Peter Atkinson: Gord Atkinson's The Golden Years of Entertainment

Book Review: The Golden Years of Entertainment

by Gord Atkinson

The Golden Years of Entertainment (2016) is a second volume of collected interviews by my father, Gord Atkinson, with a legion of famous celebrities from the world of popular entertainment. Volume One, Gord Atkinson's Showbill was published in 1996.

The Golden Years of Entertainment opens with “The Summer of ‘45”, a brief reminiscence by my father on his trip to Hollywood as an 18-year old soldier. As WW II was ending, he met many of the greats of the golden era of entertainment, including Bette Davis, Marlene Dietrich, Errol Flynn, Cary Grant, and Bing Crosby. The trip was the beginning of his life-long contact with hundreds of showbiz greats.

My father (in middle), age 18, at MGM Studios, getting William Powell's autograph - August 1945

His chapter “Radio Daze” should be required reading for any college or university radio and television course as it provides a wonderful first-hand account of the “do-it-yourself …adolescent years” of radio broadcasting. (7) All broadcasts in the late 1940s and early 1950s were live, so bloopers were common. One that my father admits to during his early days with CFRB in Toronto was encouraging his listeners to enjoy “a delicious bowl of Aylmer SOAP.” (8) Atkinson captures well the spirit of fun associated with that era of live broadcasting by recounting the gag that his colleague and life-long friend (and later brilliant character-actor) Larry Mann often pulled on him and rookie radio announcers. At the most inopportune times, Mann would pretend to descend and re-ascend stairs to an imaginary basement. (for instance, while the nervous announcer was reading a commercial)

“Millennium Memories” is a “nostalgic review” of the pre-rock ’n’ roll era of the 20^th century. Atkinson focuses on this early half of the century because, he maintains, it has received “scant attention from today’s media”, which are, instead, obsessed with the entertainment stars of the rock era. (15) States Atkinson, “It seems by today’s standards, that the 20^th century began with the guitar strains of Rock Around The Clock.” (17) Among his musings on the early decades of the 20^th century, Atkinson notes that the roaring 20s were every bit as excessive and rebellious as the much ballyhooed 1960s, and that the pre-television era radio dramas created a unique and exciting genre of “theatre of the mind”. (31)

Anyone who visited Expo ’67 will enjoy reading the chapter entitled “The Greatest Show on Earth”. Atkinson made 12 trips from Ottawa to Montreal to visit Canada’s Centennial World’s Fair. His recollections such as the “gorgeous artifacts of cut and stained glass” of the Czechoslovakian exhibit, “the cinema-in-the-round at the Bell Canada pavilion”, the Canadian Pavilion’s inverted pyramid shape, the “smartly dressed hostesses in blue

tailored uniforms, and even the long line ups are certain to evoke many fond memories of what he describes as the “greatest entertainment value of all time.” (40)

My father's Expo '67 Press Pass

The bulk of The Golden Years of Entertainment consists of “Showbill Profiles” that are based on radio interviews that Atkinson conducted during his over 40 years in radio. My father’s thorough preparation for celebrity interviews, and his polite, respectful, and unobtrusive manner impressed his interview subjects such that they often revealed to him unique perspectives, interesting anecdotes, and deeply personal reflections.

Take for example his 1982 interview with musical composer George David Weiss. Knowing that my father had interviewed Elvis Presley (in 1957) and possessed a keen interest in songwriting, Weiss shared with my father the little-known story behind the creation of the song “Can’t Help Falling in Love”. Weiss told Atkinson that he was commissioned by the publishers associated with the Presley film Blue Hawaii to write a song for a particular spot in the script. However, when he auditioned the song for them, they were lukewarm about it, saying, ”Where’s the beat? It’s not rock ‘n ‘roll.” Likewise, ‘Colonel’ Tom Parker panned it. If not for Elvis’s own high regard for the song, it would never have been recorded by Presley!

My father with Elvis Presley - Ottawa, April 3, 1957

Then there’s the anecdote songstress Peggy Lee shared with my father regarding how she coped with stage fright early in her career when she was working with Bing Crosby:

I would be pacing up and down the halls of NBC. One day Bing noticed me pacing nervously and asked if there was anything he could do to make me feel more at ease. I told him there was something strange that he could do to help me. He said, ‘I don’t mind, what is it?’ Well, I replied, when you introduce someone on the program you usually leave the stage to them. I would be happy if you would stay right by me so that I can see your feet. That way I’ll know you’re nearby and I won’t be so nervous. I don’t think there are many people who serenaded Bing’s feet. (91)

Lorne Greene, who was a CBC radio broadcaster long before he became a television star on Bonanza, told my father the following amusing story during an interview: “I was filming a TV show in Banff … when I was approached by an elderly man, who said to me in an Eastern European accent, ‘Mr. Greene, you forget this Hollywood foolishness, you come back and do the news!’ It had been over 30 years since he had heard me on the radio. I was so impressed that I hugged him.” (57)

My father with Lorne Greene

Equally amusing was the story impressionist Rich Little told my father about how he got fired as a teenager from his job as an usher at Ottawa’s Elgin Theatre. While a film was playing, Rich would record the soundtrack dialogue on a tape recorder so that, later, he could study the various actors’ voices and imitate them. “My employment was terminated abruptly … when one evening I accidentally rewound my tape recorder and its high speed whining sound was heard throughout a packed Saturday night full house. Irate customers were shouting out their displeasure as I sheepishly made my way to the exit.” (47)

English actor Stewart Granger, who starred during the 1940s and 1950s in adventure movies such as Scaramouche, Caravan, and Prisoner of Zenda, shared, during an interview with my father in 1988, the following account of filming a movie in London during the Blitz:

Gord with Stewart Granger - 1988

When we were making films in the 1940’s, …the bombs were falling on London. Everyone got lost in the blackout. Driving home at night from the studio was treacherous. All the vehicles had their headlights covered allowing only a narrow beam of light to shine on the road ahead. One night visibility was so bad that I parked the car on what I thought was the side of the road and walked to a tube station to get home. The next morning I was aghast when I realized that I had left the car in the middle of the road up against a traffic island. (127)

During his 1984 interview with Jimmy Stewart at Stewart’s home in Beverly Hills, the great movie star revealed to my father the inspiration behind Frank Capra’s film It’s a Wonderful Life: “… it was inspired by just a few lines on a Christmas card that the Capra family received. Frank was deeply moved by its message that ‘no man is a failure who has friends’…. “(207)

However, my favourite anecdote in the book is song writer James Van Heusen’s story behind his and Johnny Burke’s co-writing of the lyrics for Swingin’ on a Star’:

… we were invited by Bing [Crosby] to dinner at his house. His four boys were young kids at the time. Gary, the oldest, was being unruly and Bing was trying to keep him in line. Gary was being stubborn and sloppy at the dinner table and Bing said to him, ‘so you want to be a pig, eh, or would you rather be a mule?’ Burke’s face lit up and I looked at him and we knew that we had a song. We went home and the song was written the next day. It went on to win the Academy Award and became a children’s classic and one of Bing’s golden records. (141)

My father presenting a copy of his radio series The Crosby Years to Bing & Katherine Crosby

What emerges more than anything else from the pages of The Golden Years of Entertainment is the high regard that the Hollywood establishment of the past had for Gord Atkinson as an interviewer. Irving Caesar, writer of melodies such as “Tea For Two”, “Swanee”, and “Just a Gigolo”, and arguably one of the greatest songwriters of popular music, had the following to say (with pun intended) when he heard the radio series my father produced about his career: “It is a classic example of the art of interview. You have rendered unto Caesar a tribute due to Caesar. I take it with humility and gratitude.” (134)

Even the incomparable Bob Hope acknowledged, in a most interesting way, the impact of my father’s interview skills. My father states that “One time while visiting Bob’s home with Rich Little, [Bob] surprised me by telling Rich that he not only knew me, but that we had ‘worked together’. He obviously meant that I had interviewed him several times.” (146)

My father with Bob Hope

In the section of the Epilogue titled “Always Leave ‘Em Laughing”, Atkinson shares a hilarious story from 1964 when he attended a performance on Broadway of the musical What Makes Sammy Run. Paul Anka’s father, Andy, had arranged for a ticket to be left at the box office for my father. Unfortunately, he was late arriving at the theatre due to taping of interviews at the Song Writer’ Hall of Fame. Rather than having to rush inside the theatre and try to figure out how to get his ticket, to his amazement, my father was greeted by a uniformed usher who said, “Right this way, Mr. Atkinson.” He was then escorted to the best seat in the house, and even though it was a few minutes past curtain time, as soon as he sat down, the “conductor tapped his baton”, and the play began! (218) It wasn’t until later that my father figured out the reason for his royal treatment – He had likely been mistaken for the famous theatre critic Brooks Atkinson!