The Waterbury Democrat., 1944-09-29
WAVELETS S
By ED LEAMY

Room will resume night life ac. tlVity Thursday evening, September 2eth with Vaughn Monroe and hi8 band back on tho stand for their seventh engagement,
 Dick Powell the new emeee on NBC'S Sunday Fitch DNndwagon" show, likes to think of himself aS having five home towns. They arc Mountain View, Ark the tiny town where he was born Nov, i4, i0o4; Little Rock, Ark, where he grew up and got his first Job; tndians apolis, where he had his first sue. cessful professional engagement Louisville, where he sang for Q few seasons, and Pittsburgh, where no made Q hit As an enlcoe and got his first movie break,
 @ He got his real start singing in Little Rock where he was Q member of Q church choir and sang at dances soeials and amateur theatei- calls, Although he longed to get into show business he settled for Q Job with the telephone company when he finished high school,
 If he wouldn't 90 into show bus. ineSs, though, show business would come to him. After he sang at Q theater in Little Rock. Q stranger offered him a Job singing with an orchestra. The salary was low and the future uncertain. Despite the old fascination of show business, Dick began to think that his 800 Q month with the telephone company looked pretty good.
 He finally decided to ask his boss, fully expecting to Dc advised to hang on to his job. The boss, too, must have once felt that old urge for show business, for he looked wist- ful and advised Dick to take the Job.
 It wasn't much of job, After working for as little as five dollars week, he was finally stranded in Anderson, Ind. with 70 cents in his pocket. He lived for Ave days on one hamburger Q day, then got Q wire from Charlie Davis in Indiapolis, offering him spot in the Davis or- chestra If he could play Q banjo, Powell got c $50 advance, spent c few weeks learning to play a Second- hand banjo and then hitch-hiked to Indianapolis.
 During the next few seasons, Dick gradually emerged as a master of ceremonies as well as @ vocalist. Gle gave up the banjo early in his careeT). Ills seasons in Louisville, first ct the Kentucky Hotel with the Royal Peacock orchestra, later at theaters, were successful, and in 1880 he moved on to Pittsburgh, where he emceed the stage show at the Stan. ley Theater,
 It was 1883 before Warner Bro- theTs, who owned the Stanley, dis covered, they had Q picture possibil- ity in their own organization. He was taken to the Coast for his first role, that of the crooning orchestra leader in Blessed Event"
 Since that time he has sung his way through more than 30 pictures and appeared on radio programs as singing master of ceremonies. His movie career recently underwent a change. After years of romantic roles, which Powell himself never liked, he has just completed Fare well, My Lovely" at RKO, a picture in which he plays hard-boiled de- tective and doesn't sing note.
 On the "Bandwagon," however, he will be in the role which first brought him fame back in Pitts burgh more tl.an 10 years ago-that of a singing master of ceremonies who knows what the listeners like to hear.
 Wilfred Pelletier, the Canadian born orchestra conductor and one authority who does not believe that the Golden Age' of the opera is passed, has a tripled-barreled job: conductor of the Metropolitan Opera Association, the guiding genius be- hind the Blues Metropolitan Audi tions of the air and the man-in- charge of the World of Gong pro- gram, also heard over the Blue Net work.
 Easing his conclusions on what he has heard personally, Pelletier feels he knows whereof ne speaks when discussing the subject of the quality of the current opera stars for he has listened for nine years to thou- sands Of voices in lis various cap- --laa.m .ma.amamme aammmAaw ~4 ktaN