Major Bowes

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Fanny Brice Made Her Name on an Amateur Night

Fanny Brice performing as Baby Snooks on radio Every night this week, in movie theaters in small towns as well as in the big radio studios of New York, scared girls in homemade clothes -- amateurs -- are doing imitations and singing songs. Hoping! Thirty years ago, too, there were amateur nights. More brutal amateur nights than those today. They were held not in vast modern studios with an unctuous Major Bowes or a wise-cracking Fred Allen as master of ceremonies, but in variety halls, as they ... (read more)

2022/12/12

Major Bowes: The King of Radio's Amateur Hour

Major Bowes and Amateur Hour performer Frank Sinatra in 1943 It's a bit puzzling, on first meeting Major Edward Bowes, to decide whether you are looking at a churchman or the head of a prosperous money-lending agency. His manner is faintly pious; his eyes are as cold as a polar bear's paws. Still, it's his nose that really gets you. It is a great, engulfing over-riding thing which makes Jimmy Durante's look like a wemple. The man behind it is about 66. He has hair which is thin and ... (read more)

2020/07/18