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Camel. On the heels of the Lux hour, the "Camel Caravan" trekked to Holly-wood for a new start last June 30. Resulting show was a "clambake" (radiomen's term for a program with many unrelated items), featured two bands, vocalists, and, as master of ceremonies, Author Rupert Hughes whose flat, querulous voice suggests Donald Duck's. There were cinema stars in short, glamorous radio dramatizations of crowd-pleasing plays and pictures. So well had Clark Gable helped launch Lux in California that he was signed to appear in Camel's opening Holly-wood show at the same price Lux had paid him. Men in White was the Gable vehicle, British Cinemactress Madeleine Carroll the Gable leading lady, $6,250 the Gable fee.
Easy-going and informal, Clark Gable is credited with breaking the Hollywood taboo against permitting audiences at broadcasts. He made his radio debut two years ago. Since then, Gable's radio appearances have been judiciously spaced.
Like most stars, he is as well pleased with radio as radio is with him. The work is light, two or three rehearsals and a performance from a written script. The monetary windfall comes in handy, even for one who earns some $150,000 a year from screen work.
By the terms of his Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract, Actor Gable may now make four annual commercial radio appearances. This year's two remaining broadcasts have already been engaged by Camel. This week. Actor Gable was thoughtfully thumbing the scripts of The Last Mile, What Price Glory, Little Old New York, Journey's End and One Sunday Afternoon. From this list of dramas will come the radio adaptations used by Gable in his appearances in the Camel hour between now and Christmas. After that, any other sponsors who can pay his price may bid for Actor Gable's services.
The Camel program also has in store for its listeners Joan Crawford & Franchot Tone, Myrna Loy, Jean Harlow, Marion Davies, Herbert Marshall, Gloria Swanson.
Texaco opens its autumn radio season next fortnight with banjo-eyed Comedian Eddie Cantor and his company of funnymen on C. B. S. Reflecting the satisfied attitude of most advertisers toward their cinema salesmen, Texaco's George W. Vos announced: "Mr. Cantor is more than a comedian. He realizes that his job is to sell Texaco products to the public, and he brings us a sound background of actual business experience and an unusual knowledge of sales-promotion technique—a rare trait among so-called 'show people.' " Packard announced that the cinema's Dancer Fred Astaire would represent its cars this autumn in 26 weekly one-hour broadcasts originating in Hollywood. Now a good "singer, versatile Actor Astaire will vocalize, dance, read funny lines, play the piano, other instruments, for a reported weekly $5,000. Light-footed Fred Astaire got his radio start last year with Lucky Strike.