The Blanc Two-Step

An almost fatal car accident didn’t stop Mel Blanc. (You can read an account about it in this Yowp post).

He continued recording voices for Hanna-Barbera and Warner Bros. He had formed Mel Blanc Enterprises to produce humorous commercials. And there was a happy, Christmas-time reunion on the Jack Benny television show in 1961.

But he obviously slowed down. In looking through newspapers in the first half of 1963, I can find only two on-camera appearances—one with Benny and another, somewhat improbably, with Arthur Godfrey.

Godfrey had been ubiquitous on CBS television in the 1950s. Things had changed by the end of the decade, perhaps because of the discovery that he wasn’t as charming and laid back in real life as he was on camera. It didn’t quite kill his career. He co-hosted part of a season on Candid Camera in 1960 before walking off annoyed at the show’s owner, Allen Funt (who didn’t have much good to say about Godfrey, either).

The network was still interested in Godfrey’s talents and signed him to host specials. One in early 1963 featured Blanc. It turned out the two men had something in common, as Earl Wilson reported in his column of March 8, 1963. As you might have expected, Blanc had a Jack Benny story.

INJURED, BUT THEY'LL DANCE
Arthur Godfrey and Mel Blanc—each survivor of a near fatal auto accident, each held together by silver plates and pins—will try to forget March 18 that they've had to use canes . . . and will try to dance on TV.
Mel Blanc, while still on a cane, learned about this ambitious undertaking when he reported to the big red-head Arthur (who’ll be 60 in July) for rehearsal for CBS' "Arthur Godfrey Loves Animals" TV show.
"Tell me about your accident," Arthur said first.
"Well, this leg here had 22 breaks in it . . . I had five fractures in my spine . . . I was unconscious for 21 days . . . they kept telling my wife, Estelle, that I couldn't make it . . . she'd cry and beg them 'Please don't say THAT!" . . . there were 18 doctors on duty at the UCLA Medical Clinic . . . practically all of them worked on me . . . I was in a cast eight months, but it was two months before they could put me in a cast . . . “I've still got six silver screws through my leg . . .”
Blanc’ll do Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Speedy Gonzales, and Pepe Le pew, the French skunk, as well as the sound of Jack Benny’s expiring Maxwell, on the Godfrey show.
"THE ONE MAN who never forgot us when I didn't know whether I'd pull through," Mel said, "was Jack Benny. He’s come to see us every 10 days."
“One night we were having chicken-in-the-pot in the kitchen. He said he had to go to dinner at Dave Chasen's, but he'd just have some soup with us. Pretty soon he said he'd have dinner with us, and have dessert at Chasen's. Then Estelle brought out dessert and he said ‘Never mind, I’ll just have coffee at Chasen’s.’ He wound up going to Chasm's for an after-dinner drink."

A news release about the special said “With Mel Blanc, Arthur gets a taste of the wiles of Bugs Bunny when the sassy rabbit tried to fast-talk him into a television appearance while Sylvester and Pepe Le Pew interrupt with idea of their own.” The Boston Globe’s review added Blanc demonstrated the voices of “Sweetie Pie” and “baby Deeno.” Percy Shain evidently needed to watch more cartoons.

There was an interesting and unique follow-up to this story in the Fremont Tribune of June 17, 1963. The columnist in this Nebraska newspaper was not an entertainment writer. He was a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. We’ll leave him with the last line, again showing the selflessness of a supposed 39-year-old.

Reflections
Two Entertainers Offer Lesson in Enduring Woe
By CHARLES S. RYCKMAN
The capacity for achieving amazing triumphs over physical handicaps seems to be in some people in proportion to the severity of the disability. The most complaining and despairing sometimes are those with minor and temporary impairment of their bodily faculties.
Those with major loss of physical powers, and especially those with long and perhaps permanent experience with agonizing suffering, often rise to the highest peaks of endurance and accomplish the greatest degree of mastery over the tragedies with which they must live for the remainder of their years.
The current activities of two great entertainers offer vivid illustration of these facts. Radio and television personality Arthur Godfrey is one. The movie and TV veteran Mel Blanc is the other. They appeared together on Godfrey's television program in March, supporting themselves on canes. They danced, told jokes, kidded each other and themselves, treating their own disabilities so lightly and casually that viewers had little understanding of the bitter hell both men have known, and still must know as long as they live.
Arthur Godfrey was an auto accident victim many years ago. He has had so many operations he has lost all count. His body is so pieced and patched that what he was born with and what now holds him together are so intermingled that identification, like the lady's hair color and her hairdresser, is known only to his surgeons.
* * *
Mel Blanc went down into his purgatory by the same route, but much later. One leg had 22 fractures. There were five breaks in his spine. He was unconscious for 21 days. It took two months to get him in condition to wear a cast, and he wore the cast for eight months. He still has six silver screws in the formented leg.
But you knew mighty little of this as they danced, gagged and entertained millions of people. They themselves seemed scarecely conscious of the tortured road by which, they had come. They know about it, well enough. Neither is a stranger to pain and fear nor ever will be again.
And, for a wry item, of all Mel Blanc's friends only one was a constant visitor at his bedside through-out the long months of his ordeal. That was comedian Jack Benny, who works so hard to develop an image of himself as a selfish man.

Miscast Cronkite

Careers on television take detours, even for someone as venerable as Walter Cronkite.

Uncle Walter wasn’t quite as venerable in 1954 as he was when he took over the CBS Evening News eight years later, and is today considered to be a yardstick of integrity in news broadcasting. But he was in the top echelon, having anchored the 1952 political conventions and election night coverage on television.

At the start of the year, he was narrating the historical re-creation show You Are There when the network brain trust decided he was the perfect person to put up against America’s number-one chimp, J. Fred Muggs.

Thus was born The Morning Show.

CBS’ answer to Dave Garroway’s Today show went on the air March 15, 1954 (it was not broadcast on the West Coast). A syndication service talked to Cronkite about his expectations for it.

CBS Brass Has High Hopes For New ‘Morning Show’
By TV KEY
Snooping around at rehearsal for CBS’ upcoming “Morning Show”—which bows in tomorrow at 7:00 am—in search of anchor man Walter Cronkite, we couldn’t help noticing the small platoon of brass-encrusted network bigwig who had come to take a look. We sidled over to CBS head Hubbell Robinson to get his reactions they were favorable. We tried the same tactics with News and Special Events’ Chief Sig Mickelson. He was ecstatic. Then we talked to newsman Charles Collingwood, who will be handling the reporting on the show. “People want to know what’s happening in the world when they get up in the morning,” he said, “And we’ll tell them. How can that miss?”
When we finally pried Walter Cronkite away from the run-through he radiated the same general enthusiasm. “This will be basically a news show,” he told us. “We’ll have features, too, but we’ll try to give all of them a news peg. We’ll do interviews with as many interesting people as we can get—authors, actors, prominent figures. We have the Bairds (Bill, Cora, and puppet retinue) for a lighter angle. No, we don’t have anything specifically designated as women’s features—for that matter there’s nothing specifically for men, either. If we have film or interviews about, say, sports or fashions, all well and good, as long as they tie in with the news. That way they will interest everybody.
“Of course,” said Mr. Cronkite slowly, “there will inevitably be people who say we’re imitating ‘Today.’ We are—but in the most complimentary way possible. We did independent studies for a year to find the best formula for a morning show and we came up with this format. (During the last few months a virtually unprecedented six kinescopes of the “Morning Show” were made employing different people, and the best elements of each were retained for the present format.) It’s inevitable for a show like this.
Of course, the day may come when people will sit down and stare at TV for long periods in the morning, but until then, this is pretty much the way it will have to be. Our main attraction, we feel, is content, And personality. And the warmth and friendliness of a smallish group that knows and likes and respects each other.”
Mr. Cronkite lit a cigarette and looked around at the jumble of cameras and sets and stagehands and machines that was gradually shaping up into a television show.
“Being an anchor man involves more than people think,” he said. “It’s not like being an old vaudeville m.c. with no time problems and everything worked out so you just have to announce it. Here there’ll be practically no rehearsal, practically no forewarning. I’ve got to be able to come in at 4:30 a.m., pick up the items for that day, and take off from there, working out the sequence, padding between items to make the time come out right, moving from area to area without losing the cameras. Most of that work is done behind the scenes; if it’s done well nobody notices it, but if it isn’t, the whole show falls apart. You’ve got to be able to think on your feet—and at 4:30 in the morning.
Mr. Cronkite grinned. “I thought I was through with those kind of hour. 10 year ago when I gave up the early shift at UP, but here I am again, jumping into the shower before dawn—and waking up all the neighbors. You get used to it, though. In a few weeks maybe I could even be singing in the shower. If I could sing. . .”

If you’re wondering how Cronkite’s show went, we can do no better than reproduce Herald Tribune syndicate John Crosby’s column of March 18.

Radio in Review
By JOHN CROSBY
SINCERE FLATTERY
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then CBS-TV’s new program, “The Morning Show” (7 to 9 a. m. Mondays through Fridays) is the nicest compliment that has ever been paid to its two-year-old opposite number on NBC called “Today.”
The chief difference between “Today” and “The Morning Show” is that Walter Cronkite has a moustache and Dave Garroway hasn’t, and Garroway wears glasses and Cronkite doesn’t. Of course, it’s just possible this is the only kind of show that is possible so early in the morning and that imitation is inevitable. But it does seem to me they went a little far, that there might have been some points of departure that might have been explored.
* * *
As it is, the morning audience now has to choose between Garroway who is urbane, relaxed, witty and intelligent and Cronkite who is urbane, relaxed, witty and intelligent. (If there are any bopsters around, Garroway is slightly the cooler of the two but they’re both pretty cool, man.)
* * *

Like “Today,” “The Morning Show” goes in heavily for news and though CBS is renowned for its news coverage and its commentators, it has not managed to grapple with news any more successfully than the NBC program. On both shows you get headlines endlessly repeated.
There is not even an attempt to dig under the headlines with comment and interpretation which news so desperately needs today. I realize the boys are dealing with what they consider successive platoons of husbands dashing off to work who are supposedly only half listening. Still, it would be nice if CBS every morning supplied one very serious and thorough breakdown of the most important news story of the day from one of its stable of topflight correspondents scattered all over the world. Maybe they will.
For features, Cronkite first interviewed a toy-maker named John Peter who informed us that cardboard was the biggest news in toys this year. He displayed some huge cardboard toys which were apparently as indestructible as if made from cement.
“Did you know that America spent $450,000,000 on toys last year,” asked Mr. Peter.
“I believe it,” said Cronkite. “I spent most of that myself.”
* * *
There ensued five minutes of news from the local communities which happens to be an exact replica of the way they do things on “Today.” Then Cronkite showed us a live shot of commuters scurrying to work at Grand Central. It just so happens that Garroway on “Today’s” opening show also showed us shots of commuters wandering around Grand Central. These boys just can’t seem to get out of Grand Central. If ABC decides to have a morning show I respectfully suggest they take us to Penn Station just for a novelty.
Where “Today” has a chimpanzee, J. Fred Muggs, “The Morning Show” has Charlemagne, the lion, a puppet operated by Bil and Cora Baird who sounds a little like Finnegan in “Duffy’s Tavern.” Charlemagne plays records and trades badinage with Cronkite. While the records are playing, the Bairds’ inexhaustible supply of puppets make like they’re singing or dancing or playing instruments. This bit is done with great charm and ingenuity and grace. It’s a lot of fun to watch.
“The Morning Show” is not quite as gadget-happy as “Today” but they do have an electronic weather map, product of nearly a year’s research by the network’s new effects department, which is supposed to show rain where it rains, snow where it snows, and so forth. To me it just looked like a lot of lights flashing on and off but if the new effects department is happy with it, I am too. Frankly, though, I think Garroway’s little informal chat with the weatherman in Washington is more entertaining than all those lights.
* * *
Other features included a very nice interview with Stephen A. Mitchell, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and with Ivy Baker Priest, Treasurer of the United States. Best of all was a telegram from another network to the effect: “Abandon all hope ye who enter here.’’ It was signed Dave Garroway, Jack Lescoulie and Frank Blair who have been in this exhausting business a couple years now.

Cronkite became unhappy rather quickly. Whether chatting about the stories of the day with a puppet was a factor wasn’t revealed, but the New York Times reported on July 20 that Cronkite “has notified the network that he does not want to continue in the role if the show stresses amusement and entertainment features” and that Cronkite “prefers to be known as a newsman and commentator and not a clown.” This was despite the fact he became the host of a Goodson-Todman quiz show called It’s News To Me that month.

The following day, the Times revealed Cronkite was out as of August 16, Jack Paar was in, and the show was being moved from the news division to the programme department. Paar told a story for years and years—one that first appeared in Earl Wilson’s column of September 9, 1954—that his mother wrote CBS saying she hated to see Cronkite leave.

Paar was gone soon, too, but both he and Cronkite went on to bigger things. Television was better for it.

Dennis Day Tries It Again

One of the many running jokes on the Jack Benny radio show was singer Dennis Day had two shows (and that somehow made him—“HA!”—superior).

With the passage of a few years, Day had no shows.

A Day in the Life of Dennis Day debuted on October 3, 1946 on NBC. It was a sitcom where Dennis Day played Dennis Day, but not THE Dennis Day. He played a small-town shy-boy with the same name as the singer, which enabled the producers to bring in a cast not associated with the Benny show.

The series carried on (called The Dennis Day Show after a story-line and cast change) until Colgate-Palmolive decided to pull some of its money out of radio. First, sports spinner Bill Stern. Then sometime-hillbilly singer Judy Canova. Then Dennis Day. All of them were told by the tooth-powder maker to take a powder. Dennis’ last show was June 30, 1951 and he was replaced with two obscure announcers from Boston named Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding.

Network radio may have been sputtering but it wasn’t quite dead. Day was still a bankable commodity. Not only was he still with Benny, but he was appearing at state fairs and nightclubs/casinos, recording for RCA-Victor and performing occasionally in films.

So it was that The Billboard trumpeted in its May 29, 1954 issue that Day was coming back to radio on Sunday, Sept. 19 from 5:30 to 6 p.m. as Nutrilite decided to push its food supplement on the air. Now, Dennis was no longer singing about tubes of tooth goo, but pills of parsley (with watercress and alfalfa).

You’d think a return to the radio dial would have resulted in all kinds of newspaper wire service or columnist interviews. But in 1954, radio wasn’t a big deal any more. I haven’t been able to find one with Dennis promoting his coming show. Instead, there were publicity department profiles of Day, some with “Paid Advt.” at the bottom.

In the meantime, Day, like Jack Benny, jumped into television. In September 1951, he turned down on offer to front a Monday through Friday daytime show on CBS-TV (similar to what future Benny bandleader Bob Crosby had been doing). Instead, he was given a spot on prime time, starting February 8, 1952, for RCA-Victor on NBC. He played what the press called “a swinging single,” but there was an air of familiarity as Verna Felton was brought back to play his mother, as she did during the run of the Benny radio show.

On September 6, 1952, he debuted as one of the rotational hosts on All Star Revue. Starting October 3, he was back on TV with RCA-Victor and then was renewed the following season. But he couldn’t have been given a worse spot on prime time, and even joked (in song) about it in his club act. The show died (in a rerun) on August 2, 1954, thanks to Benny’s real-life next door neighbour.

Here’s what columnist Earl Wilson wrote for publication Jan. 27, 1955. Day was performing in New York; this explains his absences from the Benny radio show in its final season. Day’s engagement at the Copa had been delayed from September as his wife was having their fifth child. The Bing Crosby episode Day refers to aired March 16, 1947.

That sweet Irish lad from the Bronx, Eugene Patrick McNulty—"Dennis Day"—has been dispensing a few truths at the Copacabana.
He confesses publicly that Lucy and Desi knocked him out of television.
"I had the program that people switched off to turn them on,” admits the father of five (Patrick, Dennis, Michael, Margaret and Eileen).
"I was replaced by Medic," he further testifies there on the cafe floor. "I made NBC sick—and they cashed in on it."
* * *
Such frankness is unusual in these days when everybody boasts about a rating.
Later in his suite at the Hotel 14, Dennis said:
“I wasn't kidding. This year Lucy and Desi are down to about a 56. Down! That'd be going up for everybody else.”
Right now NBC's working on a new TV show for him. He trusts he doesn't have to go on opposite Jackie Gleason. He lasted a year against "Lucy" and a year against Ozzie and Harriet [1952-53 season].
Yet many think of him as that nice young chap who's frequently on with Jack Benny.
And with permission of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, he'll tell a tale about that.
“Jack and Bing Crosby used to swap guest appearances on radio—it didn't cost either one anything,” Dennis recalled.
* * *
“Once Bing was on Jack's show and didn’t know we were on 'live.' He didn't start out very good.
“Suddenly he said, 'Who the hell picked this key Dennis Day?' ”
It was heard round the country and Bing—who'd played a cleric in two previous films—was worried and asked Dennis if he should do something.
“I don't know, but in your next picture, you'll be wearing a tie,” prophesied Dennis.
* * *
Watching Dennis perform—he has a pleasant manner—I was struck by the durability of Jack Benny's "cheap" joke.
For not only does Jack still use it after all these years, but so does Dennis. He mentions that Jack has a sign in his bathroom reading LSMFT.
Translated: "Leave Some Money For Towels."
And who perpetuates this one joke? J. B. himself. He sent Dennis a telegram saying: “I would come to your opening, only I understand they have a minimum.”

The debut show got reviews in The Billboard, Variety and Broadcasting-Telecasting. They were mixed. Here’s what Variety wrote on Sept. 22, 1954:

DENNIS DAY SHOW
With Rosemary Clooney, Jimmy Durante, guests; Jimmy Wallington, Robert Armbruster Orch.
Producer-director; Fred R. Levings
Writers: Irving Taylor, Allan Wood
30 Mins.; Sun., 5:30 p.m.
MYTINGER & CASSELBERRY
NBC, from Hollywood (transcribed)
(Dan B. Miner)
Dennis Day, out of the video ranks this season, is back in radio and with one of those current rarities in network broadcasting, weekly half-hour sponsor. Bankroller is Nutrilite, the food supplement; and this alone points up the changes that have taken place in AM from the time when a big-name variety segment in prime Sunday time would have no other bankroller than one of the top 10 food, soap or tobacco spenders.
Another change is the fact that Day is formatted in a show that five years ago would have been rated a good one, but today shapes as no more than satisfactory. It’s a straight comedy-variety segment, leaning heavily on guest stars, along with Day’s impressions and singing and the traditional byplay among the comedian, announcer Jimmy Wallington and bandleader Robert Armbruster. All of which adds up to pleasant though un-exciting entertainment which provides little incentive for redialing.
Guests on the opener were Jimmy Durante and Rosemary Clooney, the latter soloing “All the Pretty Little Horses”, and dueting with Day on “Light of the Silvery Moon” and the former running through his familiar paces with the band on “Inka Dinka Doo.” Day joined him on the latter with a carbon of Durante’s voice, and this combined with some evident adlibbing by Durante made the turn a funny one. Day soloed “From This Moment On” and “September Song” and reprised “Moon” as the Ronald Colman’s would sound.
How long the show will remain a fixture on NBC is hard to say, what with the shaky state of half-hour sponsorships in network radio. Program itself does little to insure its own longevity. Chan.

Day relied on his Benny connection for the show. Benny guest-starred on the Jan. 16, 1955 episode, with guest shots by Eddie (Rochester) Anderson, Mel Blanc (two appearances), Sara Berner and Andy Devine.

Murdo Mackenzie was brought in to direct the show by the start of 1955, and George “Ballad of Gilligan’s Island” Wile took over as musical director, but, like the Benny radio show, its days (no pun intended) were numbered. Neither returned for the 1955-56 season. Magee Adams from the Cincinnati Enquirer of Feb. 28 explained:

FROM THAT ever-present source of information, the trade grapevine, comes a report that the Dennis Day show is to be dropped by its commercial sponsor March 13. According to the now fashionable view, this just goes to show why radio networks are having economic difficulties.
As that sort of thing goes, Dennis Day’s Sunday evening airing on NBC-WLW Radio is an ambitious variety show. In addition to the star, it has been making liberal use of “name” guests, for musical and comedy acts. On the drawing board, this is a formula that simply couldn’t miss, but taking it by ear discloses something else about the show.
As its star, Dennis Day evidently believes that the height of entertainment is a low of dialect impersonations wearily reminiscent of the “life of the party” kind of thing. And the guest acts have been shrunk to a mold as just meager. In short, the show’s variety formula has everything except an idea with enough entertainment muscle to lift it out of its adolescent groove.
For Dennis Day, this is no novelty. He scored with a previous radio flop with a purported comedy patterned after his witless youth role in the Jack Benny show. But it might have been expected that this mistake would not be repeated twice.
It is not the fault of radio that the Dennis Day show failed to satisfy its commercial sponsor. More clearly than some of the other examples, it demonstrates the oldest and most familiar principal in broadcasting—there is no substitute for program quality. In 1955, you might suppose this would not need proving.

Day could have used one of those Irish good luck shamrocks. Three days after Nutrilite lowered the boom on his show, and the day after St. Patrick's Day, he ended up in hospital with pneumonia and had to cancel his shot on a big NBC colour show on the 27th where he would play all the characters in Allen’s Alley with Fred Allen (Allen, for his part, joked to the UP’s Vernon Scott that Day should have been treated on Medic).

Plans for another go at a TV series (including one where the pilot was to be shot at the Copa) fizzled, so Day had to be content with guest appearances in addition to the rounds of show-rooms, recording studios, fairs and maternity wards. He was lauded by everyone, it seems, as a nice man and a wily investor, and always gave credit to Jack Benny for his success.

The Last Honeymooner

Joyce Randolph was the fourth wheel on The Honeymooners. Unfortunately, that made her the fifth wheel.

Jackie Gleason was the star. Art Carney played his buddy so they did routines together. Audrey Meadows played his wife so they did scenes together. Randolph played Carney’s wife so there was no real need for them to interact a lot.

The Honeymooners began as one of a number of sketches on Gleason’s Cavalcade of Stars show on the Du Mont Network. Randolph was cast after Gleason decreed: “Get me that serious actress.” But when Gleason revived the characters during the 1960s and ‘70s, Randolph was not asked to return. Gleason never explained why (Gleason, I suspect, felt he owed explanations to no one) and if Randolph knew, I don’t believe she ever told anyone. She once remarked she wouldn’t have commuted from New York to Florida to do the ‘60s version, though announcer Johnny Olson did just that.

Still, Randolph became burned into the minds of the American television audience when the same 39 episodes of The Honeymooners went into constant reruns beginning in the late ‘50s. The show became a magnet for nostalgia and Randolph started doing interviews again in the 1980s.

Here are a couple of interviews, the first before the Honeymooners became a series and the second after when Gleason went back to a variety format for one year. First, a feature story from the Albany Times-Union of June 12, 1955.

TV’s Loveliest ‘Straight Man’
Joyce Randolph Finds Fun and Profit as No. 4 On the Gleason Show
By Reg Ovington
FOR years now, Mama, who lives in Detroit, has been sending scolding letters to her daughter, Joyce Randolph, a lovely young thing with green eyes, blonde hair and a lusicious shape that the millions who see her on television don't even suspect, on account of the thing's she's been doing since she came to New York. The letters have changed in the past few years, however.
“They're still complaining letters,” says Joyce, “but nowadays Mama is complaining about something else. Her chief gripe these days is because I play the wife of a sewer worker. 'Can't your husband be somebody with a fancier job?' Mama keeps writing, because the neighbors and her friends make jokes about a girl who had to leave home to go to New York just to get married to a man who works in the sewers.”
Miss Randolph slugged her pretty shoulders. “Can’t you just see me saying to Jackie Gleason, 'Instead of having Art Carney play the part of a sewer specialist, make him a bank president, or something, because Mama doesn't like me to be married to a sewer worker.'

“Also, Mama says that if I wasn't married to a sewer worker, I would get a chance to wear nicer clothes on television, and she complains that whenever my name is mentioned in a newspaper or a magazine, I'm always called 'The Fourth Banana.' Mama says that being called a banana is just as bad for a girl as being called a 'tomato.'”
Mama may complain about having her daughter called a banana, and a fourth one, at that. But not Joyce Randolph. For she finds fun and profit in being fourth on the stalk in The Jackie Gleason Show on CBS-TV. First banana, a term born on the burlesque circuit, means top comic in a show, and that position, of course, is held by proprietor Gleason. Second banana is Art Carney, and third, Audrey Meadows who plays Jackie’s wife in The Honeymooners.
“Playing straight man on a comedy show,” says Joyce, “with stars like Gleason and Art Carney means that your part isn't a top one, but there are compensations. They are all great people to work with. And the work is steady. Most actresses consider themselves lucky if they get one job a month on television, and I'm on almost every week.
Another advantage in working with Jackie Gleason is that the star of the show tries to get an air of spontaneity into his performance and into the work of everyone in his cast. “We've got to keep on our toes all the time,” she says, “because we can never be sure of what Jackie will do. We get our scripts, generally, on Wednesday and then we have a camera rehearsal on Thursday. On Saturday we start rehearsing at about noon, and we work through until show time, with just a break to eat. That's a lot less than most shows rehearse. We do it that way because Jackie believes the show will be more spontaneous if it isn't rehearsed too much. And then, sometimes, in the course of the show, Jackie will do something altogether unexpected, or say something that isn't in the script, or drop a couple lines of dialogue, to make up time lost for unexpected laughs. Art Carney, of course, is a master at ad libbing and he can keep up with Jackie without any trouble. So can Audrey. And after three and a half years on the show, so can I.”
Joyce has been playing Trixie, the sewer specialist's wife, in all but the very first sketch of The Honeymooners. “Before that,” says Joyce, “my mother had another complaint. I played in every TV crime and horror show, and I was always being killed. In one year I was killed 24 times.”
Joyce was shot, she was stabbed, choked, strangled and. hanged, and had her pretty skull bashed in with fire pokers, miscellaneous blunt and even sharp weapons.
“Always,” she says, “I was killed by my boy friend. I was killed so often by my television boy friends that I always expected my real life boy friends to take a gat, a shiv or a poker to me any time. That's what Mama used to complain about.
“ 'It's just terrible,' she used to write to me, 'what they're doing to you all the time. It's a terrible way to make a living, getting killed all the time.' “Playing a straight man is much more relaxing, and a lot steadier,” said Joyce, “than being slammed around and being killed. Even if it does mean playing Fourth Banana.”

This story was in the Detroit Free Press of April 21, 1957. I think it’s funny the paper felt it had to explain who the writer was.

‘I’m Not Drab,’ Says Detroit’s Joyce (Ed Norton’s Wife)
Now She’s Aiming At Glamorous Roles
By EARL WILSON
Widely Known Broadway Columnist
NEW YORK—"I am not dowdy!" says Detroit's Joyce Randolph, who plays the wife of sewer-worker Art Carney on the Jackie Gleason show and she gets almost belligerent about it.
"Next year," she announces, "I'll prove it!"
Joyce, the daughter of the Carl Sirolas of 16853 Stansbury, has been playing Carney's TV wife, "Mrs. Ed—or Trixie—Norton," for six years.
And she's darned determined to get a divorce next season from the drabness and plainness that Gleason’s writers have forced upon her.
With Gleason abandoning "The Honeymooners," Joyce hopes to find herself something slightly more glamorous—and truthfully, she's got the equipment.
SHE WAS SEDUCTIVELY stretched out on a black divan, blond, slim and sophisticated in tight turquoise velvet toreador pants and matching satin top cut Chinese style.
She looked more like Eve Arden than Trixie, and conversed more in refined Detroit than the idiom of a sewer man's wife.
"It wouldn't be so bad," she said passionately, "if people didn't recognize one. But I'm always being stopped in the supermarket or on the street, 'Why, you're so-o-o much younger and prettier than on TV.' I don't know whether to be flattered or hurt."
IT ISN'T THAT Joyce is trying to bite the hand that feeds her. Being almost a folk heroine to millions of TV viewers throughout the county, she admits, is very flattering, indeed.
"But no actress likes being typed," she explained.
"It's gotten so that when my agent submits my name for a dramatic show, the producer sneers, 'Oh, you mean Trixie? Nah, she ain't the type!"
JOYCE'S DECISION to plug sophistication next season has been precipitated by Jackie Gleason himself. There won't be any "Honeymooners" and there won't be any Jackie Gleason Show next Fall.
Even this year when he returned to comedy-variety "live," he was planning to abandon the “Honeymooners” altogether, and Joyce was promised more versatile roles.
It didn't work out that way. The Kramdens and the Nortons were firmly established in the affection of the television audience, and Gleason had to bring them back.
JOYCE ADMITS that since the television script has taken the families on a junket to Europe, she's had better clothes to wear and an occasional song to sing. "But frankly," she confided, "as long as I'm on this show, I'll always be second fiddle to Audrey Meadows, and I dearly love playing leads."
JOYCE IS THE gal who even in Cooley High School was known to her teachers as a potential prima donna who could get temperamental if offered supporting roles. She never was.
"Things did go rather well for me," she acknowledged.
From leads at Cooley High, Joyce went right into the Wayne University Civic Workshop after graduation in 1944.
SHE HAD HER Actors Equity card at 13, and over her parents' objection, joined a touring company of "Stage Door." She was one of six local gals taken on by the company while it played in Detroit.
She later toured with "Abie's Irish Rose" and "Good Night, Ladies," did a Broadway play that closed almost overnight, did stock in Hollywood, started doing "early" television in New York, and settled down as Trixie in 1951.
Joyce is grateful to Trivia for giving her security.
"Much as I wanted a career," she said, "I was always afraid of the uncertainty in the theater."
BUT HER DESIRE for security has been competing for some time with her ambition. Alice Kramden and Trixie Norton are friends on the screen. In reality, Audrey Meadows and Joyce are friendly rivals.
Undercover battles are fought every week, as the two ladies jockey for position.
REHEARSALS GO something like this:
The director calls for song. Joyce and Audrey oblige. Joyce's voice is Mermanesque, Audrey's rather soft and sweet. Audrey is drowned out.
"Softer," she cautions Joyce, and the latter obediently puts the damper on.
“Comes the night of the performance," Joyce finished the tale, "and suddenly I notice Audrey's soft voice has become remarkably strong. In fact, she now is louder than I am.
"Naturally, I pull out the stops, and so we both end up shouting. It's kind of funny, really, because in a way it goes with the characters we portray, and I suppose the audience never knows."
JOYCE THINKS her ambition was beginning to flag a couple of years ago.

“I'd be wifely on the screen, and then I'd trot home to an empty apartment. A career can be lonely."
A year and a half Joyce decided a career was fine, but marriage was better. She married a handsome actor turned stock-broker, Richard Charles.
"MARRIAGE, strangely enough, has been good for my career," said Joyce.
She explained that since her husband is an ex-actor he en joys living the theatrical life vicariously.
"He keeps prodding me when sometimes I'd just as soon take it easy," she smiled.
Dick also pastes up her clippings and answers her fan mail.
SHE GETS FAN letters from all over, including—and this has Joyce shaking her head in amazement—Brazil.
"We've all been wondering whether they get the Gleason Show in South America, whether they can understand it if they do, and why they took a particular delight in Trixie.
"As far as I know," says Joyce, "I'm the only one on the show who got requests for autographed pictures."
JOYCE ALSO HAS fan club now. "About 73 members," she boasted.
Originally, she confessed she was rather bewildered having a fan club.
"What in the world does one do with a fan club?" she had asked her husband. "Relax, and enjoy it," he had counseled. "After all, Audrey has one, too."
THE MOST CONCRETE thing her fan club has done so far has been to write letters to all the womens magazines, clamoring for stories about Joyce and Trixie.
In return for their efforts, Joyce invites members to her home whenever they are in New York.
“The nicest thing about fans," she declared, "is that they like me better than dowdy Trixie."

The fans liked her even until her death, which happened yesterday at the age of 99.

Benny Has Heart

The “King of Hearts” turned out to be a man who was hopelessly inept at lady-killing on network radio, but had a long and loving marriage in real life.

That man was Jack Benny.

The coronation took place at a benefit in New York, sponsored by the American Heart Association. Then he was crowned by Fred Allen and other old friends as he accepted the honour.

The ceremony took place on April 6, 1949. Columnist Earl Wilson, for whom Jack seemed to be a favourite subject, filled newspaper space with his take on the proceedings.

Jack Benny Splendid MC At Heart Fund Benefit
By Earl Wilson
JACK BENNY and Fred Allen were still swapping good-humored insults about which is the cheaper when I left the big Heart Fund benefit at the Copacabana at 1:30 Thursday morning.
"Jack Benny," said Fred, "is the only man in California who has a burglar alarm on his garbage can.”
BENNY REPLIED that Fred's frugality has never been properly appreciated. He said Fred started saving money before he was even born. Indeed, alleged Jack, Fred's mom said to Fred's pop, “I can't wait to have him, because he's already saved $800.”
THE BIG SHOW, for which customers paid $100 to $1000 a table, was run by Columnist Ed Sullivan of the Heart Fund drive.
This evoked from Allen the remark that "with Winchell fighting cancer and Sullivan fighting heart disease, there's nothing left for Earl Wilson and Leonard Lyons to combat but indigestion and athlete’s foot.” Benny had come from Hollywood to act as master of ceremonies for the show.
He said in Hollywood they always ask Bob Hope first and he’s usually doing a show in Syracuse or North Africa and can’t make it, then they ask George Jessel and he’s either having a date with Greer Garson or Margaret O'Brien, and then they get to him.
“You probably heard about my capital gains radio deal,” Benny said.
“I claim the gains should go to me and the government claims the gains should go to the capital,” he continued.
ALLEN SAID, "Benny left NBC for CBS and I'd just like to remind him that Gen. Eisenhower only lasted three months at Columbia.”
Benny, with his easy manner, made a splendid m.c. although Allen said, "He's the first man I ever heard of who would work in a show three hours to get into the Copacabana without having to pay the minimum charge."
HOW—HE ASKED—could a club like the Copa operate at such a low price regularly? Tomorrow it would have to go back to its usual higher prices.
BENNY ALSO BROUGHT news of Al Jolson who, he said, might not be able to continue much longer.
“After all,” he said, “Larry Parks isn’t getting any younger.”
HENRY FONDA, Ethel Merman and other stars had been on, and others were waiting. One of those waiting was Kate Smith who, 17 years ago opened at the Central Park Casino. She hadn’t worked or even been in a cafe since that year, until Wednesday night.
IRVING BERLIN CAME out and sang a few songs. Benny said, “Isn’t it wonderful? Here's a man who must be 60 years old and he hasn't got a grey hair in his head—tonight.”
Berlin sang, "Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning,” just one of his great hits, and told a true story of how he had sung the song for a Hollywood picture.
HE SAID AS HE SANG IT, a stagehand, who didn't know who he was, muttered, "If the guy who wrote that song could hear this guy sing it, he'd turn over in his grave.”

Incidentally, Kate Smith was named “Queen of Hearts.” Coincidentally, the two had been employed by General Foods and both sold Jell-O on the air. Smith and Irving Berlin had a connection, too. She once or twice sang of song of his called “God Bless America.”

Auntie Angela

Mention Angela Lansbury’s name and many will think of Murder, She Wrote. Some will think of her warbling in Disney films such as Beauty and the Beast.

But fans of show tunes the world over will talk about her performance in the title role in “Mame,” even if they’ve never seen it. She performed it on the Great White Way for almost two years then went on the road with it.

Lansbury was an unusual choice, judging by this wire service story of March 27, 1966.

Angela Exercises For Musical 'Mame'
By WILLIAM GLOVER
Associated Press Drama Writer
NEW YORK — Angela Lansbury is limbering up like an athlete for another and, she hopes, more durable go at Broadway musical comedy.
"I just can't tell yet how much energy I'm going to need," she explains, "so I want to have plenty."
Miss Lansbury, who has romped quite a dramatic gamut over the years, reaches Broadway's Winter Garden May 24 in a show derived from the adventures of that incredible book-play-film heroine, "Auntie Mame."
To avoid confusion with all earlier incarnations, the new exhibit is titled plain "Mame." And, the star vows, the portrayal is going to be "completely different"—if she survives.
"The whole thing is being plotted very carefully so I don't have to keep running around out of breath," she says, ticking off an awesome assortment of chores. Besides taking part in 11 songs—a rare number for even an Ethel Merman or Mary Martin—Miss Lansbury's assignment includes dance variety from tango to Charleston and "about costume changes."
ONLY ONCE BEFORE HAS she essayed musical performance, in a fast flop two seasons back, "Anyone Can Whistle." Although she emerged from the debacle with good reports, a lot of testing was done before she got this new role.
"They first called me in last August," recalls Miss Lansbury, "and I think I was competing against every leading lady in the theater. The thing went on until the end of November."
Oddly, Miss Lansbury never saw any of her famous predecessors in the straight stage comedy. Rosalind Russell did it first on Broadway just 10 years ago, and the following parade there and in multiple touring troupes included .Constance Bennett, Bea Lillie, Sylvia Sidney and Eve Arden.
"That's all to the good—I'm going in like a clean sheet of paper. No one can say it's a carbon."
Jerry Lawrence, who along with Robert E. Lee wrote both the original play and the musical adaptation, figured Miss Lansbury could do it.
Another early supporter was Jerry Herman, “Mame’s” composer (who three years ago penned another little opus called “Hello, Dolly!”).
“Both of them wanted an actress — not a dancing cutie — so that Mame would come out a whole person,” continues Miss Lansbury.
Miss Lansbury, as a matter of record, did sing briefly in two films prior to “Anyone Can Whistle”—namely “The Picture of Dorian Gray” and “Till the Clouds Roll By.”
After “Whistle,” the energetic star “did a lot of big, fat movies—four or five” so that she could clear her calendar for this stage excursion. The Lansbury screen career began at age 18 (“Gaslight,” 1944) and she didn't do her first Broadway show until 15 years later. She confesses one mild reservation.
“I'm an early person except when I'm in a stage role,” says the lady who likes to rise by 7 A.M.
“The one thing I object to about being in a show is having to miss half a day. You can get so much more done in the morning.”

Lansbury received almost universal praise for her opening night performance. The Daily News’ Douglas Watt was a hold-out, basically saying Lansbury didn’t have the depth or ability to pull off a lead for the entirety of musical, and Bea Arthur stole scene after scene from her.

Earl Wilson’s column addressed some whispering at a New York City theatrical night spot.

As the tall, willowy, 41-year-old British-born blonde Angela Lansbury was being standing-ovationed as the greatest new star for her spectacular success in "Mame," there were a few dirty dogs around today who were muttering that her last show, "Anyone Can Whistle," was a fast flop.
And she was Carroll Baker's mother in the film "Harlow," another loser.
So maybe she was an accident altogether?
"Not at all," said Jerry Herman, composer of "Hello, Dolly!" as well as "Mame." He remembered her singing—and acting—from "Anyone Can Whistle."
"I suggested to Jerry Lawrence and Bob Lee that we get this lady, who was an actress who could sing," he said. There were those who thought that Lucille Ball should play it. But Herman preferred somebody less comedic. "I got together with this lady and taught her one song, 'It's Today,' And—she got the part."
AND THEY WERE asking in Sardi's this morning, whether any show had ever received a standing ovation before.
"Oh, I'm sure there have been some!" Miss Lansbury was saying to her husband, son, dtr. and mother, as she cavorted about in a blue Norwegian fox wrap and silver-and-gold lame gown.
"I'm not so sure," some oldsters were answering.
It was the biggest, maddest, wildest evening at the refurbished Winter Garden . . . in the crazy celebration party at the Rainbow Room they even “bravoed” the reading of a review . . . This is not to overlook occasional opinions that the show was not the greatest of all time. (I say this as a compleat reporter.)

As for Lucy getting the part, well, it happened. Further comment is best left unsaid.

Considering her monster success, she should have become another Carol Channing on the Great White Way. It didn’t quite happen. A $720,000 loss over 132 performances for her musical “Dear World” in 1969 didn’t help. Soon, she was filming “Bedknobs and Broomsticks” for Disney before heading alone to Germany for a film and then to Ireland to try to get her head together.

Judging by the rest of her career, she was able to do just that.

Thoughts Over a Grasshopper

TV workloads. Bob Hope. A new, old violin. Those were some of the topics Jack Benny discussed with syndicated columnist Earl Wilson, who made a trip out to Hollywood. This was the main item in his column in the New York Post of July 21, 1957, which found its way into subscribing papers later.

I wonder how often Jack drank grasshoppers. I don’t think I know anyone who has.

Benny Finds Life Easier
Comedian Goes On His Successful Way
By Earl Wilson
HOLLYWOOD — Jack Benny, natty in shorts, leaned back restfully puffed his cigar millionairishly, and kept quiet for a moment when I tactlessly mentioned that TV's so difficult it’s chasing comedians off the air.
“For me-e-e-e,” he shrugged after an appropriate elapse of time, “it’s easier than radio — maybe because I like it.”
“Oh sure,” I hastily apologized. “You’re doing well and so is Groucho and George Burns.”
“The old guys,” he nodded grimly. “Just us old guys. How about Phil Silvers? Phil will always be good at anything.”
And so I gradually saw that Jack’s denying that TV’s a monster — to him — and that it’s killing off comedians.
“Some of the public is indignant about Sid Caesar going off the air,” I said.
“If the public is so indignant why didn’t it watch him and buy the sponsor’s products?” Jack looked across at me and asked if I wanted a cigar. He was off to buy one. He came back and ordered us both a grasshopper as we sat at a back table. Jack was almost unnoticed.
“The trouble with some comedy shows is that they don’t have any particular characterization.” He sipped the grasshopper. “Just like a soft drink isn’t it?” “I give Bob Hope an awful lot of credit,” he resumed.
“Every time he does a show it’s like a Broadway revue. With me, I’ve always got a lot of things going for me.
“The age, the cheapness, the concerts." He looked up with lively interest. “I did a Carnegie Hall concert and I got two programs out of it!”
It’s so true. I'd seen him do his night club act in Las Vegas at the Flamingo where he had used all those gimmicks.
It’s Easy Money
“Sure I’m working night clubs now,” he’d said. “Where else can you pick up $200 this easy? I asked Al Pavin, the owner here, for $40,000 a week, thinking he would turn me down — and he did. It’s not that I’m stingy. I throw money away — not too far.”
That was the way it went and every one got a howl. Jack was working with four or five jokes which seem to get funnier every time he does them.
“Have you added any new traits to this humorous character, Jack Benny?” I asked.
“Just the concerts. Did you know I bought a real, real good Stradivarius? I imagine it’s worth about $30,000.”
“Do you think you play better with it?”
“Well it sounds better. It’s about 230 years old. I practice with it but I didn’t use it in my night club act, Zeke Benny and his Beverly Hillbillies.”
“I don’t know much about concert music,” I said.
“I don’t either,” Jack said, “but I give concerts anyway.”
That was the subject that interested Jack most.
“You know I practically dropped the fiddle for 40 years,” he said. “Mike Todd said a very sage thing about my fiddling.
“It’s not that I have the gall to play in Carnegie Hall, it’s the pathos that I think I’m good enough when there isn’t a violinist in the orchestra who isn’t 80 times as good as I am.”
Looking excited all over again, he said, “I’m going to play London too — the Royal Festival Hall. I’ll have to make a special trip.”
“Do you keep practicing all the time?”
“That’s the terrible part of it,” Jack shrugged. “I have to practice to play lousy.”

He's Epistolic

Entertainers did their part during the World War Two. Some enlisted. Others entertained.

Jack Benny was in the latter category. He toured the South Pacific, the Middle East, Africa and Europe. He performed his radio show from bases in the U.S. He pushed bond sales in the U.S. and Canada. His daughter Joan discovered her father spoke to injured service members in hospitals overseas, wrote down their names, and then wrote their families to provide some comfort.

Jack tried touring during the Korean War but found it too grueling for him after one trip.

As Germany was about to surrender, Benny found himself with the American soldiers there. Here’s part of an Earl Wilson column from the New York Post, August 2, 1945 where one of Jack’s funny letters is transcribed. (Another portion involves Ed Gardner overseas, complaining about the incompetence of some USO special service officers).

Jack wasn't as prolific a letter writer as Fred Allen (whose letters were posthumously collected into a book), but he did write a fair bit and his letters are in a collection at the University of Wyoming.

Benny's A Man of Letters
By EARL WILSON
I GUESS I'm the first columnist brave enough to come right out and write about Jack Benny's epistolary habits. I've known of his epistolary tendencies for months, but it took this epistle, which he wrote to Goodman Ace from Landau, Germany, to bring out he's an epistolary genius.

"Dear Goodie: For the past three weeks I've been running around over Germany and nothing I have ever seen is as beautiful as these German towns bombed right down to the ground. Nothing is left of Nuremberg but debris. If didn't I spell debris right you can jump in the lake because I have other things to worry about. If you think I'm going to make myself a nervous wreck worrying about spelling debris, you're nuts.
"I'M WORKING very hard while you're doing nothing, yet you're the kind of a louse that'll go around showing everybody how I spelled debris. I could have said bricks and dirt or I could have spelled it dee-bree. But no, you're not satisfied receiving a letter from me from Germany and have to make a lot of stinking remarks about my spelling and education. You're just not the friend I thought you were.
"INSTEAD OF WASTING my time writing to you, I could have written to Allen Jenkins or C. Aubrey Smith or even my wife, but no, I write to you! Just because you were a newspaperman doesn't necessarily mean you have sit there like a damned idiot wondering how I got where I did in show business. Why, if I hadn't started this letter, I wouldn't write you if I lived to be 1000 years old. That's all I've got to say to you."
Then he added a P.S.: "You can change the start of this letter from 'Dear Goodie' to 'Dear Goodman.' "

Muriel Landers

Muriel Landers was nicknamed “the fastest ton in the West.” People weren’t too subtle back then. (Though considering the rudeness and crudeness on social media, things may actually be worse today).

“Plump” seems to have been the preferred word in the media to describe her, as she found her way into supporting roles on television. Her nickname in the San Francisco papers in the early ‘50s was “Lannie.”

Landers was a graduate of Northwestern University who moved to the Bay Area by 1949. There she opened a TV training school and soon married Bill Sweeney of KFRC, then got a job on the air at KYA in 1951. Sniffed Herb Caen in his column of April 12, 1951: “One Muriel Landers, who starts a midnight disc jockey show from the Papagayo Room Sunday, is ballyhooing herself as "Your Glamour Gal With a Brain." Such conceit. All other "glamour gals" (ich) are glamorons?” She was also part of an experimental colour TV broadcast in San Francisco in January 1950 by a company hoping to sell its technology.

The big-time came unexpectedly. Walter Winchell wrote in his column of November 16, 1951: “JACK BENNY laughed so much watching Muriel Landers when he appeared on Sinatra's program that he invited her to join him in his next Palladium (London) show. What a break.” Benny used Landers on radio and TV.

The big time meant “big” jokes. Perhaps Landers didn’t mind. Here’s a United Press story of March 11, 1952.

Plumpness Pays Off for This Gal in Hollywood
By ALINE MOSBY
HOLLYWOOD, Mar. 11. —(UP)— Beautiful girls are signed for pictures because of their slender shapes but Muriel Landers, a well-fed tourist from New York, was rushed into pictures today — because she's a perfect 42.
Twentieth Century-Fox studio's been scouring the cinema city for a caloried cutie to play 287-pound Thomas Gomez' Indian wife in "Pony Soldier." But the Hollywood dolls are too busy dieting. So when Miss Landers happened to visit the town and lunch with a friend in the Fox commissary, bedlam busted loose.
Whirled Through Routine
She was, to be exact, discovered over a piece of banana cream pie. The casting director leaped to her table and begged her to take a movie test.
The pretty brunette was whirled through the wardrobe department . . . tested in technicolor . . . and signed for the leading, role before her hefty lunch had a chance to settle.
"The studio claims I'm 225 but I'm only 201. Don't make it any worse," she chuckled, all over.
She's only 5 foot, 1 inch tall, too, just like two Marilyn Monroes.
Directors Happy

"When the casting director saw me he grinned as though a light had gone on," she said, "He called the director of the picture and they all were smiling broadly.
"After the test everybody around the studio looked at me and grinned and I thought maybe my slip was showing.
"Finally this big gentleman comes along and shouts 'How!' I said, 'Why?' He was Thomas Gomez, very big, and I knew why they were laughing. He says wait until I see the eight chubby papooses we have in the picture."
TV Character Roles
Miss Five-by-Five started out to be an opera singer in Chicago but ate her way out of that career. So she crashed into New York television to play character roles with Frank Sinatra, Ed Wynn and Jack Benny.
"I kept putting on weight, in layers," she smiled.
"My name isn't too well known, but anybody with a TV set can't forget my figure."
Always a Job
"I've never had to look for jobs," she shrugged. "In New York every time I eat in a restaurant some TV producer offers me a part. They welcomed me with open arms. Not being a glamour girl hasn't hindered me.
"I find audiences like me, too. After all, half the women in the audience are more like me than Lana Turner."

Earl Wilson wrote about Landers in his syndicated column of May 17, 1957. By then she had made a bunch of TV guest appearances, played Rosa in the TV version of Life With Luigi and was cast in that Duke Mitchell/Sammy Petrillo classic, Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (1952).

Television's fat girl, Muriel Landers —height 5 feet, weight 200 plus—feels sorry for you skinny women.
And especially for bony fashion models.
"They have such a pained expression!" says Muriel, shaking with plumpish laughter. "They're miserable from hunger."
MURIEL, WHOM YOU'VE seen with Ray Bolger, Jack Benny, Jimmy Durante, Jackie Gleason, Jack Carter and others, is a comic herself.
"I get paid by the pound," she'll be glad to tell you. "When I was on Frank Sinatra's show, I lifted him. Yeah, that's when I started picking up men."
Muriel, a Chicagoan who started as a concert singer, was told when she arrived in New York hunting acting jobs. "They'll take one look and throw you out of the office."
"Now I'm afraid to diet too much because I'm doing so well," she says. "I took off 40 pounds, though."
"So what is your actual weight now?" I asked her.
"Two hundred is sexier than 250 isn't it?" she flung back.
"A LOT OF MEN like us heavy women," she rippled on. "I've never had any problem getting one."
Her wardrobe's full of expensive size 20's dresses, and at 28 she goes laughing through life.
LONDON AUDIENCES howled when she did pratfalls in Jack Benny's act at the Palladium.
"Most women in the audiences everywhere are more like me than they are like Marilyn Monroe," she says. "They say, 'She's got a glamour kind of a job, maybe there's a chance for me.'"
"Do you have any plans for marriage?" I asked her.
"Yes, I do have some plans for marriage," she retorted, "and hope it has some plans for me!"

One of the people on Laugh-In early in the first season was Muriel Landers. I thought she was supposed to be part of the regular cast but it looks like she only appeared on two shows.

A stroke claimed Landers at age 55. She died in the Motion Picture Country Home on February 19, 1977.

The Human Joke Machine

“The only thing I can turn on around my house without getting Morey Amsterdam,” Fred Allen once declared, “is the water faucet.”

Allen may not have been far from the truth. At one point in 1948, Amsterdam was doing two shows on WHN radio and “Stop Me If You’ve Heard This” on both NBC radio and TV; it was the network’s biggest television show at the time it began airing that March. He was performing in a nightclub he had a part interest in and was about to launch a revue called “Hilarities of 1949” (It never reached 1949. It closed after 16 performances in 1948).

That was kind of the second phase in his career, which also included writing some popular songs. People are generally familiar with the third phase of his career, when he was a regular on The Dick Van Dyke Show in the first half of the 1960s.

The first phase of his career goes back into the 1920s when he appeared on the vaudeville stage, and while in San Francisco, connected with comedian Al Pearce, becoming part of his gang around 1930. He, his wife Mabel Todd and orchestra leader Tony Romano left Pearce in summer 1936 and soon had their own radio show. Naturally, because Amsterdam was everywhere, the show was broadcast out of Los Angeles on the NBC Red network one night and the Blue network another night. Along the way, the three of them ended up in New York and took up residence on WOR/Mutual by the end of November 1939.

The corny jokes Amsterdam spouted on the Van Dyke show were a good indication of the kind of humour he used on stage and on radio. Critics’ feelings about him were mixed. The ones who didn’t like him dismissed him as being loud, hokey and unfit for the big time. Audiences evidently disagreed or Amsterdam wouldn’t have been as ubiquitous. Still, when the 1950s came, his stardom was eclipsed by others, despite a quick wit and a bottomless barrel of laugh material.

Let’s pass on a few clippings about the man once known as the Human Joke Machine. The first is a profile in the Los Angeles Times of October 14, 1934. Among a number of things, it confirms his age. In later years, he shaved a few years off it.

Ether Etchings
Morey Amsterdam is short in stature and long in satire . . . has a good memory for bad jokes . . . never remembers their source . . . never tells the same joke twice—on the same program . . . is one of Al Pearce’s favorite comics . . . helps routine Al’s daily operas . . . has a flair for high-waisted trousers and low-brow humor . . . does everything on a big scale . . . insisted that Al use six people in the quartet from Rigoletto.
Was born in Chicago (no reason given) December 14, 1908 . . . his father a musician with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra . . . has two brothers—one a pre-possessing pianist—the other a repossessing auto financier.
BOY SOPRANO

Went through San Francisco schools . . . entered university at age of 14 (an inspection tour) . . . did his first broadcast in 1922 as a boy soprano; then his voice changed . . . which was a lucky break—for the listeners.
Singing and playing his ‘cello, he was booked for vaudeville dates around California with his piano-pounding brother . . . first time his parents heard him they brought him a one-way ticket to Chicago and told him to get the ‘cello outa here!
THEY SHOT HIM
Mastered the ceremonies in a lot of Middle West “hot spots” and theaters . . . was shot by gangsters in Milwaukee (after they heard him) but he insisted on continuing to sing . . . returned to California and to more receptive radio audiences.
“You Lucky People” was phrased around this time . . . after a period on a local rebel radio station went to San Francisco for a year’s engagement at the Warfield . . . met Al Pearce and did several programs for him . . . returned here and did some movie work.
Met Mabel Todd and lost his heart as well as his voice . . . now writes most of the material used by Mabel . . . directs and coaches her . . . every time he remembers a good joke he tosses a coin in the air . . . if it stays up he lets Mabel use it (the joke) . . . If the coin falls—he uses it . . . if it stands on its edge---it’s original (the joke.)

Amsterdam and Todd broke up but he kept plugging away in New York City. He was part owner of a trade rag there (the Broadway Reporter) as well as a nightclub, in addition to his radio work. He received a visit from columnist Earl Wilson and radio writer Hal Block in 1947. Wilson wrote about it in his column in the Post of July 1st that year.

A Call on Amsterdam Finds Him Master of the Switch
By Earl Wilson
Morey Amsterdam, the One-Man Gag Factory, screams out his yaks every night in a cellar cafe that I hereby name "The Jokebox."
"Welcome to our saloon, under a saloon," he says, in his little coal mine, the Playgoers Club. "Eighty-five per cent of the people get in here by mistake thinking it's the subway. Have you ever been to the Copa-cabana? Lousy liquor. Stinkin' ventilation. Outrageous prices. Just like this place, only larger." Comedy Writer Hal Block and I stumbled down there and told Amsterdam we'd come to study his type of humor. This meant we'd come to steal it.
"You guys talk so much," he said, "my voice is flat from trying to get a word in edgewise."
* * *
His rapid-fire delivery can make you laugh in the middle of a yawn. He mentions a house without plumbing—"it's uncanny." He introduces the 2 ½-piece band. ''Here's our band," he says. "They need no introduction. They know each other very well."
Block and I decided Amsterdam, one of the funniest men alive, is a master of the switch or surprise joke.
Morey wrote "Rum and Coca-Cola," "Tucson," also "Wyoming," and he won't let you forget it. Starting to sing "Rum and Coca-Cola," he says, "I'm sure you all know the words, so when I come to the chorus, kindly keep your damn mouths shut."
* * *
Another sample is "Did you see a guy in here with a bad eye named Joe?” . . . “I don’t know. What was the name of his good eye?”
Morey doesn't use puns—even famous ones like Ed Wynn's when he heard a man ordering some lamb chops and cheese and called out to the chef, "Cheese it, the chops!"
* * *

He avoids most of the "I had a hotel room so small that" jokes but don’t worry, he doesn’t discriminate against hotels. "In my hotel they change the sheets every day—from one bed to the other."
He works effectively with absurdities such as "Joe Louis hit me so hard that they counted me out while I was still in the air. My wife's so troublesome that she'd give an aspirin a headache. When they gave her penicillin, it got sick."
* * *
"Summer is here—this morning I found a Blue Jay sitting on my corn," he announces. He had to tell about a golfer who chose the wrong club every time against the advice of his caddy, managed to get on the green in 20 strokes, and then, insanely using a driver, put the ball in the cup from the force of the wind stirred up by his swing.
Turning to the caddy, he said, desperately, "Now I'm stuck. I don’t know what club to use."
I sat around in Lindy's with Amsterdam while he ordered a Monte Cristo sandwich—a ham, cheese and chicken between white bread, dipped in egg batter, and fried like French toast. Even Lindy hadn't heard of it. In fact, Lindy asked him, "What kind of bicarbonate of soda you want?"
But it was right good! Lindy had made a special effort to listen to Barry Gray's radio spot, to see how he sounded with his new nose. Amsterdam was guesting. "You were foolish to pay to get your nose fixed," he told Gray. "I know 18 guys who would have broken your nose for nothing. You look like a fellow who fell in front of a steam roller side-ways." According to Amsterdam also, "an education is something you get so you can work for guys with no education," while California, to combat the influx of unwelcome people, will post signs, "Bums not allowed, except those who have contracts in pictures."
So there you are—a funny funnyman. It may be corny but the best humor is the kind people laugh at.

Network television was still very small in fall 1948 when Milton Berle became a phenomenon—for NBC. CBS must have thought it needed its own version of Berle, so it looked around on its talent roster, found Amsterdam, then gave him a variety show it ended up cancelling after four months. Du Mont must have thought it needed its own version of Berle, so it hired Amsterdam. That’s where he was on November 8, 1949 when this story hit the news wire.

Free Advice Out, Says Funny Man
By HAL BOYLE
Associated Press Staff Writer
New York—"I grew up," said Morey Amsterdam, "the day I discovered you can't give people good advice—you have to charge them for it."
Amsterdam is one of the top funny men of television and radio. This is the new Amsterdam. The old Amsterdam was just a gag writer for other comics.
As a youthful vaudeville performer Morey — he joked and played a cello—used to try to suggest to the stars he hero-worshiped ways they could improve their routine.
HE GETS ADVICE

"They just laughed me off," he said. "Then I went into professional gag writing. And five years later they were paying me $3,000 to $5,000 for the same material I had tried to give them for nothing."
He himself got an excellent bit of advice from one star for whom he wrote movie dialogue — Will Rogers.
"Don't offend anyone," the genial cowboy wrote on one of about 1001 postal cards he mailed Morey over the years. "I get by because no matter what I say about anyone I always wind up saying something good about him also."
At 37 Morey, one of the best ad libbers in the trade, figures he has coined himself some 10,000 gags.
200 JOKES A DAY
“For a while I was doing 78 shows a week and had to throw 200 jokes a day,” recalled Amsterdam, who now has his own program on the Du Mont television network. “I believe I really know a million jokes. Some comedians keep a file. I don’t. It’s a waste of time.
“I think it’s easier to make up a new joke or remember one that fits the situation than it is to dig through a file.”
Morey likes ridiculous humor—but humor that also carries a thought behind it. His best gag?
“I like the one I wrote for a Bob Benchley movie short. Benchley picks up the phone and says:
“ ‘Hello, honey. Get the kids off the street—I’m driving home.’”
CONFIDENCE COUNTS
Morey has a theory that what defeats most comedians is a lack of confidence in their own jokes.
“You have to tell them like you think they’re funny yourself,” he said.
“Old material alone never really killed a comedian. No matter what joke you tell—it’s new to a large part of your audience.

Amsterdam’s run on Du Mont lasted 18 months. Perhaps the height of his stardom came in June 1950 when he was picked to be one of the alternating hosts of the late-night show Broadway Open House. The gig lasted until late November. There had already been talk of Jim Hawthorne from Los Angeles replacing him. The descent began. By February 1952, we find Amsterdam hosting a post-Today show on local morning TV in New York. He returned to late nights with a show on KTLA in May 1957, surviving less than nine months before returning to New York.

It wasn’t like Amsterdam was destitute. There was plenty of club work and a few films. And then came the phone call from Carl Reiner. The Human Joke Machine was back on TV again.

From Broadway to Underdog

Here’s some Broadway trivia:

When Hans Conried left the cast of “Can-Can” in 1954, he was replaced by George S. Irving. Conried didn’t set foot on the Great White Way again for 20 years. When he returned, he was hired as a replacement to play Madame Lucy in the musical “Irene.” Whom did he replace? George S. Irving.

Irving (who was plain old “George Irving” until 1947 when Equity forced him to change his billing) had an impressive string of Broadway appearances, but is probably best known to you and me as being part of a good little voice cast employed by Total TeleVision Productions. Irving is the one who reminded us of the evil things that Simon Bar Sinister did to Sweet Polly Purebread on the last episode of Underdog. Irving’s narrator voice was pretty recognisable and you could hear him on commercial voiceovers that came out of New York, though he insisted that wasn’t his forte.

Perhaps his most unusual role was as that most unusual president, Richard Nixon. Irving played him on stage while I-Am-Not-a-Crook was still in his first term in the White House. Harvey Pack’s TV Key column wrote about it on May 18, 1972.

A TV Commercial Face as Mr. President
NEW YORK— When George S. Irving, familiarly seen in TV commercials, was growing up in Springfield, Mass., he never thought he might end up President of the United States, but at least for the present that seemingly impossible idea has been realized— thanks to Gore Vidal's entertaining yet frequently heavy-handed Broadway satire, "An Evening with Richard Nixon And..."
Even if the play folds, tomorrow, Irving has enjoyed his brief tenure as Chief Executive of Broadway, and during a recent luncheon at Sardi's I heard him greeted by at least a half a dozen people as "Mr. President," and then watched him respond by clasping his hands over his head in the manner of the man who is more concerned about the possibility of closing in November than Saturday night.

Irving does not look exactly like Nixon. He has the same general facial structure and — aided by a wig and a Nixon nose, which the show's make-up man (who has made up the President for TV) bakes in an oven by the dozen — he does an amazing job on stage.
A working actor and member of the regular company of David Frost's syndicated revue show, George once did a portion of the famed "Checkers" speech in a sketch, the producers of the Vidal play saw it and he was invited to audition. A McGovern Democrat, Mr. Irving does, not make his characterization of the President into a caricature. "Remember the words we use are his own, and, if I overplayed the part, I would shift the emphasis from the dialogue and hurt the play," said Irving.
The play has enjoyed a mixed reaction. Even at this writing nobody knows whether it will be running next week. It suffers primarily from its biased point of view which is so obvious it infuriates people who are pro-Nixon; anti-Nixon liberals react as liberals invariably do by siding with the underdog — in this case President Nixon. In addition, Mr. Vidal has directed his barbs at such American heroes as Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy and Washington which, combined with his treatment of Mr. Nixon, reminds me of the line Mort Sahl always used at the end of his act: "Are there any groups or individuals I have not picked on tonight?"
But no matter what fate may be in store for Mr. Vidal's political diatribe it has been a triumph for George S. Irving. George and his wife, Maria Karnilova, who won a Tony for her performance as Tevya's wife in "Fiddler on the Roof," have succeeded in raising a family in New York while working in the theater without ever moving to Hollywood or doing a daytime drama on TV.
George has been in scores of Broadway productions but never really enjoyed the recognition he has won for his impersonation of President Nixon. "Now that I've played a lead... a title role, in fact... I guess I've proven something," Irving said.
As a working actor George is in no position to enjoy the thrill of playing a lead. He was on his way to an audition for a Broadway play scheduled for the fall and he still makes his daily rounds for commercials.
"I've lived off commercials for years," he said. “They paid for our summer house upstate as well as for some peace of mind. Oddly enough I've never had any luck with voice-overs. I have the kind of face the sponsor wants to see on camera. I suppose you could call it the average man look,” and, at the thought of President Nixon as Mr. Average Man being very employable for TV commercials, we both laughed.

Irving won a Tony for a role which wasn’t his to begin with, as Best Supporting Actor opposite Debbie Reynolds in “Irene.” Let’s see what “Midnight Earl” had to say about it. This column appeared in newspapers around March 17, 1973.

Irving won't be stereotyped
By EARL WILSON
"They're not going to typecast me," strong-jawed George Irving said the other night in Sardi's looking across the dining room at Debbie Reynolds and her chorus-girl daughter Carrie. "In 'Irene,' I'm an effeminate courtier named 'Madame Lucy' and not many months ago I was President Nixon in Gore Vidal's show and also on a David Frost Special.
"Besides that," I pointed out, "you're all over TV doing commercials."
Irving sipped some applejack and gingerale and permitted some kidding about the commercials. He pretended not to remember the name of one cigar, but he remembered asking the president at a tobacco firm, "Do you smoke these?" and the prez shook his head no. "I have a roomful of Havanas," the prez declared. He also has a soap commercial and, laughingly he said, "That stuff'll kill you...take the hide right off of you."
The portrayal of President Nixon was fresh in his memory about three months ago when he was in Boston in a show called "Comedy" which folded. He was out of work. He had delighted everybody with a "Nixon inaugural address" for Frost.
The President had been dividing his time between the Washington White House, the San Clemente White House, the Camp David While House and the Key Biscayne White House, and "now I'd like to announce the opening of a swell new White House at Disneyland where you can eat all you want for $3.95," the President said (in the sketch).
"The next four years I will continue to do battle against the three isms that threaten us—communism, fascism and journalism," he also had the President say (courtesy of writers Tony Geiss and Gary Belkin).

That was over, too. Agent Milton Goldman urged him to rush back to N.Y. to see Sir John Gielgud, director of Debbie's new show "Irene" which was in much trouble. Billy DeWolfe decided he didn't want to continue playing Madame Lucy, a New York courtier who never made good till he went to Paris and began calling himself "Lucy."
"It's an extravagant, elegant character with little zany gestures. I took the part and when Gower Champion came in as director, he made it a little nuttier," Irving said.
The result is one of the funniest characters in years, especially when Irving (who has sung with the New York City Opera), flounces around with "Madame Lucy and the Debutantes" singing "They Go Wild, Simply Wild Over Me."
Madame Lucy, in fact, sings all over the place and gets into a delicate situation with Patsy Kelly, the Irish mother of 9th Avenue Irene, which isn't fair to discuss further until you've seen the show. George E. Irving isn't his real name and I don't know what it is. He's from Springfield Mass., has been married 25 years to beautiful actress Maria Karnilova, has two grown children and is Russian-Jewish. He's a New York actor who's never gone to Hollywood and has made it acting and not going to side jobs.
The jokes fly. In one scene he teaches the girls to model. "At the least sign of impertinence knuckles will be rapped," he announces. And hits the desk, rapping hell out of his own knuckles. "That was my thimble finger," he shrieks.

Saturday morning cartoons didn’t get much respect until the people who watched them grew up and then wrote about them. You won’t find newspaper stories in the 1960s where Irving comments about his earnest narration in Underdog, or a decade later when his voice appeared every Christmas as the Heat Miser in the TV feature The Year Without a Santa Claus. But you can read about the producers of Underdog in Mark Arnold’s book, and of the many stop-motion and animated works of the Rankin/Bass people who brought you the Heat Miser in Rick Goldschmidt’s book.