The Stars Resolve—For 1945

What did radio’s stars want 75 years ago?

Some of them answer that question in a story in the December 31, 1944 edition of Radio Life magazine. There were joke answers and there were serious answers.

If you’re of a certain age, you should recognise many of the names. It’s odd to see the magazine explain who Art Linkletter and Gabby Hayes are, but I guess Linkletter’s real fame came when CBS got into the television business. Sam Hayes was a news commentator sponsored as of the above date by Choclettos. Chet Huntley was a newsman on KNX (CBS) at the time. There are a bunch of cartoon voice actors here, too, and a few references to the war.

While the article is accompanied by a picture of Jack Carson (upper right), Carson’s resolutions isn’t in the story.

IF YOU THINK radio stars are perfect and able to do whatever they want to do when they want to do it, you have another think coming! To prove our point, Radio Life canvassed the studios during the remaining days of 1944, and asked your airlane favorites for their New Year's resolutions. Here's what they told us:
KENNY BAKER: "I hereby resolve to teach my kids how to fish. In that way, I'll be sure to do some fishing myself!"
ONA MUNSON: "I'm going to buy myself a hat in 1945. Right now, I don't even own one!"
MEL BLANC: "I resolve not to do more than nine shows a day."
HELEN FORREST: "I'm going to keep right on following my hunches. They've always been lucky for me."
DICK HAYMES: "For years, I've been kidded about my big appetite. In 1945, I'm cutting down to a starvation diet—only five meals a day and no more!" CATHY LEWIS (actress): "I'm going to quit worrying. I resolve this every year, but it never does any good."
JOE KEARNS (actor): "I resolve to learn to play "Staccato and Fugue" on the organ."
CHET HUNTLEY: "I'm going to take a day off next year."
ROBERT ARMBRUSTER: "I resolve to fulfil my life's ambition—to be a rich eccentric!"
TOM BRENEMAN: "I resolve to continue going to bed with the bees, getting up with the birds, and worming my way down to Sardi's to let four hundred chicks make a monkey out of me!"
HOAGY CARMICHAEL: "Someone said in 1944 that I didn't want to write any more songs. Well, in 1945, I resolve to make you forget these words, and to write what you'll want to remember."
DINAH SHORE: "I resolve to keep George out of the kitchen because no G. I. should be made to do K. P. at home!"
HELEN WOOD: "I'm not going to make any resolutions to break."
NORA MARTIN: "I'm going to find something good in everybody and everything."
TED STRAETER: "I'm going to learn to do the zomba and the rhumba. Sonja Henie's my teacher!"
KITTY CRAWFORD: "I resolve to write that fifth chapter of my book!"
ROSEMARY DE CAMP: "I'm going to try to keep up with my two-year–old daughter who is way ahead of me already!"
GINNY SIMMS: "I'd like to take a vacation—but it will be another two years before I get one!"
Won't Kid Benny
ROCHESTER: "I resolve not to kid Mr. Benny about his toupee—at least, not the curly one!"
CLAIRE TREVOR: "I have a husband in uniform whom I want my little boy to get to know better in 1945."
SARA BERNER (actress): "I resolve to remember my creed—'it's nice to be great, but it's really great to be nice!'"
TOM HOLLAND: "I resolve to keep on playing juveniles, so that I can go up to any producer and call him ‘Pop!’”
JANET WALDO: "I'm not going to make more than one date for the same night. I do it all the time!"
LINA ROMAY (singer): "I'm really going to work hard to achieve a spot for myself in radio, because I love it."
FANNY BRICE: "I resolve to make no more appointments in advance."
MARY LIVINGSTONE: "I resolve to be calm when we go on the air. I haven't been since my first broadcast, although I try to be every year.
JIMMY SCRIBNER: "In 1945, I want to come to Hollywood. Maybe I could resolve it, but maybe I'd better let 'Papa Johnson' evolve it!"
LOUISE ERICKSON: "I resolve not to have any more crushes on older men. Hereafter, I'll confine my attention to the Van Johnson type, rather than the Alan Ladds."
DIX DAVIS: "I resolve to do all my homework—well, at least one night a week."
DAVE WILLOCK ("Tugwell" of CBS' Jack Carson show): "I resolve (at my wife's request) to cook my own omelet only once each week in 1945."
GLENN HARDY (Mutual newscaster): "I hope to be able to carry out my 1944 resolution—to be the one to shout 'the war is over' first and loudest, in 1945!"
Ladies Won't Worry
ART LINKLETTER (Blue's "What's Doing, Ladies?"): "I've decided to be more discreet while going through ladies' purses on my program!"
ED GARDNER ("Archie" of N B C's "Duffy's Tavern"): "I'm gonna get into the higher income brackets next year—$17.50 a week or bust!"
FRANK MORGAN: "I never make resolutions. They always make a liar out of me!"
JACK KIRKWOOD (CBS comic) : will not "I knock ladies down in trying to beat them to a seat in the street car—I'll think of some other way!"
REX MILLER (Mutual news commentator) : "In 1945, I hope to put my own code for a commentator into practice with every word I say—'let every word build a straight, sure route to peace. Let no word begin a detour from that route.' "
HAVEN MACQUARRIE (NBC's "Noah Webster Says") : "I resolve to stoligate the frantistraph whenever I thiculize the entire fosnick during 1945."
GEORGE "GABBY" HAYES (Blue's Andrews Sisters show): "I'm gonna git more actors to go where I've jist been, on bed-to-bed Army and Navy hospital tours. I want more people to see what I've seen. You kin bet there'll be less gripin' about sech things as the cigarette and gasoline shortages. Yessiree!"
PATTY ANDREWS: "I'm going to quit flirting with every good -looking man I see!"
MAXENE ANDREWS: "I'm not going to buy any more dogs. I just got rid of seventy-five!"
LAVERNE ANDREWS: "I'm going to bed earlier every night!"
Dagwood Serious
ARTHUR LAKE: "I'm going to continue to do everything I can to promote the war effort."
ELSIE JANIS: "I resolve to keep sincerely trying to make it a better and finer world for those boys who we hope will be coming home soon."
SAM HAYES: "I resolve that through-out the New Year I shall never forget what those boys who have fought overseas have done for us. I shall always remember they have the right to ask as that soldier boy on the battleground in Italy did when he thought he was going to die:
'What did you do today, my friend,
To help us with the task?
Did you work harder and longer for less,
Or is that too much to ask?
What right have I to ask you this,
You probably will say.
Maybe now you'll understand—
You see, I died today.'"
DICK POWELL: "I'm going to stay on that war bond bandwagon."
JACK BENNY: "I hereby resolve to learn something else to play on my fiddle besides 'Love in Bloom.' In fact, I resolve to learn 'Love in Bloom.'"
PHIL HARRIS: "This New Year I dissolve to quit making them corny revolutions that nobody pay no attention to on Jan two, anyhow."
FRANK GRAHAM: "I resolve to continue living as wickedly as I have—and get by with it."
PAT MCGEEHAN: "I'm going to get married—that's all, brother!"