Breaking Walls

Humphrey Bogart was born to Belmont Bogart and Maud Humphrey on Christmas Day, 1899 in New York City. The eldest child, his father came from a long line of Dutch New Yorkers, while his mother could trace her heritage back to the Mayflower.

Belmont was a surgeon, while Maud was a commercial illustrator and suffragette. Young Humphrey was sometimes the subject of her artwork—a detail that got him teased in school. Maud earned over fifty-thousand dollars per year at the peak of her career. They lived in an Upper West Side apartment, and had land on the Canandaigua Lake in upstate New York.

Bogart and his two younger sisters watched as their parents — both career-driven — frequently fought and rarely showed affection to them. His mother insisted they call her Maud. Bogart remembered her as straightforward and unsentimental.

Bogie inherited his father’s sarcastic and self-deprecating sense of humor, a fondness for the water, and an attraction to strong-willed women. He attended the prestigious Trinity School and later Phillips Academy. He dropped out of Phillips after one semester in 1918, deeply disappointing his parents.

Bogart enlisted in the Navy in the Spring of 1918, serving as a Boatswain's mate. He later recalled, "At eighteen, war was great stuff. Paris! Sexy French girls! Hot damn!" He left the service on June 18th, 1919 with a pristine record.

Bogart returned home to find his father’s health and wealth doing poorly. Bogart’s liberal ways also put him at odds with his family, so he joined the Coast Guard Reserve and worked as a shipper and bond salesman.

Unhappy with his choices, he got a job with William A. Brady’s World Films. He was stage manager for daughter Alice Brady’s production of A Ruined Lady. He made his stage debut a few months later as a butler in Alice’s 1921 production of Drifting. He had one line, and remembered delivering it nervously, but it began a working relationship that saw Bogart appear in several of her productions.

Bogart liked the hours actors kept and the attention they received. He was a man who loved the nightlife, enjoying trips to speakeasies. He later joked that he "was born to be indolent and this was the softest of rackets."

The man never took an acting lesson, preferring to learn on the job. He appeared in at least eighteen Broadway productions between 1922 and 1935, playing juveniles or romantic supporting roles, more in comedy than anything else.

While playing in Drifting at the Playhouse Theatre in 1922, he met actress Helen Menken. They married in May, 1926. They divorced eighteen months later, but remained friends. In April 1928, he married actress Mary Philips. Both women cited that Bogart cared more about his career than marriage.

Broadway productions dropped off after the Wall Street Crash of 1929. Many actors were heading for Hollywood. Bogart debuted on film with Helen Hayes in The Dancing Town.

He signed a contract with The Fox Film Corporation for seven-hundred-fifty dollars per-week. There he met Spencer Tracey. They became close friends.

Tracy made his feature film debut in his only movie with Bogart, John Ford’s early sound film Up The River, from 1930. They played inmates. Bogart next appeared opposite Bette Davis and Sidney Fox in Bad Sister.

Shuffling back and forth between Hollywood and New York and out of work for long periods, his father died in 1934.

That year, Bogart starred in the Broadway play Invitation to a Murder. During rehearsal producer Arthur Hopkins heard the play from offstage and sent for Bogart, offering him the role of a lifetime. He cast Bogart as escaped murderer Duke Mantee in Robert Sherwood's The Petrified Forest.

Have you been enjoying Breaking Walls? If so, give the show a quick rating on whatever platform you listen, especially iTunes.

In Breaking Walls episode 139 we spotlight The Martin & Lewis show, and pay close attention to Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe.

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Highlights:

• Capital Gains and Thanksgiving on NBC

• The Nightclub Act

• Opportunity Flops

• The My Friend Irma Movie

• Dragnet

• The Show Relaunches — Frank Sinatra Guests

• Marilyn Monroe Makes a Rare Radio Appearance

• Splitting, Then Reuniting

• Looking ahead to Bogie

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The WallBreakers:

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Subscribe to Breaking Walls everywhere you get your podcasts.

To support the show:

http://patreon.com/TheWallBreakers

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The reading material for today’s episode was:

• On The Air — By John Dunning

• Dean & Me: A Love Story — By Jerry Lewis

• Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime (Especially Himself): The Story of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis — by Arthur Marx

• Network Radio Ratings — By Jim Ramsburg

• Marilyn Monroe: The Biography — By Donald Spoto

As well as articles from:

• Billboard

• The Cleveland Plain Dealer

• LIFE Magazine

• The Los Angeles Times

• The New York Times

• Variety

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On the interview front:

• Jack Benny and Virginia Gregg spoke with Chuck Schaden. Hear these interviews at SpeakingofRadio.com.

• John Gibson spoke to Dick Bertel and Ed Corcoran for WTIC’s The Golden Age of Radio. Hear these full interviews at GoldenAge-WTIC.org.

• Both Frank and Nancy Sinatra Jr. spoke with Larry King.

• Marilyn Monroe spoke with Dave Garroway for NBC’s Monitor in 1955.

• Both Martin and Lewis spoke with Cedric Adams for WCCO in 1952.

• Dean Martin spoke with Edward R. Murrow in 1958 and with Randi Oakes in 1984

• Jerry Lewis spoke with Sam Denoff for The Television Academy in 2000.

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Selected music featured in today’s episode was:

• Hen Ferchetan — By Avi Avital

• Memories Are Made of This — By Dean Martin

• Manhattan Serenade — By Richard Alden

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A special thank you to Ted Davenport, Jerry Haendiges, and Gordon Skene.

For Ted go to RadioMemories.com, for Jerry, visit OTRSite.com, and for Gordon, please go to PastDaily.com.

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Thank you to:

Tony Adams

Steven Allmon

Orson Orsen Chandler

Phil Erickson

Jessica Hanna

Perri Harper

Thomas M. Joyce

Ryan Kramer

Earl Millard

Gary Mollica

Barry Nadler

Christian Neuhaus

Ray Shaw

Filipe A Silva

John Williams

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WallBreakers Links:

Patreon - patreon.com/thewallbreakers

Social Media - @TheWallBreakers

Well, that brings our look at The Martin & Lewis Show to a close. Incidentally, we’ll be staying with this energy next month. I mentioned earlier that Dean made films with The Rat Pack. Frank Sinatra was also a member. Some people called Frank the leader. Some others have incorrectly attributed him as the founder of this crew.

But, our focus in Breaking Walls episode 140 will spotlight the true creator of The Rat Pack. Next time on Breaking Walls, we focus on Bogie, and Bacall too, when we spotlight the unsung radio career of Humphrey Bogart.

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The reading material for today’s episode was:

• On The Air — By John Dunning

• Dean & Me: A Love Story — By Jerry Lewis

• Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime (Especially Himself): The Story of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis — by Arthur Marx

• Network Radio Ratings — By Jim Ramsburg

• Marilyn Monroe: The Biography — By Donald Spoto

As well as articles from:

• Billboard

• The Cleveland Plain Dealer

• LIFE Magazine

• The Los Angeles Times

• The New York Times

• Variety

——————————

On the interview front:

• Jack Benny and Virginia Gregg spoke with Chuck Schaden. Hear these interviews at SpeakingofRadio.com.

• John Gibson spoke to Dick Bertel and Ed Corcoran for WTIC’s The Golden Age of Radio. Hear these full interviews at GoldenAge-WTIC.org.

• Both Frank and Nancy Sinatra Jr. spoke with Larry King.

• Marilyn Monroe spoke with Dave Garroway for NBC’s Monitor in 1955.

• Both Martin and Lewis spoke with Cedric Adams for WCCO in 1952.

• Dean Martin spoke with Edward R. Murrow in 1958 and with Randi Oakes in 1984

• Jerry Lewis spoke with Sam Denoff for The Television Academy in 2000.

By the summer of 1953 network radio was allocating increasing time to local affiliates. Budgets were shifting to TV. The final episode of The Martin & Lewis show aired on July 14th at 9PM eastern time. Gloria Graham was the guest. Opposite on CBS, Yours Truly Johnny Dollar aired starring John Lund.

Dean and Jerry made six more films together. Their last was Hollywood Or Bust in 1956. During shooting in 1956, their mutual animosity reached the point where Lewis would only speak to Martin through director Frank Tashlin, and Martin told Lewis he was nothing but a dollar sign.

After the film completed principal photography on June 19th, their breakup was widely reported. They fulfilled their contractual obligations with a farewell engagement at the Copacabana Club. Their last appearance was on July 25th, 1956, exactly ten years after their first teaming in Atlantic City.

Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis didn’t speak again privately for twenty years. Although both continued to thank each other publicly, like in this Dean Martin interview with Edward R. Murrow from 1958.

They crossed paths that year when Lewis was a guest on Eddie Fisher’s TV show. Martin jumped out from behind a curtain with a memorable line. The crowd—and Lewis—couldn’t contain their affection.

Free from Lewis, Dean Martin became a huge star, both as a recording artist, as a movie actor on his own and as a member of the Rat Pack. He also hosted his own hugely successful TV variety series, The Dean Martin Show.

Lewis remained with Paramount Pictures, appearing in and directing a succession of commercially successful films, at one point becoming Paramount's biggest star. He continued philanthropic work, which led to mutual good friend Frank Sinatra finally reuniting the duo on live TV during Jerry Lewis’ 1976 Labor Day telethon.

They embraced, with Lewis in tears, and their friendship renewed. Both claimed they spoke every day from then on.

Marilyn Monroe broke through as an actress in 1950 with small, but acclaimed roles in All About Eve and The Asphalt Jungle. She was then a mistress of Johnny Hyde, head of the William Morris Agency. Hyde negotiated a seven year contract with 20th Century Fox and then unexpectedly passed away of a heart attack.

In 1951, Monroe had supporting roles in three Fox comedies: As Young as You Feel, Love Nest, and Let's Make It Legal. With her star on the rise, she received several thousand fan letters a week, and was declared "Miss Cheesecake" by the army newspaper Stars and Stripes.

In early 1952 as she began a much-publicized romance with ex-Yankee Joe DiMaggio, Monroe revealed she’d posed nude in 1949, thus getting ahead of the scandal and gaining sympathy from the public. She explained she’d been broke and needed the money and was soon featured on the cover of Life magazine as the "Talk of Hollywood." Gossip columnist Hedda Hopper declared her the "cheesecake queen" turned "box office smash."

Wanting to improve her acting, she studied hard with Michael Chekhov. Two of Monroe's films — Clash by Night and Don't Bother to Knock — were released soon after to capitalize on public interest. The films showed her range, as Monroe played a fish cannery worker in the former and a disturbed babysitter in the latter.

In Howard Hawks's Monkey Business, she played a secretary opposite Cary Grant. In O. Henry's Full House, with Charles Laughton, she appeared in a passing vignette as a nineteenth-century street walker.

Monroe added to her sex symbol reputation by wearing a revealing dress when acting as Grand Marshal at the Miss America Pageant parade, and told gossip columnist Earl Wilson that she usually wore no underwear. By the end of the year, gossip columnist Florabel Muir named Monroe the "it girl" of 1952.

When Niagara was released in January 1953, women's clubs protested it as immoral. In some scenes, Monroe's body was covered only by a sheet or a towel, considered shocking by contemporary audiences. The film’s most famous scene is a long shot of Monroe from behind walking with hips swaying. Audiences turned out in droves.

The next month, Marilyn Monroe was the guest of Dean and Jerry’s February 24th, 1953 episode.

On Sunday November 5th, 1950 at 6PM, NBC launched a new ninety-minute star-studded program called The Big Show. Each episode cost over one-hundred-thousand dollars to produce. Hopes were high. Martin and Lewis appeared twice. This is from the December 17th broadcast. They also became regulars on TV’s Colgate Comedy Hour, which had over sixty-million million weekly viewers.

By the summer of 1951, Martin and Lewis had scored with blockbuster films in That’s My Boy and The Stooge, and a sell-out touring act. LIFE Magazine reported tour audience members refused to leave. They began doing free shows afterwards on their hotel fire escapes. The streets were jammed with onlookers.

Abby Greshler booked appearances on NBC-TV’s Colgate Comedy Hour, but it still bothered the pair that they’d flopped in radio. They wanted another chance.

NBC hired Ed Simmons and Norman Lear—Martin & Lewis’ comedy writers—to write the new program. Dick Mack was the director. NBC offered it as part of their new multi-sponsor experiment called Operation Tandem. Chesterfield Cigarettes, Anacin Tablets, and the makers of Chiclets gum signed on. The new show premiered on October 5th, 1951 to great reviews. Dinah Shore was the guest star.

In 1951, Frank Sinatra, at a low point in his career, didn’t make a single significant appearance on radio. Rejected by Hollywood, he turned to Las Vegas and made his debut at the Desert Inn in September. Sinatra became one of Las Vegas's pioneer entertainers.

Frank’s first wife, Nancy, filed for divorce. It became final on October 29th, 1951. Daughter Nancy Jr. remembered that time. Frank and Ava Gardner were married in a small ceremony less than two weeks later on November 7th. In financial difficulty following his divorce and career decline, Sinatra was forced to borrow $200,000 from Columbia to pay his back taxes.

On Friday, January 18th, 1952 The Martin & Lewis Show took to the air with good friend Frank Sinatra as the guest of honor. This particular episode was a forty-five minute special.

This episode’s rating was a 6.0. The overall season rating was 5.5. This is Your F.B.I. over ABC won the 8:30 time slot with a 7.2. Opposite on TV, NBC telecast We The People, and CBS’ Man Against Crime starring Ralph Bellamy pulled a rating of 32.

For more information on the career of Frank Sinatra, tune into Breaking Walls episode 85.

Even with audiences leaving for TV, Readers of TV-Radio Life voted The Martin & Lewis Show their favorite comedy show of 1952, while the two made the films Jumping Jacks and Sailor Beware.

The U.S. spent the first ten months of 1949 in a recession. Competition for the advertising dollars was stiffer. There were now over two-thousand-six-hundred AM and FM stations.

Television was becoming a serious threat. Over a hundred TV stations were on the air. Only two Network Radio shows had a rating higher than 20. Just two years earlier, there were fifteen.

Radio’s average Top 50 ratings dropped 30% to its lowest level since 1937. Suddenly the reality of radio drama’s demise was staring men and women in the face, like the just-heard John Gibson who played Ethelbert on Casey, Crime Photographer.

Meanwhile, NBC, ABC, CBS, and the Dumont Network reported a combined TV income of $29.4 Million. But advertisers were learning that TV production costs were much greater than radio’s. The extra money had to come from somewhere and radio budgets were the likely source.

Seven of radio’s top nine shows now aired on CBS, but that’s not to say there weren’t NBC radio successes.

Jack Webb’s Dragnet premiered coast-to-coast on Friday June 3rd, 1949 at 10PM eastern time over NBC. It featured some of Hollywood radio’s most talented character actors, like the just-heard Virginia Gregg. It wasn’t long before Liggett and Myers tobacco signed on as sponsor.

CBS took notice. A month after Dragnet’s premiere, they shifted Broadway is My Beat to Hollywood and put it under Elliott Lewis’ direction.

For more information on the launch of Dragnet, tune into Breaking Walls episode 111. For more information on Elliott Lewis, tune into Breaking Walls episode 113.

Although their radio show got canceled, Martin and Lewis were concurrently guest-appearing in a My Friend Irma film. Irma was one of CBS’ top shows starring Marie Wilson. The movie debuted on August 16th, 1949.

Critics panned everything about the film, except Martin and Lewis, and the duo continued to be a smash at live shows.

NBC brought the program back on Friday October 7th 1949. The network had to allow the duo to plug their CBS-inspired film on air. Thirteen additional weeks with no sponsorship ensued. NBC claimed fourteen sponsors wanted the duo as a TV show, but Dean and Jerry wanted to make it on radio first.

Radio and TV Life called them blind. They were a hit with all the live crowds, but something was missing over the air. NBC seemingly canceled them for good on January 30th, 1950.

As part of NBC’s programming development, One-point-five Million dollars was allocated towards new shows. The network’s first major signing was Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.

In August of 1948 they made their Hollywood debut at Slapsie Maxie’s. They were soon guest-starring on Milton Berle’s TV show, and other comedians thought their Elgin appearance groundbreaking.

On December 22nd the duo recorded an audition with Bob Hope. Hope recorded a new set with Martin & Lewis on March 24th, 1949. Things quickly fell apart as the trio couldn’t help but adlib.

NBC picked the series, marketing the team as the next big sensation in radio. Their agent, Abby Greshler, negotiated a great deal with Paramount’s Hal Wallis. They’d receive seventy-five thousand dollars for films and were free to do one outside film a year, which they would co-produce through their own York Productions. The duo also had complete control of their club, radio, and TV appearances, as well as their recording contracts.

In the lead up to the premiere of their radio show, Martin and Lewis appeared on the March of Dimes, the Chesterfield Supper Club, the Sealtest Variety Theatre, and The Bob Hope Show. The Martin & Lewis Show finally debuted on April 3rd, 1949. Their first guest was Lucille Ball. It has a similar script to the audition recorded with Bob Hope.

But The Martin & Lewis Show was a flop. No sponsor was interested in advertising such a visual team on a sound-only medium. They switched broadcasting locations from Hollywood, to New York, then back to Hollywood. They also brought in new writers and characters. Nothing worked.

NBC pulled the plug after the September 6th broadcast.