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I ELEVISION, that
-*- spectre which
lurks ominousiy on radio’s horizon, is
no bogeyman to Eddie Cantor.
The roving-eyed comic, first star of
the legitimate stage to essay radio when
it was a new and mysterious medium,
Is eager now to come to grips with
radio’s offspring. As a matter of fact,
his new six-year contract with his pres
ent sponsor is the first radio contract
to contain a definite clause making an
artist available for television broad
casts.
“Let it come," he laughs when the
mournful shadow of television casts it
self across an inner-circle conversation.
"I’m ready for it. I have a face!"
Cantor has a face, indeed. A face
which stands out.
"Stands out so far, sometimes,” he
admits, “that a lot of guys itch to push
It back into place.”
That sac its active eyes—that
kinetic little figure already has braved
the visible forms of entertainment, the
theater and the films, and come off not
ingloriously. Cantor was a theatrical
name in lights long before radio as an
entertainment medium was thought
of. He learned much of pantomime in
those theatrical days from masters of
the art. Bert Williams was one of
them.
"Bert could do more with his hands
and face than anyone else has ever been
able to do, no matter how perfectly
wired for sound.” Cantor will tell you.
Eddie learned pantomime on the stage
He used his knowledge in tw*o silent
pictures —one of them the successful
"Kid Boots,” which most moviegoers
have forgotten in the onrush of audible
Eddie Cantor films. He’ll not be con
scious of his face and hands when the
radio microphone at long last is tele
vised.
1 HIS may be telling
secret!! out of school, may be tipping
off * high powered radio competition
which is not standing by so expectantly
for television’s advent, but Eddie Can
tor's radio show could stand exposure to
a seeing audience tomorrow.
For the benefit of the studio specta
tors — Eddie, collector of "firsts," was
the first to encourage the presence of
audiences at broadcasts —the Cantor
troupe for rkonths has worked in cos
tume. Parkyakarkus, who really is a
dapper, successful young man in a cus
tom-tailored suit, wouldn’t be funny
without his brown bowler and check-
Here is the iconoscope, where
television begins, and the mi
crophone, where radio begins.
Put them all together and you
have this forecast of radio’s
future, in a photograph by
NBC’s William E. C. Haussler.
ered coat. Jimmy Wallington ap
proaches his customers in the guise of
a filling station attendant. Eddie Can
tor wouldn’t think of singing the
mayor’s oOng without his top hat and
tails.
Next step will be the laying aside of
scripts, another "first.” Cantor already
rehearses his troupe like a stock com
pany for its weekly appearances. Soon
the players will appear in their first
scriptless broadcast. Put some scenery
in back of them and they’re ready for
television.
Recently on a broadcast one of the
characters represented a cantankerous
old maid, with an 1898 hat, a ratty
looking fur and a buttonless sack of a
brown coat. To complete the ensemble
she had a shiny safety pin. Just before
sfie was ready to go on the stage she
popped out from her dressing room.
“I can’t go on,” she moaned.
"Why not?” the harried stage crew
demanded.
“Look, the best part of my costume
is gone—the safety pin.”
T ELEVISION won't
wreak many important changes in Can
tor’s shows. But Eddie is chuckling
already at the panic its arrival will pre
cipitate at many stations along radio
row. Hillbilly comics will be faced with
the necessity of looking like hillbilly
comics—instead of the well groomed
men-about-town many of them are.
Poor Amos and Andy will have to don
black face for their daily stint before
the microphone. Show Boat, National
Barn Dance, Hotel Hollywood, The
Radio Theater will have to put in a hur
ried call to the costumers and scenic
designers to groom their broadcasts for
the seeing eye.
March of Time’s problem will be par
ticularly acute.
"Imagine," says Eddie, "trying to dra
matize the stork derby on a televised
stage."
And the hefty sopranos, Cantor warns,
nad better start dieting right now.
Eddie Cantor boldly faces television and all it entails.
He has been getting his cast ready for it for some time.
Returning to his CBS Sunday program occasionally
during the summer, he plans to produce a show com
pletely without scripts in the fall—television technique.
There will be more jobs for actors,
for no longer can one man play a half
dozen roles in the radio drama". Tech
nical problems will be complicated.
"We are a gregarious people, how
ever; we ll always go to movie houses.”
He softens the blow. "Tell a man a
theater is so crowded that he can’t get
in and he’ll get in or die in the attempt.”
The legitimate theater can look for
ward to unprecedented prosperity.
"For instance,” says Eddie, "John
Smith, in Portland, Ore., will pick up
his telephone, ask for the long distance
operator.
"‘I understand that Max Gordon
opened a good show at the Music Box
in New York City the other night,’ he
will say, ’.Give me that telephone
number.’
"He talks with the television chief at
the theater, tunes in his set to the stage
of the theater. He not onjy hears, but
sees, the entire performance. At the
end of a month he receives a bill from
the telephone company for ’Four Music
Boxes, 'One Madison Square Garden,'
One Session of Congress,’ at 25 cents
apiece.”
F* IFTY cents for a
televised show is not an exaggerated
price, Cantor insists.
"The telephone company and Max
Gordon can afford to sell their product
for that price—one million times 50
cents is $500,000 to be split between
the two.”
The price of entertainment will move
down the scale, Eddie believes, while at
the same time the salaries of actors
should mount. With television at hand,
Eddie Cantor is convinced, the producer
will be able to hire, instead of one or
two stars, 10 or 12, at salaries ranging
from $1,500 to $15,000 a week.
"But if there’s a pretty girl in the
chorus, you’ve still got to go to the
stage door to invite her to supper.
“And, of course, all the radio come
dians will make a wild dash for their
joke files looking up ‘t’ for jokes on
television. You can expect to hear ‘You
can tell a vision, but you can’t tell her
much’ at least once a night for the
first six weeks of the new era.
"The first shows will be crude, but
they won’t be crude very long. Because
the larger the audience, the more vital
the good performance. A million spec
tators can make a loud squawk if they’re
asked to sit in on a laboratory experi
ment.
± HEN goodby to the
family radio. Practical housewives will
serve cold suppers from them, remove
their insides and store the household
linens in them, saw off their legs and
use them for bridge tables. And in the
densely populated regions where fire
wood comes high, they'll burn them up
and count the act an economy.
From now on the radio business Is
.P* e * lant * s °f the telephone company.
And I don’t mean in the hands of the
receivers.’’