PUTTING PEP Into U.S. RADIO!

Radio Record, 24 June 1938, Page 11

PUTTING PEP Into U.S. RADIO!

Aunt Daisy Shows Station KGU A Real Morning’s Work

Special to the "Record"

MERICA has always prided itself on getting things done at pressure, but a New Zea: land woman’s idea of what constituted a morning’s work com-| pletely astonished the executives of | KGU, Honolulu, the other week. It was not until she had gone ahead and done it that they really believed that.

it could be done. New Zealand’s Aunt Daisy may be diminutive, but she has a vitality and vivacity that can still put many a hefty youngster to shame. Dining with film stars, broadcasting with America’s leading radio names, received and feted by major American studios, New Zealand’s pocket radio artist is certainly enjoying receptions on her busman’s holiday abroad. Even while on a trip she can’t quite get away from work. So far, just in intervals of seeing hula dances, Hollywood and Niagara Falls, she has made 94 15-minute records and

had 18 studio interviews. T is now three mouths since Aunt Daisy sailed from Auckland on a world tour — England, via America, and home again, vin Suez. In all, she will be away nearly 8 months, and her listeners will agree that she certainly deserves a holiday after 18 months’ continuous broadeasting of a very heavy programme of advertising. To maintain her _ schedules, Aunt Daisy’s records are cut in various studios abroad as she goes, and are airmailed out. Dises made in Honolulu are at pre: sent being played over the ZB network. The idea is working out excellently, as ‘her experiences

are providing material of high listening interest. Her records have an excellent variety. A LETTER received from Read H. Wright, president of World Broadcasting System, Chicago, indicates just how she is impressing blasé America! "T want to take this opportunity," he writes, "to tell you how much we all enjoyed meeting and working with Mrs. Basham. I think she is a most remarkable person, and she certainly must do a marvellous selling job for her sponsors. We were particularly impressed with the way in which she handles her commercials. There is no one in the United States who can compare with her," Truly high praise from an organisation of the stand~ing of World Broadcasting! Dining With Deanna The most interesting part of the news received from her was, perbaps, that relating to her stay in Los Angeles, where she was treated, as she puts it, "like the Shah of Persia"-shown through the film studios, introduced to the leading film personalities, dined with Deanna Durbin and Warren William, and visited the latter’s beautiful Hollywood home, where the photograph was snapped. Nola Luxford, very popular and well-known personality in Hollywood, was one of the many New Zealanders she has met abroad; and Morris Ruddy. who was for a long time in the ‘Auckland Weekly News" in New Zealand, and is now Hollywood reporter for a syndicate of newspapers in England and other countries, was one of the many who assisted to give her a great time in the film town. Aunt Daisy is now in New York, and is shortly about to leave for Bngland to spend a few further months of what certainly appears to be a really successful trip. —