid night spots. She and nine (Continued from page 20) other girls, and a piano player. They were entertainers. And dancers. Some places call them hostesses. Men and women visited those cabarets, sat at cir- cular tables, and drank and ate away the night's darkest hours. It was Ruth's job to go to those tables and sing. Not the floor show sort of singing we hear today. Here, you were close to your audience — close to men who stunk with liquor and women who glistened with rouge and mascara. Here, you sat yourself in a handy chair, no waiting for an invitation, and began your song with just enough volume to carry to the folk about the table. More often than not, you weren't wanted. Women, hard as nails, resented Ruth's simplicity and sweetness. Some of them flung wine in her face and ordered her away. Others turned their backs and sneered as her syrupy songs clutched at the memories of the men. No matter, it was her job to sing. That sob in her voice that you've noticed began back there, while her eyes were bright with tears she was afraid to shed and her ears burned with insults. She had to sing, and dance, too. With men so foul with alcohol that they could scarcely keep their feet; with men who pawed at her freshness with predatory hands. Many a time, she fled from a table to hide tremblingly in the ladies' room. But even there she was not safe, for the establishment's bouncer, regard- less of the proprieties, sought her out and dragged her back to the customers. When it was all over, the singing or the dancing, you took your tip, whether it was a bill or a coin, and slid it through the slit in the black tin box that sat during each evening on top of the never- quiet piano. And then, at seven or eight in the morning, having drudged since six o'clock of the previous night, you and the other girls and the piano player opened that tin box, and divided the evening's spoils. ^yOULD you who envy Ruth's suc- cess today have suffered all that for the chance of becoming a star? Would you undergo the same ordeal ? Would you suffer the same indignities? Ruth won her battle. In the oddest sort of way you ever heard. Those women who had at first resented her freshness and slimness came to realize that she was not after their men; real- ized, too, that here was the sort of sweetness they themselves had once pos- sessed and abandoned for rhinestone- and-tinsel careers. They became Ruth's boosters and friends. Step by step, she became more important, more popular, and more skillful in her art. In the end, she shook herself free. Perhaps that was too bitter on appren- ticeship. Many folks would say the game was not worth such suffering. No matter, it turned the simple Neb- raska country girl into a deep-souled woman. And into an artist. When the late Flo Ziegfeld heard her voice, he demanded it. When he brought it to Broadway, all New York acclaimed it. Radio gave it to the nation. All this, you must know. This last though, is news. Most of Ruth's fans and friends are still women. That haunting overtone which some call a sob seems to be an echo of their own secret experiences. Ruth has let me read some of the letters they have sent her. There can be no doubt of it, they have taken her completely into their hearts. Which makes a perfect ending, I think, for any sob story. Money, Money, Money! call it the "stand-by" orchestra. At the beginning and at the end, it is on the air. The rest of the time, it sits around, waiting for something to hap- pen. What could happen is this: one of the telephone lines connecting a dance orchestra of the evening to the studios could break. Such an emergency could kill the Lucky Strike program if the break were not immediately repaired. So Mr. Lucky Strike keeps this "stand- by" crew in an NBC studio ready to pinch-bit in case of need. Thus far, notliing has ever happened. That is the Lucky story. But what happens to the individual who, through luck or skill or by virtue of his talent, snares the public's fancy? It's an un- believable tale. Standard Oil recently re-signed (Continued from page 17) Groucho and Chico Marx for another thirteen weeks. At a salary of $6,500 a week. Ed Wynn's latest contract, rumor says, is drawn for $7,500 a week. When he played the Capitol theatre in New York recently with his "Laugh Parade" troup, he got $20,000 for the seven days. Before he went on the air, he'd have taken from $3,000 to $5,000 and con- sidered himself lucky. Radio does that to performers. It gives them an audience that will pay to see them in the flesh. And it kites up their salaries to dizzy heights. LI ERE are a few. Amos 'n' Andy, making their infrequent theatrical appearances, draw $7,500 a week. Jack Benny who replaced Al Jolson for Chevrolet and made himself a national figure with his nickel-back-on-the-bottle type of advertising is worth $4,000. The Boswell Sisters demand and get $3,000. Cab Calloway is a $5,000-a- week man. Eddie Cantor will sign that contract for $8,800. Ruth Etting gets $+,500. The Revellers take $3,500. Kate Smith works for $6,000. And Rudy Vallee, $4,500. These are stage salaries, remember. And so much velvet, usually, for they are paid in addition to whatever the entertainer takes from his aerial spon- sor. Yes, this broadcasting- is a freak busi- ness. Russ Columbo — remember ? — came from the West with empty pock- ets. A few months later, network mo- guls were handing him $1,000 each week. Still months later, he was back to zero again as far as broadcasting was 46

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RADIO STARS concerned. Can't find a sponsor. And the Mills Brothers. They came into the Big City flat hroke. Their top money during their Vape.x broadcast a year later was $3,500 each week. And they're still going strong. Of course, these are all Big Names. Big Names in any business cost money. Small stations not hooked-up to the giant networks have a far different story to tell. Their coverage is small, they appeal to a specific locality, and the local advertiser can get his money's worth without pawning the family jewels. In Harrisburg, Pa., for example, you can hire a good dramatic actor for $2.00 a broadcast. In Terre Haute, a fifteen-piece concert band gets only $50.00. Rock Island, Illinois, pays its actors $2.50 a broadcast. An old-time fiddler in Louisville, Ky., costs just $5.00. An organist and or- gan (in the First Methodist Church) can be rented for $18.00 per program in Wichita Falls, Texas. Hawaiians are available in Omaha, Neb., for $15.00. and a string quartet gets $36.75 in Maine. So, you see, this story of money in the broadcasting business has its peaks and valleys just as any other business. There is this difference, though. The royal families of radio are rewarded by a veritable deluge of gold, while the day laborers drudge for their bread and butter. Drudging, they hope and pray for the break that will rocket them to the top. They don't mind, really, for, as one told me recently, "In this business, you wake up each morning thinking, 'Well, maybe today is the day my ship will come in.' In any other business, in these times, you wake up and know darn well nothing is going to happen." Radio City ! It's the house that jack built. It's the house that many a pair of young eyes are fastened on these days, for it represents success and fame and that certain extra something that people call money ! money ! money ! Little Odd One (Continued from page 19) prettily and so she determined that since she couldn't do anything about her looks, she would concentrate on her voice. She might even be an actress — a tragic actress, of course, and hold great mul- titudes spellbound ! As yet, Mother was not told anything about these aspirations but suddenly Elsie was taking part in every school play and evinced great interest in church singing. About this time Mrs. Hitz decided that Gertrude, the eldest, (and to Elsie, the most beautiful,) should begin elo- cution lessons. A teacher was sent for who looked Gertrude over and explained her course, but all the time there was Elsie standing in a corner of the room and eyeing the teacher as if she were cakes in a pastry shop window. Finally "Aren't you unusually rough tonight, Percival?" "Sorry, dear boy, but I really am annoyed, you know." "Of all things! Why?" "You borrowed my Film Fun and forgot to return it." AND let that be a lesson to you, too, gentle reader. Always have your own copy of FILM FUN on hand and you'll run no danger from infuriated wrestlers, athlete's foot, pyorrhea, or the seven-year itch. Not that we claim any medicinal qualities for the screen's only fun magazine, but it'll keep you so busy laughing at the antics of Hollywood you'll never have time to think of your troubles. Try this laugh tonic today. Dash up to the nearest newsstand and ask the dealer — when he stops laughing over his own copy — for the latest issue of THE HOWLS OF HOLLYWOOD! 47

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RADIO STARS the woman laughed and, pointing to "the little odd one," said, "I think this is the elocutionist of the family." Mother laughed, too, and said she thought Elsie was too young but she supposed the children might as well start lessons together. At this Elsie fled to privacy and wept for joy. AS the lessons progressed, with Elsie ^ keeping abreast of her sister, she be- gan to gain self-confidence, especially since Mother seemed just as proud of her as she was of Gertrude. But about this time Elsie learned to her amazement that her school chum really had been adopted and so the "odd one" began to wonder about herself again. In time, of course, she outgrew this fear of having been adopted but never did the inferiority complex entirely leave her. Gertrude grew up into a beauty and an actress, too, becoming William Hodge's leading lady. While she was in high school, Elsie came home one day with the thrilling news that she had gotten herself a job with the local stock company. Mrs. Hitz did not protest for she knew what parental objections meant, having her- self had stage aspirations as a girl. She was secretly glad to see them blossom forth in her daughters. Even Elsie's tender age was not brought forth as an argument, for Mother guessed how much this opportunity meant to the odd one. So Elsie Hitz became a professional actress at fourteen, alternating her study of algebra with the study of her lines. When she was sixteen her fam- ily moved to New York so that she might have a better chance at the career she loved. She gave excellent promise of being a fine and successful actress and she already had a speaking voice that once heard was never forgotten. The first manager she applied to in New York told her he would like to en- gage her since she seemed such a good ingenue but unfortunately she had the same coloring as the star — dark hair and eyes. They needed a blonde. "But one side of my hair is blonde," protested Elsie. The manager laughed unbelievingly and told her to come back the- next day with her hair combed on its blonde side. Elsie did and got the job ! In the play she wore a little evening cap with the blond strand showing and everyone thought she was a tow-headed blonde. The hated hair had at last conquered her inferiority complex. She got good notices and all the critics remarked on her resemblance to Helen Hayes. She is about the same height and in profile die resemblance is very striking. Among the plays she appeared in are "Penrod" following Helen Hayes, "The Cat and the Canary," "The Butter and Egg Man," "The Spider" and many others. At seventeen she fell in love with Jack Welch, a young leading man. He was her first beau and she wanted to marry him but her mother insisted that she was much too young. When the play they were both appearing in reached St. Louis, however, Mrs. Hitz received the following wire: DEAR MOTHER COLD RAINY AND DULL HERE SO WE GOT MARRIED LOVE ELSIE MEEDLESS to say, they were for- given. Elsie is the only one of the five girls who hasn't gotten a divorce. She is ideally happy. Her husband gave up the stage for business and she gave it up for radio. In this way they could be together in a place of their own and in time have a youngster, Jean. At present she is a delightfully blase child, taking her mother's talents for granted. Elsie got into radio when she was sent by a theatrical manager with doz- ens of other girls to try out for "Mag- nolia" in an air production of "Show Boat" with Lionel Atwill. At the time of her marriage she began singing les- sons but many other girls sang. It was her charming speaking voice — a voice quite unlike any other auditioned, a voice full of warmth and tenderness, that got her the job. Edna Ferber, the authoress, was so pleased with Elsie's performance that she gave her an auto- graphed copy of "Showboat," telling her what a delightful Magnolia she made. After that one performance William Sweets, of National Broadcasting, sent for Elsie and she was teamed up with Ned Wever in various programs. They became the lovers of the air on "True Story," "Love Story," "Arabesque," "Rinso" and "Blue Coal" to mention but a few. As Jane on the "Rinso" program her fan mail averaged one hundred and fifty letters a week. This year the team was broken up because when the "Magic Voice" pro- gram was bought by Ex-Lax to be broadcast over Columbia, Nick Dawson was already chosen as the man and of all the dramatic actresses on the air to be considered as possessing a magic voice, only Elsie Hitz filled the bill. Hence her exclusive contract with Columbia. The "black sheep" is the only active artist out of the whole Hitz flock now and maybe her family isn't proud of her ! As for the inferiority complex, the only time it rears its head is when her script calls for her to sing over the air. There are so many singers on the radio that Elsie's hands get clammy and her heart pounds like a base drum but you would never know it by her voice. Sing she does and well, too. And Beauty — Elsie is going to lay that ghost some day soon — perhaps, as rumor hath it, by means of the talkies. She still has her strand of blond hair — she would hardly part with it after it got her her start. Only recently her mother, remember- ing the "little odd one," cut a piece out of the newspaper. It said that the latest rage in Paris was for Milady to have a strand of her hair dyed a contrasting color, so even in this Elsie is a "nat- ural." No wonder she says it pays to be the "black sheep," the "little odd one." Her life has proved it. Why Al Jolson Quit performer, as the top man of that hard- boiled street called Broadway, but as the softest-hearted sentimentalist ever turned out by the school of hard knocks. His home was a rambling penthouse apartment so rich in its furnishings that it almost stifled one. He had a servant to answer every need. He shared his quarters with innumerable friends. I can hear him now, saying, "Come on home with me. We're throwing a party." But that place wasn't home. Though Al lived in a hundred dif- ferent gilded palaces, until the day he married Ruby Keeler, he never had a home. "I'm in love with my wife," he told Jimmie Cannon. And there is your answer. He was homesick. Jolson wanted to go home. (Continued from page 9) When Al married Ruby, his heart told him that in her company he would find the sweet haven that life had that far denied him. An immigrant lad struggling up the tall ladder of fame from a beginning in far-away Russia has little time for romance, or even for sentiment. To her, he gave the sort of puppy-dog devotion that we see more often in high school boys. And Ruby, loving Al rapturously, gave to him that warm understanding and sympathy that he so needed. Be- cause they were both making movies, they lived together in a Spanish house on a palm-lined lane in Hollywood. From the very first, they were child- ishly happy. IT was there that Al found his real home, the first he had ever known. It takes a smart man to realize that he has made a mistake. It takes a smarter one to correct that mistake. When Al left Hollywood for New York's broadcasting palaces, he was as brown as a berry. Yet, within a month, after wading through Manhattan's slush and suffering from sudden temperature changes, he was on his back in a hos- pital bed. And the woman whose touch he needed was three thousand miles away, held there by iron-clad clauses in her motion picture contract. That was the beginning of his home- sickness. For fifteen weeks, he stood it. For fifteen weeks, he submitted to the contract that bound him to a tempera- mental New York climate. And then he rebelled. He says it was interference . . . that meddlers tried to tell him, America's foremost individual enter- 48

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RADIO STARS tainer, how to entertain. He says he decided to throw up the whole show. Well, let him have his story. A grown man doesn't break down and tell the world that he wants to go home to his wife. It sounds too school-boyish. Al's crowd is smart and sophisticated; to a lot of them, marriage is an old- fashioned custom, and a successful mar- riage is a miracle. They don't under- stand Al and Ruby or what they mean to each other. But the rest of us do, I think. As for me, I'm proud to know a guy who can turn his back on a $5,000-a-week job and refuse the offer of a $10,000 one because he holds other things more precious to him than money. Call it interference, if you wish. Call it mike-fright. Or inability to work without an audience. Or illness. Let him come back to the kilocycles tomor- row with a new program of the sort he wants to do — and he'll be back some of these days, you can bet. Still, none of these things change the fact that, for Al, three thousand miles was too great a distance to be separated from his wife. We know — you and I — that Al Jol- son quit the air to go home. Voodoo On the Air (Continued from page 33) That is the John Henry who is on the air. That is the mighty roisterer brought to you by the Columbia Broad- casting System and played by a man named Juano Hernandez, whose ances- tors also came from the heart of the African jungle. Three qualities, says Hernandez, make a negro a hero among the Southern labor gangs. First, he must be power- ful in his strength; second, he must be bad; and third, he must be a success with the ladies. John Henry, the legend says, was a powerful, bad ladies' man. Into the shoes of such an incredible character has stepped Hernandez. With him is a cast of actors and actresses who pour themselves into the drama until they have backaches and headaches. Rose McClendon, noted Negro actress, confessed this recently after acting the part of the "conjure woman." I wish you could watch these folk at work. Juano, for instance, leading* the chants and looking like a witch doctor drawing the "debbil" out of his subjects. And Geraldine Garrick, who adapts the script from Bradford's book, ever alert and ready with directions. Juano Hernandez understands the part he plays better, I think, than any- one else in the world. His whole life seems to have been a search for this very production. As a youngster, he hungered after knowledge. That hunger took him from Paris to North Africa, in time. And then to America. CIX years he spent in the South — first doing a "strong man" act on a negro vaudeville circuit, then touring a host of plantation supply houses, shacks, and small town halls in an exhibit of his own. Intermittently, he worked with negroes in road construction and lum- ber camp gangs. He got to know this type of negro — big, imaginative, and poetic. He saw deaths, whippings, and the power of superstition. He heard them sing their chants — "Ain't He a Mighty Man" — and, in mournful repetition, "Dry Bones in de Valley." Down on the levees, along a sun-baked road. These spirituals and chants could be carried only in the memory, imprinted there indelibly along with the despair and happiness of the toiling man, though the rhythm itself was in Juano's blood. To Africa, Juano finally went him- self. In Africa, despite his collar and tie, and his hard-won education, he watched the natives with infinite re- spect and curiosity. He noted that those in sea-port towns were disturbed and spoiled by civilization. They were con- scious of tourists curiosity — as aware as Greenwich Villagers attempting to look "arty" for visitors. QNE day he went so far as to peer cannily through a hole in the fence surrounding an Ubangi village. He chose a time when no white people were hanging around to see the sights. What he saw when the Ubangis were unaware of an audience, tickled his sense of humor. They were being themselves, relapsing into nudity and happy African gossip. Another time, though, he saw some- thing different. This night, red flames gleamed under an ebony sky and showed in a hundred gleaming highlights on weaving, stamping thighs. Here, too, the moon was copper colored and the sky was black. A time for deviltry and bewitchings. Juano will never forget it. All these things — all the fruit of his years of experience among the people he knows and understands — go into his interpretation of John Henry. On the air, in the midst of blood- curdling adventure or laugh-provoking hilarity, he never pulls his punches. It isn't John Henry's nature — or Juano Hernandez'. Like the character, he says, "I b'lieve I'll be gittin' around. I got a eetch on my heel and a run-around on my weary mind. I got to scratch my feet on strange ground and rest my weary mind on a strange pillow." That's a clue to this mighty man of Negro mythology. A clue, too, to the sort of programs you'll hear when the sun has set these summer evenings and a copper moon spreads its warning that there is voodoo on the air. SEE WALTER WINCHELL'S CLEVER WAY OF MAKING HIMSELF FAMOUS. IN OUR NEXT ISSUE Married a Man — on the Rebound!" ONE moment I was one of hundreds of girls busily at work in his fac- tory. The next, I was in his private office, witness to an amazing drama. He had been having a furious scene with his faithless wife. "Any girl," he said scornfully, "any girl out there in my shop would make me a better wife than you've been. And I'll prove it!" That was where I came in! "Miss Burke," he said to me, as if he were transacting a business deal, "I shall be divorced in a f Aw months. When I am free, will you be my wife?" Why did Laura Burke ever accept such an astounding proposition ? "Mad Marriage," a book-length true story, appearing complete in this month's MOD- ERN ROMANCES, (rives you the answer. The stirring, real-life experience of a real girl, it will strike home to you with a force never equalled by fiction. And you'll get real thrills from the many other true stories in this remarkable magazine. Get acquainted with MODERN ROMANCES and the absorbing true experiences which it brings each month — at the unusually low price of 10c. nModern Romances A magazine of true stories for only lOe Astrology What do the Star* Predict for 1933? Will it I. r a rear of success? Would you like to know? Our special lo-pagc Astrologies! Read- ing icives prediction*, month by month - with exact days, dal»-» and nappenirifc-rt fur 1^33 based on your sbzn of the Zodiac. Consult it before ■ makin* any chance in home or business affairs. |V1 mtrnina papers, love, marriage, seeking employ - IV menl raises in salary, speculation, travel, I ■ friends, enemies, health, accidents, lucky days. ■ ■ etc. Send exact birthday with SI. 00 for readmit. Franklin Pub. Co., 800 N. Clark St.. Dept. 2347, Chicago 49