West of the Pesos Background

Establishing shot painted by Bill Butler from a layout by Bob Givens.



This Sylvester/Speedy Gonzales cartoon was directed by Bob McKimson and released by Warner Bros. in early 1960.

Look Who's In Town

One of Jack Benny’s loves was getting in the car with someone and going somewhere. That “someone” wasn’t his wife, Mary Livingstone. Trips to Paris or London, fine. Driving around the U.S.A.? Not really. So Jack had travelling companions; one was the guitarist on his show, Frank Remley.

Remley didn’t make the trip with Jack described in the July 12, 1941 edition of the Lincoln Star. According to old issues of Variety, Harvey Cooper was Jack’s trainer while Harry Lee was his stand-in during filming of The Horn Blows at Midnight and needed eight-inch lifts in his shoes (he had been connected with Jack since 1933, but the paper doesn’t say how). The Star didn’t send an entertainment reporter to cover Benny’s arrival. Instead, the guy covering the night police beat did. He probably welcomed the change of pace.

Jack talks about his radio show—and listener complaints—and life making movies.

Jack Benny's Famous "Maxwell" Is A High-Powered '41 Maroon Convertible
COMEDIAN MAKES OVERNIGHT LINCOLN STOP
BY CON ERICKSON.
Jello again!
He didn't say that last night but the ever-popular radio and screen comedian was in Lincoln—"Maxwell" and all. Jack Benny, in fact, paid his first visit to Lincoln in some 18 years.
And when the night police reporter heard about it he knew it would sort of be stepping out of bounds you know, fires, accidents, etc. But on the other hand, surely someone had to talk to Mr. Benny. So—
When we found Mr. B., he had just finished a steak at the Cornhusker hotel and was chatting with two traveling companions and A. Q. Schimmel, hotel manager. It was about 11:30 p. m.—we wouldn't be sure.
Between Puffs.
But he graciously granted our request for a few words. And between puffs on a big cigar—he really smokes them—we learned, for one thing, that Mr. Benny isn't afraid of being caught in the draft.
"I'm one that missed it," he said.
The comedian is motoring from Los Angeles to Chicago. He will spend about two weeks, he said, and fly back. Two friends, Harvey H. Cooper, and Harry Lee, are traveling with him.
Well tanned, Mr. Benny was attired in a slack suit with open collar and appeared very comfortable, indeed. Although his hair is greying somewhat, he looked like Jack Benny and no one else.
Benny finds radio and motion picture work equally interesting.
"When you make a good picture, it's interesting," he said, "and when you give a good program, it's interesting. On the other hand, if you give a 'louzy' program, it is very uninteresting."
Constant Worry.
The entertainer confessed that radio "is a little more difficult" explaining that it is always a constant worry. "It is the script-writing," he said, "that takes the time."
Asked concerning the whereabouts of Rochester, Mr. Benny said that he is in the east making personal appearances as are other members of his troup[e]. His trip to Chicago is merely a vacation, he said, to visit friends and relatives.
One of the many things Mr. Benny has to watch in his radio script is the use of common-place expressions. Once he referred to spending money "like a drunken sailor" and had to write apologies to naval big-wigs the world over.
"All you're saying is that when a sailor gets drunk, he spends money," he commented. "It should be a compliment." Use of "a starving Armenian" likewise brought the actor considerable grief.
Life Not Easy.
Mr. Benny was quite enthusiastic about his latest picture, "Charlie's Aunt" which will be released in about two weeks. He appears with Kay Francis and a number of English actors.
The life of a comedian isn't always easy, either, Mr. Benny told us explaining that while working on pictures, he is in the habit of arising at 6:30 every morning.
"It's not all like you see it on the screen. In fact it reminds me of that old gag, 'Paris isn't like you see it on the post cards.' "
But to get back to that "Maxwell" we learned that it's a high-powered, 1941 maroon convertible. So, now we know what he means when he says:
"Buck Benny rides again!"

He Came to Save Van Beuren

Van Beuren cartoons weren’t exactly A-list cartoons, and studio owner Amadee Van Beuren decided to change that.

Up to 1934, the Van Beuren cartoons weren’t drawn or written that well, though there were a few exceptions. Distributor RKO evidently wasn’t happy. So Van Beuren got rid of studio overseer Gene Rodemich and brought in the one man he thought could make his cartoons as good as Disney’s.

Burt Gillett.

Gillett had animated in New York before heading west to work for Walt Disney. He directed the Oscar-winning The Three Little Pigs, arguably the most popular cartoon the Disney studio made up to that point (meaning the most popular cartoon of all time). Film Daily announced April 7, 1934 that Amadee Van Beuren had hired Gillett to run his cartoon department.

The Newburgh Daily News had employed Gillett at one point and decided to welcome home the former employee in print. This was published June 22, 1934.

Burt Gillett Tames Big Bad Wolf
Ex-Staff Member of The News Gets New Big Job
Silly Symphony’s Director Now in Demand
BURTON F. Gillett, former Newburgh News staff artist, the man who immortalized the Big Bad Wolf in song and animated cartoon, has, as a result, not only kept the wolf from the door, but has the vicious animal practically eating out of his hand today.
Ever since Mr. Gillett produced for Walt Disney that ingenious, brilliant symbolical “Three Little Pigs" last spring, he has been in great demand hy producers of animated cartoons to guide the destinies of their staffs. Though the wolf was not, figuratively speaking, at Mr. Gillett's door in Hollywood, he nevertheless accepted a flattering offer of the Van Beuren Corporation, Picture Cartoons.
The Native Returns
And now, Mr. Gillett, who was one of the first movie cartoon animators to leave the East for the West Coast, has returned to head tha Van Beuren Corporation's vast cartoon studio in New York City. Incidentally, the very building to which the native returns is the one in which he began his carter as an animator.

Mr. Gillett's rise in this difficult branch of the motion picture industry has been the result of long, arduous work and endless research. The Gillett creative genius has been seen in many of the Mickey Mouse productions, which include the revolutionary animated drawings in color.
Films Awarded Prizes
Three years ago Walt Disney appointed Mr. Gillett a director and, since then, he has collaborated in the writing and has directed many of the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphony successes. Burt Gillett directed the first Technicolor Silly Symphony, "Trees and Flowers," which, in 1931, was awarded the special certificate of merit by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
During the time that these Silly Symphonies were made, Burt Gillett also directed many successful Mickey Mouse cartoons. Just prior to leaving the Disney organization, Mr. Gillett directed "The Big Bad Wolf,” a sequel to “The Three Little Pigs," which received a four star rating in Liberty.
Burt Gillett brings to the Van Beuren organization a new view point on cartoon values as applied to motion picture audiences. He has been largely responsible for developing the human interest angle in cartoon? The old black and white cartoons were built solely on the lines of slapstick gags and the usual cartoon absurdities, such as were embodied successfully for many years in the Aesop's Fables. With the advent of sound, an entirely new technique of cartoon production sprang up. Sound opened up opportunities and Burt Gillett was one of the first to recognize and make use of these new possibilities.
Lives in Scarsdale
Mr. and Mrs. Gillett and their son are now making their home in Scarsdale.
"I was reluctant to leave California as I like the climate and my associates out there very much." he says. “However, business is business and this looks like a splendid opportunity, so here I am.”
Mr. Gillett has many friends in Newburgh, where he worked several years for The News as reporter, cartoonist and photographer. He says he plans to drive up here to visit his friends some weekend soon.

In late 1933, Amadee Van Beuren had gone to the expense of signing Amos ‘n’ Andy to a series of cartoons. They were the most popular duo on radio. The series should have been a success. Only two cartoons were made; they’re incredibly ugly and suffer from the studio’s inability to put together a cohesive story. The series was gone by the time Gillett arrived; at that point George Stallings was directing both the Cubby Bear cartoons and the ones starring The Little King, based on the Otto Soglow comic.

None of this would do for Gillett. He scrapped them all, removed Stallings and gave another chance at directing to Steve Muffatti and Jim Tyer, as well as former independent producer Ted Eshbaugh. Gillett came up with Rainbow Parades to complete against Disney’s Silly Symphonies, only with less colour, and a combination live action/animation series called Toddle Tales. The Tales were a disaster and the series was cut short at three releases. It was now 1935 and Gillett decided to bring in a co-director he could trust, someone who had also worked at Disney—Tom Palmer. Palmer is better known as Leon Schlesinger’s director who was so bad, Friz Freleng had to rework his cartoons so Warner Bros. would accept them for release.

Shamus Culhane worked for Gillett during this period and claimed he was mentally unstable. Izzy Klein remembered how Gillett was constantly firing people. Gillett and Palmer tried to make a star out of Molly Moo Cow. Molly was put out to pasture after four cartoons. Van Beuren decided to buy properties with instant name recognition—Felix the Cat and the Toonerville Trolley, based on the panel cartoon by Fontaine Fox.

Gillett had some pretty good people as 1936 began—Jack Zander, Bill Littlejohn, Dan Gordon, Alex Lovy, Carlo Vinci and Joe Barbera. But time simply ran out. RKO decided to ignore the cartoon studio it part-owned and, instead, release cartoons from Gillett’s old boss, Walt Disney. The Van Beuren studio was gone by mid-1936 and Gillett toddled with his tail (as opposed to “tales”) between his legs back to the West Coast. Eventually, he got out of animation. His 1942 draft registration lists him as employed at McDonnell’s Restaurant on Pico Street in Los Angeles; his 1943 marriage certificate states he was a machine operator.

You can read a far more complete biography of Gillett in this thorough piece of research by Devon Baxter.

Agony

Trying to pick out something interesting from Walter Lantz cartoons by the mid-1950s isn’t all that easy.

In Bedtime Bedlam (1955), Woody accepts an evening babysitting job for $50. After a rich woman played by June Foray and her mute husband leave, Woody discovers the baby is a gorilla. He makes a break for it—then suddenly stops, realising $50 is at stake. The agony of the situation is clear.



The story is lame. The gorilla has no real personality, Woody gets bashed around a bit, then somehow the gorilla escapes every danger as Woody tries to tire him out. There’s no reason or logic behind the gorilla’s survival. At the end, Woody learns via TV that Mr. and Mrs. Moneybelt are leaving for 20 years. Why did she tell Woody that the job was only for an evening?

Can you tell Paul J. Smith and Homer Brightman were the director and writer?

Gil Turner, Bob Bentley and Herman Cohen are the animators on this short.

Fish! FIIIISH!

The early, crazed Daffy Duck isn’t the only one at Warner Bros. who jumped around, turning cartwheels, while yelling with excitement. Porky Pig’s cat does it when he’s told they’re having fish for dinner.



This is one of those cartoons where a bird goes “Now I’ve seen everything” and shoots himself to death.

Vive Risto and Dave Hoffman are the credited animators in The Sour Puss. Izzy Ellis, John Carey and Norm McCabe likely worked on this cartoon as well. It was released in 1940.

He Was Always a Boy

The sub-headline in the Hackensack Record of October 13, 1923 read “Walter Tetley, Seven, of Ridgefield Park, Can Imitate Famous Scotchman to Perfection.” The same newspaper of May 11, 1926 gave his age as nine. Five years later in 1931, a wire service story proclaimed he was 10. Four years later, several newspaper articles stated he was 15.

Which was correct? None of them.

Tetley was born June 2, 1915. He was eight when it was claimed he was seven and 20 when it was said he was 15.

In case you don’t know who we’re talking about, Tetley was the voice of Sherman in the Mr. Peabody cartoons on the Rocky and Bullwinkle show. He played Andy Panda in the later 1940s for Walter Lantz, who also employed him as the voice of Reddy Kilowatt in commercial cartoons. But his main fame came from when he scored hits as a child voice on The Great Gildersleeve and The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show. He was in his 40s when Gildersleeve finally went off the air, but he was still playing a pre-teen on the air.

Lying about his age gave him a crack a while longer at juvenile roles. And that’s all Tetley could play. He had some kind of condition where his voice never changed. But he aged; pictures make it look like he had the face of the man but the body of a child.

None of this was ever referred to, of course, during Tetley’s career. He seems to have been reticent to do interviews.

Here’s a feature story on him in Radio Life, that fine Los Angeles-based magazine, from October 8, 1944. The murky scans below are the best we can do to provide the photos that accompanied the article.

"HO-HO! What a Character!"
By Malcolm Boyd
In Which We Introduce Walter Tetley—Alias Nephew Leroy
Sunday, 8:00 p.m.
NBC-KFI
HO-HO! WHAT a character!"
To millions of radio listeners this is the special trademark of "Leroy" who is helping his ether uncle, Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve, rake in the nation's top ratings on listener popularity. But success is anything but new to "Leroy," alias Walter Tetley who, at the tender age of ten, was salting away more than $100 a day as a radio actor.
Now further along in years, Walter has dwarfed his ten-year-old salary by playing movie parts, freelancing in many radio shows and becoming a permanent fixture on the top-notch NBC comedy show, "The Great Gildersleeve." Walter can point to the future and say, "Life Begins at Twenty." His star shows no signs of waning. "I started in show business when I was five years old doing a single act in vaudeville," Walter says. "I was seven when my mother was working on a case as a registered nurse and the mother of the little girl she was taking care of knew that I was working. She suggested that I do some radio work and got me an audition with NBC. The next thing I knew I was singing Scotch songs on the Children's Hour over WJZ, New York, every Sunday morning."
Walter's next radio job, also on NBC in New York, was a part in a kid's strip show called "The Lady Next Door." It was Walter's first script reading experience. "Everything on the green earth happened," he says.
Accidental Casting
When Walter landed a part in NBC's children's serial, "Raising Junior," it was quite by accident. When tryouts were held for a part in the show, Walter dropped around with a friend. His friend got the part and Walter didn't even try out. Then on the day of the program, Walter was in the studios doing his part in "The Lady Next Door."

When he had finished he calmly walked into an elevator going down. But, at that moment, a hand grabbed him by the collar through the elevator door. He was whisked into a studio and told that he would have to read his friend's part in "Raising Junior." His little chum hadn't shown up and time-to-go before the show would hit the air was approximately four minutes. With nary a look at the script, Walter found himself doing the part into a live mike. He repeated this process weekly for the next four years by landing the part permanently then and there.
With Fred Allen
Fame and fortune really arrived when Fred Allen gave Walter a call to be on his weekly show. For Walter it was invaluable experience. He had to play all kinds of characters and master such dialects as English, Irish, Scotch, hillbilly and tough brat. When Allen came to Hollywood he brought Walter with him. But when Allen returned to New York, Walter stayed right here.
It was a wise choice, because before he could turn around the movies called him. And Walter found himself in "Lord Jeff" with Mickey Rooney and Freddie Bartholomew and in "The Spirit of Culver" with Jackie Cooper.
In the Abbott and Costello film, "Who Done It?" Walter was assigned to a small part in one scene. The next thing he knew Costello requested added scenes for him. Walter ended up in ten good scenes which ran through the entire picture!
In one sequence of the movie, Walter is seen walking into a drugstore. Costello is seen standing behind the counter.
"How much is your orange juice?" asks Walter.
"Fifteen cents a glass," answers Costello.
"That's too much money."
"Not the way I make 'em."
"I betcha a dime I can drink the orange juice faster than you can make it."
"That's a bet."
Costello proceeds to make the orange juice and Walter proceeds to drink it faster. After ten glasses, Costello gives up.
"You win. Here's your dime," he says.
After ten takes of the scene, Walter had drunk one hundred glasses of orange juice in one day alone. Everything would have been all sight—only Walter is allergic to citrus juices.
Peary Sends For Him
Whenever Fibber McGee and Molly had a boy's part on their show, they called Walter. Hal Peary was also on the program, playing a part he had created and named Gildersleeve. Three years ago when Peary went his own way and a sponsor became interested in the prospect of a new comedy, Walter had returned to New York with his family. A wire from Hal Peary brought him out to Hollywood where he has remained ever since.
Walter's characterization of "Leroy" has become so famous that many listeners react as though he were one of the family. "Uncle Mort" had to give "Leroy" a spanking over the radio recently. Along in the mail the following week came a package addressed to Walter. It was for "Leroy" to use in protecting himself from "Uncle Mort." It's name? "The Van Court Scientific Course in Boxing!" Typical scene from the script:
GILDERSLEEVE: Who hit you, Leroy?
LEROY: Eugene Clanahan. The big cheater.
GILDY: Clanahan! Here, wipe your nose.
LEROY: Okay.
GILDY: Not on your shirt! I'm giving you a handkerchief!
LEROY: Thanks.
GILDY: What do you mean when you say Eugene cheated, Leroy?
LEROY: He started throwing rocks.
GILDY: Just like his father, by George. I'll go and see that Clanahan! I'll knock his block off!
LEROY: (cheering a little) Attaboy, Unk! Can I watch?
GILDY: Well—maybe I'll just speak to Eugene.
LEROY: He's the toughest kid in the school.
GILDY: He is? Confound it. Leroy, why can't you plug peaceably with your friends?
LEROY: How can we play peaceably? Eugene's gang won't leave us alone.
GILDY: Wait a minute. What is this gang of yours?
LEROY: Just a gang. that's all. Only our gang fights fair, and Eugene's gang cheats, throwing rocks all the tine. MARJORIE: Didn't I see you throwing rocks yesterday?
LEROY: (Indignantly) We never throw anything but dirt clods!
MARJORIE: Well, yesterday you threw a—
LEROY : If there's a rock inside of it, that's an accident!

With his family, Walter lives fifteen miles outside of Hollywood in the San Fernando valley. They have an attractive white stucco Spanish-style house, a swimming pool and, believe it or not, a farm, where Walter's dad spends all his time. They call the place the "Big Oak Ranch" because the house is built around a big oak tree whose branches afford a natural cooling system. Walter's mother is a Lieutenant Colonel in the Women's Emergency corps and is in charge of a free canteen for servicemen in Beverly Hills.
Mr. Tetley was in the New York post office for thirty-five years until he retired on a government pension around a year ago. Walter's brother is a precision parts inspector in a nearby defense plant.
The Tetleys also have a stable with two horses. One of them pulls an old-fashioned "Surrey with the Fringe on Top" which stands on the farm and has been used in many old-time movies. The Tetleys have four dogs, five cats, two hundred chickens and two ducks—which Walter named Hedy and Lana.
After a busy day in downtown Hollywood this famous young radio actor can retire to the peace and quiet of the San Fernando valley and make plans for his future career.
He'll stick to radio, but don't be surprised if he ends up by being a writer or producer.
"Why, Walter, you'll probably be producing the biggest shows on the air," says a friend.
"Are you kiddin'?" says "Leroy."

Tetley started out as a Harry Lauder imitator, but he was Scottish on his mother’s side only. His last name was Tetzlaff; his father Fred was of German descent (though born in New York) and worked in the Ridgefield Park post office. His mother’s last name was Campbell and born in Scotland.

An affinity for Scotland, Tetley had, beyond being a Harry Lauder impersonator. Witness this story from the Province of June 17, 1950, of a trip to Vancouver.

Only a guy with a name like 'Walter Campbell Tetley' would travel a thousand miles just to blow into a bag-pipe. Obviously an embittered soul driven to the 'instrument of hell' by the vicious pace of life along Sunset Boulevard, Walter will hie himself all the way from Hollywood to Brockton Point July 1 to add a dash of levity to the Police Sports show and become an honorary member of the Police Pipe band.
Mr. Tetley masquerades professionally under a couple of well-known aliases. He is "Leroy" on the Gildersleeve radio show and "Julius" on the Phil Harris show. He loves his sponsors, picks up his cheques with either hand and is figured a whiz at adding a bright touch to sombre track and field productions.
Det.-Sgt. John Gillies, drum-beater for the PMBA-sponsored meet, informs us that W.C. comes at his own expense at the urging of another honorary Police Piper and veteran of the '48 Caledonian Games—Bill Thompson, also of Hollywood.
Thompson, another sucker for the old Aberdeen squeeze-play, is the Wallace Wimple of the Fibber McGee and Molly show. As you see, our police deal only with characters.

Tetley was very community minded. He was a member of the Kiwanis club, he became a Mason and later joined the Mystic Order of Veiled Prophets of the Enchanted Realm, better known as the Grotto, an organisation of Masons that helps children with cerebral palsy. He got up to Master of Ceremonies (akin to second vice-president) of Cinema Grotto and was Tyler of his Masonic Lodge in 1974 but his cancer was slowly spreading. He died September 6, 1975 at age 60, with a memorial service conducted by his brother Masons.

Both men who played Gildersleeve, Hal Peary and Willard Waterman, and Elliott Lewis, who worked with him on the Harris-Faye show, praised his acting abilities. Tetley’s Julius on the Harris show was so ridiculously over-the-top, he was very funny but still believable. He seems to have been a nice man, too. Considering that, he can be forgiven for fudging about his age all those years.

Viva Unmatched Shots

Willie Whopper storms the hideout of some banditos in Viva Willie and crashes into a wall.



Evidently the crash was so great it somehow knocked him into a corner ahd gave him a shadow. These are consecutive frames.



Considering this was the last Willie Whopper cartoon (released October 4, 1934), maybe the artists weren’t too concerned about unmatched shots. (MGM began releasing the Harman-Ising cartoons that replaced them the previous September 1st). Henceforth, the Iwerks studio would only make ComiColor cartoons and release them independently.

Grim Natwick and Berny Wolf got animation credits and Carl Stalling provided the music.

Blitz Wolf Background

There’s a pan shot near the start of Blitz Wolf (1942) from the ersatz Practical Pig’s trench through the blue-ish forest and ending on a black battle ground with scarlet skies. I can’t snip it together from frames in the cartoon because it appears Jack Stevens or whoever was operating the camera darkened the scene at the pan continued. The colours don’t match. And a tree and its branches are on an overlay that is panned at a different rate than the background.

However, here’s a part of it, showing the house of sticks, the house of straw, and the edge of the forest (the large leaves are on the overlay).



Tex attracted a lot of loyalty. When he left Lantz for the Leon Schlesinger studio, animators Virgil Ross, Sid Sutherland and Cecil Surry went with him. When he left Schlesinger for MGM, writer Rich Hogan and background artist Johnny Johnsen joined him (Hogan tried to get out of his contract early to go to Metro). You see Johnsen’s work in this cartoon and, as far as I know, all of Avery’s shorts in the 1940s.

The Towel and Billboard Lady, Phyllis Newman

Game shows in the 1960s had a number of guest panelists who popped by on occasion, and audiences likely weren’t aware of the range of their talents because they appeared elsewhere than on television.

Phyllis Newman was one.

She did the Goodson-Todman shows out of New York—“What’s My Line?”, “To Tell The Truth,” “Match Game” (the original version), as well as “Password.” But her real fame came from the stage, where she had a very long career. Newman was nominated for a Tony at one point, and appeared in a well-received one-woman show, “The Madwoman of Central Park West.”

Let’s go back to her Tony-nominated role in this syndicated newspaper feature story from February 18, 1962.

Toweled Phyllis Newman, ‘Subways’ Show Stopper
By WARD MOREHOUSE
North American Newspaper Alliance
NEW YORK—Phyllis Newman doesn't wear silk or satins or feathers or furs in "Subways Are for Sleeping." She wears a towel—a plain blue terry cloth towel that must have cost all of $2.98—and she's the hit of the show. Socko, as Variety would say.
Phyllis is extremely fetching in a towel, but it takes more than that to stop a show, as she does in the musical play at the St. James. She also is an adroit comedienne, and in the role of a "Miss Mississippi" runner-up, she's fairly irresistible.
"Is there any possibility that the towel will slip?" I asked as a matter of academic interest.
She said: "No, it's attached to a bra, so there's no danger of that. I have two towels, but I've never worn the other one because I'm superstitious about it. I stick to the towel I was wearing the first time we stopped the show in Philadelphia. They keep it washed for me."
• • •

IN "SUBWAYS," Phyllis plays a po’ little Southern girl with show-business aspirations, holed up in a room at the Brunswick Arms Hotel in New York. She owes the hotel $1,100. And she figures, with deadly feminine logic, that the management would be embarrassed to haul her screaming to the street in a towel, so she never wears anything else.
“I’ve tried to copy the accent of a friend of mine, Boaty Boatright, who was born in the South," she said. “Through Boaty I’ve met some other Southern girls and they all have such lovely manners.
"Where was I born? In Jersey City, the home of gracious living."
Phyllis, a bright and lively brunette (she wears a blond wig in "Subways") is married to Adolph Green, who with Betty Comden wrote the book and lyrics for "Subways" and other Broadway successes.
• • •
“THERE was a lot of opposition to my appearing in the show,” she said. “I had to do a number of auditions for David Merrick (the producer), Michael Kidd (director), Julie Styne (composer) and Betty. Adolph stayed away from them. I’m not sure that I'd want to do another show that's connected with Adolph because it's hard on him.
"He and Betty worked so hard on the road. They were writing all night until 6 in the morning then they'd sleep about four hours and start again. Their first script was much better than the one we have now...but we're selling out and people are liking it. It’s getting an excellent reaction.”
Phyllis met Adolph Green when she auditioned for "Bells Are Ringing." another Comden & Green musical. She was signed as standby for Judy Holliday.
"A few weeks later Adolph asked me for a date, then he didn't ask me for another date for a long time," she recalled. "I knew Adolph was an intellectual and on that first date I tried to impress him by dropping the names of books and authors I hadn't even read. He's found me out since then, obviously."
They have a year-old son, Adam, and an apartment on Central Park West. Phyllis is not the housewife type. "I don't sew or tat or make things, and I can't cook at all. My husband deserves better than my cooking."
Phyllis appeared on television in "Diagnosis Unknown" in 1960 and in four other Broadway productions. But she never stopped a show before. "It's thrilling. Orson Bean is so much fun to work with, and Sydney Chaplin is terribly attractive to the ladies."

Newman worked with Orson Bean on “To Tell The Truth.” But she appeared on another TV show that many may not remember her on, the American version of “That Was the Week That Was.” This AP column was published January 10, 1965.

They're Banging on the Door of Phyllis the Satirist
EDITOR'S NOTE: Phyllis Newman thought she was just doing satires for her own amusement until she tried them on TW3. Now she's famous for them, though it's a weekly scramble involving idiot cards the size of billboards, and her success has brought offers from all sides.
By CYNTHIA LOWRY
Associated Press Writer
New York — Not long ago Phyllis Newman's four-year-old son, Adam, was asked in nursery school what his mother did—professionally speaking. The little boy replied: "She gets up and she sits down."
"Well, it was true," said the dark-haired young performer later. "The only time he'd seen me on television was in To Tell the Truth, and although I did some talking, the only movements I made were to stand up or sit down."
Miss Newman, while still collecting a healthy weekly check as a regular member of the day-time To Tell the Truth panel, currently is causing comment as a regular member of the troupe that each week cooks up some mischief in a TV revue—or, more precisely, review—called That Was the Week That Was Tuesdays at 9:30 p.m. on NBC.
"I was dying to get on the program," she recalled. "I'd known Leland Hayward (the producer) since I had a part in his 'Wish You Were Here.' And my husband and I kept running into him at parties. Each tune he'd say something like, ‘We've got to have you on the show,’ but that was as far as it went."
• • •

FINALLY, however, she made it, and surprised a large number of viewers by launching into a wicked and extremely funny imitation of Barbra Streisand, complete in mannerism and voice. Since then she has gone to work with the same naughty efficiency on Audrey Hepburn, Ethel Merman and Linda Bird Johnson, a portrait gallery which suggests her range.
"The only one that made me a little bit nervous was Ethel Merman," she added. "Partly because I personally think she's so great, and partly because she's not easy to mimic."
Phyllis really was not surprised that the TW3 people were not exactly beating down the door to get her. "Nobody thought of me as a satirist," she said, "In fact, I never really thought of myself as anything more than a bathroom satirist — like a bathroom tenor, doing those things for my own personal fun. In fact, nobody in show business was doing much thinking about me at all — I've been mostly on a daytime TV show lately and not many show business people watch at that time."
She laughed.
"And now," she added, "nobody thinks of me as anything but a satirist."
• • •
SHE HAS BEEN MARRIED for almost five years to Adolph Green who, with his partner Betty Comden, has turned out a long string of Broadway hits. She met him when she was Judy Holiday's understudy in the Comden-Green "Bells Are Ringing." Later, she auditioned five times for a part in their "Subways Are for Sleeping," finally won it, and received a Tony Award as the best supporting actress of the season. But it was one of the loneliest times of her life—the rest of the cast eyed her nervously and from a distance, because the author was her husband.
During the period before the birth of her daughter, Amanda, last year, Phyllis decided that she "had the ideal job for a pregnant performer: The panel show.
"I stayed on the show until a couple of days before she was born," she recalled. "All it took was a couple of mornings a week, a few changes of blouses or tops—all that showed was the tops."
• • •
IN TERMS of hours spent, TW3 also makes modest demands—but the hours themselves are crowded and frantic.
The whole thing is all so very urgent," she said. "Right up to air time— we're live, you know — they keep making changes to keep up with the news."
For one show she had an hour in which to learn the notes of a song and get a little familiar with the words. She is extremely myopic and unable to wear contact lenses.
"So when I work I can't use an electric prompter or even ordinary-sized idiot cards," she said. "When they hold up cards for me to read, they are about the size of billboards."
Now that the night-time audiences have discovered Phyllis Newman, all sorts of opportunities are flowing her way.
"I get sent scripts. I've had series offers from California —and I've been offered so much money you wouldn't believe it to make commercials."
• • •
THE TELEVISION networks fret considerably about the audience ratings of its programs, and NBC is something of a brave trailblazer in putting on TW3 in prime evening time. They know full well that sharp wit, satire and kidding the most dignified, powerful figures in the world is not exactly everyman's idea of the perfect TV show — not when Westerns and comedies top the ratings.
"I think we should have small ratings." she said. "As long as NBC is happy, I think small ratings give us a kind of class." There’s a tribute to Phyllis in this story at Broadway World.

Two Remleys, Part Two

Dennis Day had two shows. Phil Harris had two shows. That was a running gag on Jack Benny’s radio show. It was used as another put-down of Jack, who only had one show.

Someone else had two shows. Frank Remley.

This gets a little tricky, so bear with me. Remley was in Harris’ orchestra when it was hired to work on the Benny show in 1936. Over a number of years, Remley’s name was used whenever Benny’s writers needed a gag about someone more dissipated than Harris. When Harris was hired by F.W. Fitch to do a second show, hosting the Bandwagon in 1946, he needed a foil. Who better than Frank Remley? After all, there was instant name recognition from the Benny show. So now Remley was on the Benny show playing the guitar and on Harris’ show...well, kind of.

Movie fan magazines are not exactly noted for their veracity, but there’s no reason to disbelieve this story that Harris told Modern Screen in its June 1948 issue.

We had an awful time casting Frankie. Frank Remley is my oldest friend. We began in this business together, me a drummer and Frankie playin' guitar. When I got my own band, he came with me. We've played in every big and little place on the globe, lived together until we got married. I'm always kiddin' him about his age and all that.

Well now we were castin' for this part. Actors were readin' for us and we were turnin' 'em down right and left. Suddenly I say how wonderful if this guy were able to do it himself, after all he's a pretty amusing guy. So I call him up — he's got his own little combination by now and is playing around town. I don't tell what I want him for, just say, "Come over."

He brings his guitar of course. I hand him a script and tell him to read with me so the director and the rest can hear that he's an actor too. "Now Curly," he says, (he's the only one who calls me Curly) "I'm no professor." I tell him to shut up and start readin'. He keeps tryin' to tell me something but of course I won't let him. I got one thing on my mind. So we start and he goes like a wagon with a broken wheel. He's slow, his timing is impossible. I say, "Are you afraid, Frankie?"

"Look Curly, I've been trying to tell you something," he says, "it's something I've been meaning to tell you for several months. I got myself a pair of reading glasses, can't read without 'em now. I left 'em home today. I can't hardly see this paper I'm holding let alone the printing on it."

He'd been hiding this about the glasses because he knew I'd rib the brains out of him for growing old and all that. Well, before we got around to giving him another chance to read, a very good professional actor blew in, just out of the army and we gave him the job. And Remley works in the band, playin' the old guitar. He practically falls off his chair every week when he hears himself being impersonated.

Elliott Lewis was hired to portray Remley, so you now had the fake Remley on the air on the Harris show, and the real, guitarist-not-speaking-on-the-air version on the Benny show.

Through circumstances I’ve never understood, when Harris left the Benny show in 1952, his orchestra stayed with Benny; Walter Scharf continued to front a different band on the Harris show. That meant the real Remley was still plucking away with Benny. When that happened, the fake version played by Elliott Lewis on the Harris series unexpectedly changed his name to “Elliott Lewis” with an explanation that was more contrived than funny.

I’m glad you followed all that.

Remley (the real one) was lucky enough to get that far. Here’s a 1924 wire service story.

YOUTH IS KILLED AT MODESTO
By the Associated Press
MODESTO; Sept. 13.—Allen Young, 20, of Eagle Rock, Los Angeles county, was killed early this morning when as a member of a party of six musicians he was driving south towards Los Angeles. Their car tipped over directly across the Southern Pacific tracks at Hatch crossing, known as “death curve.” A Southern Pacific northbound train came along a few moments later and hit the wreck.
Young was taken aboard the train and died there in a few minutes. When the engine hit the car the gas tank exploded and the automobile was burned up. Other members of the party were Sloan Campbell, Berkeley; Frank Remley, Los Angeles; Rene Duplessis of Van Nuys; Gordon Glenn of Los Angeles, and Mark Murray of Long Beach. All are believed to be students at the University of Southern California.

Remley was a great travelling companion. Wire service stories reveal how Remley and Harris or Remley and Benny would hop in a car and go somewhere, including trips to British Columbia. Here’s an Associated Press story about an unusual cross-country auto journey. It’s from August 27, 1948.

Phil Harris at Fargo With Jack Benny's Car
FARGO—(AP)— Orchestra Leader Phil Harris and his guitar player, Frank Remley, were fishing near Detroit Lakes, Minn., Thursday. They arrived in Fargo Wednesday and went to Little Detroit Lake, where they are staying at the cottage of Mr. and Mrs. Clifford Paulsrud, Fargo.
Harris and Remley were driving an English car which Jack Benny bought on his trip to Europe this summer. Harris and his wife, Alice Faye, and Mr. and Mrs. Remley accompanied Benny on the trip.
“When we landed at New York, Benny intended to ship the car to California but Remley has told me so much about Fargo and the lake district that we sent our wives home by train and we're driving to Hollywood.”
Remley is a nephew of Nick Remley, fire chief at Moorhead, Minn.

Frankie accompanied Benny in performances on the road, too. They appeared together at the 93rd California State Fair in Sacramento in 1952. They also went to Korea together during the War in a taxing tour of military camps.

Remley’s name and off-mike laughter remained on the Benny radio show until it signed off in 1955. Benny was busy with television at the time and the real Remley actually showed up on camera a few times and spoke. He was also conducting his own orchestra by the mid-50s; Benny once plugged it on radio and its club appearances were broadcast for a while late night on KABC radio.

The most print Remley got may have been when he passed away on January 28, 1967. Newspapers all over North America picked up the story. There was a sad sidebar to it.

Frank Remley Dies at 65
NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. (AP) – Frank Remley, known to radio fans as the humorous drunk who traded quips with Jack Benny, is dead, a victim of heart failure.
The 65-year-old guitarist, a fixture on the comedian's shows of nearly 30 years, died Saturday of a cardiac arrest after open heart surgery.
His death came only a few months after the presumed death of his only child, Frank , Jr., 24, who disappeared with friend last Aug. 14 while sailing from Newport Beach to Portland, Ore. No trace of them was ever found.
Remley was born in Moorhead, Minn., on Oct. 23, 1901, grew up in Valley City and Fargo, N.D., and came to Hollywood in 1920.
He eventually joined the Phil Harris Orchestra and, in 1938 [sic], became a member of Jack Benny's group. He was a left-handed guitar player on the Benny show.
Survivors include his widow Helen; a brother Edward Kennelly; a sister Alice Schmallen; and his mother, Mrs. Nell Kennelly, all of Fargo.

Besides being travelling companions, Benny and Remley were great letter writers and exchanged correspondence, some of which would never be approved by radio censors. Benny wasn’t above using four-letter words off the air. Frank Remley seemed to enjoy life and have fun, and that sets a pretty good example for us all.