Evening star., 1936-04-26
Conduct of His Air Show
Wins Audiences Respect
Nothing of Temperamental Artist or Marti
net Shown in Studio Stint-Credit for
Rise Entirely His Own.
Bv the Radio Editor.

10HERE'S something about HUI
bert Prior Vallee-called Rudy
because it's a better stage
L name-you inevitably will like
and respect, once you have watched
him do his Thursday night broadcast
stint and once you have inquired into
the record of his career.
You like him because he works so
hard and so seriously and so carefully
before the microphone, and because
his associates say there is nothing of
the temperamental artist or martinez
about the way he runs his show-for
the show is Rudy's. almost entirely.
You respect him because the whole
record of his rise from obscurity, with
all its adverse publicity breaks such as
the recent flsticuffs with George White
and the cabbage-throwing episode in
Boston few years back, is one OF
merited achievement, often against
great odds.
WHETHER his adenoidal grooming
Nv rubs your heman instincts the
wrong way or delights your feminine
proclivities. Rudy Vallee has the
stuff"-and even hardshelled, icono-
elastic Broadway, which for years
looked askance upon this Yankee
from rural Maine, who thought he was
a Snowman, has come to that conclu-
sion.
For Rudy has shown the Broadway
wiseacres that it takes something more
than most of them have to captivate
tainment public. 1t takes gray mat
ter, and Rudy has brains. More than
that, he is intelligent enough to know
he can't last forever as theatrical
attraction. which is probably the rea-
son he told congressional committee
in Washington few months ago he
hoped some day to become radio
executive. He probably will.
You may come to watch Rudy in
action before the microphone pre-
pared to sniff and to scorn. but you
will leave the small auditorium studio
after his show with new impress
sion. This personable young man of
35. his hair rumpled, wearing a col
lege-cut slouchy sack suit, using no
baton as he directs his orchestra
skipping quietly from announcing TO
directing to singing to acting as in
terlocutor-this young man knows his
job and he is on the job every minute
of the hours broadcast.
HIS stage and engineering staff, his
orchestra and his guest stars
work In perfect coordination even
though they rehearsed the nights
show only that afternoon. There is no
hustle and hustle. Rudy is the CEN
trail figure. He not only has planned
the show and his part in it, but he
runs it in almost every detail. If the
guest stars are exceptionally funny,
he seems to enjoy them as we'll as his
studio audience of perhaps 200. If
they are highly dramatic, he is as
absorbed as the audience, but he never
misses his own cues as he constantly
peruses his script.
When he croons, though you in the
audience don't hear nearly as well as
you would before your home radios, he
applies himself seriously and unsmil-
ingly, apparently utterly oblivious to
his studio audience as he fixes his
reading glasses, closes his eyes and
utrers his selections, which may range
from snappy swing stuff through
character songs through lovelorn bal
lads
The secret Of the Vallee success OBJ
viously does not lie in his grooming any
more. for the radio audience soon tires
of the best of them. 1t rests in his
ability as an impresario and producer
In his deft planning and handling of
what has probably been the most con-
sistently popular variety show on the
air. He is shrewd. sensing exactly
what the public will like whether il