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Show THE RICH COUNTY REAPER, RANDOLPH, UTAH m HEAVENLY DAYS FOR THE JORDANS Marion and Jim Fibber McGee and Molly to You Hit the Top in Radio After Years of Labor, Love and Laughter. HEADLINES FROM THE LIVES OF PEOPLE LIKE YOURSELFI By WILLIAM C. UTLEY ttYTTHY dont you forget VV about that guy Jordan? a suitor asked Marion Driscoll, Hell about 18 years ago. never amount to anything. If you marry him, youll be living out of a suitcase all your life. That settled it. For there was , Strike up the band, here HELLO everybody: Frank Zell of Chicago. is ed top-ranki- ng m Fibber. McGee fore they were married, and for 19 years since. Before their marriage, Jim toured in vaudeville with a musical act called, A Night With the Poets. He sang on the Chautauqua circuits, and later started a concert company that toured the tank towns, an experience which may have developed some of the tank town tourist flavor which characterizes the McGee and Molly skits. Shortly after their marriage Jim left for France as a replacement for the one hundred twenty-secon- d engineers, but sickness prevented his seeing service, and he was in a hospital when the Armistice was signed. Meanwhile, was Marion, back home in Peoria, merely twiddling her thumbs, awaiting his return? Heavenly days! says she. I was that busy teaching piano to 50 pupils, some good and some bad, I didnt have a moment to myself! They decided to get out of the show business when Jim came back, but it was no go. Jim wasnt very successful finding steady work conand, with his brothers-in-lastantly taunting, When are you going to get a job? he soon found himself behind the footlights again. He and Marion had real success with their concert company, and no one complained that he was shiftless any more. An Agent Gets Fired. Billed as a ensemble, the was that a 15 literally company piece affair but there were only six people in it; some of them played several instruments. This led to complications. An advance man preceded them on tour and arranged for their billing. When they arrived they usually met a stage crowded with 15 chairs and a manager stirred with indignation at finding only six musicians. At this point Jim would become highly incensed at the audacity of his agent in permitting so w ce . . and Molly. can do better than that! His host was a doubting Thomas with a bit of sporting blood and bet Jim they couldnt. So the next day found them seeking an audition at the station to which they had been listening old WIBO, the top of the dial, in Chicago. They clicked immediately, and soon made their debut in a commercial program on the ether waves as the OHenry twins at $10 a broadcast! They collected the $10 they had bet, too. Marion Has Many Tongues. The first Fibber McGee and Molly broadcasts was in March, 1935. The show was a natural from the start. That it has remained so, in fact has never ceased to add to its popularity, testifies to Jim Jordans showmanship. The sponsor wanted to base the show on Fibbers fish stories and outlandish lies, but Jim saw that the listeners would soon tire of them and refused. Instead we hear this quaint Irish couple, genuine, witty, and1 at all times sympathetic, surrounded by some of the funniest characters radio ever has known. Fans have learned to love and laugh at the little girl whose tiny voice can ask the most embarrassing questions on earth; Geraldine, the tittering bride; Grandma, the old lady with the chorus girl philosophy; Mrs. Weary-bottowho always seems as if she e will surely run down like an phonograph before she finishes a sentence, but never does, quite; and Molly, herself, an able foil for the cocky McGee. All of these and more are played by Marion herself! Horatio K. Boomer, the small time big shot; the raspy Russian, who says Hallo, Petrushka! Hallo, Tovarich!; the Scotchman, and other dialect characters, are played by young Bill Thompson, whom Jim discovered. Silly Watson, the politely uproarious blackface comedian, is Hugh Studebaker, who never acted at all until he got into radio he was a pipe organist. Studebaker also has a show of his own, Bachelors Children. Harpo, the announcer who loves to spoil Fibbers favorite jokes by sneaking in a commercial announcement, is Harlow Wilcox, who is Harold Isbell in real life. Fibber, of course, is Jim Jordan. Coin Many Catch Phrases. two-wa- 20-od- i gross a misrepresentation. Loudly and righteously, in the sight of all concerned, he would discharge the agent. Marion and Jim estimate that this hardy soul was fired in such a manner twice a week for four years. There followed more success, this time as a harmony team in vaudeville. Then the night which was to open up new and miraculous vistas to them. They were playing cards with friends in Chicago in 1924. An old battery radio set was blatting away. Conversation was all but impossible as what might or might not have been a harmony team struggled with the notes in the upper ranges. Jim Wins a Bet. Jim stood it as long as he could. Then: he cried. We Dad rat it! First They Thought It Was a Joke. And then, all of a sudden, there came sounds of shooting on the lower floors! The crackle of gunfire in the midst of a party was strange enough, but stranger still, few of the guests paid any attention to it. The host was a man known for a certain flair for doing the unexpected to lend zest to his parties. If this were just another stunt to give the assembled folks a thrill well no one wanted to be fooled by it. The orchestra played, and the dance went on. It went on for two or three minutes. Then, suddenly, four masked men carrying pistols and shotguns burst into the ballroom! One of the thugs shouted, Put em up! This is a holdup! There was a momentary confusion in the room. The orchestra stopped playing. Still no one seemed to be able to decide whether this was a joke or not. But as the bandits began pushing the guests around, lining them up against a wall, it became apparent that this was no joke, but grim reality. Up on the platform, in full view of the gangsters with their guns, Frank began to get that uneasy feeling. He felt like a clay pigeon just shot out of the trap. He had $400 in his pocket and he slipped it out and . m, old-tim- mother-in-la- w jokes on the Fibber McGee and Taint funny, Molly program. McGee! Molly said, and that was that. And youll never hear anything on the program that you wouldnt want your children to hear; Marion and Jim have children of their own. Don Quinn, who has written the Jordan scripts for seven years,' has taken a lesson from the romance that has followed the pair throughout their married life. You will never hear any serious arguments between Fibber and Molly; its very apparent that they love each other, and you love them' for it. Seldom has any troupe in the show business coined so many catch phrases that have become throughout the nation. Among all classes of people today you may hear repeated almost any time Mollys Heavenly days, McGee! and Taint funny, McGee!; Fibbers the little girls I Dad rat betcha! and Grandmas Hi, Skip- pyi Theyre riding on top of the world right now, the Jordans. But would Just give they quit if they could? me a chance, says Jim. Boy, Id like to go right back where I started. Id like to live on a little farm by a lake and take life easy. Heavenly days! says Marion. You bet, Jim replies. honest-to-goodne- ss shots of Jim and her are typical of a his home after the game. Frank was engaged to furnish the music for the party. Dinner was served after the game, and a reception followed that, so the dancing didnt get started until around half past ten. A stagelike platform had been set up for the orchestra in the big ballroom on the third floor and the boys played for about half an hour. . Youll find no Marion says these candid camera Jordan day at home. saw a slim youth of seventeen look-n- g over her shoulder her heart beat ike a studio gong; she decided right here that Jim Jordan (for thats vho it was) was the man for her. mir-o- r, y t must have been a the decided Jordan for Jim :ame thing. Jim sang with a quartet which vas rehearsing with the choir, rhey had their first date on New fears eve. Marion cant suppress i little giggle whenever she thinks if it. They Still Tease. His mother went along with us, ind took him home afterward! she d years aughs. Even after hot tinhim makes still his charge Oh, here now, he ier the collar. Then, Cut that out! ibjects. rith a grin: Anyway, didnt you iways bring your big brother along n our dates after that? For three years they courted be- - comes a You know, they say that Nero fiddled while Rome was burning but Frank Zell went him one better. Frank kept a whole doggone orchestra going while but wait a minute. Lets not spoil the story. This yarn takes us back to the boom year of 1929, when everybody was throwing parties. At that time Frank was a student at the University of Illinois, and he had organized a dance band composed of boys from the university. The Army-Illinofootball game was played at Champaign that year and a prominent citizen of the town had issued invitations to a flock of his friends to attend a ball which was to be held in her Jim. It was a good thing for you and good-humor- Play, Fiddle, Play By FLOYD GIBBONS Famous Headline Hunter nothing Marion Driscoll would rather have done for the rest of her life than live out of a suitcase with me, too. If this swell romance hadnt blossomed into happy and lasting marriage, we would have had to do without two of the most and welcome visitors who call at our homes Fibber McGee and Molly. Marion and Jim Jordan lived out of a suitcase and worked like the dickens for a good many years before, as Fibber and Molly, they became one of the five or six radio teams. In the rural areas and small communities they rank first. Weve got a bigger audience than even Jack Benny has, is the way Jim puts it. Fibber Born on Farm. No wonder, either. Theyve always been small town folks, even though theyve lived in Chicago for a long time. Like Fibber and Molly, the Jordans themselves are as genuine as the eggs in a home-mad- e cake. One indication is sufficient: During the leaner years when they sometimes worked for $35 a week, the Jordans and their two children Katherine, seventeen, and Jim, Jr., thirteen lived in an unpretentious residential district on Chicagos northwest side, where they had a lot of friendly neighbors, plain, ordinary folks like themselves. When they suddenly found themselves in the big money class at last, did they buy a fine mansion on the Gold Coast, with more servants than closets? They did not. They built a little seven-roohouse right in their old neighborhood; it was HOME to them, and that was important. Fibber (or Jim, if you prefer) was born on a farm near Peoria, 111., and worked on it until he was twelve; he had seven brothers and sisters to help him out. Marion was a Peoria girl, the youngest save one of a family of 13. Now there hardly lives a gal who doesnt like to look into a mirror once in a while, and Marion was no exception. At sixteen she was a very pretty girl and had a voice good enough to land her in the church choir. It was at choir practice one day that she caught herself sneaking a peek into the glass above the piano. And when she ADVENTURERS CLUB by-wor- ds it!; C Western Newspaper Union. Just as Nero fiddled when Rome burned. managed to ditch it behind one of the wings that flanked the platform. Then, the confusion of the moment over, Frank led his bind into a series of dance tunes, that would take about fifteen minutes to play. And the Band Just Played On. So, just as Nero fiddled while Rome burned, Frank led a whole orchestra into a flock of lively music, while all around him the guests of his employer were being robbed. But he didnt do it nonchalantly as Nero did. As a matter of fact, Frank was feeling anything but nonchalant. But it gave him and his boys something to do besides sit around and feel helpless, and on top of that Frank had an idea. The idea was that a holdup of that sort couldnt go unnoticed long. Somewhere in the big house, with many telephones, and swarming with servants, some one must have put a call through to the police. And Frank figured that if his band played those crooks might lose track of the time and be delayed a bit. So the band played. Meanwhile the boys in the orchestra were just as nervous as he was. Those crooks might not like the music and take a notion to start shooting. Frank looked at the piano player, noticed that he was playing with Cant use the other one, the only one hand, and asked him why. Its paralyzed. piano player shot back. But the thugs didnt seem to mind music, and his boys were getting more confident. The saxophone player slipped off his wrist watch and dropped it into his instrument, where it was concealed so thoroughly that he had to pay $2.50 the next day to have the sax taken apart. They played through the whole number and the thugs, far from objecting, seemed to like it. When they stopped one of them pointed his And Frank gun at the platform and uttered one word. says, The nose of that shotgun looked like the muzzle of a I can assure you that we played. The bandits, lulled by the music, were going about their work in a leisurely fashion. They seemed to be in a good mood, and no one was shot during the affair. They finished their work and started to leave. Mu-u-u-us- ic! one-pound- er. Then Came the Police, Shooting. As they were going down the stairs they met a .single policeman coming up. The cop, like the guests, first thought it was a staged joke. He said, All right, boys, the shows over. Lets have your gun. And the first bandit, dumfounded, handed over his revolver without a murmur. But at that moment a whole squad of police burst in the front door. A second bandit whipped np a shotgun and fired, wounding a captain in the thumb. At almost the same moment the captain let go with a .45, and the bandit tumbled down the stairs. He landed at the bottom at the feet of some guests who had just arrived, and there he lay in a pool of his own blood, a cynical smil? 0n his face, while the cops looked him over to see how badly he was hurt. He died the next day at Mercy hospital in Urbana. Two of the thugs escaped, but they were caught a few days later. When the cops had gone that night after the holdup, the hosts mother came over to Frank, handed him $20 and told him it was heroic of him to lead his band under such harrowing circumstances. And, says Frank, I blushed when I took it. If she could have only known it, I could have played all night after taking one look down the barrel of that shotgun. C WNU Service. |