Harvest Moon

(See front cover)

Morton Downey received last week $4,500 from the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. (Camels) for singing, in his high, cajoling tenor, half a dozen songs into the radio every evening. The week before he got $5,500 for appearing briefly on the stage of Manhattan's Paramount Theatre. Six weeks ago he closed his supper-club in the smart Delmonico Hotel. For last week alone, the royalties on his own song ''Wabash Moon" (which, until he recently adopted "Carolina Moon" because Camels are made in Winston-Salem, N. C., was the "signature" of his broadcasts) amounted to $1,600. It was consequently clear that Morton Downey had been the outstanding success of the radio season which, last week, had begun to draw in its antennae for the summer when static, storms and holidays make new attractions scarcer on the air.

No flash in tin-pan alley, it was a typical troubadour's success -- quick, dramatic, amazingly profitable. Half a year ago, though he had a chauffeur to drive his Rolls-Royce, Morton Downey was wondering if he had enough money to hire an orchestra and open a nightclub. He had just come back from London where in 1927 the Prince of Wales liked his voice so much that he had him sing an encore eleven times, but that was no guarantee that he would be able to make a luxurious living in Manhattan. Troubadour Downey had nothing much in his pocket except a cable from William S. Paley, president of Columbia Broadcasting Co., promising him a chance. In November he started the Delmonico Club, broadcast from it first once a week, then three times. Radio listeners liked his voice--high, sweet, and vaguely Irish--so much that a month later he was given a chance to compete with Blackfacists Amos 'n Andy whose grouchy arguments were considered an impregnable favorite with dinner-table audiences. The final proof of an immense, mysterious appeal was then found in the fact that some listeners, although not most, preferred Downey.

Vastly tickled by his fame, Troubadour Downey has no reluctance in stating that he eats three banana splits daily, has a blue chow named Teddy, sleeps raw* in a double bed, calls his wife "Lover," is covered with moles, bleeds easily when shaving. Superstitious, he still carries a cats-eye ring and holy medals for good luck. Because his name appears in their advertisements, he keeps Camels in his pocket and gives them all to friends. Quick-tempered, he once rebuked a famous polo player who was making too much noise in his night club. Shrewd, when Walter Winchell, famed obstetri-calligrapher of the New York Mirror, not wearing dinner clothes, tried to get in his club, Troubadour Downey turned him out, profited when Winchell publicized the incident.

The Downey success story, rewritten in such episodes, had been started in a chapter already partially forgotten five years before. A pudgy Irish youth, the son of a day laborer who raised a large family in Wallingford, Conn, and Brooklyn, he had stopped going to school when he was 15, sold candy on trains, acted in small time vaudeville, been an agent for Victrola records. There was nothing then to confirm his impression that he was a singer except the fact that his mother, annoyed by his childish caterwaulings, had often given him a nickel to keep quiet. Tammany Politician James Hagan helped him get jobs--the first one singing ten times a day in a burlesque theatre.

Later he met Paul Whiteman, sang with his orchestra on the Leviathan. When not singing he blew into a French horn that had no notes. He became a popular night club entertainer in Manhattan, then in London where his pudgy, unimpressive physique was an even less noticeable handicap than it had been in the U. S. Bored with night clubs, he made three talking pictures which attracted scant notice, met and married Barbara Bennett, went to Hollywood where he accomplished nothing except learning to ride a horse.

Practically forgotten when he returned to Manhattan after another London venture last autumn, Morton Downey owes his present affluence largely to Columbia's William S. Paley. Able Salesman Paley, eager to entice Camel advertising from the National Broadcasting Co., persuaded him to sing a sample program through a long-distance telephone to Winston-Salem, N. C., where it was relayed to Camel executives through a local station. It was an ideal episode for his recrudescent success story for Downey did his telephonic trial while his wife was undergoing a surgical operation.*

Plump, chatty, irresponsible, Troubadour Downey is still addicted to expensive cars, large apartments and other luxuries precious to those who have learned-- they may not keep them long, but he banks three quarters of his income, no longer has a chauffeur. He is proud that his appeal is not, like that of Rudy Vallee and other famed radio entertainers, based on vocal sexuality. It rests, rather, upon the fact that his high, clear voice broadcasts much more smoothly, more truly than voices which, louder and more pretentious, would easily be recognized as superior to his on a concert stage. A voice endearing and mellifluous, silvery and vaguely sad, it is the one which all high tenors in glee clubs, bathrooms and social club quartets imagine to be theirs. When singing he stands still, raises his arms rarely in his single gesture, lifts his round face to the ceiling so that it looks not unlike that Moon--Wabash, June or Carolina--which shines in the sky like a yellow coin for all ambitious troubadours.

* Meaning, naked. This has become a common reply to a common question of New York Daily News Colyumist Sidney Skolsky.

*Second of the three famed daughters of Actor Richard Bennett, Barbara was best known as dancing partner of the late Maurice. If Troubadour Downey had any doubts about his own importance they were doubtless resolved last month when he saw the front page of the tabloid New York Mirror almost entirely occupied by a photograph of his wife. A wily cameraman gained admittance to her hospital by bringing a large bouquet. In the bouquet was hidden a camera.

Constance, eldest Bennett daughter, married and divorced Millionheir Philip Plant, became a Pathe cinema star, was recently borrowed by Warner Brothers at the largest salary ($300,000 for ten weeks) ever paid a cinemactress. Joan, youngest daughter, acted on the Manhattan stage in Jarnegan, was selected by John Barrymore as his leading woman in Moby Dick (TIME, Aug. 25).

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