The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-12-12
They Call Her Noisy
 For Glamor Is Her Career
ORA NICHOLS HAS "SOUND" BUSINESS
V 6 M
M M [
ny ROsELLEN CALLAHAN

New York.-When sound pictures did to the ailents what the auto mobile did to the horse and buggy, Q lot of people were jchless. But for movie orgenist ora Nichols, it began a career Of noise-making heard around the world.
 As the only woman sound effects technlcian for the Columbia Broad- casting system, "Noisy"--the nick name by which this quiet.spokon personable and petite woman is af- 1ectlonately known around tho studios-makes script program s "coEne alive" 90 convincingly that your spine prickles with apprehen- sion and your heart jumps to your throat.
 Thunder crashes, q prairie wolf howls, surf booms, soldiers march on Q snow packed road, Q ferry boat comes in for landing, Q baby walls with BufSicient realism to make a young mother start toward the nursery. All these are none other than mechanical devices of this capable curator of clamor. A lady who has made noise her business for thirteen years.
 STARTED AS
 MOVIE ORGANTsT
 It was while she was organist in Q local New York movie house and her husband played the drums with the pit orchestra, that they devised the scheme of creating sound effects to give silent pictures more realism. Now and then they worked their ef- fleets for aid programs. AS radio grew there were more and more dee mands for their talents, and finally CBS asked thern to head their Sound Effects department, Two years later Nichols died suddenly, and ora cAr- ried on the work they had begun together.
 Today, she and her co-workers have compiled Q complete library Of recorde sounds. Screams, Sllores, typewriters, football crowds, the droplng of trees, monks chanting vespers and baby cries can be see lected ct random from Q Ale Of more than i,200 records, And there are three times As many manuel effects,
 Tho lawn mower you heard on yesterdays dramatic script Is really an egg beater. Monkeys Screeching In the jungle are merely c cork rubbed across e milk bottle, and cocoanut shells struck together pro. duee the effect of horses walking on cobblestones,
 Mrs. Nichols is tops in her field because of her rare faculty for quickly visualizlng the scenes and coortinating sound with action ct the right moment and at the proper distance from the mierophone, so that there is Q definite illustion Of reality. Her musical training, she says, has helped inmeasurably in setting the tempo for matching sound and music ila such programs as Bright Horizon" where singing and story are combined.
 ORgON WELLES DRAMAS
 DEPEND HEAVILY ON ORA
 orson Welles, famous for the real- ism of his radio dramas, which is due greatly to the use of unique sound effects, always insists that Mrs. Nichols be assigned to his show whenever he broadcasts from New York. His most difficult assignment, she says, was the bFidge-crashing episode in his dranRtisation of "The Bridge of San Luis Rey,"
 It took three days of experimenta. ton and recordings before she fell on the right combination to give the effect of the structure breaking and crashing Into the ravine below. The formula was 6 combination of sounds involving bamboo, an echo chamber, thunder.drop background and crush ing of berry baskets.
 Everything Is not always not what it seems, Mrs. Nichols laughingly as. sures us. And bears 1t out by citing the time the "MyTt and Marge" script introduced Q towering Irish detective into It's action.
 She tried every device to create the effect of his big flat feet clump- Ing up and down the corridor, and then finally fell back on realism by donning Q pair of heavy brogans and plodding up and down before the sn!crohpone herself.
 Creating sound effects is c fas- cinating job, but since her marriage to w. Lou Borough, . drummer and vocalist, she says she wants to be- come Q full.tiTne housewife. ua- derstand, though that she listens to every common household noise with the analytical ear of Q sound techni- clan, mentally recording them for future use.