Arthur Godfrey, the one-man industry, is a proud, doting father to the "Little Godfreys" on his radio and TV shows. Before the mike and camera, he spoils them with praise; behind the scenes, he boxes their ears when they get too big for their britches.
Last spring, bedded in Massachusetts General Hospital after his celebrated hip operation, Godfrey watched over his flock by television, decided that one of his Little Godfreys—chunky, curly-haired Baritone Julius La Rosa, 23, an ex-bluejacket whose career he had launched two years ago—was getting a little cocky. He told CBS President Frank Stanton that Julius would get a good talking to. Fortnight ago, when Godfrey learned that La Rosa had flouted one of his rules by signing up with his own agent, he had a new report for the boss. "Arthur called me at home Saturday night," said Stanton, "and told me he was going to let Julius go. We decided that instead of having a press conference to announce it, the best way would be just to tell everyone over the air." Stanton added thoughtfully: "Maybe this was a mistake." If it was a mistake, it was a lulu.
A Special Quality. Last week, on his first morning show, Godfrey waited until the very end before pulling off history's most public firing.
Said he to his TV audience: "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 program, and I know you wish him Godspeed same as I do. Bye-bye!" Godfrey's abrupt sacking of Crooner La Rosa, which was news to Julius, was also a Page One story to newspapers across the country.* It was quickly made even juicier by the added information that Bandleader Archie Bleyer, 44, a longtime Godfrey regular, had been fired the same day from the daytime and Wednesday shows, would work only eight weeks more on the Monday night Talent Scouts.
Two days later Godfrey told the press why he did it. "When I take on a new entertainer," he said, "I look for a special quality, kind of indefinable, but the nearest I can come is a form of humility. It has something to do with being lovable, likable and wholesome ... I go a little crazy over that quality." That's the way Julius had been, "a shy, bashful, scared-to-death kid . . ."
During the last year, as Godfrey told it, Julius began to change into an "obstreperous" boy. He eyed outside offers, lost interest in the ballet and tap-dancing exercises for the Godfrey cast. "Julius went completely berserk, haywire." His signing with an agent was "the straw that broke the camel's back."
As for Archie Bleyer, said Godfrey, all choked up: "I love that man. He's a gentleman." But Archie, too, had lost his humility. Bandleader Bleyer had spent part of a recent vacation by going out to Chicago for his own record company and cutting some songs with the star of a rival network—ABC's Don (Breakfast Club) McNeill. "It's like being married to a woman for 20 years," said Godfrey mournfully, "and then coming home and finding a cigar butt in the ashtray."