Edgar Bergen First Performed with Charlie McCarthy at his High School

I can't remember how old I was when I found out that Charlie McCarthy wasn't a real little boy. I doubt I really believed he wasn't a kid until I saw a photograph of Edgar Bergen with Charlie sitting on his lap in one of those radio-TV magazines. No matter -- Charlie remained as real a person to me as all those other wonderful radio folks I had met in the theater of the imagination during my youth.

Charlie McCarthy was, of course, the creation of ventriloquist Edgar Bergen. The son of immigrant Swedish parents, Bergen was born in Westside Chicago where his parents operated a dairy business on February 16, 1903. When Edgar was in the fourth grade, the family moved to Decatur, Michigan.

As early as the seventh grade, Bergen began to show an interest in show business. He amused his classmates with imitations of birds and people. Bergen once explained that one evening he was sitting at the kitchen table doing a distant voice when his mother went to the door to see who was outside. It was then Edgar decided he "had something" worth developing. He sent away for a 25-cent book on magic and ventriloquism and practiced every spare moment.

By the time that Edgar's father died and the family moved back to Chicago, show business was definitely in his blood. Even though his history teacher warned Bergen that he would not graduate from high school if his grades didn't improve, he still spend his time writing jokes and sketching pictures of what his first dummy should look like.

His final sketch resembled that of a ruffian named Charlie, who sold newspapers in front of the high school. Bergen gave the drawing to a local carpenter, Theodore Mack, who carved the dummy from a block of pine for about $27. He named his wooden urchin after the newsboy and the sculptor added a Celtic suffix to his name -- and Charlie McCarthy was born.

About three weeks after his teacher's warning of impending scholastic failure, Edgar appeared with Charlie in a student recital before the high school student body and faculty. Since he thought that he wasn't going to graduate anyway, he used Charlie to heckle the faculty including Miss Angel, his history teacher. The students loved it! The next day Miss Angel asked Edgar to remain after class and told him, "I didn't know you were a genius. You must give this great joy to the world ... it needs laughter." Then she told him what to study and what questions would likely be asked on the final examination. Edgar graduated and was booked on the Chautauqua circuit for that summer.

Gary A. Yoggy in Old Tme Radio Digest, March-April 1984

Old Time Radio · Comedy · Ventriloquism · Edgar Bergen · Charlie McCarthy · Chautauqua ·

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Maurice Zimm: Murder is My Business

The man in the coroner's office glared at me. "What gave you the idea we freeze bodies?" he demanded.

"That isn't exactly what I meant," I said hastily. "You see --."

But it wasn't easy to explain. It never is! People give you that strange look when you tell them that you're trying to figure out an interesting way of committing murder.

As a radio mystery writer, murder has become my business. I lie awake nights devising new ways of committing the "almost-perfect" crime. The children wouldn't even look up from their cereal were I to exclaim to my wife at breakfast, "How would it be to kill a man in the private office of J. Edgar Hoover?" Friends are always dropping in to announce, "Say, I've hit on a marvelous way of killing somebody!"

Yes, murder is my business -- and business is phenomenal! The demand for escapist entertainment is so insatiable that the airlanes are literally cluttered up with criminologists hot on the trail of that elusive clue which will trap the killer just in time for the final commercial.

But it isn't so much the number of mystery series on the air as the fact that each program is broadcast weekly -- at least 39, and often as not 52 weeks a year. And each broadcast is generally a complete adventure in itself. Consider the number of plots and counter-plots -- of murders, motives, red herrings and assorted clues -- that this involves, and you'll begin to appreciate why the radio mystery writer is soon driven to Phenobarbital.

After all, A. Conan Doyle was so exhausted with Sherlock Holmes after 25 stories that he tried vainly to get rid of him over a cliff. And for all of Gilbert K. Chesterton's fabulous ingenuity, Father Brown had in toto but 50 adventures. Yet any run-of-the-mill radio hawkshaw can number his dramatic exploits in the hundreds.

So the next time you're able to pick out the murderer before the first act is over, or recognize a clue that was used on another series just the week before, please don't write to the sponsor. The poor scripter is probably having enough trouble just trying to make the next deadline. And make it they must. You have never yet tuned in to your radio to hear, "Ladies and gentlemen, we regret that The Adventures of ... will not be broadcast tonight, due to the fact that the author couldn't think of a plot."

Granted, there have been cases where the scripter staggered into the studio clutching the last few scenes when the show was already in rehearsal. But when the tense moment comes for the producer in the control room to throw the opening cue, there's always a show to go on -- and whether or not you're satisfied with the quality, you get 29 minutes and 30 seconds of quantity.

Like many another radio mystery writer, I never know from one week to another where my next plot is coming from. I have committed fictional murder in bathtubs and at bridge tables, in airplanes and amphitheatres, in subways and submarines, at New York's 42nd and Broadway, and in the most inaccessible recesses of the Himalayas. Each time I'm desperately certain that I have wrung the last possible murder situation out of my reeling brain, but somehow there's always another -- and another -- and another.

Often the advertising agency which handles the account will offer suggestions. Like the other day when a story editor called and said, "The Old Man thinks it would be cute to find a body in a freezer -- with the plot hinging on the fact that the freezing made it impossible to fix the time of death."

"But," I remonstrated, "that might be awfully tough to figure out."

"Yeah," came the callous reply. "I'll expect it by the end of the week."

So you drop the phone -- and whatever you're doing -- and rush for the library. You look up everything under "freezing," "refrigeration" and "Arctic," but all you achieve is mental confusion. Apparently, no one has ever anticipated your particular problem, or at least never bothered to write about it. Once again, research has let you down.

Next begins a tour of refrigeration plants, cold storage vaults, ice houses and kindred establishments. In some places you pose as a prospective buyer; in others, you frankly state your predicament. By the end of the day you have collected a cold, some embarrassing rebuffs, and a few -- a very few -- helpful facts.

Having tentatively decided how you're going to bring your victim to his frigid end, you start out next morning on the next phase of your problem: the brilliant deduction by which your criminologist is going to solve the case. So you call up all the doctors you know.

Most of them try to be tolerant and understanding. They'd be glad to help you -- if you'd call back, say, in a week. You reply that you'll call back in a week, all right -- about something else. But right now would they please take half a minute to tell you how fast hair grows after death?

Now the real trouble begins. Some of the medicos say that hair does not grow after death. They don't give a pink pill if you did hear it on a radio program with a high Crosley just last week; neither are they impressed by the number of books and magazines you've read it in. It's nothing more than a fable!

But mind you, only some of your doctor friends say that -- not all. A few accept the growth of hair after death as a fact. One eminent urologist is willing to stake their professional reputation on the thesis that for three days following death hair grows at a rate which is readily discernible to the eye; after three days the growth is negligible.

So now you are in a fog! Is it or isn't it true? In desperation you go to the coroner's office and explain that you are concocting a plot about a fellow being frozen to death, and you want to know whether his hair would keep growing after death -- because that's your pivotal clue.

Then it is that the man in the coroner's office glares at you and growls, "Whatever gave you the idea we freeze bodies?"

Well, 48 hours later you finally get an answer that you're ready to accept as final. Your authorities are the coroner's senior pathologist, an ex-coroner and an embalmer who has exhumed hundreds of long-interred bodies.

Hair does not grow after death! The old medical tomes which tell of coffins bursting open from the accumulation of hair on a corpse are ridiculously unscientific! There is no cellular growth after death!

Hurrah, you say to yourself. Now you've really got a story. Exploding that myth is sure to do things to your Crosley.

Feverishly you chain yourself to your typewriter -- contriving, correcting, perfecting, polishing. At last comes the triumphal moment when you stumble into the agency with the script neatly typed -- in triplicate. And what happens? The Old Man holds up the broadcast of your script for a month -- because he, himself, once heard from his grandmother, sainted be her memory, that hair does grow on a corpse.

That's the way it goes. They're always demanding something "different" -- but woe unto you if it's too different. Some of the best, most dramatically inviting clues and data I've ever come across, I haven't dared to use. Everyone would accuse me of having made it up.

Take Dhatura, for instance. It's a drug obtained from the flower of the same name, which grows wild in the fields of India, almost as generally as the daisy and buttercup in America. Dhatura can readily be mixed with food or tobacco, and a small dose of it has the extraordinary effect of robbing the victim temporarily of their memory. A person drugged with Dhatura is not conscious of what happens to them while under its influence. More than that, the victim is even unable to tell how they came to be poisoned. And as the final payoff, Dhatura leaves no trace which can be detected by chemical analysis.

Dear reader, have you ever heard of anything more made to order for the mystery writer? But you don't really believe that it exists, do you? And if I were to use it in a script, you'd take pen in hand and write the sponsor that he better dispense with such hokum -- or never again would you wash with their soap, eat their dessert or buy the economy-sized bottle of their deodorant!

Speaking of trouble, the root of all evil to the radio mystery writer is the all-knowing listener who -- no matter how frantically or effectively the poor author pummels their brain -- can always say, "I told you so" as regards the identity of the murderer.

Consider the handicaps under which the scripter labors. To begin with, the average mystery program restricts them to a maximum of seven actors. This is done for the sake of clarity, as well as budget considerations. And though it makes for better drama, you can't deny that it aggravates the author's problems grievously.

In the average printed whodunit, there is such a parade of characters that you may find yourself turning back a few pages to keep them straight in your mind. The very multiplicity of possible suspects clouds the trail and cloaks the villain. But with only seven characters to work with, well ...

First of all, there's Mr. Master Mind, your criminologist, and his stooge, male or female. That leaves five characters. Then there's the homicide inspector, whom Mr. Master Mind is always showing up. That leaves four characters. Then if the murder doesn't take place prior to the start of your story, or off scene, there's the victim. Which leaves three characters. And of this triumvirate, the smart-alecky listener simply picks the least likely suspect -- and bingo, they've got you!

Some day when I'm entitled to old age benefits, I'm going to cross up this unfair element by making the most likely suspect end up as the murderer. Ah, what a tearing of hair and gnashing of teeth this will produce!

But meanwhile, to paraphrase Lincoln, it's enough to "fool some of the people some of the time!" Besides which, to each scripter there comes occasionally a moment of sheer, unadulterated triumph.

Like the time my severest critic -- the wife, of course -- laid down a script that was hot out of the typewriter and gushed, "Why, I didn't know until the very last page who the murderer was!"

Whereupon I, like a fool, had to up and confess, "Neither did I, old girl!"

Maurice Zimm, the scripter for Hollywood Star Playhouse, Suspense and Lux Radio Theater, in Tune In, February 1946

Old Time Radio · Crime · Mystery · Maurice Zimm · Hollywood Star Playhouse · Suspense · Family Theater · Lux Radio Theatre ·

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KDKA in Pittsburgh Became the First Radio Station on Nov. 2, 1920

Radio is so new to most of us that it seems incredible that anything connected with it could be having a sixth anniversary. But an interesting series of dates has been furnished by the Pittsburgh station, which will constitute the genesis of the history of broadcasting when it is written.

It was Nov. 2, 1920, that KDKA first went on the air to do regular broadcasting, and the subject matter was the result of the Harding-Cox election. Other interesting first time performances include Jan. 2, 1921, when the first service was broadcast direct from a church; Jan. 15, 1921, marked the first pick-up of a banquet hall where Herbert Hoover was the principal speaker. Feb. 18, 1921, was the first pick-up from a hotel, and the same date must have been a great day in Pittsburgh for it was then that the first report was received that KDKA had been heard outside the United States, the confirmation coming from London and several points in Canada. April 11 of the same year marked the introduction of the prizefight to the air, when Florient Gibson, sports announcer, gave a blow-by-blow account of a lightweight battle direct from the ringside, paving the way for the Jack Dempsey-Georges Carpentier contest in Jersey City the following July. Beginning also in April the regular broadcasting of baseball scores was inaugurated by KDKA.

In fact, it appears that we are indebted to Pittsburgh for practically all our standard features, and while to those of us who are accustomed to the highly specialized broadcasts of today those initial experiments would undoubtedly seem very crude, it is interesting to note that they paved the way and set a line of conduct that is still adhered to by practically every standard station in the country. Those trail blazers must have had an exciting time with no established precedents to follow, and it is a matter worth noting that a religious service should be practically their first attempt, for one would naturally assume that there would be some timidity in producing anything so radical until the attitude of the listening public had been determined. But apparently timidity and lack of assurance have played no part in the history of broadcasting. The rash pioneers were willing to try anything once, and one supposes that the explorers at the receiving end were so amazed by the marvel of being able to hear anything that they bore little relation to the critical, over-pampered listeners of today.

Speaking of this pioneer station, one feels safe in saying that there is no dial-twister throughout the land, no matter wat his geographical location, who hasn't at some time heard KDKA. In our own early days it seemed that the first week the triumphant cry was, "I've got Pittsburgh," and the second week, "I can't get anything but Pittsburgh." True, at that time, due to its reputation as our most exasperating fader, no one in our vicinity ever thought of receiving all off a program from KDKA, but in this era of tremendous power, and receivers which amaze us by their performance, the fading is reduced to a minimum, and it is now possible to spend an evening with the Pittsburgh station with as good reception as any other equally distant broadcaster. At times, in fact, they register with such volume that it is either a case of tuning them out or getting out of the house, and if there is anyone in South Africa who hasn't heard the Westinghouse Band, when the engineers are trying to get it there, he would do well to check up on his set.

One is constantly running across some interesting experiment when tuning in on this station which would relieve the monotony, if such a thing could exist where the versatility of broadcasts is going on from the various studios from morning 'til night. And the many educational and informative programs that are continually going on the air are as familiar to the average listener as the murky condition of the atmosphere surrounding KDKA's antennae. One notes a painstaking thoroughness in everything they do. For instance when Pittsburgh gives football scores it isn't the results of a meager dozen or more major games you hear -- it's a sporting lexicon of every contest taking place on American soil that day. And so dependable are the news broadcasts from the Pittsburgh Post studio that when something of importance breaks, it is a common thing to hear, "Well, we'll wait and get it from Pittsburgh."

Our oldest friends among KDKA's standard features are the aforesaid Westinghouse Band and Victor Saudeck's Little Symphony Orchestra, the latter one of those sterling radio organizations that is always to be depended upon for sound presentations of standard works. In the days before the large symphony orchestras were put on the air we were indebted to this group for some of our most precious half-hours of musical enjoyment, and they still preserve their high standard.

In addition to its sustaining programs, KDKA presents a number of commercial features, one which has interested us being the Teaberry Hour, and in addition has its own combination of hook-ups, though whether this claim is to be continued under its apparent arrangement with the National Broadcasting Company is not entirely clear at the present time.

But whatever develops in this rapidly moving industry, one is confident that the pioneer station will go steadily on furnishing us with dependable entertainment as it did back in those primitive days when its audience was listening painfully through uncomfortable headsets instead of taking its ease before elaborate mahogany cabinets from which rolls music in tremendous volume. And one notes with much satisfaction that no matter how many pirates perch on the 309 meter wave, the Westinghouse station apparently just increases its power and comes roaring through as though it were alone on the air.

Dorothy Brister Stafford in Radio Age, March 1927

Old Time Radio · KDKA · Pittsburgh · 1920s · News · Politics · Victor Saudeck · Westinghouse Band · Jack Dempsey ·

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Abbott and Costello's 1938 Radio Debut on the Kate Smith Hour

A year and a half ago a couple of comics stepped up to the microphone of the Kate Smith Hour for a 10-minute, one-appearance guest performance. No one -- with the possible exception of the comics themselves -- had any idea that their appearance was anything other than the simple guest performance it seemed, for their comedy was rowdy, hilarious, low-born, and to use their own words, "the hokiest of hokum."

Bud Abbott and Lou Costello are still making their weekly appearances with Kate Smith, and this season are answering wider demands upon their services by bringing their rowdy comedy to the New York stage in that hit show Streets of Paris, as well. Which may go to show that we haven't changed our entertainment tastes much since the custard-throwing days of Mack Sennett. More likely, however, it proves that these two rascals of low-born repartee were exactly right when they maintained that, in times of stress, people like to have a little comedy that isn't so subtle and modern that they have to strain their gray matter to catch the point. What these two lads deal out is comedy that slaps you in the face.

For example, look at these lines from a recent show:

Abbott: Costello, do you realize you've said hello to everybody on the program except Ted Collins. How did you come to miss him?

Costello: How did I come to miss him? He ducked! I'd have given him two black eyes if I hadn't been stopped.

Abbott: Who stopped you?

Costello: Ted Collins.

Or the time Abbott and Costello opened their dog nursery:

Abbott: What did you do with these newborn puppies?

Costello: I put them in the dog incubator.

Abbott: We don't have any dog incubator.

Costello: No? Then what's that can in the backyard marked "Deposit litter here'?

On another occasion this irrepressible pair went in for football, and to Bud's dismay Lou got mad and quit the team:

Costello: I'll take my football with me, too. You can use Ted Collins.

Abbott: Why should I use Mr. Collins for a football?

Costello: Because he's thick-skinned, tight-laced and a bag of wind!

But the prize gags of the duo always end with the now famous line:

Abbott: Suddenly the lion roars! He leaps for you! It takes the two of us to kill that lion!

Costello: You're wrong. It will only take one of us. I ain't going to be there.

Abbott: Isn't that something! I figure out a scheme to make some money. Am I selfish about it? No. Did I try to hunt lions alone? No. I'm willing to let you capture the lion and what thanks do I get? You want to run away.

Costello: I'm a bad boy!

The phrase has caught on. Kids repeat it in mock Costello tones, and school principals all over the country admit that Abbott and Costello, through their constant repetition of the line, have made children more "behavior-conscious." Public School 17 of Manhattan even decorated the pair with gold medals in recognition of their salutary effect on its pupils. But while the phrase is well known, it has not been repeated as much as listeners think. As a matter of record, the "I'm a bad boy" gag is used only once in each broadcast.

Francis Chase Jr. in Radio Guide, February 9, 1940

Old Time Radio · Comedy · Vaudeville · Abbott And Costello · Bud Abbott · Lou Costello · Kate Smith ·

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Why Vladimir Horowitz Stopped Performing in the 1930s

Up in Riverdale, New York, there lives a small five-year-old girl named Sonia, who from all accounts is already very much of a personality. She knows what she wants when she wants it, and is never at a loss before adults, most of whom agree that she's going to need plenty of courage, staggering under the stupendous burden of two such names as Horowitz and Toscanini. For her father is Vladimir Horowitz and her grandfather is Arturo Toscanini.

Her father regards with envious admiration and some degree of astonishment her superb self-confidence. It is a quality that he has never enjoyed to any great extent. In spite of being acclaimed as the Liszt and Rubenstein of the younger generation of pianists, he still blushes easily, although he has no false modesty and is quietly aware of his status as an artist.

Until his advent some 12 years ago, music lovers sadly shook their heads and declared that the golden days of piano playing were on the decline. True, there were Paderewski, Hofmann, Rosenthal, Lhevinne and Bauer. But they already belonged to an older generation. Where were the young ones to take their place? Then a slim, dark 28-year-old Russian slipped onto the stage one night and plunged into the thunderous chords of the Tschaikovsky B flat minor piano concerto. At the first notes, spines stiffened in the audience, heads turned, dumbfounded glances flew around the hall. This was something! The next morning the hard-boiled music critics went wild with enthusiasm.

Season after season Horowitz returned in triumph. Then abruptly, a few years ago, he stopped playing. Rumors were plentiful -- he was ill, would never play again. In Switzerland, Horowitz lay stretched on a bed of wracking pain, stricken suddenly with phlebitis. It took him two long years to recover, two years far away from concert halls, cheering audiences and applause. For the first time he was able to regard music objectively. All the knowledge that he had acquired during his years of intensive concertizing had a chance to soak into his soul. And when he emerged from the sick room to resume his career, he had developed into a mature and deeply perceptive musician as well as a technical magician.

Much of the ripeness and splendid surety of his present playing is the result of a successful and happy marriage. The former Wanda Toscanini, daughter of a notoriously temperamental father, knows the quirks and vagaries of artists. She sees to it that Horowitz has the privacy he needs and the company he enjoys. Years ago he resembled a haunted poet, with a thin sad face and mournful eyes. Now he has filled out, goes in for dashing checked jackets and brilliant neckties and is well on the way to becoming a glamour boy.

He and Wanda talk French, because her Russian is sketchy and his Italian is picturesque but meager. His English, however, is better than it once was, when he solemnly acknowledged an introduction to the president of the United States with a handshake and the whispered words, "I am delightful."

V. Vidal in Movie and Radio Guide, March 30, 1940

Music · Classical Music · Vladimir Horowitz · Arturo Toscanini ·

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My Second Childhood, by Fanny Brice

Most people start out as children and grow up to be adults. Me, I'm different. I started out as a grown-up and now I'm a child. At least, I'm a child to millions of radio listeners each Thursday night on NBC's Maxwell House Coffee Time.

While I'm doing the characterization on the air, I really feel like the 7-year-old brat that Baby Snooks is. Snooks reminds me of a childhood that I never knew. The first five years of my life were spent in New York City's lower East Side, where childhood is only a fairy story.

I never had a chance to be a child there. In the first place, I had an above-average curiosity. Why this? Why that? My questions went unanswered. My parents were hard at work and there were three other children. Life to them meant bread and potatoes -- not questions and answers. With Snooks now, it's just the opposite. When she asks questions, she gets answers. She's spoiled. Very spoiled. I smile wistfully at that. In a poor family, you don't get spoiled. I guess I spoil Snooks nowadays the way I wanted to be spoiled as a child -- and wasn't.

At seven, I had decided to become an actress. It was all an outgrowth of my brother's and my frequent trips to a neighborhood theatre. While the house was being aired out in the morning, Lew and I would sneak in and lie flat on our stomachs between the seats until they closed the doors again.

Then we'd hie ourselves up to the balcony, to wait there for the paying customers and the show. That wonderful world of make-believe stirred our imaginations to such an extent that we, too, wanted to act.

The only stage we could find, however, was a curb-stone. We started singing for pennies with the newsboys -- who, in those days, used to sing and dance on street-corners for the pennies of passers-by. These kids gave me my first singing lessons and, believe me, they knew all the tricks. If you think that prying change loose from a hurrying crowd is easy -- try it!

At the age of thirteen, I made my first appearance behind the footlights at an amateur night. The Keeny Theatre in Brooklyn had a weekly amateur night -- hook and all -- and a bunch of the kids with whom I had been singing on the street, were going to compete for the longed-for cash prizes.

I decided that I had to see them perform. But the smallest admission charge was 25 cents! I worked hard to get that quarter. I sewed for hours, making two dresses for a neighbor's kid. But, when I got to the theatre, all the cheap seats were gone. The only ones left cost 50 cents. I was utterly heartbroken.

My friends, however, solved my problem -- and unknowingly started me toward a theatrical career -- by sneaking me backstage, telling the stage manager that I was an amateur. Well, I actually was, wasn't I?

Then, before I knew what was happening, I was pushed out on the stage myself. I had to do something, so I began to sing "When You Know You're Not Forgotten By the Girl You Can't Forget." It must have been my homely awkwardness that got the audience. In the middle of the song, pennies and nickels and dimes came sailing onto the stage. I didn't miss a single copper -- and I won the first prize of $10.

It was such easy money that I started making a career of amateur nights. I guess I was what you might have called a "professional amateur," because I sometimes made as much as $50 dollars a week at these performances.

My first steady job was as a jack-of-all-trades in a movie house. I sold tickets, played the piano, sang, and helped out in the projection room when another pair of hands was needed -- as they were almost constantly -- in those early days of the movies.

While there, I heard a chorus call for George M. Cohan's Talk of New York. I got a job but was fired almost immediately, when they discovered I couldn't dance. That didn't stop me. I joined a stock company and, on my return to New York, got my first big break -- a job with Hertig and Seamon's Transatlantic Burlesquers. I learned how to dance then.

My mother had made me lots of lovely shirtwaists. I showed them to the chorus girls and suggested that I swap the blouses for dancing lessons. By the time I'd learned one simple routine, I was down to one shirtwaist. But I did get a job in the chorus.

I worked myself up to the first line and from there went into a musical show, The College Girls, where I played the soubrette. It was there that Ziegfeld talent scouts saw me.

A week later, I had a Ziegfeld contract in my pocket, and, at the age of 18, made my first appearance in the Ziegfeld Follies, as a chorus girl and "bit" singer. I guess I was a hit. At least, I ad-libbed 11 encores at the first performance.

It was during a between-Ziegfeld-shows hiatus, while I was in vaudeville, that Baby Snooks was born.

As part of my vaudeville act at that time, I did a burlesque of the song "Poor Pauline," singing it in different dialects and as several celebrities of the day might do it. Then, at a party one night, I sang the song as a very young child would sing it -- with wide eyes, exaggerated mouth, feet spread apart, and coy gestures.

The impromptu characterization was a hit. We named her Babykins. But she was temporarily forgotten when I returned to the Follies.

Ziegfeld gave me a new song to sing that year. It was "Mon Homme," a French song for which Channing Pollock had written English lyrics. Long known as a comedienne, a funny-looking girl with lusty lungs and a comedy dialect, I suddenly became famous for singing the very serious "My Man."

It wasn't until many years later that Babykins, whom I had since renamed Baby Snooks, appeared on the Broadway stage. Playwright Moss Hart wrote the first real routine for Snooks, but only after the late Dave Freedman had shaped the characterization did Baby Snooks, as we know her today, make her first appearance before a public audience. That event occurred during the Ziegfeld Follies of 1932.

In 1938, when I went to Hollywood to make a picture for Metro-Goldwyn Mayer, I was asked to guest on the Good News program (forerunner of the present Maxwell House Coffee Time). What should I do? Instead of a song, I suggested Snooks. The characterization went over, and I was signed as a regular on the weekly broadcasts.

The reason for the success of Snooks? I guess it was because parents saw little bits of their own children in her continual questions. Or maybe because their own offspring seemed like angels after Snooks' pestiferies.

You see, Snooks must only do what the average child of seven would do -- without being too fresh or unreal. In appearance, she has the face of a mischievous cherub -- happy and smiling, but curious about everything. Snooks also has a big mouth -- just like mine. And when she cries, the rafters shake. That is the basic Snooks. But, through the years, her original character has been added to, from a hundred different sources. Since my own children, Frances and Bill, have grown up, other youngsters -- complete strangers, perhaps -- have contributed to Snooks.

Children are my hobby. I watch them in drugstores, getting sodas, in the five-and-ten, stretching their pennies over the fabulous displays at the toy counter; and on the streets. I even collect their artwork. I now have a collection of more than a hundred paintings and drawings, done by children all over the world. About fifty of these pictures are now being shown at museums throughout the country.

My other pet hobby and avocation is interior decorating. Even that has Snooks in it. I like to design the kind of rooms a child will feel at home and comfortable in. A room planned for a child is full of warmth and happiness. I dabble in painting, too, using a child's simple style.

But it's Snooks who keeps me young. She has the direct approach to life. She keeps me warm and human.

As long as there are children, there will be a Baby Snooks. Is there any better way to have a second childhood?

Fanny Brice in Tune In, May 1944

Old Time Radio · Comedy · Fanny Brice · Baby Snooks · Vaudeville · Ziegfeld Follies · Maxwell House Coffee Time · NBC · Burlesque ·

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George Hall and His Orchestra, Live from the Hotel Taft

George Hall leads the popular dance orchestra in the grill of the Hotel Taft. His band broadcasts 11 times a week -- which means that it is heard more often than any other band on the air. Noon, night and morning its rhythms and harmonies are carried into all the cities and all the towns and the smart country hamlets where the Columbia Broadcasting System bears romance and inspiration to the organdied girlfriends of tuxedoed youths.

It is a very good thing indeed for the egos of the tuxedoed youths that the girlfriends can only hear and cannot see George Hall leading his orchestra -- although George, being the fine fellow that he is and married besides, would never do the girls any harm -- or good, as you will.

George stands over six feet in height. His shoulders are broad, his hips are narrow, his waist is slim. He wears his jet hair sleekly combed and it glistens handsomely above his seashell complexion (he would go wild over that description). He has a little mustache, carefully waxed and pointed, teeth that flash and eyes with both fire and the dreaminess of his Spanish and Italian temperament.

Interviewing Hall was a difficult assignment, for he sat back smoking a long, evil looking cigar as black as a racketeer's income tax record, and inwardly froze.

"What," he demanded, "is there to say about me? My band plays here for luncheon, dinner and supper -- and then I go home. After all, what else is there?"

It was not an encouraging start. If the man would not talk about himself, what in truth was there to say? However, something had to be said. With a graceful gesture of long artist's fingers, Hall flicked an ash off his cigar. Ah, the cigar!

"That," it was suggested, "must be a strong smoke."

"It's a very good smoke," he replied, looking at the formidable contrivance affectionately.

"What brand," it was asked in a floundering way, "do you smoke?"

"Any brand," returned Hall. "Touring the country, I got over being squeamish about brands. Every section has its own favorite brands. I smoke 20 a day."

Twenty a day! He must, it was hinted, have a powerful constitition. He did, he agreed. It required some time and more desultory conversation to find out where he had acquired it. Then it developed he had been a schoolboy football and basketball star at Brooklyn Boys' High.

"It's an interesting thing," he remarked, characteristically avoiding recital of his prowess on courts and gridiron, "every fellow on that basketball team went into music. Felix Bernard composed Dardanella. You remember Dardanella. Ray Sherwood is writing songs. Bert Ruel is a pianist. And Bert's brother Jimmy has been coach for Morton Downey, Belle Baker, Eddie Cantor and lots of others."

He sat back with that outburst, and after a pause, remarked, "I'm not used to being interviewed. What can I say?"

He was very earnestly modest about it, and quite sincerely embarrassed. There was only one thing to do. The Columbia Broadcasting System had his record typed out on mimeographed sheets. Out came the record.

Now what was this about his middle name being Flag? Oh yes. He had been born on Flag Day, and so his parents had named him Flag. It was a good thing it had not been February 14. That line of talk did not seem to be moving in any special direction. Wasn't his name George Hall? No, as a matter of fact it was George Passilia.

"My father," he explained on painful questioning, "is Joseph Passilia. He played the first violin for Victor Herbert for many years. My mother was Vita Ciaccio before she was married. She had a lovely contralto voice. I was the only musical child. I have three brothers: a doctor, a schoolteacher and a bank clerk. And two married sisters."

And that was that.

Little by little, and chiefly through the prompting of the mimeographed record, it came out that George had started playing the piano by ear at the age of six. How had it happened? Oh, just naturally. The home was a musical one. The piano was there. So-o-o, as Ed Wynn would remark. Unlike the young Liszt, George had not had to hide in an attic to practice. And his father, hearing him, had taught him the violin.

So it came to pass that when he was 14, George Hall was sitting in Victor Herbert's orchestra at his father's playing elbow, learning by example and experience how to keep his resined horsehair steadily midway between delicate bridge and long ebony fingerboard and absorbing the spirit and technique of good music. And at sixteen, he was leading the orchestra at the Imperial Hotel in Brooklyn.

"It's a funny thing," mused George Hall, becoming alarmingly loquacious about himself for a few minutes, "but you've heard about so many barbers and butchers and lawyers and even bootleggers making their kids practice the violin or the piano and wanting them to become great artists. Well, my father wanted me to be a doctor."

And being a dutiful Latin son, George went to Cornell Medical School, which is, perhaps, where he acquired that ingratiating bedside manner so evident when he sits at a dinner table dangling pince-nez at the end of a black cord and speaking, when he is not conscious of being interviewed, in his so soothing voice.

Working his way through Cornell, however, George Hall became a Broadway figure summertimes with his orchestra. Then the war came along. George joined the Navy and organized bands at the Great Lakes Training Station for overseas service. After the war, it looked like a long, hard grind ahead to become a medical man. A musical career was at hand. George seized it.

"That," said George Hall, relaxing with evident relief, "is how I became a musician. I have been one ever since."

The interview was at an end, and there was no mistaking the fact that George was very happy about it.

"Will you have a cigar?" he offered gratefully, as mimeographed record and copy-paper notes went into hiding. But it was another of those long, black, startling-looking affairs. The offer was declined with thanks.

Leo Fontaine in Radio Guide, June 4, 1933

Old Time Radio · George Hall · Dolly Dawn · Music · Big Band · Hotel Taft · World War I · CBS ·

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