Open Microphone

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 788, 27 August 1954, Page 28

Open Microphone

genie OF BROADCASTERS, ON AND OFF THE RECORD

S producer and actor, and often both at the same time, William Austin is one of the most experienced men in New Zealand broadcasting, but he still remembers clearly his first part, back in the days when radio plays went straight on the air. "It was in a play called Off Finisterre,"’ he told us. "I had one line. I had to ‘say ‘I don’t play quoits,’ and I sat down and worked out the most effective way to say it, with due attention to inflection and emphasis." At that time Mr. Austin was a law student at Victoria University College after as good a beginning as any New Zealander could expect-he was born in Greymouth and educated in Wellington. When Bernard Beeby became NZBS Supervisor of Productions, Mr Austin continued his free-lance radio work and was in some of the first plays recorded. He also represented Wellington in productions when actors were brought together from all over New Zealand during the Easter holidays. The war interrupted all that. Mr. Austin volunteered early for the Air Force and served for seven years as a navigator-over Europe, in Malta, the Middle East, India, North-west Africa and England-coming home with the rank of Squadron-Leader and a D.F.C. There was a job for him in the Productions Department of the NZBS, and soon he was himself producing under the Supervisor of Productions. For three years from 1949 he’ was in charge of production at the Auckland — Studios. His experience has included acting and producing in the widest field, though one of his most exacting jobs was as a reader of continuity in Royal Tour magazine programmes. (One of his recent productions, The Last Lap, is referred to on page 25.) Did he prefer producing to acting? "Yes, because of the added responsibility of dealing with so many more factors than your own performance, radio production is on the whole a much more satisfying thing," he said. "In both you need to be extremely self-critical-it’s fatal to be smug-and there are many disappointments at the play-back stage of a production." An actor who had worked on production, said Mr. Austin, came to regard the producer with even more respect than before. "You can understand his difficulties, you’re quicker to take direction, your performance is more disciplined, and you come to ac--cept the principle that everyone must ~ have direction." Though still very interested in the legitimate theatre, in which he has-done

quite a bit of work at one time and another, Mr. Austin finds full-time work as a radio actor and producer leaves little energy for repertory work. His last part was in Auckland, as Thomas Mendip in The Lady’s Not For Burning. He admits, too, that another interest is taking a great deal of his time. He became engaged not long ago to Valerie Spencer (assistant to the Supervisor of Women’s Programmes in the Commercial Division), and the interior decoration of a house he has bought at Pukerua Bay, near Wellington, is taking most of his spare time just now. *

DEATH OF A TUNESMITH

HERE was more than a little sadness in Hollywood the other day over the death of Arthur Johnston, the songwriter who composed such evergreen film tunes as "Pennies from, Heaven," "Cocktails for Two," "Thanks a Million" and "My Old Flame." He died after a long period of ill-health at the

age of 56. Johnston entered the musical world in the 1920s, when he was employed

as pianist to Irving Berlin. He settled in Hollywood in 1929 and soon made his name in the film capital, writing musical scores for important pictures (among them Chaplin’s City Lights), and collaborating with lyricists Sam Coslow and Johnny Burke. The Coslow-John-ston partnership was established in 1931, when the two composed "Just One More Chance." This became one of Bing Crosby’s favourite songs, and most of Johnston’s later hits were first heard in Crosby films. Arthur Johnston had been comparatively inactive as a songwriter in the post-war years, other business interests taking up much of his time. But one of his later songs, "If I Only Had a Match," was recorded by Frank Sinatra and the late Al Jolson in 1946. -_*.

COASTING ALONG

nan "AN inspecting engineer went butcher’s hook at an old roadman for his road: the darned road was an absolute disgrace, said the engineer. On and on he went: he’d never seen such a road:

all banked wrong: badly drained: a hopeless sur-. face; too steep here; too flat there . . . far too nar-

row. . . When he ran out of. words,’ the old roadman looked up. ‘Yeah, ‘he

said. ‘And how’s she for length?’ " That typical. bit of local humour is just one of a number of smoke-oh yarns which Jim Henderson (at right) collected in his travels up and down the West Coast. He called on The Listener the other day to tell us about the talks he has based on these travels. This is New Zealand will be heard from the ZBs on Wednesday nights at 7.30, beginning September 1. "I’ve confined the present series to the West Coast, and next month I’m. off to North- ~ land." he said. "I'd. like to cover as much of New Zealand as I can in this way-just roving around, talking to people, trying to get over in my work the real way New Zealanders live."

-_-_- Besides the yarns, Jim Henderson tells about the golden elephant house, the search for greenstone, coal-mining, the white herons of Waitangi-roto River and, of course, West Coast "characters." To get biographical information out of Jim Henderson himself you need a Coast coal-miner’s pick, shovel and explosives. But he did admit he was 35, born in Motueka, and that after an "utterly undistinguished" career at Nelson College and in journalism, went off to war. He was captured at Sidi Rezegt 4 in’1941 and repatriated through Turkey in 43. Back home in hospital he wrote Gunner Inglorious, and then adventured in England and Canada for three years, where he "starved and _ froze" respectively. Since then he has written R.M.T, and 22nd Battalion for the War Histories Branch of Internal Affairs. Jim lives in Eastbourne now, with his wife and two children-one aged two, the other a totalitarian of four, to whose question "How dare you speak to me like that?" Jim, for all his skill with words, still hasn’t found a right and proper answer.

x ATRICIA MURPHY, 2XA’s Shopping Reporter, and her twin sister Joan literally slipped into radio. "We were born on Mount Egmont. That led almost inevitably to skiing, and skiing led to interviewing a ski instructor from Austria, Ernst Skardarasy, over 2ZB. After that we were offered the, chance of taking over Aunt Daisy’s programmes while she was overseas. Identical voices, figures and looks were added advantages in our publicity while we were at 2ZB." The Station lounge was often crowded by those curious to see the Radio Twins broadcast. A great percentage of the listening public believed that just one person was doing the two parts, the voices were so alike. But marriage parted the Murphy twins, for in 1942 Joan went off to the United States. Patricia, after representing New Zealand in a ski team racing against Australia, returned to broadcasting in 1949 when Station 2XA opened in Wanganui. With a radio career, a house and two daughters to. look after. Pat has little time just now for skiing. However, for this vear’s leave she will be returning to the

mountains, keeping her fingers tightly crossed on her ski sticks and hoping that she’ll be able to negotiate 2XA’s stairs on her return-without a plaster cast. Pe

HEN the violinist Isaac Stern returned to Australia recently he expressed a wish to give a concert in memory of his American pianist friend

William Kapell. Kapell was killed late last vear in a plane crash near San Francisco when returning home after an ABC tour. (He had declared he would never go back to Australia because of the way the critics had treated him. Most of what was written there

was "uninformed, false and malicious," he said.) The total proceeds of the concert given by Stern and his accompanist Zakin are to go to the, William Kapell

Memorial Fund, part of which will be used to establish a William Kapell Memorial Scholarship to enable an Australian student to travel abroad for a period of study. The accident in which Kapell was killed was one of those which influenced Yehudi Menuhin in giving up air travel, din

TOUGH SPOT

‘THE Malcolm Mitchell Trio, who have been heard widely from NZBS stations in the BBC Interlude for Music, found themselves in a tough spot soon after they joined forces in 1948. They had accepted an engagement at a night

club in the South. of France, but discovered when they arrived that it had

been raided and closed by the police. Without a job and with very little money, they approached Radio Monte

Carlo, and achieved a success that ied to bigger and better engagementswhich eventually brought them back to London and top-rank radio and showbusiness contracts. Malcolm Mitchell, who, besides being the guitarist in the Trio, introduces Interlude for Music, is still only in his twenties. Other members of the Trio are Johnny Pearson (piano) and Teddy Broughton (bass).