Martin vs. Lewis, Round One (March 1954)

Some 25 years ago, I was reading Phil Rosenthal, then the TV columnist for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner. He mentioned catching “Living it Up” (1954) on TV over the weekend, and was puzzled as to how Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis could have been so fantastically popular during the 1950’s. I could relate, thinking back to my teen years when I'd watched “Jumping Jacks” (1952) one weekday afternoon and made the same observation.

My mother set me straight: “You never got to see them on The Colgate Comedy Hour. It was a live variety show and they were hysterically funny on it.” Ignorant of such things as kinescopes, I assumed I would never have that pleasure. Leonard Maltin could only write about their films in his book “Movie Comedy Teams” (1970, in which he labeled “Living it Up,” “probably their best”), with The Colgate Comedy Hour limited to a paragraph not much more detailed than my mom’s recollection. As late as 1985, when Rosenthal dismissed them, the only Martin & Lewis to be had were their 16 theatrical features. Today, of course, it’s a different story: the Colgates are ubiquitous on bargain-basement DVDs and as accessible as a YouTube search.

As I've written elsewhere, what made Martin & Lewis so dazzling, so captivating, is that each man made the other look positively brilliant. To discover their TV and, to a lesser extent, radio shows from the early fifties is to behold two guys in love with each other and their work, and having the time of their lives. Dean and Jerry created a symphony of slapstick that left audiences helpless with laughter – yet no matter how mad the hijinks, there was an undercurrent of mutual affection that won them a fulsome adoration other teams would never know. The two were the very definition of what we now term a bromance (although a few 1950's scandal sheets alleged the relationship veered into the forbidden zone). Watching the Colgates, you marvel at how often they keep touching each other. Laurel & Hardy, bedded down together for the night, didn't come into as much intimate contact as these two did just standing in front of the orchestra. And America adored it all; at their height, Martin & Lewis were the highest paid, most successful act in show business. The Smoothie from Steubenville and the Nebbish from Newark transcended any stage, screen or TV star you'd care to name.

Three generations have come along since Martin & Lewis went their separate ways. While a vociferous contingent of Dino fans would be horrified if their epitome of cool and suave had never parted from the screechy "Hey, La-a-a-d-y-y" guy, at the time it seemed unthinkable. The nation so loved Dean and Jerry that, even though they worked solo for 35 years, neither would ever be permitted to forget the other. During their first twenty years apart, when mutual animosity was at full strength, nothing brought a crowd to life faster than when one would mention his ex-partner.

So how and why did this partnership, seemingly beloved on all sides, self-destruct? It's a question that has spurred interest for over a half-century. Even Lewis' heartfelt account of the team, "Dean & Me: A Love Story," doesn't tell the whole story. With this entry, we'll look at the first full-blown argument between Dean and Jerry, which took place 56 years ago this month.

As late as 1952, both men were assuring Louella Parsons' readers that they'd never so much as raised their voices to one another. But apparently things had changed a short year later. Tension had been brewing between the two for several months, and by early '54, it spilled out into the open.

To begin with, when "That's Amore" became Dean's first big smash near the end of 1953, it created a strain. Martin was justifiably proud of his accomplishment; it was something for which he'd been striving since before the team was born. Unfortunately, the insecurity within Lewis's psyche that had remained relatively under control during the glory years began to flare. Maybe Dean would decide that he didn't need Jerry anymore. Maybe Dean was beginning to listen to those hangers-on who enjoyed telling each one that he'd be an even bigger star without the other. This time, rather than talk out his feelings, Lewis began to brood - and to assert his presence in their act.

Near the start of the Colgate hour of January 10, 1954, Jerry presented Dean with a gold record for "That's Amore" with his warm congratulations. The conclusion of the show was something else again. The pair staged what appeared to be a mock argument, at which point Martin ordered his partner off the stage. Dean began singing "Amore," but Jerry returned, bribing the cameramen to move in and force Dean into a corner, whereupon Jerry climbed upon the singer's back, smacked Dean's ears and pulled his hair while laughing manically. Dean tried to take it in stride, at one point calling out, "You're over-acting, Jerry," which was something of a code phrase used when one or the other was getting too rough. This time, Lewis didn't let up, and it's clear just before the fade-out that Martin was genuinely steamed.

In truth, Dean was growing weary of Jerry’s antics overshadowing the act, not to mention their hectic schedule, which left him little time to enjoy the fruits of success. He also couldn’t have been pleased when, in a fit of pique, Lewis dismissed their head writers, Ed Simmons and Norman Lear, shortly before the January 10 show; these were the guys who made sure he was funny, too. Additionally, Martin didn't understand Lewis' overt desire to bring pathos into their act, telling him, "Why don't you cut out this sad stuff and just be funny?" But his real bone of contention was their movies, the one element of their work destined for posterity. To the end of his days, Martin resented that most were cut from the same cloth: Jerry the innocent simpleton hero who carried the picture, and Dean the smooth sharpie who never seemed deserving of his partner's friendship, until the final reel when he suddenly became, in his words, "a right guy."

Upon conclusion of the Colgate segment, the team went to New York for a two-week stint at the Copacabana. On opening night, Hal Wallis and his partner Joe Hazen, along with their wives, enjoyed the performance from a ringside table. After the show, Wallis and Hazen met briefly with the team, setting up a luncheon meeting for the following day to discuss their next picture: "Big Top." The film had been in the planning stages for several weeks; the script written by Don McGuire, a friend and collaborator of Jerry’s since 1951.

When Wallis asked Martin if he’d be attending, Lewis kiddingly advised his partner: "You’d better let me go with him alone. I can get more out of him." Given his growing disenchantment with the status quo, perhaps that should have thrown up a red flag for Dino. Up to now, Martin had grudgingly accepted their scripts as the nature of the business, believing neither he nor Lewis were in a position to tempt the fate of the box office. But with a friend of Jerry’s as the lead writer, and with Jerry himself overseeing the results, perhaps he could expect something better this time. So Dean left the business to Jerry, who went over the script with Wallis and made several suggestions... for his own character.

On February 8, the scheduled first day of shooting, Wallis had the Clyde Beatty Circus, a fifteen-car train and eighty-five cast and crew members standing by on location in Phoenix, Arizona. All that was missing were the two stars, who refused to show up. The team’s agent, Herman Citron, told Wallis bluntly that Dean refused to do the script as written – this despite the fact that it contained several of Jerry’s suggestions - and Jerry wouldn’t do the film against Dean’s wishes.

McGuire and the team’s Colgate writers, Arthur Phillips and Harry Crane, sat down and hammered out further revisions, while Martin, Lewis and Citron met with Wallis. Lewis confessed, "I am enough of a ham that when you told me this business with the elephants and the other sequences, that I could only see what wonderful things I could do..." to the point where he completely overlooked his partner’s role, the conniving, slimy manager of the circus. It’s not recorded whether Dean opined on how well his partner was looking out for him, but he did make his objections known about the script. Wallis later wrote, "He said that he doesn’t want to play a cheat and doesn’t know what he is doing in the picture." The story had Dean singing only two songs: one to caged animals, the other to Jerry.

Lewis, Phillips and Crane spent one more long night penning revisions, with Martin once again deferring to his partner. The end result wasn’t much different, and Dean realized that it was endgame: with Jerry and their writers having turned in a final script, he’d have to go to work. But that didn’t mean he’d have to like it.

Shooting for the film, eventually titled "Three-Ring Circus," began in Phoenix on February 17. Two weeks went by before Martin was even needed for a scene, at which point some of the extras began wondering aloud about the size of his part and if he was still Jerry’s partner. (Note the attached page from TV and Movie Screen, a fan mag: a large shot of Lewis in character, a small inset of Martin waiting between takes.) Young children hired for an orphanage scene would gather around Jerry; some of them didn’t even know who Dean was. Lewis would later write, "It got pretty hairy. There were days when I thought Dean would ditch the whole package."

On March 3, Dean walked in on Jerry having his picture taken and being interviewed... alone. The easy-going Italian finally boiled over: "Hey, Jerry, what am I around here, a fifth wheel? If I’m not important to the act anymore, just let me know!" Reporters around the set got more from Martin: "I’m sick and tired of playing stooge to that crazy, mixed-up character!" Lewis retaliated with, "I’m fed up with my partner’s sensitivity. Everything I do is wrong. Anything happens he don’t (sic) like, he blames it on me. He hates me." The two stopped speaking and production nearly ground to a halt.

This particular feud, the first to be reported, lasted nine days. On March 12, in a meeting at MCA, the pair were forcibly reminded of their various commitments and coerced into a cordial reconciliation. But four days later, when Dean didn’t appear at Jerry’s birthday party – because he hadn’t been invited – the gossip columns again speculated on Martin and Lewis’s rapidly diminishing future together. The two issued a press release on the 18th, in which Lewis stated, "We had a disagreement. Well, it wasn’t exactly a disagreement, it was a fight. It started when Dean called me a dope. I got mad and told him to prove it, and that’s what we fought about. He did." Martin asserted that the team would split "on July 25, 1996 – our Golden Anniversary."

Needless to say, this lighthearted approach didn't keep reporters at bay, to the point where, on April 5, no less an authority than Groucho Marx felt compelled to write: "I've been reading in columns that there is ill feeling between you boys and that there's even a likelihood that you might go your separate ways. I hope this isn't true for you are awfully good together, and show business needs you.... If there is any ill feeling or bitterness between you, it will eventually affect your work. If that feeling does exist, sit down calmly together, alone - when I say alone, I mean no agents, no family, no one but you two - sit down alone, and talk it out."

Reportedly Marx sent the letter to both partners, but only Jerry replied, thanking Groucho profusely, noting "the sagacity of your words" and assuring him, "(I) have every intention of following your advice." And in fact Dean and Jerry did meet privately shortly thereafter, and things settled down.

Near the conclusion of shooting for "Three-Ring Circus," the two men spoke with Maurice Zolotow, Hollywood correspondent for The American Weekly, a Sunday newspaper supplement. Dean instructed Zolotow to "write down this part word-for-word just like I say it. I know that individually, going it alone, we would not be as great as we are together." Martin added, "When we shook hands on our partnership, I said in my heart, this is forever, ‘til death do us part. It still goes! Sometimes he makes mistakes. Sometimes I make mistakes. But as long as people let us alone, the team of Martin & Lewis will go on."

For his part, Lewis told Zolotow, "The closer you are to a person, the deeper the feelings. If the feelings are hard feelings, then they’re twice as hard. And if you’re emotional, like Dean and I are emotional, well, you can’t help flipping your lid sometimes. We yell at each other… and it gets in the papers. So from this they build up a story that we’re going to bust up. Never in a million years! Get this: we’re a partnership, a real partnership.

"This idea that I’m the funny guy and Dean is just a straight man is wrong. People may not notice it, but he’s got as many joke lines as straight lines. I feed him as many straight lines on our television show as he feeds me. Both of us have a different style of playing comedy, but we’re both essential to each other’s success. Anyway," continued Lewis, "Dino means more to me than a partner in a two-act. Outside of my wonderful wife, Dean is the person I’ve been closest to in my whole life. We’re so close that our minds think like one mind. There’s a very deep and profound love between Dean and me, and our act is good only because of this feeling of closeness."

A bullet had been dodged and the partnership was again on an even keel, so far as the public knew. Their next Colgate appearance, on May 3, attempted to seal it via a celebration of the team's eighth anniversary, with a highly fictionalized depiction of how the two paired up that concluded with them singing a ditty entitled "We Belong Together." But intimates knew that nothing much had changed: Lewis still controlled the act, which saw more and more "sad stuff" for Jerry, while Dean's part in their next picture, "You're Never Too Young," was no improvement over "Three Ring Circus." Another confrontation was inevitable.

When it came, things really did change... but not for the better.

NEXT: Round Two  

Yabba-Dabba-Dad! Happy Birthday, Pebbles Flintstone!

One of my favorite blogs is "Yowp," described by its owner as "stuff about early Hanna-Barbera cartoons." Today’s entry covers the arrival of Fred and Wilma Flintstone's blessed event.

Yes, Pebbles Flintstone was "born" 47 years ago this evening! Don't you feel old?

"Yowp" goes into much detail about the merchandising of Pebbles Flintstone (and reaction to it) that is only hinted at in the above article.

To be honest, I was never a big "Flintstones" fan when growing up. I watched the show from time-to-time, but if I laughed at all, it was more due to individual gags than to plot or characterization. Mostly I found the show as distasteful as its inspiration, "The Honeymooners." ("Scandalous," I heard someone say.) Yes, Jackie Gleason's masterpiece usually just annoys me. Despite posterity's apparent verdict, Norton and Kramden are not Laurel & Hardy: "Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into" is a whole lot more clever and charming than, "One of these days, Alice... POW! Right in the kisser!" Comedies about dumb male heads of household, whether they're named Chester Reilly, Ralph Kramden, Archie Bunker or Homer Simpson just turn me off. Maybe it's because my role models were mainly strong men: Superman, Joe Friday... even Bugs Bunny was sly, not stupid. Maybe I have too much respect for the role of husband and father to enjoy seeing them portrayed as obnoxious (and bigoted) boors.

Anyway, the anniversary of Pebbles' debut seemed like a good excuse to post that TV Guide article from the February 16, 1963 issue... and, for that matter, this article from the December 30, 1959 issue of Variety:

If the headline is confusing, you should know that "The Flintstones" began life as "The Flagstones." King Features, who syndicated the "Hi and Lois" comic strip, claimed ownership of the name "Flagstone," thus the change. By the end of the 1950's Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera were the undisputed kings of television animation, enabling them to sell ABC-TV on a prime-time animated show (a 26-episode commitment, no less) with nothing more than a 5-minute demo reel and a handful of storyboards. I'm not sure anyone, even Matt Groening, has that kind of cache today.

"The Best on Record" (1963): Is It Gone?

The discovery of a new clip of President Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963, sent me scurrying to the two TV Guide issues covering those infamous four days to see what didn’t air. The networks, of course, yanked regular programming within minutes of the gunfire on Friday afternoon and didn’t resume until after the President’s Arlington burial the following Monday. The aftermath of this singular tragedy came into our living rooms in real time, and united not just all Americans but all nations. “Television,” said ABC news anchor Ron Cochran during the weekend, “had actually become the window on the world so many had hoped it might be one day.”

As we resumed everyday life in the days ahead, so did TV. Most of the pre-empted programs appeared in December and the first two months of 1964. The 77 Sunset Strip episode shown in this Friday page aired on January 3; The Route 66 on January 24; "It's Mental Work" on December 20. The evening's scheduled foray into the Twilight Zone, "Night Call," finally appeared on February 7. Ballad of a Country, intriguing as it sounds, has vanished... at least from the depths of the worldwide web. If it was to be a live broadcast, perhaps that explains it.

Debuting late night movies plugged on the Saturday pages here for the Baltimore-D.C. region would have to wait; the networks remained on the air with news coverage, affiliate revenues be damned.

Of the Sunday programs, only Ed Sullivan was still live, so that particular lineup went by the wayside. Perhaps that was short-sighted; a little lightheartedness from Bert Lahr, Stiller & Meara and Topo Gigio might have given an emotionally drained viewing public some much needed relief. Most of the rest of Sunday was on film, while Judy Garland was videotaped... as much for her benefit as ours.

Also taped, according to this Close-up blurb, was The Best on Record. Designed to honor past and present Grammy Award winners, it looks like a dynamite hour, filled with the kind of variety that actually graced top forty radio once upon a time. Is there a genre not represented here? Folkies like me could dig Peter, Paul & Mary and the New Christy Minstrels; Connie Francis and Steve & Eydie assumed the pop duties; Tony Bennett provided his signature tune; Homer & Jethro kicked in a little country corn. And look at the star-studded lineup just doing introductions!

If taped, did this extravaganza ever make it to air? There doesn't seem to be any evidence that it did. Possibly some of it was cannibalized for a May 1965 special of the same title; Bennett and Henry Mancini are listed for that one, along with those Liverpool upstarts, the Beatles. If it was ever broadcast, the earlier version would've been sanitized in the wake of that dark Friday afternoon, the "First Family" routine in line for the initial shearing. There's a story, possibly apocryphal, about Lenny Bruce's first club appearance following the assassination. A crowd sat on the edge of their seats, wondering how this most notorious of the "sick comics" would address the tender subject. Bruce looked over the audence for a few seconds with the most somber expression imaginable, and finally sighed, "Man, Vaughn Meader is screwed!"

And so he was. Meader can be seen performing his Kennedy press conference shtick on Shout Factory's Hootenanny box set. The airdate for that clip was September 21, 1963... a scant two months before the world changed forever in front of his, and everybody else's, eyes.

And Now, Here's a Message From One of Our Sponsors!

Here, in the Mid-Atlantic region where I reside, it is snowing... and by all reports, it will continue snowing until tomorrow evening.

So, to all my East Coast family and friends, may I say that this weekend (at least until Super Bowl Kick-off) would be an excellent time to kick back and curl up with a good book, like this one:

"It's Arthur Godfrey Time!"

After all the media hoopla and public dismay surrounding professional golfer Tiger Woods and his various indiscretions, it’s useful to remember that we’ve been down this road before.

Fifty-seven years ago, America was in the throes of its love affair with Arthur Godfrey. Tiger at his most influential couldn’t hold a candle to “the ol’ redhead.” Sponsors of all shapes and sizes were pounding on CBS doors trying to get a piece of the action. If anyone doubted that Godfrey was the undisputed king of radio and television, a brace of magazines and newspaper columnists would beg to differ. TV Guide labeled him, “Boyish, open-faced, apple-pie likable… television’s Huck Finn.” Attempting to pinpoint Godfrey’s unprecedented appeal, Ben Gross of the New York Daily News, wrote: “It is his friendliness, his good cheer, his small-boy mischievousness and his kindly philosophy… or maybe it’s his magnetism, his personal attractiveness.”

Whatever it was, by 1953, Godfrey accounted for 12% of CBS’ annual television revenues, according to Robert Metz’s book, Reflections in a Bloodshot Eye. He had two prime-time series: “Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts” on Monday evenings (the lead-in to “I Love Lucy”) and on Wednesday, “Arthur Godfrey and His Friends,” an hour-long variety series… although “variety” might be too strong a word. Try to imagine tuning in weekly to see the same collection of singers and vocal groups – no vaudeville acts or celebrity guest stars, if you please; just Arthur and his “Little Godfreys” – alternately render a tune in between the host’s folksy banter and playful commercial spiels. Now imagine that this show is a top ten entry from 1951-54, while “Talent Scouts” – the “American Idol” of its day – is a top three show (#1 during 1951-52) during the same stretch. At one point early on, CBS gave Godfrey 15 minutes of prime time twice weekly to give ukulele lessons!

Then there was “Arthur Godfrey Time,” the 90-minute CBS weekday morning radio show simulcast on the TV network beginning in 1952. The show was only televised Monday through Thursday – on Friday, Godfrey hosted via remote from his Leesburg Virginia farm, which precluded any TV cameras. The show contained six 15-minute segments, each with a different sponsor, although Lipton Tea and Chesterfield cigarettes were mainstays (the latter until Godfrey went under the knife for lung cancer in 1959). Reportedly he refused to accept any sponsor whose product he didn’t personally endorse from his own experience… which ensured stockpiles of various freebees would make their way to Leesburg.

But the bigger they are, the harder they fall… and it was the final segment of “Arthur Godfrey Time” on Monday, October 19, 1953, that concluded with Godfrey’s metaphoric golf club to the head. This was, of course, the broadcast in which he fired singer Julius La Rosa on the air. Although “fired” might be too strong a word as well.

La Rosa was a Brooklyn native who, while serving a stint in the Navy, auditioned for Godfrey on October 4, 1950. Impressed with the young sailor’s vocal gifts, Godfrey twice had him appear on “Talent Scouts” when on shore leave, and promised him a steady job upon his discharge. The young man happily took him up on this generous offer (see related article), and on November 17, 1951, Julius La Rosa became one of “the Little Godfreys,” with steady appearances on “Arthur Godfrey Time” and “Arthur Godfrey and His Friends.” With Godfrey’s orchestra leader, Archie Bleyer, La Rosa co-formed Cadence Records and recorded a string of hits. By mid-1953, the 23-year-old crooner’s fan mail was outdistancing that of his boss.

That, however, may not have been the issue. According to La Rosa, he was forced to miss a ballet class (a Godfrey mandate to his entire on-air staff) due to a family crisis. The next day, he found a memo tacked to the staff bulletin board: “Since you felt your services weren’t required at the ballet lesson yesterday, you won’t be needed this morning on the show.” La Rosa tried to reach his boss at his hotel; he tried phoning… no luck. “I’m sure I’m in trouble,” concluded La Rosa, according to Max Wilk’s 1976 book, The Golden Age of Television: Notes From the Survivors. “What do you do when you’re in trouble in show business? You figure you need some muscle of your own, right? And you hire yourself an agent.”

With that move, La Rosa broke the unwritten commandment for Little Godfreys: Thou Shalt Not Acquire Outside Representation. And La Rosa picked a winner: Thom Rockwell, president of General Artists’ Corporation and personal agent for Perry Como. Said Godfrey at the time, “I had told (La Rosa) a long time ago one thing I wouldn’t stand for was outside interference by personal agents.” Before the ink had dried on La Rosa’s contract, Rockwell dashed off a letter to Godfrey and CBS informing them that he would henceforth be handling the singer’s affairs.

La Rosa knew what was coming: “Now it was just a question of when. Rockwell’s letter was mailed, (Godfrey) got it maybe by the end of the week.” At which point, he went to Frank Stanton, president of CBS, seeking advice. Stanton’s suggestion: You hired him on the air, you can fire him the same way.

Flash forward to the following Monday, October 19. La Rosa: “I get to work at the radio studio (for “Arthur Godfrey Time”). I was scheduled for the 10:15 segment, but one of the ways Godfrey would discipline you would be to keep you sitting around there, waiting to go on. It was his show – he pulled all the strings. All morning I sit there waiting, I’ve got two different songs to do.”

With the clock closing in on 11:25, Godfrey finally told the studio audience, “I want you to meet a young man named Julius La Rosa.”

Most sources declare that the telecast had ended by this point; that only the radio audience heard what was to follow. It appears, though, that while some CBS-TV affiliates only covered part of the day’s proceedings, others signed on for the full 90 minutes and would have carried the finale. As an example, according to this TV Guide page for that date, Buffalo’s channel 4 televised only the second half-hour, but Syracuse’s channel 8 aired the entire program.

In any event, audio of the final five minutes survives and is in circulation. Some written accounts have Godfrey commenting on La Rosa’s rise to fame and snidely asking him, “This show must be a pain in the neck to you, huh?” or something similar, but the existing recording contains nothing of the sort. Rather, Godfrey assures the audience that their enthusiastic reception “pleases me mightily.” Arthur asks Julius, “How long ago did you come (to us)?”

Julius: “November 17, 1951… it’ll be two years next month.”
Arthur: “Not quite two years… so it was about three years ago when I first met you.”
Julius: “October 4th, 1950.”

The audience laughs at Julius’ precise recollection, but his voice sounds tentative… like he’s bracing himself for what might follow. Godfrey continues, addressing the audience:

Arthur: “When I first met Julie… I’ll never forget, when he first came up here, and I said to him, ‘When you get out of that man’s Navy, if you don’t want to stay in for thirty years, just come on up here, and I’ll give you a job,’ and he took me at my word. And he came and I put him to work, and immediately everybody loved him. And it has always done my heart good to see that you people saw the same quality in him that I saw. Which, if you have noticed, and I’m sure you have, is the same quality that I have in everybody in my cast. I picked ‘em all that way. Sure, he’s got a good voice, but lots of people have good voices. There’s something else that you like, which is a wonderful quality that is hard to get.

“I’ll never forget when he first came here and went to work steadily, he said to me, ‘Gee...” (to La Rosa) Do you remember how you used to go (exaggerated Brooklyn accent) ‘Chee!’ (Audience laughs) ‘I don’t know, with all those stars on the show.’ And I said to him, ‘Julie, you don’t know it, but I don’t have any stars in my show. In my show, we’re all just a nice big family of very nice people, like yourself. And you hold onto that quality and you’ll never have to worry about a thing; you’re just as big as anybody else. You just go on (and) try to improve yourself all the time and one day you’ll be the big star.’ And this boy in two years’ time has done this. He and Archie have their own recording company now and he’s gotten to be a great big name.

“And I would like Julius, if he would, to sing me that song called ‘Manhattan.’ Have you got that? Huh?”

Julius: “Yes, sir.”
Arthur: “Sing me that.”

Bleyer’s band struck up the tune and La Rosa sang. Applause… then it happened:

Arthur: “Thanks ever so much, Julie. That was Julie’s swan song with us. He goes now out on his own, as his own star, soon to be seen in his own programs. And I know you wish him Godspeed, same as I do.”

The audience can be heard registering their dismay at this news, but at that point, the sound cuts to the theme and Godfrey’s pre-recorded voice declaring, “This is the CBS radio network.” Apparently, TV stations still airing the simulcast cut off even sooner than that, right after the “swan song” remark. Later in the week, Godfrey told Edward R. Murrow, on the latter’s “Person-to-Person,” that he didn’t have enough time left for a full send-off.

Based on Godfrey’s build up of La Rosa’s star power during the broadcast, initial news reports assumed that the singer had requested his release, which was graciously granted. But Rockwell saw the chance for the kind of publicity money couldn’t buy. The next day, La Rosa told the press he was “a very confused guy,” not comprehending his dismissal at all, while Rockwell bragged, “Anyone who can make four thousand bucks for a one-night stand needs an agent. The kid is hot, there’s no question about it.”

Kid indeed. Twenty-three years later, La Rosa understood just how green he was: “Talk about twisted values. I was completely unprepared for what happened – the enormous impact the whole thing had.” Not two days after what was now reported as a public firing, Ed Sullivan – ever the opportunist – signed La Rosa for thirteen appearances on his “Toast of the Town.” “Again, I wasn’t prepared,” said La Rosa. “I felt like saying, ‘No, not thirteen times a year for all that money – please, let me go up to the mountains, let me do shows, clubs; let me learn what I’m doing first – order me back then.’” Not a chance; as Rockwell said, “the kid” was hot.

Behind the scenes, Godfrey also released Archie Bleyer, ostensibly for paying more attention to his record company to the detriment of Godfrey’s programs, but primarily because Bleyer had used part of a two-week paid vacation to record Don McNeill, Godfrey’s long-time rival from ABC. In fact, this axe fell just hours after the “swan song” broadcast. “It really hurt,” Godfrey told the press. “I said, ‘Arch, I just fired Julie and it was like tearing my eyeballs out, and I guess you’re next.” With this news, the press went berserk; you can sample just a portion of their output here.

With La Rosa’s “confused guy” coupled with Rockwell’s bluster, Godfrey’s temperature rose, and he felt compelled to make a public statement… which would become his metaphoric cell phone text to the mistress. “Whenever I take anybody on my shows, it’s because I go a little crazy about a quality I see in them which, for lack of a better word, I call ‘humility.’ I don’t have any real artists on my show…. I’ve felt that, rather than a good voice, a likable, lovable personality is more important.” Godfrey then explained that, with the hiring of an outside agent, it was clear to him that La Rosa had lost this quality.

Meanwhile the public, after having gorged on all this coverage, eventually decided that if Arthur Godfrey was concerned about lost humility, perhaps he should start searching for his own. From this point on, the decline began. Both his night-time shows fell from the top ten – and “Godfrey and His Friends” dropped out of the top twenty – during the 1953-54 season, never to return. In April 1955, Godfrey went on another purge, firing several long-time “Little Godfreys” like Marion Marlowe, Lu Ann Simms, Haleloke and Bleyer’s successor, Jerry Bresler. For his troubles he received another round of bad press. Although other “Friends” would come along – notably Pat Boone and Carmel Quinn – they could not restore the show or its host to their former glory.

“Arthur Godfrey and His Friends” left the air in the summer of 1957, and “Talent Scouts” a year later. At least a portion of “Arthur Godfrey Time” would be telecast until April 1959, while the radio show continued until 1972. Godfrey weaved in and out of TV during the 1960’s, hosting specials and variety shows like “Hollywood Palace.” His successful battle against lung cancer awarded him some long-lost respect, but he would never again command the power of the old days.

Godfrey died in 1983, having long since been consigned to nostalgia retrospectives, trivia questions, and word-association games (the word being “humility”). Today, we look at the few kinescopes and listen to surviving broadcasts, and wonder what our grandparents were thinking, paying this guy so much attention and buying whatever he told them to. Armed with the La Rosa incident – and “Julie” remains to tell his side of the tale – and a few other latter-day recollections, posterity labels Arthur Godfrey an opinionated, hard-nosed, conceited S.O.B. of limited talent, who fooled the great unwashed with a generous helping of folksy charm, hopelessly outdated in these modern times. That may not be wholly true, but it’s the perception that sticks.

Perhaps Tiger Woods should take note: no matter how great you think you are, the public is notoriously fickle when it comes to celebrities. The issue isn’t that they can’t or won’t forgive your foibles. The issue is that they can’t forgive themselves for being taken in by a carefully crafted image… and they’ll take that out on you. Arthur would know.