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The Old-Time Radio Digest!
Volume 2002 : Issue 360
A Part of the [removed]!
ISSN: 1533-9289
Today's Topics:
Struts and Frets; On Sylvester Gross [ Charlie Summers <charlie@[removed] ]
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Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2002 22:45:23 -0400
From: Charlie Summers <charlie@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Struts and Frets; On Sylvester Gross
STRUTS AND FRETS
by Harry Bartell
++++
On Sylvester Gross
There is no doubt that my inauguration into the world of dramatic radio
caused quite a splash. It is only coincidental that I was the splashee.
What happened was this: somewhere along the line I had met Sylvester Gross,
the chief announcer at station KPRC in Houston. Sylvester was a fascinating
guy. He had a beautiful, rich voice and usually a marked stammer, but with a
microphone in front of him he could ad lib or read copy for an hour and a
half and never miss a beat. One of the perks for me was going with Sylvester
to the Hollywood Club in Galveston which had very lenient ideas about
Prohibition and gambling but hired bands like Phil Harris and the Dorsey
Brothers. Sylvester did the live remotes. And the club provided dinner!
I was in college at Rice but my real interest was as producer-director-and
naturally star of dramatic productions in the theater, or social hall as it
was sometimes called. These were honest-to-goodness plays using Samuel French
scripts although I can't remember corresponding with them about royalties. We
had sets and lights with coffee can spotlights and everything.
Sylvester played in a couple of these and since he had seen me in action
decided to include me in a new radio program he was starting. MGM sent out
tabloid radio versions of their current productions-sort of a Reader's Digest
treatment of a ninety minute film. I can't remember the title of my first
effort but I have a vague memory of it starring Nigel Bruce among others. If
that is true it is really ironic that I should meet him fifteen years later.
The actors were paid with tickets to the movie: 25 cents.
KPRC studios at that time were on the top floor of the Shell Building.
Rehearsals went swimmingly, "British" accents and all (I wish I had a
recording of those Texanized British accents) and we had gotten almost to the
end of the dress rehearsal when the crisis popped up. The whole plot hinged
on the poison in the scotch and soda. Soda meant siphon: seltzer bottle. We
didn't have one and we were about ten minutes to air time. The
director-announcer-soundman-star, Mr. Gross, started to panic.
As the former proprietor of a sidewalk soda water stand I suggested that if
we had a bottle of Coca-Cola we could punch a hole in the top and shake it to
make the necessary fizz. Sylvester dashed to the elevator, down the
twenty-odd floors to the newsstand in the lobby and returned triumphantly
with a bottle of Coke, punched a hole in the top with an ice pick and we hit
the air right on schedule.
As the climactic moment with the scotch and soda approached, Sylvester and I
were playing on opposite sides of a ribbon mike. He had his script on a music
stand so that he could hold the Coke bottle in one hand and the glass in the
other. While reading his lines he started vigorously shaking the bottle with
his thumb over the hole in the top. He must have built up about a thousand
pounds of pressure. When the magic moment arrived, while following the script
carefully, he lifted his thumb, held up the glass, missed the glass, hit the
microphone, hit me in the eye on the other side of the microphone.
It becomes a little vague after that. We got off the air. The engineer may
have been deafened for life. I had my clothes cleaned. And I was now a Radio
Actor.
- ------------------
Harry Bartell maintains that his major accomplishment as a professional actor
for forty years was to survive with his mind, morale and marriage intact.
Born in 1913 in New Orleans, he grew up in Houston and graduated Phi Beta
Kappa from Rice University in 1933. After a stint at Harvard Business School
and a couple of years forced labor in a department store he moved to
Hollywood and stayed there for the next fifty-one years. Three seasons at the
Pasadena Playhouse led to work in 185 radio series and 77 TV series plus a
dozen or so properly forgettable motion pictures.
This article will be archived by the end of the week at:
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End of [removed] Digest V2002 Issue #360
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