"You'll have to play faster here, or I don't think you'll make it," said Ernst.
Ernst was the maitre d' at Manhattan's Hotel Roosevelt Grill, and he was talking to 27-year-old Guy Lombardo the night the Royal Canadians opened there. A Chicago critic had called Lombardo's airs "the sweetest music this side of heaven," but still it made Ernst nervous. Lombardo was leaving out the boop-poop-a and just giving the dew. But Lombardo ignored him and kept fogging it into the roomfor 33 yearsto become one of the most popular and durable performers in U.S. show business. He...
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