Hugh O'Brian Became Actor After Winning Blind Date with Virginia Mayo

Hugh O'Brian took a deep breath as the car pulled up to the little funeral parlor. He knew that the others in the car were watching him out of the corners, of their eyes, to see if he'd begin to break down, begin to cry. But he took a deep breath and clenched his fists and he had a hard time not shouting out, "There aren't going to be any tears or any breaking down, folks -- because Mary isn't dead, Mary couldn't be dead, Mary couldn't really have died just like that and left me!"

The car stopped. "Hugh," his mother said, softly, as she took his arm. "Hugh ... we're here." The tall, eighteen-year-old boy didn't move. Instead he stared out the window to his right, at a highly-polished plaque on which somebody had carefully and coldly chipped out the words: Undertaker: Day and Night Service. "Hugh," his mother said again. The boy fought back the tears as he nodded, finally, and opened the door.

The others remained in the car while they watched him walk very slowly to the door of the funeral parlor, open it, stand rigid for a few moments and then go inside. Two girls were standing in the lobby, their eyes red, their hands clutching at their pocketbooks, as Hugh walked in. One of them came over to him. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry, honest." Hugh looked at her. He tried to smile. He tried to say, "What are you sorry about? What's wrong with everybody, anyway?" But instead he took another deep breath and the heavy smell of carnations from another room, a room not too far away, nearly choked him and he walked past the girl without saying anything.

The next few steps were the longest he'd ever taken in his life. And then suddenly, without any warning, he was standing in the doorway leading to the big room with the carnations and the other flowers -- and he saw her. "Mary?" he called, as though by some miracle she might answer him. "Mary?" he called as he ran across the room and past the people who were seated silently in the neat rows of bridge chairs which fanned out from the back wall. "Mary?" he called as he grabbed the sides of the smooth white coffin and stared down at the girl he'd loved so much. "It's Hughie, Mary," he said, his voice breaking. "I got the telegram that you wanted to see me ... and now I'm here, Mary ... I'm here."

Finally, he cried. Mary was dead and, without shame, he stood there and looked down at the beautiful, almost-smiling face and cried, until someone came over to him, took his arm and led him over to a chair where he could sit and cry some more and take a long last look at his girl and remember.

"I remember," Hugh says now, "how I met Mary, that first day of school in Winnetka, Illinois, when the teacher assigned us to seats and Mary's was at the desk next to mine. She was very pretty, the prettiest girl I'd ever seen. I remember how the first time I saw her I just enjoyed looking at her and how a couple of days later, after we got over our first shyness, we began talking to each other. It's fantastic, but for the next 10 years we were together all the time, practically every hour of practically every day.

"Mary lived only a few blocks from me and every morning I used to call for her on her porch and we'd go to school together. Then, at lunchtime, we'd always eat together -- if we went to Mary's house her mother would usually make bacon and peanut butter sandwiches, which we used to gobble up, Mary two and me three. Or we'd eat together at my house. My mother usually had a stew for us or spaghetti, and Mary always used to say, 'Mrs. O' Brian, when I get big, will you teach me how to make this for Hughie?'

"After lunch, Mary and I would go back to school and you'd probably figure that at three o'clock, for a few hours at least, Mary would go her way and I would go mine. But no, Mary would come with me, wherever I wanted to go. If I went to play baseball or football or anything, Mary would always tag along with me. Some of the other kids didn't think very much of this, but it always made me feel nice to know that she was there, just watching me, just with me.

"At night, after supper, we'd get together and do our homework. Then, if we were at Mary's house, we'd sit and listen to the radio. Or if we were at my house, we'd listen to my mother talk about life. My mother had a feeling about living -- I learned it from her, and follow it to this day: I enjoyed yesterday, I love today I look forward to tomorrow. Or she'd talk about the theater and movies and acting. She thought it was very glamorous and a lot of fun and she would tell us how she wanted to be an actress when she was a young girl, and she'd always add, 'And maybe, Hughie, you'll want to be an actor some day?'

"The thought of being an actor seemed so silly, then. But I guess some of that talk rubbed off on me those nights I used to sit there with Mary listening, all wide-eyed, to my mom. 'Wouldn't that be nice,' Mary would say to me as I walked her home, 'if someday you did become an actor and I was your wife and we went to the movies every night and just sat looking at you!'

"I don't know just when, during all those years, Mary and I fell in love -- or just how. But we did come to love each other. And now, looking back on it, I can't help feeling that no matter how young we were, how unknowing we were, it was as strong a love as two people could ever know.

"Mary wasn't happy when I had to leave to go into the Marines. I wasn't happy about leaving her, either. But there was a war on, I was 18, my dad was a Marine captain -- and I'd always wanted to be a Marine, too, for a while, at least. We loved each other, I told her, and it was a cinch the war had to be over someday and then we'd get married and everything would turn out okay. We'd live happily ever after, forever, Mary and Hughie ...

"Well, everything didn't turn out okay. Mary got sick soon after. Forgive me if I don't make public the details of her illness. And then, she died. It's hard to tell you exactly how I felt when I realized that she was dead. I guess that sometimes, even now, it's hard for me to feel that she really isn't here any more ...

"Anyway, Mary was dead and everything inside me seemed to have died, too."

After the funeral, Hugh returned to his Marine base in California. He was promoted to drill instructor -- the youngest in Marine history. He was lucky: hour after hour, in this tough new job, he was out on the dusty marching field growling out orders to hundreds of green leathernecks, yelling for perfection, hup-hup-hupping his lungs out from dawn to dark, sweating out some of his sorrow; so dog-tired at the end of the day that he'd be in his sack by 10 and fall right to sleep. And forget about Mary, for a little while at least. Except for dreaming about her. But in the dreams she was always alive and laughing, so that was all right.

That year was a bleak one for Hugh. Especially the Sundays, when his buddies would go out on passes or their girls would come visit them on the base. Hugh rarely left the base on these days. Twice a good friend of his had his girl bring along another girl -- just to sort of casually introduce to Hugh and maybe get him to smile and talk a little. But both times Hugh simply shook hands with the girls and then made some kind of excuse about having to go somewhere and do something and he'd take off for his barracks, to sit for hours and write a letter to his mother. Or maybe pick up a book -- usually something on law. He'd always figured he'd eventually wind up being a lawyer. And then he'd just fall back on his sack and wait for the chow bugle, then a movie, then back to his sack and to sleep again.

It was at about the end of that first year after Mary's death when one of his buddies, who thought it was high time his pal snapped out of it -- got an idea. It was going to take what some might call psychology, his buddy figured, but it was sure going to be worth the try. "You want a date, O'Brian?" he asked after drill one day. knowing just what the answer was going to be.

"No, thanks," Hugh said.

"Aw, come to think of it, you probably couldn't get this one anyway. It's with me of those big, beau-ti-ful movie stars."

"I said I don't want a date, period."

"And I said you probably couldn't get this one anyway!"

It worked. After about half an hour of fake taunting, Hugh got his Midwestern dander up and the next morning he was standing stiff at attention in front of his colonel asking for a 72-hour pass.

"What do you want it for?" the colonel grunted. "Well, sir," said Hugh, "there's a radio how up in Los Angeles I'd like to go on. It's called Blind Date."

"Blind Date?" asked the colonel, squinting his eyes a little bit. "Well, sir, some of the boys were kidding me about ..." Hugh started to say.

The colonel, who'd been studying Hugh's record and noticed that this was the first special pass he'd ever asked for. interrupted him. "You can go, O'Brian," he said. "But," he added, "don't bother to come back here if you don't win!"

Hugh went up to Los Angeles and met both his friends' and his colonel's challenge. He won. His prize was a date with Virginia Mayo. Hugh had a lot of fun that night, the first fun he'd had in a long, long time. They went out to dinner, then dancing, and Virginia didn't mind at all when she felt his arm tightening around her in that tender way that always meant a boy was dreaming he held someone else in his arms. Then they went somewhere for a nightcap.

As they said good night, Virginia invited him to come visit her on the set the next morning. She was making a movie with Danny Kaye. "You'll really have a ball," she urged, waiting for an answer, remembering the once or twice during the evening Hugh had let something slip about a girl he'd had. Hugh refused the invitation at first. But Virginia insisted. "You don't want to be the only man in the world who'd turn down a chance to meet a whole flock of Goldwyn Girls, do you?" she asked. "Well, " Hugh said, giving it some serious thought. "No."

"Then," said Virginia, pausing to give the big Marine a kiss on the cheek, "I'11 see you at the studio tomorrow morning."

Hugh O'Brian fell in love that next day. Not with any of the gorgeous Goldwyn Girls -- and Virginia made sure he got to meet them all. Not with any girl, as a matter of fact -- Mary was all the girl he'd ever want. But in one fell swoop, he fell in love with that thing his mother had been talking about all these years -- the excitement of Hollywood, the lights, the tremendous cameras, the fuss and tension and camaraderie. The tremendous thought of maybe someday becoming an actor.

The memory of those few hours on Virginia's set remained with Hugh all the way back to the base that afternoon, and all during the remainder of his hitch in the Marines -- while he ate, drilled, dreamed. When he left the Corps in 1947 he didn't know exactly what to do. Do you want to be a practical young man? one part of his conscience would ask him, and become the lawyer you originally wanted to become? Or, the other half of his conscience would ask, do you want to struggle a little bit and become an actor?

The first half of Hugh's conscience won out -- for a while. Maybe because so much of that dream had been lived with Mary. He applied for entrance to the law school at Yale. He felt pretty good about his choice, right up until he got a letter telling him that he'd been accepted. He read the letter over a couple of times. Security, the first half of his conscience smiled at him. Aren't you glad?

Hugh shook his head, very emphatically. No! he thought, out loud. Then he reached for a phone and called Jack Holland, a friend who ran a small theater group in Hollywood known as The Stagelighters. "Can I come out and try for a part in one of your plays?" asked the young man who'd never had any experience. Next thing he knew, Hugh was packing his suitcase.

Hugh got his first role, a lead, in an elegant little comedy by Somerset Maugham called Home and Beauty. "He was pretty rough around the edges," says Jack Holland, reminiscing about those early days, "but he worked hard!"

"Hugh didn't come from a poor family," another friend will tell you, "but when he decided to become an actor he also decided to do it completely on his own."

To supplement the few dollars he got from his acting at the little playhouse at night. Hugh became a private businessman by day. The businesses included gardening, garbage collecting and selling nylons.

"While I was doing all this," Hugh remembers. "I was living at a boarding house called The House of the Seven Garbos. I remembered hearing about this wonderful place from some of the Goldwyn Girls I'd met on that set a few years earlier. They'd said it was nice and cheap and this was definitely for me at the moment. You could have knocked me over when I got there with my suitcase in hand that first day. What I expected to be a run-of-the-mill boarding house turned out to be a mansion on top of a hill with a swimming pool and a couple of tennis courts. The woman who operated it, bless her, had bought if from somebody who'd been very anxious to sell it fast and she'd converted it into a palace of rented rooms for young kids trying to break into the movies -- Ruth Roman was one of us sharecroppers at the time.

"For fifteen dollars a week. I got a room and a good hot family-type dinner every night. For breakfast and lunch there was an honor system in the kitchen that worked something like this: you marked down everything you took from either the icebox or the pantry on a big master pad. If you took a couple of slices of bread, you marked down two cents, I think it was. If you took a wad of peanut butter, you marked down threee cents. Tomatoes were four cents apiece, I think. "Actually, though, the best eating came at about one o'clock in the morning when most of the girls would come back from their dates. We poor guys were so broke we used to have to sit around alone on nights we weren't acting over in the playhouse -- reading or studying new part or just chewing the fat. This wasn't only lonely -- but a fellow can get pretty hungry just sitting around like that for hours.

"Well, the girls took good care of this. Somehow they would hoodwink their dates at Ciro's and Romanoff's and Mocambo into getting them an extra steak for their 'dog' or a slab of roast beef for a 'poor roommate who's sick tonight, poor thing, and didn't even have the strength to go down to supper' -- I'll never forget the cute little blonde from Tennessee who would always finagle an apple pie 'for my blood condition' from whichever guy she went out with -- and what a feast we fellows would have when the girls got back, called out goodbye to the departing Cadillacs and Jaguars and came rushing up to our rooms with whatever they'd managed to get their hands on, shouting, 'Come on, boys, it's indigestion time!'"

Hugh was still living at the House of the Seven Garbos a year later when he got what looked like his big break. A talent scout had seen him in a play at the Stagelighters on a Saturday night and phoned him Monday morning, first thing. The scout told him that a big producer at a big studio needed a tall, young type for an important role and that he'd just arranged for Hugh to meet the producer on Wednesday morning.

"'This is it,' I told myself," Hugh says now. Or maybe he was telling Mary -- forgetting that it wasn't both of them anymore that he was dreaming and working and planning for. Only -- it was, always. Because the dreams were just work if there wasn't Mary. "This was the big chance I'd been waiting for. I went to the producer's office, all right. And I was out of his office a couple of minutes later, minus any big break and any part in any picture. Looking back, I'm glad it happened that way. I'm glad now that the next 25 interviews, too, went exactly that way. After all, I needed experience and experience takes time, lots of time. Yep, I'm glad now -- but it sure hurt bad when it was happening."

It took more than another year before Hugh really began to hit it right. He was selling hosiery as a sideline by this time -- "Having given up as a gardening and garbage tycoon," he says -- and, wisely, he made a point of calling on producers' and agents' secretaries a couple of times a month and asking them (1) did they need any stockings, and (2) did their bosses need any fresh talent?

One day the secretary to agent Milo Frank greeted him with a big smile. "Park the valise, Hugh," she said, "straighten your tie and come with me." She took his hand and led him into Frank's office. "This is the young man I was telling you about," she said to her boss. Frank nodded. "Can he act?" he asked his secretary.

Hugh answered for himself. "Yes, sir," he said.

"We'll see," Frank said.

That evening the agent watched Hugh in a play and two days later, Hugh was screen-tested for the Ida Lupino movie, Young Lovers. Three days later, he got a call from Frank's secretary. "You've sold your last pair of nylons, Hugh," she said happily. "You're in the movies now!"

After Young Lovers was finished, Hugh went back to Winnetka to spend Christmas with his folks. His thrilled mother met him at the railroad station, bursting with pride. "You've made good in Hollywood," she whispered, over and over again, hugging him, kissing him.

"Well, you can't say I made good yet," Hugh tried to say.

But Mrs. O'Brian would have none of this. "You've made good," she said, "and you've made today the happiest day in my whole long life." At Christmas dinner that evening there was lots of good food and talk, and even a little laughter when Hugh could blot from his memory the little girl, the grown woman, who had sat at this table with him so often during the years they had had each other. The few happy hours And immediately after dinner, Hugh handed his mother a gift. "This is for you and Dad," he said as he handed her a large, red-ribboned envelope. "I guess I should wait till midnight, like we always do, but I'm kind of excited and I'd like you to open it now."

His mother wept, just like that and right there at the table, when she saw what the present was -- two round-trip tickets to Hollywood and two special preview tickets for Hugh's first picture on the night after they got there. "Hughie," she cried and took his hand. She couldn't say anything more. It should be three, Hugh thought, and he could feel the tears that wanted to fall. Oh Mary, it should be three tickets!

"Well, Mom," Hugh said, smiling, "you're the one who prayed me into becoming an actor. So I guess you should be the first one to have to see me in a movie."

Mrs. O'Brian nodded. Then, suddenly, she got up from the table, walked into the adjoining living room and placed the envelope on the big Christmas tree at the far end of the room. "No sense getting all these tickets blurred with my tears," she called out. "The usher at that theater in Hollywood's liable not to let us in if he can't read what it says."

"The next few hours were very happy," Hugh remembers. "We opened the rest of our presents at midnight and we sat around and talked some more and we sang a little -- carols and songs we used to sing when I was a boy. And then it was time to go to bed. I shook hands with my father and brother, kissed my mother and we all went to our rooms.

"The house was very quiet the next morning when I woke up, much quieter than I ever remembered it being. I got dressed and went downstairs for breakfast. My father was in the kitchen along with a few of our neighbors. They were just sitting there. None of them was saying anything. Then one of them came over to me and asked me if I wanted a cup of coffee, like he was saying, Hughie, I could cry for you.

"'What's wrong?' I asked. He couldn't answer. Then a neighbor woman came over and told me, as gently as she could, that Mom had died in her sleep sometime during the night. Just like that, Mom was gone."

When Hugh got back to Hollywood after the funeral, his determination to make good, really make good, was stronger than ever. "I know," he says, "that the Good Lord gave my mom a choice seat up there so that she could watch me down here -- and I wanted her to be proud of me, as proud as she had been that Christmas Eve. I wasn't going to let her down."

It was a tough fight for the next nine years, with too many hours of solitude hours spent remembering two tickets tha should have been three, that shockingly, suddenly need not even have been two.

Hugh got parts, nice parts, in pictures now and then, and everybody thought he was a fine young actor and all that. But somehow that lucky firecracker that explodes under one-in-a-thousand actors in Hollywood and sends them zooming to fame wasn't having any truck with Hugh O'Brian. That is, not until the day not to long ago when a friend called Hugh and asked him if he wanted to try out for a half-hour television series about someone named Wyatt Earp.

"About who?" Hugh asked.

"Wyatt Earp," came the answer. "The Wild West marshal, one of the greatest law officers of all time."

"Wyatt Earp," Hugh mumbled.

"Yeah." "Sure I'll try," said Hugh.

The success of his try was, as everyone now knows, phenomenal. The pilot film which Hugh made rang up the quickest sponsor sale in TV history and, soon after Wyatt Earp became one of the most popular shows in the country. Wrote one TV critic: Here at last is a actor playing a Western hero. Said another critic: The kids love him. The ladies adore him. And I've never heard a man-critter say a word against him. Here's one guy who's really going places.

And how does Hugh O'Brian feel -- now that he's really going places? About his career, he'll tell you, "It feel great, of course. A lot of hard work went into it, goes into it, will continue to go into my becoming the kind of actor I want to become."

About life in general, Hugh will tell you, "I'd like, very sincerely, to get married. I'm a little over 30 now; I've got a good job; I've got a lot to be thankful for. But there's something missing, and that's somebody to share my life with-- and my good fortune," he adds, with a laugh that's so rare from Hugh.

"Just between us, I think maybe I've found the girl. I don't feel I should tell you her name right now. I don't think it's right to say anything specific about her now. But I'll tell you this. She's a girl who is sweet, and gentle, and understanding and who makes me feel like a man. Not just like another human being who happens to be hanging around -- but a man. And she's a companion to me. Maybe I it sounds silly and unromantic to use the word companion, but to me there's no more beautiful word in the English language. It means she's interested in the same things I'm interested in, shares the things I love -- she's a companion. hat's really something to build a life on!

"Yep, I think I've found the right girl. It's going to take a little more time for both of us to be sure. But I think we may be making a nice announcement very soon. If we do, I know it'll make me very happy."

And as he talks about his new girl and their possible marriage, you can't help but get the feeling that Hugh's mom and his Mary -- watching from up there -- will be made very happy, too.

Ed DeBlasio in Modern Screen, June 1957

Old Time Radio · Hugh O Brian · Legend Of Wyatt Earp · Blind Date · Virginia Mayo · Ruth Roman · Goldwyn Girls · Marines · House Of The Seven Garbos ·

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Dennis Morgan Began as a Radio and Sports Announcer

Always up to something, that was "Tuff" Morner. The first kid, if he could run fast enough, to smash the glass and blow the siren when somebody yelled "Fire!" First to grab the handles of the hose trailer and help the shouting, sweating men haul it the night the bank burned down. A busy kid, "Tuffy." Youngest trombone player in the city band, the boy tenor star of practically every get together and bang-up event in Southern Price County, Wisconsin. The smallest hunter to get his deer and haul a giant muskellunge out of the Jump. The busiest and best young actor in town, too, and so advanced about it that they had to co-star the principal's wife with him in the school graduation play to make it look even.

Maybe a good part of the reason that "Tuffy" Morner, whose folks called him Stanley, grew up to become Dennis Morgan, Hollywood's golden-voiced star and Prentice's pride, is because he kept "up to something" all along the way. Through athletics, acting, debate, music and culture in high school and in college. And afterwards, refusing to settle for a steady, secure business life, through Chautauqua, radio, night clubs, concerts, opera -- through the build-ups and let-downs, fiascos and lucky breaks of Hollywood, where he finally faced the greatest job of keeping busy yet -- until he clinched his chance.

So at Carroll College, as at Prentice and Marshfield Highs, Stan Morner was strictly a ball of fire. Stan sang Sundays in church and at funerals, too. He got a fee. He was a professional. The local movie house, the Park Theater, began to feature the golden voiced college tenor, Mr. Stanley Morner, in brief concerts between reels. One yellowed ad Morgan still has announces grandly that there will be "a special musical number, The Indian Love Call, featuring Stanley Morner with unique stage effects." On top of everything else, Morgan took time out twice to win the Wisconsin state championship in the Atwater Kent radio singing contests -- a nationwide radio talent search back around 1930. At the finals in Milwaukee for the 10 midwestern states, Morgan stopped off on his way back from Lawrence College where he had just played Carroll College's big game in a snowstorm. He sang "Ah, Moon of My Delight" and rejoined the team. On the train one of his teammates started razzing him.

"Look who's in the newspaper -- old 'Moon' Morner!" He'd won second place for the whole Midwest, right off the cuff like that. Morgan and Lillian Vedder graduated together from Carroll College in 1931. That summer Morgan travelled on a Chautauqua tour all through the Midwest states with the Carroll College Glee Club, and Lillian went home to Marshfield. They had marriage definitely in mind by then but there was the small business of making a living. They made plans to wait. Morgan would go to Milwaukee and get a job that fall. Lillian accepted an offer to teach school in a small Wisconsin town, Shawano.

In September, Morgan packed his clothes and left Park Falls for Milwaukee. He made the rounds of the big lumber companies because didn't he know lumber? In spite of all his singing and acting triumphs, it still didn't occur to Morgan that you could make a living that way. With his conservative thinking and his dad's advice, the lumber game seemed to offer the best chance for him to become a solid citizen and marry Lillian.

Luckily for a lot of people, including Morgan (although it didn't seem so then) -- there weren't any jobs in Milwaukee even for a guy who knew his stuff like he did. There was a blighting thing on called the Great Depression, then wallowing in its lowest ditch. Bewildered, Morgan walked one day over to WTMJ, the Milwaukee Journal's radio station. He had a friend, Russ Winnie, who was chief announcer there. Right away his Atwater Kent publicity paid off. Winnie landed him a solo spot on a musical program for a starter and then offered steady a staff announcer's job. Morgan grabbed it.

For the first six months Morgan worked the graveyard shift at WTMJ. He announced the hotel bands that played nightly dance music. He gave out with the weather reports. He read poetry in between organ recitals. Sometimes he sang a number to fill in.

One day Winnie said, "You're quite an athlete. Think you can announce sports?" Morgan knew all sports and all about them. "Sure," he replied confidently. "Okay," said Winnie. "Take over the Indianapolis-Milwaukee game this afternoon and make it live."

Morgan sent Lillian a wire to listen in that afternoon. He was pretty happy about the break. Sports announcers around Milwaukee got about as famous as the players. It was definitely a break. And down in Shawano, Lillian rushed from her classes to her radio in time to hear Morgan tossing personality around recklessly over the air. Maybe it was too reckless, because in his enthusiasm, Morgan was burning up the air waves -- and getting himself in a jam about every other minute.

It was one of those games, to start with -- a wild one -- score 18 to 12. But that was only half the reason Morgan got off the beam. He was trying to give it too much red hot pepper. "There it goes -- there it goes!" he'd yell into the mike, "Out of the park for a homer!" Then "N-o-o-o-o-o, the fielder caught it. He's out."

Or "He's sliding, he's sliding -- he's safe at home to put Milwaukee out in the lead!" And a few seconds later, "No, that's wrong. The catcher tagged him out." He got the score all balled up, the players' names and positions mixed. He was pretty awful. Even Lillian, who loved him, could tell that.

But Morgan learned, even sports announcing. He helped out Winnie around WTMJ for over a year while Lillian taught English at Shawano. But Morgan was restless. He wanted to get married. He needed money. There was no radio future for him in Milwaukee worth sticking around for.

That he could see. Chicago was the big radio town and the World's Fair was getting started there. Morgan found Chicago rocking and rolling with a boom in the amusement world. The Fair had busted the town wide open. Anybody who could entertain the huge crowds pouring in was set, and once he opened his throat, Morgan had no trouble.

He landed a job at once singing on the stage of the Chicago Theater. Then the State Lake. The Fair itself. A friend at the State Lake introduced him to Vernon Buck, who led the orchestra in the famous Empire Room at the Palmer House, Chicago's greatest hotel. A good-looking, golden-voiced, manly guy like Morgan couldn't miss. After a week he had a contract in his hand -- six weeks (he later stayed 48 straight) at $150 a week.

Up out of Morgan's subconscious all of a sudden popped the scene back in Prentice. His dad counting the water crinkled greenbacks on the bed after the bank burned down. He heard his dad's words, "When you like something you're usually good at it, too!" And his own, "I like to sing." Decision ... why, sure! Why not make his living, found his future on what he really liked, what he was good at? Why not sing, and act and entertain?

Morgan's lingering doubts flew away like dusty moths out of a closet. He raced for the nearest phone and told the operator. "Get me Shawano, Wisconsin, and hurry please!" In a minute the voice he'd missed all these months was on the wire. "Lillian, darling," sputtered Morgan, still talking too fast. "I've got a contract singing at the Empire Room. I'm in the money. Let's get married."

But Lillian understood every word he said. And of course she answered "Yes!"

Kirtley Baskette in Modern Screen, March 1946

Old Time Radio · Dennis Morgan · Lillian Vedder · WTMJ · Milwaukee Journal · Vernon Buck · Empire Room · Sports ·

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Andrews Sisters Never Took Singing Lessons

Everyone in the United States who doesn't need an ear trumpet has heard the Andrews Sisters. They're almost as inescapable as the ubiquitous Bing. And the effect of their mad chanting harmony is a lot more penetrating.

Maxene, Patty and LaVerne (the order in which they invariably line up to have their pictures taken) first dazzled the open-mouthed jive world as jukebox queens, when they bansheed a record of the plaintive Jewish melody, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen," This was in 1937, and by 1939-40 it was already estimated that the gals were running second only to the Automat as nickel-pullers. When you consider that every disc the public buys nets a neat two cents for the Andrews pocketbook, the trio of songbirds isn't doing so bad.

But what makes these boogie-woogie balladeers remarkable is that they never let go of a show business crown once they have it, just keep adding additional hot-lick wreaths on top. Right now in 1945, for example, they're still dynamite in the jitterbug emporiums -- as anyone who has ever tried to escape "Rum and Coca Cola," "Don't Fence Me In," and "Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive" knows only too well. In addition, these "belles of fire" (their own description) have managed to storm every other citadel on the entertainment horizon -- rhythm-rockin' a whole series of Hollywood movies, vocal-gymnasting their way across the nation's stages, heat-beating the airwaves to success as radio stars.

Just what magic talents have put the Andrews Sisters on the map is a debatable question. Unique style is one answer, strict attention to business another. As far as their voices are concerned, plaudits have been far from universal. Tall dark LaVerne, oldest of the sisters, boasts the lowest pitch, and critics attempting to describe it have floundered between "a sort of baritone" and "something like a bass." Maxene, middle as to age, tops as to looks, gives out with a high soprano, And blonde, talkative Patty, proud possessor of the in-between range, has complacently told reporters ''I've been hoarse like I had a bad cold" ever since the teens. (If you' re curious about their ages, best estimate is that the lasses are all still in their twenties -- but statements as to the actual number of years they've piled up vary from time to time.)

There's no doubt but that manager Lou Levy (now married to Maxene) has been a big help on the road to fame. It's Levy who spots the tunes that are going to be hits -- by the simple process of eliminating those he can't remember two days after hearing them. The New York music publisher has been guiding the trio's destinies ever since that banner year of 1937, when he sensed hidden possibilities in the then-obscure "canaries" and brought them to the attention of the Decca Records people. Levy's also the lad who stopped the Andrews Sisters from learning anything about music. (LaVerne's the one exception -- she can not only read notes but also gave up plans of being a concert pianist when she joined up with the two other jivesters.)

It wasn't until their technique and name was well-established that the girls decided they really ought to take some professional singing lessons. They attacked study with characteristic high-powered energy -- until Lou heard of it. He put his foot down hard, made it plenty clear that orthodox notes would just ruin their unique style.

Bouncing, informal, with all six feet firmly planted on the ground, the Andrews Sisters don't believe in changing horses in the middle of a stream -- nor in forgetting the ffiends who pushed them into the spotlight. Orchestra leader Vic Schoen of the Sunday afternoon radio show is the same veteran arranger and baton-wielder they've worked with for years on records. (His name, by the way, has often been a source of confusion to strictly "American" talkers who think he must have something to do with "Bei Mit Bist Ou Schoen." There's no connection.)

Back in 1938, before movies made the Andrews Sisters' faces as well known as their rumba-boogie records, many fans thought only a Black group could produce so much rhythm. As a matter of fact, the girls' father is Greek, used to run a restaurant in their home town of Minneapolis. Along with their Norwegian mother, Olga Solli, he's now abandoned the food business to travel around with his daughters and take an active interest in their professional gambols. The girls are all proud of their Minneapolis origin, make it a point to take a few weeks off every year to visit the friends of school days who still live there.

It was in this city, too, that they got their start -- bouncing on stage in a "Kiddy Revue" that didn't make much of a splash. In early years it looked. as if Patty (who now docs most of the solos) might some day win stage fame as a tap dancer, for she was "juvenile champion" of Minnesota. That didn't seem to work out, though, so she teamed up with the others to form a singing act for Larry Rich, and later for Lon Belasco's band.

Most exciting part of their careers, of course, came after they were on their own. Remember what the Andrews Sisters did with "Joseph, Joseph," "Hold Tight," "Ti-Pi-Tin" and "Beer Barrel Polka"? The jitterbugs went wild, the conservatives apoplectically labeled the trio "public nuisances" -- but, in any case, nobody could ignore them.

Early movies brought the same sort of divided response. "Buck Privates," "Hold That Ghost" and "What's Cookin' " did OK. at the box office, but even the sisters themselves admit that they screamed and retreated from the projection booth when first they saw themselves on the screen. And the Harvard Lampoon named their performance in "Argentina Nights" the most frightening of the year.

Such criticism is pretty much past history now, however, and with the continued applause given their Western-flavored Eight-to-the-Bar Ranch radio show, the Andrews Sisters have been accepted as a breezy part of the scene.

From Tune In, July 1945

Old Time Radio · Music · Andrews Sisters · Maxene Andrews · Patty Andrews · LaVerne Andrews · Bing Crosby · Decca ·

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Eddie Elkins and His Orchestra - May I (1934)

Eddie Elkins and His Orchestra recorded the song "May I" for the Rex label on April 26, 1934. Elkins, who also performed under the name The Knickerbocker Orchestra, was a San Francisco native who was among the first leaders of dance bands. With a keen eye for talent, Elkins hired and developed musicians including Tommy Dorsey, Oscar Levant and Red Nichols.

Elkins and his band were featured in the 1929 Eddie Cantor movie Night on the Ziegfeld Roof. He retired to work in the stock market in 1932 and died in 1984 at age 87.

The song "May I?" was written for the 1934 film We're Not Dressing with words by Mack Gordon and lyrics by Harry Revel. Bing Crosby and Sam Ash both sing it in the movie and Crosby went on to reprise it often in his career. Gordon and Revel were frequent collaborators, signing together with Paramount Pictues and writing the scores for 11 films. They moved to Paramount in 1936 and scored eight more films, including Stoaway and Love Finds Andy Hardy.

Old Time Radio · Songs · Eddie Elkins · Bing Crosby · Mack Gordon · Harry Revel · Tommy Dorsey · Oscar Levant · Red Nichols · Eddie Cantor · Rex ·

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Eddie Cantor Writer Raymond Bowes Died in Plane Crash

Raymond Bowes, who wrote hundreds of scripts for Eddie Cantor during the golden age of radio, died on May 16, 1984, when the light plane he was piloting struck utility wires and crashed near the village of Bentley Creek in Bradford County, Pennsylvania. He was 67.

His sister Vivian Bowes told the Buffalo News that Raymond wrote 259 radio scripts for Cantor. "He and I wrote scripts for Eddie Cantor in Hollywood," she said. After two years he left California to return to flying.

At the time of the crash, Bowes was transporting documents for Marine Midland Bank to Buffalo, where he resided in North Buffalo with Vivian and brother Clifford.

Bowes flew for the Royal Canadian Air Force and Army Air Corps during World War II, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross, two Bronze Stars and the Air Medal. He became a pilot for Trans World Airlines in 1959 and retired from that job in 1974. He also worked as the pilot for Texas oilman Sid Richardson.

Vivian Bowes told the newspaper, "We tried to get him to quit flying. I said to him last week he should stop." This was his reply: "I don't want to retire -- ever."

Old Time Radio · Eddie Cantor · Raymond Bowes · Vivian Bowes · Aviation ·

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Lew Stone and His Band - Wings Over the Navy (1939)

Lew Stone and His Band recorded the song "Wings Over the Navy" with the singer Sam Browne for the Decca label on November 13, 1939. The personnel were Stone as director, Chick Smith and Bert Bullimore on trumpet, Lew Davis and Eric Tann on trombone, Joe Crossman, Jim Easton, Laurie Bookin, and Dan Barrigo on reeds, Bobby McGee on piano, Dan Perri on guitar, Arthur Maden on string bass and Jock Jacobson on drums.

Stone was a jazz pianist, bassist, cellist, arranger, and dance band leader who led one of the most popular bands in England in the 1930s. He was also the musical director of British and Dominion Films for several years that decade.

The song "Wings Over the Navy" features lyrics by Johnny Mercer, music by Harry Warren, ukelele arrangement by R.S. Stoddon and additional lyrics by Charles Dunn. It was first recorded for the 1939 movie of the same name, which starred Charles Brent, Olivia de Havilland and John Payne. Mercer wrote the lyrics to over 1,500 songs, including the classics "Moon River", "Days of Wine and Roses", "Autumn Leaves", and "Hooray for Hollywood."

Old Time Radio · Songs · Lew Stone · Sam Browne · Johnny Mercer · Harry Warren · Charles Brent · Olivia De Havilland · John Payne · Decca ·

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'I Can't Stand Jack Benny' Contest Received 277,104 Entries

So you tore off a carton top? Visualizing thousand-dollar bank notes, shiny new automobiles and post-war electric refrigerators, you were a "goner"' before the announcer's pear-shaped vowels reached "in twenty-five words or less."

On the back of the cart top you detailed in pulsating prose why you simply cannot exist without Fluffo Flakes. With fingers crossed, you dropped it in the corner mailbox and went home to wait for the postman.

But he didn't ring -- with your prize parcel. So you became a skeptic. All contests were crooked. They probably were won by a nephew of the sponsor from Dubuque. Your letter wasn't even read. At least, that's the way you sized it up. Want to know what really happened to your entry after it left your trembling fingers and what were its mathematical chances of copping a prize?

First, consider your chances. If it was an average contest, it drew at least 100,000 entries. So right at the start the odds against you winning first prize were 100,000-to-1. And they weren't much better for you to place or show.

Do you have any idea of who might have judged your entry? It could have been anyone of five: the personnel of the program about which the contest was held, the station or network carrying the program, the program's sponsor, the advertising agency handling the sponsor's account, or, finally, an outside organization.

Usually the contest is the sponsor's baby. But the chances are that the sponsor won't take on the judging, but toss it in any one of three directions. He could hand it to the program personnel, as was done in the cases of the Jack Benny and Guy Lombardo contests. Or he might push it into the lap of the advertising agency handling his account.

The last alternative is to call in an outside organization specializing in contest- judging, This, usually, is the most satisfactory choice. Chances are if the sponsor makes this choice the call will go to the Reuben H. Donnelley Corp. of New York City, the nation's No. 1 specialist in picking contest winners.

There are other professional judges, but Donnelley is No. 1. Prof. Lloyd D. Herrold of Northwestern university does freelance judging, assembling a staff to judge individual contests on assignment. Elsie Dinsmore does all the judging for the Proctor and Gamble contests.

Donnelley has worked out judging to an exact science. It not only has a trained staff that can handle the largest and most complicated of contests, but the corporation knows how to avoid the headaches that plague the uninitiated. For a fee, Donnelley will take over all the entries, picking them up direct from the post office, guarantee that they are impartially and accurately judged, select any stipulated number of winners, and even mail out the prizes. And if anybody gets mad because they didn't win, Donnelley even will try to placate them with documented evidence showing that it was on the up-and·up.

The Donnelley concern got into contest judging quite unintentionally. Up to 10 years ago they had gone in for such services as conducting surveys, consumer-sampling, handling premium requests, compiling mailing lists, and conducting mail order campaigns. Then a client asked them to judge a contest he was sponsoring. The research department was filled with competent, potential judges, so Donnelley obligingly took it on. The contest went off so smoothly that Donnelley decided to take on judging as another of its services.

The Donnelley staff, which includes 150 college graduates, can in a few weeks go through a million entries. This staff does not stand by waiting for contests to be taken on. but are members of various Donnelley departments and are available when there's judging to be done. If necessary, Donnelley can put 600 judges on a contest.

H. G. Davis, Donnelley manager who originated their judging system, points out that there are so many technical aspects to judging a contest that it poses a major headache for a novice. In addition to the large volume of mail, all entries have to be classified, standards set up for judging the contest, and the post Office, sponsor, and contestants kept satisfied that the contest is being conducted fairly.

Here's what happens to your entry, if the contest you submitted it in happens to be Donnelley-handled. First, it is given a reading by one of the primary judges. The only factors that will eliminate it here are illiteracy, illegibility or an occasional obscene or vicious note. Or if it happens to be a right -or-wrong contest, an incorrect answer will send it into the reject pile.

If it hurdles this initial barrier, your letter detailing why Fluffo Flakes gives you the strength to carry on against even the most grueling odds then goes to the secondary readers, or junior judges, Here the entry gets its first real screening, according to standards set up for judging this particular contest. These standards may give credit for originality or novel slant, or it may penalize for using undesirable words or trite approach.

If your letter survives the junior judges, it then goes to the senior judges, who give it a more severe screening and attach an actual rating, scored point by point. The highest rated entries after this screening go to a group of three or four executives, including Davis, who review the ratings and select the winner.

To insure impartiality, Donnelley often keys the entries, deleting both name and address of contestant so that the reader knows the entry only by such identification as "K69" or "TP4". In keying entries, Donnelley often has them all retyped or photostatted. Such a procedure eliminates the suspicion that the sponsor might arrange to have winners geographically distributed so as to maintain goodwill in all sections.

Davis then sets up the standards, or yardstick, by which entries will be judged. This includes working out a tiebreaker, which is the 25 words or less that you add to your suggested title for a bar of soap, setting forth why you think "Breath of Spring" is the best name. Then, if 500 people send in the same name, the winner can be determined on the basis of the merit of the tiebreaking 25 words or less.

If you stage a nationwide contest, chances are inspectors from the post office department will be around to see you before the contest is many days old. Since the entries pass through the mails, they become of federal concern, and Uncle Sam is interested to the extent that all entries are read and all sponsorial promises kept.

Donnelley's charge for handling a contest varies with the type of material to be judged, but the fee is on a unit basis. It may run anywhere from 10 cents for short letters to 90 cents for entries including objects d'art fashioned from box tops. Anything that adds to the work of the judges, adds to the judging fee.

After a contest is over, Donnelley bales up the entries, all of which have been initialed by the judge who checked them, and sends them to the sponsor for final disposition. It is necessary for entries to be kept for awhile in case a contestant has a beef about the handling of their entry.

Donnelley, for instance, handled the recent Woody Herman contest, a typical box-topper. This contest, with six weekly winners and a final grand winner, called for carton tops of the sponsored product along with 25 words or less on "why I like Woody Herman's music."

Sometimes the "boners" committed by contestants are amusing, but they also have the sobering effect of eliminating the contestant from the running. In the Woody Herman contest, a lot of entries were sent to the wrong address. Instead of sending in a hair tonic box top, one mother sent a snapshot of her four-year-old son. One contestant wrote his 25 words on why he liked the sponsor's product, ignoring the dulcet charm of Herman's music.

Jack Benny handled his own contest, due to the fact that the contest idea originated with him and his writers, and because practically all hands save his press agent advised him against it. Contests, he was told, were to praise the product, not to damn the talent. But Jack figured the radio public could go along with a gag. So he set up a loose organization, headed by Peggy Perrin, wife of one of his script writers. On the basis of early returns, Jack estimated the contest would draw 75,000 letters. By the end of the first week 68,000 had come in. He got a larger place and frantically drummed up a staff of readers, nine on the day shift and eight on the night shift.

By the time the contest closed, Jack and his readers had gone over 277,104 letters, some of them four times. It cost Benny a little more than the $10,000 he gave away to judge the contest, which was tough on a man with Benny's reputed financial philosophy. It must have yanked his heartstrings as well as those of his purse when he had to pay $4 daily on letters sent with postage due.

In case you're determined to win some of that "easy" money, here are a few points to keep in mind. If you don't follow the rules, there's no point wasting the postage. The same holds true if you write illegibly. Keep in mind that you'll be up against thousands of other "easy" money seekers, many of whom will send in entries that would do justice to a $15,000-a-year copywriter. So unless you're willing to take a little time and do a workmanlike job, you'd be better off to put your money on a sweepstakes ticket -- it'll stand more chance of bagging a winner.

Sam Justice in Tune In, September 1946

Old Time Radio · Comedy · Contests · Jack Benny · Woody Herman · Guy Lombardo ·

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