The Month of June (Foray)

If there was anyone on the face of the Earth who could possibly have the distinction of winning an Emmy award for the first time at age 94, it would be June Foray.

And she did it tonight.

She won for Outstanding Performer in an Animated Program.

One would think that she would have been nominated long before this. After all, her career pre-dates the Emmys. It even pre-dates network television, considering her years on radio. The trouble is she’s a voice-over artist, working off-camera in commercials and guesting with cartoon ensembles, and that doesn’t really fit any of the Emmy categories.

There is no possible way you have spent your life without hearing June’s voice. Interestingly, her roles that everyone remembers today are not found in a nice little biography in an Associated Press story of November 3, 1967—Witch Hazel for at least two cartoon studios; Rocky the Flying Squirrel, Natasha and Nell Fenwick for the Jay Ward studios; Talky Tina on “The Twilight Zone.” Oh, and Cindy Lou Who in “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” I’m sure you have your own favourites.

Remarkable Vocal Range
June Foray Specializes In Dubbing For Babies, Birds, Stars - Witches, Too
By GENE HANDSAKER
HOLLYWOOD (AP) – She’s a tiny thing, with auburn hair, sparkling eyes and a remarkable vocal range—for babies and birds to sexy dames, doting grandmas and cackling witches.
For 20 years a frequent cry from Hollywood producers with feminine-voice problems has been, “Get June Foray.”
She earns $250 an hour and 11 probably Hollywood’s top woman practitioner of the obscure trade listed in her modest 2 lines in the Motion Picture Almanac: voice specialist.
Good On Imitations
Ann Sheridan died before she could rerecord dialogue for her last television show that extraneous noises had ruined in the sound track.
Miss Foray, after listening carefully to Miss Sheridan’s voice, did the rerecording matching the words to Ann’s lip movements.
“Sometimes the producer will add dialogue after the star has gone, say, to Europe,” said June. “It’s cheaper and quicker to have me do it than bring her back.
“And a lot of young actresses whom I can’t mention do a lousy job and they call me in to pull them out of the soup by replacing their voices. How did they get the job in the first place? Because they look good.”
Its Constant Effort
On a “Rawhide” she rerecorded the entire dialogue of one week’s guest star. It taxes Miss Foray, who works almost constantly, to remember all the voices she supplies, especially in television.
“I’m Axis Sally in ‘12 O’clock High,’ Knothead and Splinter on ‘Woody Woodpecker,’ and I’m all over the dial on the Saturday cartoon shows.”
Her voice changes as she describes various roles: “I do French girls, Cockney accents, Svenska, and ah do Suth’n dialects.”
The secret is “having a good ear and flexible vocal cords.”
Born in Springfield, Mass., Miss Foray came to Hollywood with her parents at 17 and started a local radio show, writing and playing all the parts, then graduated to network radio.
She lives in suburban Woodland Hills with her writer husband, Hobart Donavan; two terrifying friendly great Danes weighing a combined 345 pounds and a withdrawn, 14-year-old cat named Henry.
Miss Foray supplies nearly all the witches’ voices used in Hollywood. Pat Buttram once asked her to do one over the telephone when he had a local radio program.
“When I got through doing that cackling, hee-hee-hee voice,” she recalls, “there were 15 people standing around the phone booth wondering what this nut was doing.”

When you think of June, you don t think of her subbing in for other actors. The TV Scout column of October 10, 1960 revealed she did it for Sherry Jackson in a episode of “Surfside Six” to make the character sound sexier. Here’s another Associated Press piece from January 24, 1960.

Seldom-Seen Actress Gets Top Salary
By JAMES BACON
AP Movie-TV Writer
HOLLYWOOD (AP)—One of the best paid actresses in Hollywood is seldom seen on the screen.
She is attractive June Foray, who dubs voices for other actresses—sometimes the leading lady.
In one film, a well known actress was cast opposite a deep-voiced male star.
“When the picture was completed,” June recalls, “the producers found that audiences would have laughed the leading lady right out of the theater. Her voice was way too high and squeaky for the lower registers of the male star.
“I was called in to dub the whole picture.”
June makes plenty from movies and television but her biggest income is from commercials on radio.
“I make as much for a half hour’s work on a radio commercial as I could for a full day’s work as a visible actress,” she says. “Sure, it does something to your ego but when those residual checks start coming in every time the commercial is replayed, your ego is soothed so nicely.
“At those prices, I can’t afford to be seen on the screen."

You can read a couple of other old newspaper stories about her HERE and HERE.

In honour of June’s Emmy win, here she is in an interview with the Archive of American Television, in snippets discussing her career. There are 11 of them; I hope they’ll play one after the other.

Buck Benny and Ernie Bilko

If you had to name the top three sitcom stars of the 1950s, they’d have to be Lucille Ball, Jackie Gleason and Phil Silvers. That’s even though Gleason’s “Honeymooners,” as a half-hour show, lasted a mere 39 episodes.

You can’t help but think of Silvers as a fast-talking conman. That describes his character as Sgt. Ernie Bilko on “The Phil Silvers Show,” elsewhere on television (such as “The Beverly Hillbillies”) and in that old comedians’ romp “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.” But, of course, Silvers had roles long before that in film and on the stage. And after four years (1955 to 1959), he was anxious to try something else. So he came up with a TV special, written by Bilko’s creator, Nat Hiken, where he’d play a western not-quite-hero. And a special role was found for a man whose shows had just come off winning Emmys two years in a row—Jack Benny. Jack, of course, had his firmly established character that followed him to the grave. But he had some western parody experience as Buck Bunny, first on his radio show in the ‘30s, and then in a feature-length movie.

The special aired May 7, 1960 and was re-run on July 29, 1963. After the first showing, Cynthia Lowry of the Associated Press called the sketch’s climax “the nicest thing that happened on TV in months.”

Here’s a feature article by syndicated newspaper writer Charles Witbeck, from the Troy Record of April 30, 1960. It gives a nice behind-the-scenes look and deals with Silvers’ frustrations with the film industry.

Phil Silvers Returns To Stage In Western
HOLLYWOOD — Phil Silvers, decked out in a black Stetson, black leather jacket and pants, walked up the street of a western set at Universal Revue Studios, and his spurs kicked up a little dust.
Silvers was Sheriff Bissell, the Silver Dollar Kid. His cuff links were silver dollars and dollars were strung around his hat band. He was the most cowardly sheriff in the wild west and he was about to have a shootout with Chicken Finsterwald, another coward played by Jack Benny.
The two comedians were filming a scene for the Silvers’ Special, “The Slowest Gun in the West,” CBS, Saturday, May 7. Silvers walked about 40 paces from Benny and then turned. Benny peered up the road.
“Where are ya, I can’t see you?” he said.
The camera began grinding and Silvers said, “you four-flushing coyote, you draw.”
Benny replied, “No, you draw.”
Another Angle.
The “you-draw” dialogue went on for quite a while and then the scene was shot from another angle as the two cowards threatened each other for hours in the script.
In the next shot, with most of Hollywood’s top TV villains standing aghast in the background, Silvers shouts threats at Benny and Jack comes out of a barn, takes a big pause and says: “I’m calling you, B-Bustle.” He meant to say “Bissell” and Silvers laughed so hard at the miscue he almost tripped on his spurs.
“That’s thirty dollars you cost me, Jack,” he yelled. “Learn your lines, learn your lines.”
High On the Show
Silvers is putting up his own money for this show and says he won’t let anyone dog it on his dough. He has Nat Hiken, the man who first wrote the Bilko shows, doing the script, a take-off on all westerns.
“You don’t know me very well,” said Silvers during a break. A crew man took Phil’s fake glasses, the ones he uses during the film shows, but I’m high on this. It’s funn-ie. It’s not just kidding westerns. We go further. Now when I see a killer going for his guns, I use a little Freud. I say: ‘Look at those hands! Those hands were meant for love, not to kill. You want your mother.’”
Funny Script
The script is pretty funny. Author Hiken has the yellow bellied, four-eyed sheriff ducking all gun fights, even giving up his girl when a tough gunman wants her. The Silver
Dollar Kid is more interested in organizing needlework classes and picking up needle skills from a plump Indian squaw. Most of the laughs go to Silvers, who is the most vocal western hero ever seen on TV. Jack Benny has a relatively small part, coming on in the last part as the only gunman more cowardly than the Kid. Benny, as Chicken Finsterwald, shot an old lady in the back to become a legend.
While Benny and Hollywood villains complete the cast, not a single member of the Bilko group turns up. Doberman is strangely missing from this show.
“Doberman’s living like people think I live,” said Silvers. “He has the yachts, drinks the wine, chases the girls. I miss all his excuses. He had better excuses for blowing lines than anyone I ever bumped into. He was El Top.”
.Next Silvers and Benny were out on the street again for another “you-draw” sequence. Phil was within eyesight range. While the cameras were being reloaded, Silvers said to Benny: “Hold up a piece of wood.” Benny, whose holster strings tied around his pants accented his thin legs, held out a piece of wood. Silvers drew his gun and shot twice vocally. Benny dropped the wood and then as an afterthought, said, “I should have grabbed my hand in pain, you poor shot.”
“Now take two pieces of wood Jack,” called Phil, “I’ll show you how deadly I am with a gun.” Benny just looked at him. The two men seemed to enjoy playing kids again.
Then there was a sequence in which Silvers was to ride a horse. Now Phil had never been on a horse, or so he said. A photographer thought of having Phil stand on a chair in an effort to get on the nag, but a wrangler wouldn’t have it. He felt the horse would be nervous about the chair.
Back to Earth
Silvers finally mounted the animal. He looked around and blinked. “The air is different up here. Let me down.”
Back in a chair, Silvers talked about working in Hollywood. He made movies years ago at 20th and was never a big hit. He should be one now in the cinema.
“I don’t know,” Phil said. “Mervyn Le Roy let me read ‘Wake Me When It’s Over’ and I wanted to do it before someone else grabbed it (turned out Ernie Kovacs did). You know why I lost out? When the producer heard, about me, he said, ‘we don’t want him. He’s in TV. Remember what happened to Liberace.’”
With that Silvers rolled his eyes and shrugged. “It’s different out here. You get out in the warm sun, you sit back in one of these chairs and you don’t care much what happens.”

Silvers was busy with his own production company in the ‘60s (it produced “Gilligan’s Island”) and failed in a new sitcom where he played, well, you can guess, but he returned Jack’s appearance on his special by popping up on the Benny TV show in 1962.

What Walt Disney Learned From Snow White

Here’s a full-page feature story that ran in Every Week Magazine, a Sunday newspaper supplement that apparently was put together by the National Enterprise Association. That’s who Paul Harrison worked for, and he’s the author of this piece that I found in the Laredo Times of January 16, 1938.

A couple things surprised me here. One is that Paramount got in the way of a Rip Van Winkle feature that Disney was planning with Will Rogers. One wonders if Rip was suggested as a feature to the Fleischer studio during its Paramount release (there was a short, “Popeye Meets Rip Van Winkle,” in 1941). The other is Disney’s pledge he had given up on combination live action/animation features. He was making them by the mid-‘40s. So much for that.

At least two other wire services released feature stories on “Snow White” the same day. One has Uncle Walt busy at his desk. It appears his P.R. people were even busier.

The pictures below accompanied the original Harrison article. I don’t know anything about the guy who drew the long shot of Snow, the Prince and the dwarves. It almost looks traced.



What Walt Disney Learned From Snow White
By Paul Harrison
HOLLYWOOD
BACK in 1928, when Walt Disney introduced the little character which subsequently became the world’s No. 1 rodent, that single-reel cartoon, “Steamboat Willie,” was made for less than $1000.
Disney's first full-length feature, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” now ready for national release after four years in production, has cost nearly $1,300,000 to date. All the duplicate Technicolor prints which must be made for exhibition in theaters will add another $300,000 to the total.
“We’ve worked hard and spent a lot of money, and by this time we’re all a little tired of it,” Disney said. “I’ve seen so much of ‘Snow White’ that I am conscious only of the places where it could be improved.
“You see, we’ve learned such a lot since we started this thing! I wish I could yank it back and do it all over again.”
And right there you have a pretty fair idea of why Disney is Disney, why he has received more prizes, citations, plaques, medals, scrolls, certificates, foreign decorations and other tributes than anybody else, probably, in or out of Hollywood. His name is synonymous with artistic integrity. He believes that “Snow White” is a good picture and that critics and public likely won’t notice many of the faults, partly because no film ever has been made with which it could be compared. This is of no great comfort to Disney, though, because he doesn’t like an undiscovered fault any better than an obvious one.
He said, “I hope it makes a lot of money so that we can go ahead. But whatever happens, I’m going to get out our second feature, ‘Bambi.’
“You couldn’t possibly realize all the things we had to learn, and unlearn, in doing ‘Snow White.’ We started out gaily, in the fast tempo that is the special technique of short subjects. But that wouldn’t do; we soon realized there was danger of wearing out an audience. There was too much going on. A feature-length picture has to deal in personality and character development instead of trying all the time for slapstick and belly-laughs.”
THAT few people know is that “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” was begun as a one-reeler. That was about the time of the “Three Little Pigs,” when Disney craftsmen were busy with other fairy tales, among them “Hansel and Gretel” and “Babes in the Wood.” “Snow White” had been a favorite story with Disney ever since his newspaper carrier-boy days in Kansas City, when he had seen the silent version starring Marguerite Clark.
Here in Hollywood he several times had given quite a bit of thought to making a feature-length animation. Mary Pickford wanted him to produce “Alice in Wonderland,” with herself as Alice, but with all the other characters hand-drawn.
“She was also going to put up the money,” Disney recalled. “Golly!—I can still remember how awed we were when we figured that it would take $400,000 or $500,000 to do a good job. It wouldn’t have been too difficult in black-and-white—just a lot of intricate process shots. I worked out a plan. Then Paramount came along with a production of ‘Alice,’ and that knocked out our idea.”
Another time, Disney revealed, he and Will Rogers conferred on a filming of “Rip Van Winkle,” with the little men to be done by animators. Paramount wouldn’t release its rights to the story, so nothing happened.
“I’ve got that combination flesh-and-ink idea out of my system now,” Disney said. “After this we’ll work only to develop our drawing and advance our own medium. And it is a medium, not a novelty. It’s capable of conveying some pretty heavy emotional stuff, as we found out in ‘Snow White.’ I wouldn’t be surprised if you’d cry a little with those little fellas. I hope so, anyway.
“We’ve had a few touching sequences in some of the short subjects. Remember the one about the mouse that wanted to fly, and the fairy gave him a set of bat wings? The poor little guy was in a hell of a shape, being neither mouse nor bird nor bat. All the animals laughed at him until the fairy came and took his wings away, and after that he was happy just being a mouse. Lots of people have told me they got a tremendous emotional boot out of that little story.”
Disney believes that “Snow White” is the sort of story that just couldn’t be done convincingly with human actors. Casting difficulties, especially with the dwarfs, would have been insurmountable. Paradoxically, you see, the purer fantasy of drawing lends a stronger feeling of reality.
“Snow White” also was the sort of story that refused to be tossed off in a single reel of eight minutes. The studio staff took more than ordinary delight in developing the ingratiating characters of the dwarfs. And the story department was torn by dissension when conferences were held to pare the tale down to short-subject dimensions. Pretty soon Disney realized that here was the material—action, comedy, emotion and suspense—for a venture in feature production.
Not even the statistical-minded publicity department can estimate the effort that was poured into the project. It has been a labor of pride for an organization in which everybody is young and where the big boss is called “Walt” to his face.
Disney must be the proudest of all, but he leans far backward in an effort to be matter-of-fact. He said, “It’s no wonder we have a different sort of feeling here; we’re an entirely separate little industry. In our work, we have nothing in common with Hollywood people, and we don’t live the Hollywood life.
“You take an ordinary studio and it’s full of people doing those things that are necessary for them to get ahead. There are executives who know nothing at all about making pictures. They worry about the prices of picture company stocks. They’re in it for the dough. In this outfit, every nickel’s worth is owned by my brother and myself.”
To safeguard their balance, and as a precaution against head-swellings, the studio’s myth-makers never see the articles written about their work. Disney himself sees only digests of significant critical opinion, and no fan mail except excerpts containing suggestions.
WITHOUT hoopla and with some misgivings, Disney launched “Snow White” on an initial appropriation of $250,000 and a staff of less than 100 people. His first release date was equally optimistic—early in 1936.
No great technical obstacles were encountered. The increasing delays and mounting costs mostly were due to discoveries of possibilities for improvement. Then they’d go back and make changes. The multiplane camera, developed at a cost of more than $50,000, was one of the improvements. It is a device which permits the photographing of characters and backgrounds on different plattes, exactly as players and props stand out in perspective on a stage.
Not only because of her voice, but her face and figure, Snow White herself was the most difficult member of the cast. This is Disney’s first representation of a normal human being. She had to be beautiful, and graceful in movement. At the same time, she had to be fairly simple in design because elaborate detail in facial lines and coloring produces a jittery image on the screen.
Snow White also sings. There are eight musical numbers in the picture and all are the work of Frank Churchill and Larry Morey of Disney’s staff. “Some Day My Prince Will Come” is the picture’s theme song.
So attached have Disney’s men become to the dwarfs, through years of developing individual personalities for them, that he has been petitioned to keep the little characters alive in future pictures. But Disney says no, they’ll have served their mission and he doesn't want them chiseling in on the popularity of his established stars.
The grotesque little men already have proved that they're expert scene stealers, and the studio animators have had a hard time suppressing some of them. Even now, for example, Disney is worried lest Dopey walk off with the picture, or at least with more than his due share of audience attention. Dopey is voiceless and wears oversize clothes. He’s always up to something with the mad singleness of purpose that makes Harpo Marx appealing.
DOC is the pompous, jittery, self-appointed leader of the band. Watching rushes of the film, Disney soon discovered that Doc was stealing scenes by the old familiar stage trick of “fly catching.” That is, he was making too many motions with his hands.
Happy is a fat little man with a perpetual smile and a cheery voice. Sleepy is always yawning, talks little, but is smarter than the others realize. Real boss is Grumpy, who’s actually teader-hearted but pretends to be opposed to everything, especially “wimmin an’ their wicked wiles.” Bashful is shy and fidgety, and poor Sneezy suffers terribly from hay fever, always managing to kerchoo at embarrassing times.

Hairpins and Ernie Nordli

Maurice Noble was lauded so much by Chuck Jones, his other layout artists at Warners through the 1950s at Warner Bros. get little attention. Jones leaves you with the impression they weren’t even on the same level of creativity as Noble. Indeed, Ernie Nordli originally came up with designs for “What’s Opera, Doc” which Noble immediately discarded when he returned to the studio.

But Nordli doesn’t seem to be a bad fit for Jones at all. Jones was into UPA-ish stylisation going toward the mid-‘50s, and that’s what Nordli gave him. He did it better than UPA at times. Here’s a nice background from “Broom-Stick Bunny” (released 1956). It mimics the UPA stylisation but still has a sense of depth.



Overtop the background are some animated bobby-pins in the air. Mike Maltese used them in the first Witch Hazel cartoon, “Bewitched Bunny” (released 1954) as kind of a running gag; in this cartoon, the pins even fall out when Witch Hazel is riding a sweeping broom by mistake. Here are some more pins atop Nordli’s background layouts, rendered by Phil De Guard.

There are a couple of places on the internet with more background work from this cartoon. The credited animators, by the way, are Dick Thompson, Abe Levitow, Ken Harris and smeary Ben Washam. Which ones drew the hairpins, I couldn’t say.






Nordli went back to Disney after his stay at Warners. When “Sleeping Beauty” finished production, the studio laid off all kinds of people and they made their way to other studios. Nordli worked on television cartoons for a bit. He died in San Francisco on April 22, 1968. He was 55.

Ballet-What?

There have been few posts here about specific UPA cartoons, despite the recent DVD release of the Jolly Frolics cartoons. The reason is because Michael Sporn has been doing a tremendous job analysing them on his blog. He’s put in a lot of effort and it’s worth looking at his examples and reading what he has to say. Check out posts on “Rooty Toot Toot” HERE and HERE, “The Magic Fluke” HERE, “Georgie and the Dragon” HERE “The Tell Tale Heart” HERE and “The Man on the Flying Trapeze” HERE and HERE.

Michael’s work doesn’t leave much for me to offer. He can show you the cartoons from the point of view of an artist who understands the various facets of how they’re put together. About all I can do is make casual remarks as the presumed audience for the cartoons, though I keep getting the nagging impression that, eventually, UPA’s theatrical cartoons weren’t made for any viewer. They strike me as seven minutes of self-indulgence, allowing UPA staff members to tell each other what ground-breaking Artists (with a capital A) they were.

I can appreciate whimsy and charm as much as anyone. Perhaps one or both is what Bobe Cannon was going for when he crafted “Ballet-Oop” for UPA in 1954. But the end result is neither. It’s just boring.

Conflict? It’s been said Cannon hated it. But stories need conflict. Not only is there no conflict, there isn’t even a sense of urgency in a battle with the clock to get the kids ready for the ballet. Nothing builds. It just happens.

The first half of the cartoon is a bunch of drawings of ballet moves, mainly feet. The second half is a ballet itself, called “The Apple Blossom and the Grasshopper” which is narrated by a cartoon character in the crowd so we can understand what we’re seeing on the screen. Sounds like that dreaded illustrated radio to me.

Ground-breaking? The studio had already made its own clichés by the time this short was out. It’s full of more spaghetti-limbed humans, like you saw in “Gerald McBoing Boing.”



If the studio could use wallpaper to indicate walls in the background, why not use a picture of someone’s hardwood floor to indicate a floor?



And if backgrounds dissolving around characters and characters dissolving around background worked in “Gerald McBoing Boing,” why not try it again? The background has just disappeared for awhile here and we get a black card. Interesting, Cannon staged part of the “Eep-Op-Ork” number on ‘The Jetsons’ at Hanna-Barbera with characters (and letters-as-characters) over a black card.



A jealous bee pounds her (it’s an all-female ballet) rear into a butterfly, who falls down. There are little sparkles. Such violence! Such animosity! Where’s the Television Action Council when you need it?



A curtain lifts on the ballet. I don’t know what effect Cannon and T. Hee were going for here.



Jules Engel was in charge of the colour selection in the cartoon, while the credited animators are Bill Melendez, Frank Smith and Tom McDonald.

Withers and Willie Whopper

If you’re of a certain age, when you think of Jane Withers, you think of Josephine the Plumber. Withers played the character on TV commercials starting around February 1963 until, well, they could still be running somewhere for all I know. It was a great concept. The idea of a lady plumber was new and Withers happily chirped the benefits of a cleanser to some clueless homebody. You couldn’t help but like her. She was picked over 102 other actresses, including Ann B. Davis.

Withers had been a star in the movies as a child in the ‘30s and ‘40s. But before that, she had a career as a voice actress in cartoons. Regretfully, voices went uncredited back then so which specific titles Withers appeared in will never be known unless someone asks her about it. And considering it was almost 80 years ago, she might not remember. I can’t help but wonder if she’s Cookie and the baby Elmer in the first Buddy cartoon at Warners, “Buddy’s Day Out” (1933).

She talked about animation a bit in this syndicated newspaper feature dated July 14, 1935. She was nine when she did this interview.

NASTY LITTLE JANE WITHERS HAS TO BE NICE
Now That She’s to Be Star Like Shirley, She’ll Reform
By PHILIP K. SCHEUER,
—HOLLYWOOD.
By being a very nasty little girl indeed, Jane Withers diverted more comment to herself in “Bright Eyes” than reviewers allotted Shirley Temple, who was not only a very nice little girl but the star of the picture as well. Whereupon Fox—to whom both are under contract—elevated Jane to a stardom like Shirley’s; and now Jane is to be a very nice little girl too.
It is up to future audiences, of course, to decide the wisdom of this move. Not the elevation, perhaps, so much as the reformation. They will have an opportunity to judge with the release, this week, of “Ginger.”
Trifle Disconcerting
Talking to Jane is very likely to deflate an interviewer’s opinion of himself, especially if it happens to be a high one. She is, frankly, way ahead of him. That sense of superiority you get from looking down at someone smaller than yourself doesn’t work with Jane, at all, at all. Not that she’s the least bit nasty, but the mischievous expression on her face, the not-quite-hidden laughter in her eyes, are well, shall we say, a trifle disconcerting?
Harrumph!
Jane is, I am afraid, everything we mean when we say, “a born actress.” This is partly because she is a girl, feminine gender, and partly because of her training: after she was born. The training started at the age of two, when her mother took her to a hall in Atlanta so that she could do a negro recitation. Jane got up on the stage and burst into tears. It was the last, the only, time that happened.
Two Years of Broadcasts
At three, Jane won a contest and a part in Aunt Sally’s Kiddie Revue. Pretty soon she was broadcasting over WGST, doing songs, imitations and tap dances. This went on for two years. At five Jane was a veteran performer, with Hollywood the next stop. (Hollywood seemed logical because Jane had done practically every thing else.)
She came out three years ago with her mother. Mr. Walter Withers stayed behind; it was all right for Ruth and the kid to go, but he had a prosperous tire business to look after. After they got settled and Ruth was in the movies—time enough, then, to think about coming on. Jane said good-by to the college football team of which she was the mascot, sang “I’m a Rambling Wreck From Georgia Tech,” her radio theme song, on the closing program and scrambled aboard a through train with Mrs. Withers.
Didn’t Get a Tumble
There was nobody to welcome them in Los Angeles. They pestered casting directors for eight months, and never a tumble did they get. But the radio was still left. Here Jane had better luck. She was selected from several hundred youngsters to exemplify the “Nuisance” on KFWB’s weekly Juvenile Revue. This led to her being hired by the animated cartoon people to dub in the voices of the little drawn figures. She did six months of Looney Tunes, and also Willie Whoppers, sometimes imitating as many as four voices in a single reel.
Simultaneously things began to break with the studios.. Jane played small roles in "Kid Millions,” “Hollywood on Parade,” “The Good Fairy” and “It’s a Gift.” Her first Fox picture was “Handle With Care,” with James Dunn. David Butler directed. When Butler was preparing “Bright Eyes,” Casting Director James Ryan saw Jane do some of her impersonations. He rushed her to Butler, made her repeat them. That settled it. .
Like Mitzi Green five years ago, Jane is a natural mimic. She can do 37 imitations now, and the list is growing. She needed no encouragement to do Zasu Pitts, Garbo and Shirley Temple for me. As Shirley, she shrewdly stressed the cherubic smile at the end of each sentence. In “Meal Ticket,” now in production, she will perform a take-off on Harry Lauder.
The down-south accent persists with both Jane and her mother. Jane can affect other accents—French, German, Jewish. She lives quite like the rest of the children on the block, as Mrs. Withers is fond of telling you, plays marbles, skates, rides, swims and climbs fences. The only reason she hated being nasty in “Bright Eyes” was because “Shirley is so nice.” Otherwise it was fun.
Sol Wurtzel has presented Jane with a new suite of rooms (she calls it her “bungalow”) with sliding closet doors. When Jane saw the doors she cried, “Goodie! I can play elevator.” The news that “Ginger” was to be previewed elicited a “Goodie, mother! What’s the other picture?” Once a week, on Saturday night, Jane and her friends hold debates. “Debates?” I repeated. “On what?” “Oh,” Jane said, “on airplanes, the President, other Presidents — everything.” The parents act as judges.
Set of Rules
Jane abides by her own set of “rules.” Some of them:
Drink at least one glass of buttermilk daily.
“Never talk when others are talking.”
Never say, “I can’t.”
Be thankful for everything you have.
Help mother and everyone as much as possible.
Her motto is, “Anything that’s worth doing is worth doing well.”

While her “rules” may sound a little precocious, there’s no doubt Withers followed them (well, maybe not the one about the buttermilk). Interviews show her as a thankful, devout lady. And anyone who has seen her films and commercials has to admit that whatever she did, she did well.

Wally Walrus and his Ball

What starts out as Wally Walrus playing a practical joke escalates into an attempt at murder in the Woody Woodpecker cartoon “Wacky-Bye Baby” (1948). Wally shoves a convenient stick of dynamite into a rubber ball and rolls it at Woody. He’s forgotten something, though. It’s a trick ball that rolls back to where it started.

Wally closes his eyes and waits for the explosion. Then he opens an eyelid in a couple of drawings, there are some anticipation drawings and then a take. All the drawings are on twos, except the widest expression that director Dick Lundy holds for four frames. Let’s pick it up on the last eyelid drawing.












One wonders if the take might have worked better if Lundy had the animator use fewer drawings or animated on ones for part of the sequence.

Pat Matthews and Les Kline are the credited animators; I suspect Lantz used more than two per cartoon in the late ‘40s.

Wild and Woolfy

Tex Avery loved westerns. And he loved putting Droopy in westerns. My favourite is “Dragalong Droopy.” But let’s look at his first one, “Wild and Woolfy” (1945), which has a pile of familiar gags. In fact, the ending comes straight out of “Little Red Walking Hood” at Warners.

It also has Johnny Johnsen’s great background work. It opens with a pan over western mountains, with the credits on a mountainous overlay, like Johnsen did with “Wabbit Twouble” before he left Warners for MGM. I’d love to paste together frames from some of the long outdoor drawings but we’ll have to settle for some shots. Avery has three road sign gags in this cartoon; you can see two of them below.







And there’s an inside gag in the background. Claude Smith was Avery’s character layout man in this cartoon. He never got on-screen credit, but his name has found its way onto a store that the wolf and his horse pass seven times.



Smith’s model sheet for the cartoon is dated May 5, 1944, some 18 months before the cartoon was finally released.

The No 1 Man in Hooterville

The terms “Also appearing” and “featured in the cast” have prefaced names of countless actors, but how many of them can say they went on to be the most popular man in Hooterville?

Only one. Frank Randolph Cady, the man who played general store owner Sam Drucker. He died this past week at the age of 96.

Today, the name “Hooterville” brings about snickers from perennial 12-year-old boys. But, as ‘60s television viewers know, it was the name of the little farming hamlet that was the setting for “Green Acres.” It was also not far from the Shady Rest Hotel on “Petticoat Junction.” Both shows were created by former radio writer Paul Henning who found a way to tie them in with his first TV hit, “The Beverly Hillbillies.” And Cady, as Drucker, appeared on all three.

Rustic shows somehow seem appropriate for him. Cady’s grandfather, also named Frank, was sheriff of Lassen County in California, owned a waterworks and had once invited Teddy Roosevelt on a hunting expedition with the Pacific Coast Bear Club, which sounds more like a sitcom plot than anything else. Young Frank grew up in Susanville, the third child in the family. He ended up at Stanford University and appearing in plays. One review in the Oakland Tribune in 1937 stuck him at the end of the “also appearing” list.

Some time after graduation, Cady played a season in London as an apprentice and understudy at J.B. Priestley’s Westminster Theatre, then returned to Stanford by 1942, where he was director of radio activities, and won scholarships for writing and future dramatic studies.

Cady headed down the California coast and by August 1947 was a member of the Laguna Beach Gryphon Players, with another way-down-the-list newspaper mention of a stage performance. He had small roles in films in the early ‘50s but was found more work on television within a few years. Cady wasn’t anywhere near Hooterville, let alone a full-time role, on television when this syndicated profile was written about him, appearing February 13, 1959.

LIFE MORE TENABLE SOCIALLY, TOO
Brynner Makes Bald Actors Happy
By Harold Heffernan
North American NewspaperAlliance
HOLLYWOOD – Baldbeaded actors of Hollywood would like to do something in a great big way for Yul Brynner. He’s their boy. Repeated successes scored by Brynner in a string of slick-pated romantic roles have spilled over on a number of character actors hovering on the fringe of the entertainment field. Life has not only been made more tenable socially but, more important, their careers have taken a long leap forward.
“Why, they’re actually writing baldheaded roles into movies and television nowadays,” grinned former Stanford University speech and drama professor Frank Cady who walked out of his classroom one day in 1949 [sic] to try an acting fling on a first-hand basis. One of the most familiar baldies in both movies and TV, Cady says things have been going just great for him and other smooth-headed actors ever since the big Brynner boom hit fandom.
“I’ve never had much complaint, though,” said Cady, now playing a jittery theatrical agent to Henry Fonda’s producer role in “The Man Who Understood Women.” “I was always intensely interested in the theater but at 24 my head was as shiny as a cue ball on a billiard table. I naturally thought this meant curtains.
Actually I found it helped. When I was too young to play real character parts they mistook me for older because of the bald noggin. I got juicy roles right from the start. In the before-Brynner era, I did all right, but since his vogue struck I just can’t keep up with the offers.”
Sit-at-homers are on even more familiar terms with Cady’s pixie face than theater audiences. They’ve been seeing him as the comical Doc Williams on every fourth or fifth Ozzie and Harriet TV show. Twentieth-Fox had to wait three days for Cady to report on the Fonda movie until he finished TV assignments on a Desilu Playhouse and a Sugarfoot.
Cady points out that he landed two featured roles in one big picture—all because of that head. This was in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window,” the murder mystery starring James Stewart. “I’d just finished one scene with Jimmy when Mr. Hitchcock, ahead of schedule, decided he’d shoot one planned for the next day. But one actor was missing. He looked at me and said, ‘I’ve got a toupee back there that will just fit you.’ I pasted it on and played the other part.”

“Petticoat Junction” debuted in 1963 and Cady was on the first show. He soon became very busy on-camera—one newspaper story reveals he polished off 4½ pages of dialogue in 55 minutes before moving on to another gig that day—and United Press International had this bio on April 8, 1969.

Saga of Frank Cady, alias Sam Drucker
By VERNON SCOTT
UPI Hollywood Correspondent
HOLLYWOOD— Frank Cady, alias Sam Drucker, is becoming a force to deal with in television through sheer quantitative apperances.
Actor Cady is the balding, spindle-thin general store keeper, weekly newspaper editor, mayor and postmater of Hooterville—a big shot in “Petticoat Junction” and “Green Acres” and a growing power in “The Beverly Hillbillies.”
TO DATE he has appeared in 246 episodes in the three shows during a six-year period. Must be some sort of record.
Cady is not the star of any of the three shows. But he is the connecting link among the trio, all of which are produced by Paul Henning.
Frank began modestly enough as a free-lance actor during the first two seasons of “Petticoat Junction,” working in only 37 shows. Thereafter he was under contract and rapidly gained momentum.
THIS PAST SEASON he will have appeared in 56 shows—25 “Petticoat Junctions,” 23 “Green Acres” and eight “Beverly Hillbillies.”
A modest man, Cady said the other day, “I don’t make a big impact. I’m not a flashy guy."
This is true.
“If you hang around long enough to show these people what you can do, you have a chance in this acting business,” he reflected. “I’ve never had more fun in my life than playing this character. He’s closer to me than any other role I ever played.”
ONE SHOULD remember that Cady is not the only performer to outshine players billed above him on television.
There was Vic Morrow on “Combat,” who was supposed to play second fiddle to Rick Jason, but quickly took over the lead role.
Bob Denver outshone Dwayne Hickman when he played the second lead in the defunct “Dobie Gillis” series. And Jim Nabors won his own series, “Gomer Pyle” after stealing the thunder on the “Andy Griffith Show.”
THE SAGA of Frank Cady is comparable. But he appears in three shows simultaneously—which no other actor can claim.
Leo G. Carroll played a minor role in both “The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.” and “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” three years ago, but not with the dash and verve of Cady as Sam Drucker.
Moreover, all three of Cady’s shows are rated in the top 20.
Naturally, Frank doesn't take credit for this heady accomplishment.
“I don’t think the fact that I’m in three shows confuses the viewers,” he said. “In ‘Green Acres’ I’m one of the idiots that live at the crossroads. But in ‘Petticoat Junction’ Drucker is a solid citizen.”
BASED ON THAT, Drucker is a genius on “Beverly Hillbillies.”
No matter. Frank Cady has found his niche in television and Sam Drucker is fast becoming a popular man about Hooterville and environs.

It was a case of feast or famine. Cady’s career screeched to a stop. “Petticoat Junction” was cancelled in 1970, his other two shows were unceremoniously tossed off CBS the following year. He showed up in the best-forgotten “AfterMASH” in 1983. A year later Cady declared he had “weaned himself” from show business and “burned the last bridge” turning down an offer to co-star in a TV pilot. The third-generation Californian packed up the art and antiques and moved to Oregon for the last two-plus decades of his life.

A syndicated television/movie column conducted a poll of readers about their favourite character on “Petticoat Junction” and released the results on June 10, 1970. I’m still not sure how they came up with their numbers. Had Bea Benaderet still been alive, the result might have been different (I’m partial to Charles Lane as Homer Bedlow myself). Regardless, one viewer summed up the reason why the show was such a success.

Sam Drucker best
By CLARKE WILLIAMSON
Fans of “Petticoat Junction” rally in support of the axed program in TOP VIEW voting.
Did you think the featured actor, Edgar Buchanan, as Uncle Joe, was the most popular performer in the show? Don’t you believe it, because Frank Cady as the general store owner, Sam Drucker, steals first place:
Frank Cady (Sam), 70.8, good.
Mike Minor (Steve), 67.1, fair.
Lori Saunders (Bobbie Jo), 66.5, fair.
Edgar Buchanan (Uncle Joe), 65.8, fair.
June Lockhart (Janet), 65.8, fair.
Linda Kaye Henning (Betty Jo) 65.7, fair.
Meredith MacRae (Billie Jo), 65.1, fair.
Jonathan Daly (Orrin), 64.2, fair.
READERS SPEAK
PETTICOAT JUNCTION has an “other world” nostalgic charm — relaxing, a far cry and escape from our present hurly burly, a definite restfulness. Oh, that we could all live in such easy, rustic, simple, soul satisfying peace, with only those minor problems! — Mary McDonald, Fitchburg, Mass. . . .
What a pity the producers (who are removing it) don’t bring its actors right into “Green Acres” (as they already do with Sam Drucker and his store) and make them one big family. It would give an appealing new dimension to “Green Acres.” — H. Anderson. Bartlett. Tenn. . . .
I felt like selling our TV when I heard the sad news. No other show compares. — M Coleman, Amherst, Neb.

Off-camera, Cady was involved with the Sherman Oaks Rotary Club. His wife Shirley was in the PTA. He was an ordinary, small-town guy. That’s the way he came across on camera, albeit a bit quirky at times. That’s why he had a long career in show business and that’s why he was the No 1 man in Hooterville.

Benny and Cantor on This and That

It was evident by 1948, except perhaps to wishful thinkers in radio, that television was here to stay and that the big stars of the old medium would have to make the jump to the new one. RCA made TV sets. RCA owned NBC. How could it avoid putting its best talent under contract onto the tube to help sell video boxes to every home?

Technology didn’t exist, as it did in radio, for live coast-to-coast broadcasts in fall of 1948. Radio was the number one home entertainment medium and very few of radio’s big names even dabbled in TV. Still, the networks expanded their programming schedules from 1947 to ‘48 and radio columns were full of speculation about when Fibber McGee, Fred Allen, Charlie McCarthy and Jack Benny would appear on little black-and-white screens.

Here’s one National Enterprise Association column dated October 12, 1948. It seems the columnist had odds and ends from a couple of interviews, so he used them up in one story by tying them together with television.

IN HOLLYWOOD
Television Fails To Worry Cantor And Jack Benny
By ERSKINE JOHNSON
HbLLYWOOD, Oct. 12—(NEA)—I asked two of your favorite comedians if they are worried about television.
Jack Benny said: “I’ll wait until there’s a big coast-to-coast network. Then there won’t be anything to worry about. Of course, I’ll be on television. After all, I’m only 37.”
Eddie Cantor said: “I’ve been ready for television for the last 35 years. I’m just waiting for it to catch up with me. There’s going to be a big change because of television.
I’m glad I’m around and didn’t die two years ago. It would have been all right to get away from Jessel but not from television.”
Jack and Eddie went to Europe this summer and are back now for the fall radio season. Jack played the Palladium in London to new box-office records, just played in Paris and on the French Riviera. Then he did a GI tour of Germany.
The Army rushed him around so fast, Jack says, “I had breakfast in Frankfurt, lunch in Nuremberg and dysentery in Munich.”
Eddie Cantor arrived, back in Hollywood just in time to be awarded the United Jewish Appeal’s 1948 citation for Distinguished Humanitarian Service for his efforts in “Bringing a new era of hope and reconstruction for the Jews of Europe.”
Sam Goldwyn made the presentation. Sam was Eddie’s boss for seven years. Eddie compares him to Flo Ziegfeld, his boss for 13 years before he came to Hollywood. “Goldwyn,” Eddie said, “is never satisfied with a film scene that is good if only money can make it better.”
Jack Benny was worried as usual. This time he was worried about some straight lines on his radio show. Jokes don’t worry him too much—“We’ve got a million jokes. It’s the straight lines that drive me crazy.”
As Jack explained it, “Anybody can have jokes. It’s the straight lines leading up to the jokes that make a radio program funny.” After 17 consecutive years at the top of the radio heap, Jack should know what he’s talking about.
Cantor was worried, too—about all the adverse publicity Hollywood has had in the last few months. He said:
“There should be a school for movie stars-to-be where they could learn how to act before they learn how to act.”
Benny was still blushing about stepping out of a taxicab in New York and forgetting to pay the driver. The driver yelled back: “So it’s true about you, eh, Buddy?” Benny rushed back and gave him a big tip.
Eddie is conferring again with Warner Brothers about “The Eddie Cantor Story.” “There’s enough for 20 films—we have to pick out the best two hours of 35 years in show business.”
Eddie won't play himself, as you know. The film will be patterned after “The Jolson Story” with a newcomer playing Eddie and Eddie doing the singing.
“But,” said Eddie, “I think it would be nice to let Jolson play my grandfather.”
The only sour note to Benny’s Palladium triumph was the simultaneous opening in London of “The Horn Blows at Midnight.” Despite the way Benny himself has panned the picture, it has made money for Warner Brothers.

Benny’s television career is better-known than Cantor’s. Jack’s TV show was a modified version of his radio show and when it ended in 1965, he modified it for the specials he did until he died. Cantor’s best-known for being one of the hosts on the “Colgate Comedy Hour” starting in 1950. But he almost got on TV the year before until a deal with radio sponsor Pabst fell through. Cantor had a filmed, ZIV-produced series, the “Eddie Cantor Comedy Theatre” in 1955. But Cantor’s poor health (intimated in the Johnson column) took its toll. He wasn’t the energetic, clapping, dancing-around Cantor of 1932 any more. Heart attacks slowed him down and he was in retirement when he died in 1964.