Kay Thompson (17 page)

It was Bill Spier who snapped Kay out of her rut. Finally leaving his wife (and all but abandoning his three children), he and Thompson became a couple, carrying on publicly like high school sweethearts. They were known to play double pianos for hours on end, which resulted in a song they composed together called “More Wonderful Than These.” True romance was the only excuse for such mushy lyrics as “The dreaming clouds above the seas, you are more wonderful than these.”

A
fter years of navigating
from the passenger seat, what Kay really wanted was to drive her own radio show. Whether by serendipity or grand design, it just so happened that Bill Spier had become head of development at CBS and was in charge of
Forecast,
a summer series that presented pilots of proposed radio programs to test audience reaction and fish for sponsors. Eager to create a vehicle for Kay, Bill assigned writers Leonardo Bercovici and Robert Sloane
to collaborate with her on a farcical backstage melodrama entitled “51 East 51,” set in a mythical Manhattan supper club of the same name (the real-life address of Spier’s apartment). Kay would play a fictionalized version of herself, working at the nitery as a singer, with songs interspersed throughout the story.

The plot of “51 East 51” revolved around a succession of telegrams that repeatedly interrupt Kay’s nightclub act. These communiqués were supposedly from her Hollywood boyfriend but turn out to be the dirty work of two practical jokers (played by Everett Sloane and craggy-voiced Lionel Stander). Erik Rhodes, the dimwitted continental playboy from
The Gay Divorcee
and
Top Hat
, played the similar part of Ramone, “a charmingly wacky Latin man about town” who can’t get enough of Miss Thompson. After being thrown out of the club several times, Ramone finally decides to just buy the place.

The conductor for the show was Archie Bleyer, thirty-two, a staff arranger at CBS who would later form Cadence Records, an unstoppable hit factory in the 1950s for such artists as the Everly Brothers, Andy Williams, and, not coincidentally, Kay Thompson’s Eloise.

Kay got to sing four numbers, including a fun duet with Rhodes called “Daddy” (from the movie
Two Latins from Manhattan
), with special lyrics by Thompson—including a shameless plug that “51 East 51” was available for sponsorship “at very reasonable dough.”

Reaction was upbeat. In
Variety’s
words: “This program has the good sense to discover Kay Thompson in a bigger and better way than this first-rate artist has heretofore been discovered. Both as a song stylist, where she is among the best, and as a leading lady in featherweight gaiety (oh, blessed breeze in a heavy world!) Miss Thompson is about the most plausible candidate in her class for general discovery hereabouts.”

Being recognized as an actress and comedienne must have sent Kay over the moon, but more important, reviews like this gave Spier ammunition to press for a series commitment.

CBS chairman William S. Paley adored Kay but felt a continuing storyline set in a nightclub was too limiting. He preferred another pilot presented on
Forecast
that summer called “Class of ’41,” a sketch comedy revue featuring an ensemble of fresh comics. Shrewdly, Spier suggested taking the obvious strengths of both shows and combining them. As luck would have it, a Wednesday night series,
Meet Mr. Meek,
would be going on hiatus for five weeks beginning September 3, 1941, creating a void that had to be filled with
something
. Slam-dunk.
The Kay Thompson Festival
was born.

The only carryover from “51 East 51” was Kay. From “Class of ’41” came ready-for-prime-time newcomer Jim Backus, his writing partner, Larry Berns,
and the twenty-three-year-old whiz-kid director, Perry Lafferty, who would be closely monitored by Spier.

“51 East 51” conductor Archie Bleyer was no longer available, thanks to Kay. “When we did
Best Foot Forward,
” recalled Hugh Martin, “Ralph [Blane] and I were stuck for a music director since we had never done a Broadway show of our own before. We called Kay, she recommended Archie Bleyer, and we took him.”

In place of Bleyer, CBS house conductor and pianist Walter Gross was assigned to
The Kay Thompson Festival
. He was so pleased to be working with Thompson, he “borrowed a string section from the symphony orchestra” to augment his regular band. For her part, Kay arranged and conducted the Okays, her backup chorus.

The first show included an amusing sketch spoofing soap operas entitled “Life Can Be Life,” starring Kay as Margo, a heroine so distraught over
something,
she fails to reveal just what it is—for the duration of the entire sketch.

“I’d
rawther
you didn’t repeat it,” Margo pleads to her lover, John (Jim Backus).

“Don’t worry, I won’t,” he replies, keeping the audience mystified.

Dry and sophisticated, the humor was not everyone’s cup of tea.
Variety
preferred the singing of “the stylistic Miss Thompson” over sketches “decidedly on the weakish side.”

More accessible was Thompson’s closing number at the end of the first program, “More Wonderful Than These,” the love song she had composed with Spier. The following week, a telegram arrived:
DON’T LET KAY GET OFF THE AIR TONIGHT WITHOUT SINGING THAT GRAND SONG SHE HAS JUST WRITTEN—MORE WONDERFUL THAN THESE.
It was signed:
TONY MARTIN, KATE SMITH, AND ANDRÉ KOSTELANETZ
. From then on, the tune closed every show, becoming Kay’s signature sign-off (like Bob Hope’s “Thanks for the Memory”).

As the weeks ticked by, however, no sponsor turned up with an open checkbook, forcing CBS to continue footing the bill. When
Meet Mr. Meek
returned after its five-week hiatus,
The Kay Thompson Festival
lost its time slot and appeared to be doomed.

“We didn’t, any of us, know what we were doing,” Kay told a reporter. “But despite the fact that we were an instantaneous flop, we all learned a lot from it. It was my first chance at coordinating a whole project, and it enthralled me.”

With the show on the verge of cancellation, Spier finessed a move to Saturday mornings beginning October 11, under the new title
Kay Thompson and Company
. In her opening monologue, Kay made light of the less than desirable time slot: “It appears now that the really big, up-and-coming, new favorite time for listening is Saturday mornings.”

But the sarcastic style of humor that had not gone over very well with the Wednesday night cocktail crowd fell even flatter with the Saturday morning coffee klatch. Nonetheless, Kay enjoyed herself immensely and developed a solid chemistry with her partner in crime, Jim Backus—so much so, it occasionally made waves with his fiancée, Henny Kaye. During the run of the show, Jim married Henny but delayed their honeymoon because of Thompson.

“We can leave for our honeymoon tomorrow right after the party,” Jim told his blushing bride.

“What party?” Henny asked.

“The party I persuaded Kay Thompson to give to celebrate our marriage,” stated Jim matter-of-factly.

The bride’s mood went black. “You asked Kay to give us a party?”

Jim replied, “Well, we’re doing the radio show together every week. It’s the least she can do.”

Henny later admitted to moments of jealousy: “Jim feels that working closely with someone he likes creates a mystic bond. If he had his own way, he would go through the complete Indian rite of blood brotherhood. I didn’t understand it at the time, but a party was a party, and who was I to complain.”

The last show of the thirteen-episode commitment was broadcast on November 29, 1941. With no sponsor and only moderate listenership, Kay and the others were certain they’d be unemployed by month’s end. To everyone’s amazement, however, Spier persuaded Paley to renew the series for a second round of thirteen. The first show of season two was broadcast on Saturday morning, December 6. The new beginning reinvigorated everyone and hopes were high, but within twenty-four hours, all that changed.

On Sunday morning, December 7, America awoke to the news of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The mood of the entire country turned grim as tens of thousands of men were mobilized into military action. Kay’s brother, Bud, enlisted in the United States Coast Guard. Dozens of her radio colleagues followed suit in all branches of the military—including her director, Perry Lafferty, one of her Okays, Andy Love, and several musicians in the orchestra.

In light of the situation,
Kay Thompson and Company
dropped its supercilious attitude and became patriotic. Kay opened with a pitch for United States Defense Bonds and introduced a new “Kiss the Boys Hello” segment dedicated to soldiers, with performances of flag-waving songs like “Of Thee I Sing.” As scores of women bade farewell to servicemen, the sentimentality of Kay’s signature song, “More Wonderful Than These,” hit home. No longer aloof, the show was suddenly dealing with real, raw emotions.

Empowered by this, Spier got CBS to move the show back to prime time on Wednesday nights starting January 28, 1942. But with only five weeks left in the season commitment, there was precious little time to reestablish a foothold.

In a last-ditch effort to attract listeners and a sponsor, Bill and Kay called in favors from friends like Vincent Price, who performed a vignette from his new Broadway smash,
Angel Street
. (The thriller was later adapted into the movie
Gaslight
.)

For added oomph, Kay brought in the Martins quartet to join her singing “Buckle Down, Buck Private,” a militarized makeover of “Buckle Down, Winsocki” from Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane’s
Best Foot Forward,
still running on Broadway.

On the air, Kay asked Martin and Blane, “Who writes the titles of your songs?”

“I do,” Hugh and Ralph blurted out simultaneously.

Fast on her feet, Kay ad-libbed, “I now pronounce you man and wife.”

The show had found its footing and Thompson had really hit her stride as a confident mistress of ceremonies, singer, and comedienne. All the effort and good intentions, however, still did not attract a sponsor—hardly surprising during the uncertainties of war, yet essential nonetheless. Unwilling to pay the tab any longer, CBS decided against renewing the program. After twenty-six weeks of giving it their best shot, Kay and her gang were retired.

“After this show I came to a serious decision,” Kay recalled. “I had to be an actress and I had to be alone. So I went to Hollywood, where I was neither.”

Kay Goes to Hollywood

(1942–44)

Kay was the best vocal coach in the world.

—Lena Horne

A
s 1942 got under way, there was an exodus of entertainers and musicians from New York, leaving either for military service or for greener pastures in Hollywood. In April, Kay’s protégés Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane got hired by MGM as staff composer-arrangers. Just before leaving for the West Coast, they met with Thompson.

“We all had a cup of tea,” Kay recalled, “and I said, ‘You have to send for me.’ ”

Sweet on the surface. But in truth, Thompson was intensely jealous of the boys’ good fortune—though her own goal was to star on the silver screen, not work behind the scenes. Shortly thereafter, she enlisted the aid of their manager, Fred Steele, to see if she could follow suit.

Around that time, Kay told writer Larry Carr that she would be perfectly happy to have a career like character actress Charlotte Greenwood, who specialized in middle-aged kooks. Making light of the obvious, Kay confessed that her mug was “a young face made up of old materials.”

Self-deprecation from Thompson, however, usually meant just the opposite. Deep down, she dreamed of becoming the next Joan Crawford or Greta Garbo. This desire was certainly evident when she asked her publicist, Gary Stevens, to set up a photo shoot with a top glamour photographer.

“Murray Korman was a good friend,” Stevens recalled, “so I went up there with Kay and she said to me, ‘Don’t let him get any profile shots because, Christ, I look like Basil Rathbone.’ ”

Meanwhile, Kay formed a new vocal quartet featuring Phyllis and Jo-Jean Rogers (of the Martins, which was now defunct), Pat Haywood (Jo-Jean’s husband and Hugh Martin’s understudy), and George “Cookie” Richmond (of Broadway’s
Banjo Eyes
; later replaced by Jimmy Engler). Even though all of the members were in their twenties, Kay christened them the Four Teens and she got jitterbug bandleader Johnny Long to add the group to his ensemble for a May gig at the New Yorker Hotel.

“Kay came down there all the time, three or four nights a week,” Stevens recalled. “After midnight, she would rehearse the Four Teens.”

“With Kay, we never got to bed before dawn,” Phyllis Rogers Whitworth confirmed. “It was really dynamic. You know, Kay had such
fire.
I remember her saying, ‘That’s just right as rain!’ That was her favorite phrase. She’d sit out at the tables at night and listen to us, and even when we were on the road sometimes, she’d be out there and she’d come back and tell us if we were just a little bit off pitch.”