European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - April 2, 1968, Darmstadt, Hesse                              Golden w5t"tt72\ f 4 � radio s Joe Penner found time to Hoof it with Betty Grable and Frances Longford. By Sid Whipple staff writer who was the old Guy on the Fibbe Mcgee show Molly used to Call old timer and who used to chuckle Over outwitting my big old wife or. Peevy no. Peevy was the druggist on thereat Gildersleeve show. He used to de Molish Gildersleeve s arguments wit the mild but conclusive Well i would t say  Molly s old time was or. Wimple i think. Whose trademark was Wanna Buya Duck easy. That was Joe Penner. Not even today s most extravagant tvs Hows hot shot vocalists Rock n Roll bands or extrovert comedians can pro Duce the emotional excitement or the explosive hilarity any member of thelast generation will Tell you that the stars of radio s Golden Days generate Din their time. In creating the an sunday evening show the Golden Days of radio Frank Bresee reestablishes a theatrical atmosphere that brought Fame to More personalities real and fictitious than any other period in the history of mass entertainment. Corny perhaps but Good clean Corn. Repetitious again yes but How Many comic strip artists have Bel bored a sin Gle theme for generations and still maintained a hold on their audiences with the passing of american vaudeville radio came in to fill the vacuum Ami incidentally to save the careers of Many vaudevillian who otherwise might have had to resort to driving taxicabs for a living. It also turned at least one taxicab Driver Airong seat philosopher into an airwave Counselor who professed to be Able to solve any Domestic problem in the world. Remember or. Anthony Page 12 Don t touch the microphone. No names please Many of the scripts phrases or eve simple catchwords achieved immortality. Remember Eddie Cantor s stories about Ida and their five daughters Molly Mcgee s scathing taint Funn Mcgee Bresee notes that at the time of radio s first official broadcast in 1920 Over Kaka in Pittsburgh most columnist Sand critics considered the new entertainment medium a Flash in the pan but by 1922 More than 3 million sets were in use and by 1929 radio was rated As America s fourth largest Industry. And the poor vaudeville comedian who used to feel Lucky if they had a fairly steady $75 a week were pulling Down a weekly $7,500-with the same old act. He comedians had no monopoly on radio s prime hours however the p"68/T8.1?16 Bam s and their leaders Paul Whiteman Kay Kyser Ben Bernie and their contemporaries brought Hood of Melody to the hinterland such As millions of americans had never be fore been privileged to hear. Then there were the newscasters dishing out their hot items in the Meas ured tones of a Lowell Thomas the excited rapid fire delivery of a Walter Runchell or the precise scholarly accents of i v. Kaltenborn. And toe was Gabriel Heatter who was occasionally forced to abandon his Trade Mark of there s Good news tonight when the news was All bad the Golden Days of radio May never come again but at least their highlight Sas incidentally the sunday evening shows aired at 7 30, directly following the Bob Hope show. This is  Hope needs no  Flag hangs Over bandstand at Happy elegant Roseland matinee at the the lights dim seductively. The dangling prisms on the chandeliers catch the rotating spotlight and Spangle the ceiling with a million synthetic stars. As a clarinet wails plaintively a Singer chants heaven i m in heaven and my heart beats so that i can hardly speak but i seem to find the happiness seek when we re out together dancing Cheek to Cheek. Almost on Cue a thousand couples Are dancing Cheek to Cheek rolling Back the years. It s matinee dance time at manhat Tan s Roseland ballroom but actually it s another time another Era. Across the Street other voices Are murmuring in other rooms. The hippies Jun Bauke and beads Are filing into cheetah the Way out discotheque. The Jet set is sipping afternoon cock tails at Jilly a the Way in place frequented by Frank Sinatra and the rat pack suburban matrons Are in the Obby of the Anta theater buying up tickets for Spofford a Sophis stated comedy of modern manners. All up an Down Broadway in the shabby Souvern r  and All night drug store pm clothes detectives betrayed by the Bulg of the revolvers in their Back pockets Are on the Alert for dope pushers Adl diets pimps prostitutes con artists hustlers pickpockets and similar Thea Ter District Semi skilled artisans n a Natl and s Maple dance Flor Halfa Block Long and resiliency set on 12 inches of Shockproof Cork dwells Anar from it All As completely and Nacho mystically As a Buddhist Temple by Hugh a. Mulligan a staff leading Down to the enormous room Are wide and glistening Thel room decor with its tent like draping from the ceiling is expend reminiscent of Charlotte Ford s Wuzor any other great society wedding Ever read about. Time seems suspended Here when a falling Star from the flick prisms on the chandelier Falls athe faces of the dancers giving. The years that the decor cannot Back. And yet the wonder is that nearly of years of continuous Ope that Roseland ballroom is alive ai., in the heart of hippie land playing million dance customers a year. Al land is healthy enough to hire three name bands a week popular in Piffl have to hire special police to handle crowds on new year s eve. O the stars and stripes Wner Lou breaker who opened for business on Broadway new year s eve 1919, presides Oveis morals and reputation of his $4 dance Palace with the unswerving benign discipline of a Mother sup fat a girls prep school. Gentlemen i Wear ties and jackets. No Turtle sweaters. No beatnik haircuts. L beatle style toupees Are banned Slacks culottes or shorts permitted ladies. No twisting drugging Mapo tatting allowed. No unmixed Dan boys must dance with girls notions. No erotic neurotic alcohol Lite otherwise unbecoming behaviour fitted although there is an exc bar with no House limit on refers dispensed. Bouncers in tuxedos see to it that rules Are enforced except that at h land they Are called floor managers Call it Square Call it sedate Brecker does t care so Long As i Countant keep calling it Spe Tacu  fact All of Brecker s worries reputation Are in the opposite Dir people especially out of towners keep thinking of Roseland As a a dance joint mourns Lou with a Consolate wave of his Ever pref Cigar. We Haven t had paid hostesses Here in 40  of Roseland s continuing Sud year gather to dance. A irom its regular clientele which lost any night or matinee makes per cent of the House. Part of Tifi mutable to Roseland s tasteful a which seer is to rub off on theirs. And above All Roseland at land continues to attract Tho see to dance and who know How be. Floor is covered with More sneers than any other spot we says Chicago bandleader Don finishing up a six week stand land. Polkas tangos viennese you name it they can do  get done the latin band takes in they really strut their stuff Meringa Pachana. It s like in had a thousand dollars  s. Twirls. Fancy in and out t and Back Steps. Gay flamenco is. Every Man a Jose Greco. Woman a Ginger Rogers. And the puppet wails Bye Bye  fors and lawyers frequent Rose o escape professional tension business people come to keep Ini director George Abbott now in is a regular. So Are june havoc Bra son Helen Hayes Joan Craw pen they re in town. Was Back in prohibition Days Roseland was the pleasure Palace Bonnie and Clyde set a bit daring in. Al Jolson met Ruby Keeler George raft danced for $2.50 Brecker brought the first latin in orchestra to new York a diced the Broadway babies to the Ine first jazz wedding was per Here with the Hep couple put their motorcycle As a Deposit catering. Re Powl said Brecker contented living his charges some friends f Down to the electric circus pay discotheque in Greenwich Khuu Dom take it for 15 min Haj Oise a them lights. That dancing the girls were Nom the boys. What will i do re customers they la All be i re Ere some Day when they by to  a 2, 1968 the ing at the rate of 5,000 a  s own reaction to such figure Sisa mixture of amazement and Delight. He remarks sometimes i find it Hardtop believe. You take a poet like t. S. Eliot. I be been told that his last Book of poems sold a total of 3,500 copies. T. S. Eliot obviously Rod Mckuen is not t. . Not quite. His poems Are mostly in the freest of verse although som have rhyme and a dogged kind of meter. Here is a Sample titled apartment 4e" the girl upstairs is entertaining again. I could set my clock by the Footfall on the stairs. I see her sometimes coming and going on the stairs or going to the  i hear her late at night playing sad music or walking overhead. She smiles in the daytime but not at me. The poems Are mostly along ,, melancholy though not without rueful humor simple laments for lost loves and Distant cities told in the spare style of japanese Haiku. Mckuen denies any pretension to literature. Some people compare me Tow. H. Auden but that s wrong he says. I m not Iri Competition with Auden or anyone else. I m in the business of communication and my poems Are communicating to the younger generation. Why because i m talking to people in a language they understand they Don t need a dictionary to dig what i saying. I also feel there is Appeal in the fact that i am not afraid to Deal with emotion. Nowadays everyone is trained to suppress his emotions. To use a trite expression i m telling it like it  for 15 years Rod Mckuen had Bee telling it like it is but until recently not Many seemed to be listening. He had been persistently pouring Forth songs he has written 700and some of the mended up in the repertoires of such per formers As Andy Williams Eddy Arnold and the Kingston Trio. Mckuen himself knew Only fair Success As a cabaret per former and recording artist. Then in the past year his career Sud Denly blossomed. The Small Mckuen cult became a National phenomenon. His various record albums singing instrumental poetry readings have sold half million copies. I m getting a thousand letters a weekend they Tell me Rock Hudson does t get anything like that he  had to hire a staff to answer the mail. I m planning a television special and i la produce a film of Stanyan Street. Another film company has optioned listen to the warm and i d like to direct  be got three More books coming out another volume of poems called lonesome cities the Rod Mckuen songbook and a children s Book. I Nehad Calls from Ray Strak Edward Padu la and David Merrick about doing Broad Way shows. I just turned Down a Guaran tee of $100,000 to put my face on sweat shirts and so Forth i Don t want that. I m having the time of my life and enjoy it even More because i made it on my own. I was t promoted to replace someone As the monkeys were because the beatles weren t available or Dono f3 �. Best Selling poet Rod Mckuen he invented himself. Van was because Bob Dylan was , i came from  Rod Mckuen did indeed Spring from Humble beginnings. He was born almost 35 years ago i Oakland calif., and his father abandoned the family a fact that continues to disturb Rod. He writes in Stanyan Street in the end the songs i sing Are of my own  Mirror what has happened to me since i was abandoned by my fatherland by love. Mckuen recalls my Mother worked tier head off so we could eat. As soon As i was old enough i worked too. When things were Tough i left school and took jobs As a ranch hand Surveyor Cooki puncher for a bakery stunt rider in rodeos farm hand. Then i d go Back to school in the year where i was supposed to be i managed to fake it. I figure i went to school a total of four years. I finally dropped out of Oak land technical High school in my  he was a labourer disc jockey an newspaper columnist then served with the army in Japan and Korea. In july 1966, Mckuen got the notion of publishing a volume of poems. In needful of publishing economics poetry books rarely return the printing costs he paid to publish the books  sole advertising was a note on the Back of his record albums which said that a Book of poetry by Rod Mckuen could be ordered by writing a Post off icebox in Hollywood. He sold 40,000 books that Way. To  Home he was encouraged by Phyllis Diller to test his singing talents at san Francisco s purple onion. The reception was favourable and his musical career was launched. He created enough stir to win an acting contract at Universal but nothing came of it. His travels continued and in hotel rooms i America and in Europe he wrote an immense volume of lyrics and  he said himself Many were placed with performers. The stars and stripes he word of his achievement finally reached the publishing world and a Large new York publisher took Over the Enterprise. The sales have astounded the Book publishing business. Mckuen a slender craggy faced Man whose Slouch makes him seem less than his six foot height exults Over his Suc Cess what makes it so great is that i did it All myself. Nobody helped me invented Rod  there Are some minor drawbacks to Mckuen s triumphs. His Fame is such that his modern Hollywood Hillside Home is now pointed out by tourist guides As the bus makes its climb to Rudy Val Lee s aerie. I can hear the Driver talk ing on the Loudspeaker says Mckuen. I m going to get another House where i can have More  a professional loner he shrinks fro comparison to such a social protester As Bob Dylan. I m not protesting any thing Mckuen declares. I m no guru i Don t want to Tell anyone How to run Lis life. If there s any message in my work it s about Man s inability to communicate. Fathers Don t know How to talk bosons husbands can t communicate with wives. It s the sickness of our  Page 13