Hold the Roses (4 page)

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The first big thing NBC did was put me in a Vitaphone movie short.
These were fifteen-minute short subjects that went on before the features.
Many of the big stars of the day made these shorts. Harry Richman, Georgie
Price, Georgie Jessel, Sophie Tucker, to name a few If you remember these
names, you're an "Alta Cocka" like I am. But remember: I was five years old!

I wore my polka-dot coat and hat and a pink ruffled dress. I sang two
songs. My short was the one that played the Winter Garden Theater on
Broadway at the opening of The Jazz Singer starring Al Jolson. I went to
the premiere with my mother and father and met Mr. Jolson. He was very
angry about having to follow my short. My short was all singing, and The
Jazz Singer was part talk and part singing. He made such a fuss that I
thought he was going to hit someone. He kept raving and ranting, but
finally he went into the theater.

When the show was over, I saw him being congratulated. I ran over
to him and said, "Oh, Mr. Jolson, you were so great, you made me cry."

He looked at me and said, "You were great too, ya little runt."

Nice man! However, every time we would appear together at benefits, like the Milk Fund at Madison Square Garden, he would spot me
with my father, come over and say, "Hi, ya little runt. You gonna go out
and kill the people?"

I would look up at him and say, "I hope so."

He would give me a little kiss on the cheek and say, "Tell 'em they
ain't seen nothin' yet till they see Uncle Al." Go figure!

By now I was five years old and doing a lot of guest appearances on the NBC shows. I sang with the NBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by
Leo Reisman; after one rehearsal, he threw down his baton and said, "I
can't believe this child. She has such a knowledge of tempo and rhythm.
She can't be five years old! She's a midget." And he stormed off the podium. (More on the midget bit later.)

From Vitaphone short, The Child Wonder, 1928

I sang on the RKO Theater of the Air, The Rudy Vallee Show, which
was the biggest hit on the radio at that time. We did his show in the basement of the Brooklyn Paramount Theater. Rudy was a wonderful friend to
me, and when I went to California in 1945, I did his show again. In fact, it
was the first show I did after I got married.

Being with NBC was a blessing because I was given the opportunity
to do so many things. I started making records on the Brunswick label. I
did songs like, "Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are," "Take a Picture of the Moon" and "Say That You Were Teasing Me," to name a few.
All cute songs.

Bernie Cummings and His Orchestra were playing at the New Yorker
Hotel on 34th Street in Manhattan. They played there every night and had
two radio shows a night broadcast coast to coast as well. Those were the
days when most of the big bands had radio shows from the places where
they were appearing. "Radio remotes," they were called.

Some of you will remember when an announcer would say over the
music, "Ladies and Gentlemen, from the Aragon Ballroom, Lawrence Welk
and his orchestra." This was, "Ladies and Gentlemen, here's Bernie
Cummings and his Orchestra from the New Yorker Hotel in the heart of
Manhattan, starring Baby Rose Marie." I sang on these radio shows twice
a night for several months.

I was six years old when the New York Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Children started to bother us about the child labor laws. Sometimes known as the Gerry Society, it was created to enforce the child labor
laws. The laws in the state of New York about children working were very
strict. It came about back when there were children working in the factories day and night, with no proper meals, schooling and time to sleep.
Hell, it wasn't work for me-I loved it.

Nevertheless, we had to meet the head man of the Gerry Society, who
said, "So many mothers have called to complain: `How come she can work
and sing on the radio and you won't allow my daughter or son to do that?"'
Apparently it was all right to sing on the radio, but you couldn't sing or
dance in a show. Children could talk on the stage in plays, but no singing
or dancing. It was really a strange law, because African American children
were allowed to sing and dance on stage. I specifically remember the Nicholas
Brothers, a brilliant dance act who were always working. We became very
good friends, and we did a lot of club dates together when we were young.

Being six years old, I quickly learned that life couldn't be all fun and
no work. It was time to go to school! Actually, school was fun for me.
When I began school, I attended Professional Children's School on 61st
Street in Manhattan, at the old Daddy Browning Building. The school
consisted of three floors: one floor was an auditorium, and the other two
floors were classrooms. It went up to the 8th grade. Many children who
were in plays on Broadway attended the school. Children who were on the
road would do "correspondence schoolwork," and send the finished lessons back to the school. Some very famous people went to this school:
Milton Berle, Anne Baxter, Peter McDonald and many, many more. The
girl who played Kim, the child in Showboat, was in my kindergarten class.
Many of the "radio children," who did radio soap operas, were also in
attendance. The hours for the school were 10:00 A.M. to 2:00 P.M.

I did my first play in school with Peter McDonald and Jack Jorden.
It was a children's play, written especially for the commencement of that
year. Being primarily a singer, I was very flattered and proud to have been chosen to appear in a play with a cast of already accomplished actors and actresses. Imagine my delight when I received the letter from the
principal.

Ticket to the Baby Rose Marie Radio Show at NBC Studios

I was still doing radio guest shots and club dates about once a week.
The Gerry Society would call and say, "How is she? What do you feed her?
Where do you buy her clothes?" My clothes for work were either handmade for me by my mother's cousin, or selected and purchased by my
mother from a dear lady, Mrs. Kowalski. From time to time, Mrs. Kowalski
would bring several dresses for my mother to see.

My mother got very disgusted and asked someone at the Gary Society if there wasn't something we could do to keep from getting the calls
and checkups. The man said, "You could move to Jersey, we can't touch
you there!" So we moved to East Orange, New Jersey. Another two-family
house; we were on the bottom floor again.

It was about this time that NBC told us of the plans they had for me:
my own fifteen-minute, coast-to-coast radio show on Sunday mornings at
12:00 P.M. on WJZ, New York's NBC radio station. They even had the
sponsor all set up! Julius Grossman Shoes. They had one store at 5th Avenue and 39th Street in Manhattan. It's still there! I could never under stand why the show was coast-to-coast and the sponsor had only one store
... in New York City. Remember, I was only six years old. The show consisted of my own piano player, Herbie Steiner; the announcer, Clyde Kitel;
and me. No orchestra, just a piano. My theme song was "Baby Shoes":
"Baby Shoes... mother remembers. She still has a pair of Julius Grossman
Shoes."

Looking up at NBC microphone before a
program

Talk about the commercials today, we had a beaut: "Julius Grossman
Shoes. ..bad feet need 'em and good feet deserve 'em."

The show was a smash. I was on for two years. The fan mail was
unbelievable, which brings us back to the midget bit. People kept writing,
"She can't be a child, she's gotta be a 45-year-old midget.... No child sings
like that." I told you that I never sounded like a child. During the two years I was on the air, I was named "Princess of the Radio." (Rudy Vallee
was named King and Ruth Erring was the Queen.) I was still making records
and they were selling like crazy.

At NBC

To dispel the midget myth, NBC decided that I had to go on tour to
prove that I was a child. RKO was affiliated with NBC, and I was set to do
a 52-week tour in RKO theaters all over the county. I would do my act,
which consisted of singing about four songs and talking to the audience.
The whole thing lasted about twenty-five minutes.

My father traveled with me for the entire tour. My mother divided
her time between home and coming out to certain cities to visit with me.
We really missed each other, and mother felt that 52 weeks was much too
long for us not to see each other. During one of her visits, she became
pregnant with my brother Frank. He too was born on a special day: June
14, Flag Day, a holiday! Years later, I asked her why she allowed herself to become pregnant again since she had had me illegitimately. She told me
that my father had threatened her by saying he'd take me away from her if
she didn't have a second baby. My dear mother-she was so naive, she
believed everything he told her.

My brocade Mary Jane shoes, still a treasure today