Hollywood Show

For the last six years the nearest thing to super-stupendous on the air has been the Lux Radio Theatre. Its casts have included all varieties of cinema hotshots. Its productions have often been so lavish that they overflowed the stage of CBS's Music Box Theatre in Hollywood. Even its rehearsals are a Hollywood event, with autograph seekers pounding at the doors. This week, after its usual summer pause, Lux Radio Theatre begins a new season with Myrna Loy and William Powell in the aerial version of Manhattan Melodrama.

Consulting wizard of the Radio Theatre is Cecil Blount De Mille. Nominally producer of the show, De Mille nowadays does little more than serve as commentator, leaves actual work of whipping programs together to Director Sanford Howard Barnett. Only when particularly knotty problems occur does De Mille contribute a bit of sage advice. Once, when animal imitators were unable to render the baying of a beagle, De Mille dispatched six of them to Lake Arrowhead, there to study the call of four fine hounds. Best scholar was one Lee Millar, who progressed so fast that he was eventually permitted to imitate Mr. Smith, the wire-haired terrier of The Awful Truth. Another imitator discovered by Lux was George Arliss, who supplemented his performance on one show with several fine peacock screeches.

In the course of its existence, the Radio Theatre has aired 272 different shows, ranging from Peg O' My Heart to the Life of Louis Pasteur. As an aerial Pasteur, Paul Muni was so nervous that he couldn't face a mike until a messenger was sent to his home for a violin. After sawing quietly away for a few minutes, Muni got a grip on himself, went through his act without a hitch. Another mike-fever victim was pop-eyed Joan Crawford, who was so scared during her first performance that she had to remain seated through it. As part of his job as Lux Radio's sage, De Mille has to calm such agitated performers. His favorite actors among those who have appeared in the show are Joel McCrea, Fredric March and Barbara Stanwyck, whom he describes as "sincere." Miss Stanwyck insists on going shoeless when she broadcasts.

Putting the Lux Radio Theatre on the air is a complicated business. Clearing rights to a script often takes weeks, and signing up stars is an uncertain enterprise. To make sure that cinema studios won't interrupt Lux plans by whisking actors away to distant locations, the Radio Theatre has established an elaborate understudy system. Rehearsals begin on Thursday, continue until air time Monday night. Part of the ritual of every rehearsal is a spot of tea, a custom introduced by Hollywood's British contingent. Seldom on hand until Saturday. De Mille, who receives $2,000 a week for his stint, sits quietly through rehearsals, patiently corrects his script as Barnett suggests. But he blossoms out each Monday night. Stars usually attend Radio Theatre premieres in slacks and sport clothes. De Mille, when not busy on a picture, wears a trim business suit which he dons in his dressing room on reaching the theatre. When he is busy, he goes in a costume of tan, high-laced field boots, dark riding breeches, pastel green jacket with vest to match and a dark green shirt. He invariably instructs the announcer to apologize to the audience for his workaday appearance, despite the fact that spectators are stunned by the getup.

As master of ceremonies for Lux Radio Theatre, De Mille is sometimes absentminded. Near season's end last year, he announced that the next Lux bill would be "Sidewalks of New York," his offhand reading of the script's Sidewalks of London. He rarely misses a performance. Once when he was ill he had himself conveyed to the theatre in an ambulance, did his bit from a stretcher with a hospital intern and nurse looking on.

Top price for stars on the Lux program runs to $5,000 a performance. One hundred and ninety-seven famous performers have appeared in the show to date. Valuable by-product of their visits is a sound-effects drum which all of them have signed. Estimated worth of the drum today is $9,000, and the sound-effects man hates to hit it for fear of ruining autographs. Marlene Dietrich has been almost obliterated from the effects of hurricanes and earthquakes.

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