C0MPOSER-CONDUCTOR MEREDITH WILLSON 1902-1984
MASON CITY'S MUSIC MAN
Meredith Willson seldom let a broadcast go by without a mention or two of his hometown, Mason City, Iowa, even years before he transformed the Hawkeye community into River City in his rousing All-American musical, The Music Man. And the composer-arranger-conductor-playwright-comedian had performed in hundreds of Network Radio programs before Harold Hill first stepped off the train to sell band instruments to the Iowa rubes in December, 1957.
Robert Meredith Willson was born the third child into a musical family in 1902. His sister Lucille, (aka Dixie), a pianist, was twelve years his senior and went on to become a successful magazine writer and playwright, living in New York City and earning $50,000 a year by 1927. Brother John, (aka Cedric), was born in 1900 and became a skilled bassoon player which helped finance his education in engineering culminating in a Masters Degree from New York University. (1)
Their mother Rosalie taught piano to all three and sensed that her youngest was best suited for the flute. It turned out to be a wise decision because young Meredith developed into a prodigy on the flute and piccolo, a featured soloist with the Mason City Municipal Band before high school graduation. He also fell in love with his next door neighbor, Peggy Wilson, (same name, different spelling), and asked her to marry him - when he returned from New York City and making a name for himself.
Peggy agreed to wait - but not too long - and Meredith left Mason City at 17 with his high school diploma, his flute, his piccolo and a tremendous talent to live with Dixie in New York City where he auditioned for Frank Damrosch and was accepted to study at the New York Institute of Music - later known as The Julliard School of Music. Although he never received a formal degree, the Iowa teenager quickly established himself as a musician with skills beyond his years and soon became a first call flautist for dance and recording dates. The work provided him with enough money to return to Mason City on August 29,1920, and marry Peggy. (2)
Back in New York City, Meredith set aside his education to fulfill a boyhood dream. He won a position with John Philip Sousa’s famous band where the trill of his piccolo was key in Sousa‘s Stars & Stripes Forever. But the touring Sousa band separated the newlywed couple for weeks at a time, so Meredith left the tour in 1923 to join the pit band of New York City’s Rialto Theater. It was a classic case of his being over-qualified for the job but the challenge of his life was just around the corner in October, 1924, when Meredith became first chair flautist with the New York Philharmonic under its legendary and demanding conductor, Arturo Toscanini. The 22 year old Willson wasn’t fazed, however, and he moonlighted with the New York Chamber Music Society. He also became intrigued by a relatively new invention that was fast becoming wildly popular - radio.
Meredith’s fascination with radio and its potential led him to leave his New York commitments and head west in 1928 to become Music Director of KJR/Seattle and create the station-sponsored 70 piece American Philharmonic Orchestra which was scheduled to present an inaugural season of outdoor concerts. But summers in the Pacific Northwest can be unpredictable. Weeks of cold wet weather killed attendance and doomed the project into an inescapable financial hole. Nevertheless, intuition told the 26 year old that his future was in radio, so after a few scoring assignments for films he became Music Director for Don Lee’s KFRC/San Francisco in 1929.
It was at KFRC where Willson met future band leading legends Xavier Cugat, Phil Harris and Kay Kyser. He also created the weekly show, Big Ten, in which his studio band and singers would present his arrangements of the week’s Top Ten Songs from Billboard - years before Manhattan Merry Go Round and Your Hit Parade introduced their versions of the idea. (See Top 40 Radio's Roots on this site.)
Seemingly tireless, Meredith also worked shows at NBC’s KPO and KGO which led to his first Network Radio exposure and caught the ear of Variety’s critic Sid on the Blue Network from KGO, at 3:45 p.m., on Tuesday, October 4, 1932. His review - with Willson’s name misspelled - appeared in the October 11th issue and is the first to recognize Meredith‘s skill as an arranger:
MEREDITH WILSON BAND. Coast instrumental outfit is more or less buried in mid-afternoon on a national sustaining period and dispensing swell music. But there’s nothing commonplace about the renditions. Originating in San Francisco, these orchestrations come cross-country with a lilt that most radio dance bands lack. Wilson further emphasizes what seems to be a growing difference between Atlantic and Pacific orchestras - the boys on the other coast are trying. There’s ample evidence that sponsors will sooner or later find this out. It’s to be particularly noted in the case of Wilson. Combination is obviously composed of competent musicians besides which their arrangements are intricate and tuneful without falling into the error of over-orchestration.
Another Variety review from April 3, 1934 echoed the praise, concluding: Wilson, (sp inc), rates as one of the best things on the air out of the West or anywhere. He's worthy of an evening spot from coast to coast. It would be ideal stuff for Sunday night.
NBC noticed his skills as well. After a short assignment on Hugh Dobbs’ Ship of Joy, Meredith was assigned to NBC’s Sunday afternoon Carefree Carnival in 1933 and picked up his own half hour Meredith Willson Show at 8:30 p.m. on Monday nights over the summer months of 1935. More assignments from the network culminated in his being named Music Supervisor for NBC’s Western Division in 1936. A year later he moved to Los Angeles and took Carefree Carnival with him. With its name changed to The Signal Oil Carnival it became the first program broadcast from NBC’s new studios at Sunset & Vine, two weeks before its official opening.
Beginning in July, 1937, Willson began his long association with General Foods by taking over the musical direction of Maxwell House Showboat from Al Goodman. He was the only survivor of the sinking Showboat when the hour became the elaborate Good News of 1938 produced with MGM. (See Good News on this site.)
Good News was also the first network exposure of Meredith Willson as a personality and comedian. This episode of Good News from June 16, 1938 provides a sample of the Iowa corn-fed persona he was developing which critics seemed to only tolerate in respect to his musical abilities which were expanding into composing hit songs. With broadcasters’ boycott of ASCAP music looming, Meredith wrote a new ballad to replace the Good News theme, Always And Always. Glenn Miller’s recording of Willson's composition, You And I, was a Billboard best seller for 19 consecutive weeks and later became Lanny Ross‘s theme song.
Willson popped up on the June 25th 1940 episode of NBC's Fibber McGee & Molly when it was announced that Meredith Willson’s Musical Review would be the sitcom's summer replacement. A sample of that show from July 23, 1940 is posted with another example of Willson’s thinking ahead of his time. First, he presented a large number of songs in clusters. Listeners' knowledge of music was challenged because none of the songs were identified until the end of the show - a variation of the gimmick later employed by Stop The Music!
Good News began its fourth season on September 5, 1940, without movie studio ties or Frank Morgan and cut to 30 minutes as Maxwell House Coffee Time starring Fanny Brice, Dick Powell, Mary Martin and Meredith Willson. Working in radio every week, Willson also found the time to compose the acclaimed score for Warner Brothers’ film The Little Foxes in 1941, which included the spiritual Never Too Weary To Pray. His work resulted in an Academy Award nomination for Best Musical Score of A Dramatic Picture. (3)
He joined the Army as a Captain on November 26, 1942, and was made Music Director of Armed Forces Radio Service based in Los Angeles. All of the AFRS productions for U.S. Armed Forces were under his command including the legendary all-star variety show, Command Performance. (See Command Performance.) Two of Willson’s postwar Command Performance host appearances are posted here, from May 25, 1947 and October 5, 1948.
Upon his release from the Army as a Major, Meredith resumed his busy Network Radio career with half hour shows for Canada Dry Ginger Ale and once again, General Foods, which had replaced Frank Morgan with George Burns & Gracie Allen on NBC’s Thursday night Maxwell House Coffee Time. The first program from September 20, 1945 is posted here in which Meredith shares second billiing with Bill Goodwin, Mel Blanc and the Les Paul Trio. The plot introduces him as the Burns’ next door neighbor and he explains his new arrangement device, Chiffon Music, to Gracie. A follow-up show on October 18th has everyone excited when rumors spread that “bashful bachelor” Meredith Willson is going to be married.
The popularity of Willson and his Chiffon Music prompted General Foods to give him the Maxwell House timeslot over the summer months of 1946 during Burns & Allen’s hiatus. His own half-hour also gave him the opportunity to write and deliver his own monologues, like this salute to song pluggers: "When it come to patience, I'm mere beginner compared to the men who plug songs. Do you have any idea what patience a plugger must have to get just one plug? In the first place, do you have any idea what a song plugger is? Well, a song is published and somebody has to get it played and sung on the radio so you people out there will want to buy a copy. Now, the fellow who does that has to have the tact of an English butler, the stubbornness of a theme song and the patience of the triangle player with the Philharmonic. He has to walk Kay Kyser's dog, play chess with Eddy Duchin, wax Paul Whiteman's mustache and change Harry James' baby. He has to park Rudy Vallee's staton wagon, laugh at Fred Waring's jokes, play flute duets with me and carry Guy Lombardo's fiddle. He must whistle Boccherini for Toscanini, take Iturbi to the Derby, break his promise to John Charles Thomas and listen steady to Nelson Eddy, get a Bromo for Perry Como, read Dick Tracy to Count Basie and play tennis with Skinnay Ennis. My hat's off to you, Music Men and tp all of your Number One Plugs."
Variety, which hadn’t taken too kindly to Meredith’s air persona in the past was complementary in its review of August 21, 1946: “…Willson combines easy going banter and snappy music to make it one of the superior summertime music shows. Maestro - metamorphosed into emcee - has some cute gags, a folksy manner and a drawling amiability to give the program an individualized homey manner.” Reactions like this earned him a half-hour show on CBS for 26 weeks beginning on October 2, 1946, Sparkle Time, sponsored by Canada Dry.
Meredith also returned to the Burns & Allen cast for the 1946-47 and 47-48 seasons as music director and a supporting character. The last show of the year on May 29, 1947 is a good display of his comedic talents. Leaving Burns & Allen in the fall of 1948 Willson took over a 26 week series of Wednesday night half hour concerts on ABC for General Foods’ Jello while creating an unusual commercial technique for Jello.
The first two minutes of the The Aldrich Family on October 21st introduces The Talking People, Willson’s five singers - Norma Zimmer, Betty Allen, Maxwell Smith, John Rarig and Bob Hanlon - who spoke in unison as one individual. (4) General Foods paid $21,500 in additional line charges, plus talent fees, to switch during 40 weekly broadcasts from The Aldrich Family’s New York studio to NBC in Hollywood for Willson’s Talking People commercials. (5)
General Foods also called on Meredith Willson to give it a month’s worth of early television shows on New York City’s NBC outlet, WNBT(TV). Willson later described the experience in his book Eggs I Have Laid as having a pitifully low budget and no assistance. But it had a silver lining in the form of a review by Harriet Van Horne, critic of The New York World Telegram who once described Willson as a cross between Titus Moody and Walter Damrosch:
WILLSON SPARKLES ON VIDEO Well, I’ve seen Willson’s Talking People and they’re neither freaks nor kewpie dolls. Only apparent idiosyncrasy is that all five of them, including two handsome girls, wear Bobby Clark spectacles. Meredith Wiilson wears spectacles, too. His are the heavy, black-rimmed kind worn by scholarly young men in plays, and by assorted characters around town who want to look like scholarly young men in plays.
Truly, Mr. Willson surprised me. After listening to him on the radio - and liking it not much - I was prepared for a plain chap from he plains, brow wet with honest sweat. He’d be forever leainin against a lamp post - or maybe sittin’ on the cracker barrel down at the gen’l store - chewing a wisp of straw and telling interminable tales, all beginning, “When I was a boy back in Mason City, Iowa…” But no, Mr. Willson is well-tailored, clean-shaven and altogether a man of the world. He’s practically always in the mood to chat and the only hint of bucolic philosopher is in his manner of speaking. He still refers to Mason City, Iowa, at every possible opportunity.
Meredith Willson, the author, made his debut on the March 10, 1949 episode of The Hallmark Playhouse when the otherwise serious series adapted his whimsical autobiography, And There I Stood With My Piccolo. He explains its curious title in the first few minutes of the broadcast.
Meredith is best remembered by Network Radio historians for his two years as Musical Director for the elaborate NBC Sunday night variety program, The Big Show, in which he often addressed its hostess, the autocratic Tallulah Bankhead as “Miss Bankhead, Sir!”
He remained with The Big Show from its first broadcast on November 5, 1950 until its last on April 20, 1952. (See Tallulah’s Big Show.) It was during this period that Willson wrote the modern yuletide classic, It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas.
His contributions to the program reached their peak on March 9, 1952 when Shepperd Strudwick led a ten minute capsulated adaptation of Willson’s only novel, “Who Did What To Fidalia?” at 41:40. His tale of a talented girl’s journey from Ft. Dodge, Iowa, to Broadway was followed on the show by a satire of the story with Ethel Merman.
At 1:08:15 of the same program, comic Phil Foster “sang” Willson’s novelty, I Take A Dim View, and at 1:16:00 Tallulah Bankhead “moderated” a five minute take off on the literary panel show Author Meets The Critics to “discuss“ Wjllson‘s novel, with Merman, Foster, Strudwick, Joe Frisco, Peter Lorre and Richard Eatham. The bit actually sounds more like a tribute to It Pays To Be Ignorant.
Nevertheless, all is well at the end of the program as the entire cast reassembles to contribute a line apiece to Willson’s sign-off theme, May The Good Lord Bless And Keep You Til We Meet Again. (6)
Except for an occasional guest shot on television, little was heard from Meredith Willson for five years after The Big Show was cancelled. He was in his fifties, had earned a small fortune with his talents and living comfortably in the Los Angeles suburb of Brentwood. Few except his family and close friends knew that he was working on the achievement of his lifetime.
America found out on December 19, 1957, when his creation, The Music Man, opened at the Majestic Theater in New York City and ran for 1,375 performances and then became a hit movie. Now, almost 60 years later, it’s a cinch that The Music Man is playing on some high school, community theater or professional stage somewhere in America today. (7)
That continuing tribute to his work is seemingly observed by the smiling statue of Meredith Willson in Mason City’s Music Man Park. He never forgot his hometown and his hometown has never forgotten him.
(1) Meredith and his siblings remained close throughout their lives. He always credited Dixie with helping him in the early development of storylines for The Music Man and when Cedric’s travels as a renowned consulting engineer took him nearby, he often sat in with Meredith’s studio orchestras.
(2) Meredith and Elizabeth (Peggy) Willson were divorced in 1947. He married Russian opera singer Ralina (Rini) Zarova in 1948. Widowed in 1966, Willson married his former secretary, Barbara Sullivan, in 1968. The union lasted until his death in 1984. Meredith Willson had no children.
(3) Willson scored a second Academy Award nomination in 1942 for his score of Charlie Chaplin’s classic, The Great Dictator, written and recorded in 1940.
(4) Norma Zimmer later gained fame as Lawrence Welk’s Champagne Lady for 22 years.
(5) Willson also wrote the grating but catchy Jello Duet, (Oh, the big red letters stand for the Jello famileee…), sung by Ezra Stone and Jackie Kelk at the opening of Aldrich Family broadcasts beginning on October 28th.
(6) May The Good Lord Bless And Keep You Til We Meet Again was the farewell expression of Meredith’s mother to her Mason City, Iowa, Sunday school class every week.
(7) Meredith Willson subseqently wrote the music for The Unsinkable Molly Brown and Here's Love.
Copyright © 2017, Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com
Meredith Willson seldom let a broadcast go by without a mention or two of his hometown, Mason City, Iowa, even years before he transformed the Hawkeye community into River City in his rousing All-American musical, The Music Man. And the composer-arranger-conductor-playwright-comedian had performed in hundreds of Network Radio programs before Harold Hill first stepped off the train to sell band instruments to the Iowa rubes in December, 1957.
Robert Meredith Willson was born the third child into a musical family in 1902. His sister Lucille, (aka Dixie), a pianist, was twelve years his senior and went on to become a successful magazine writer and playwright, living in New York City and earning $50,000 a year by 1927. Brother John, (aka Cedric), was born in 1900 and became a skilled bassoon player which helped finance his education in engineering culminating in a Masters Degree from New York University. (1)
Their mother Rosalie taught piano to all three and sensed that her youngest was best suited for the flute. It turned out to be a wise decision because young Meredith developed into a prodigy on the flute and piccolo, a featured soloist with the Mason City Municipal Band before high school graduation. He also fell in love with his next door neighbor, Peggy Wilson, (same name, different spelling), and asked her to marry him - when he returned from New York City and making a name for himself.
Peggy agreed to wait - but not too long - and Meredith left Mason City at 17 with his high school diploma, his flute, his piccolo and a tremendous talent to live with Dixie in New York City where he auditioned for Frank Damrosch and was accepted to study at the New York Institute of Music - later known as The Julliard School of Music. Although he never received a formal degree, the Iowa teenager quickly established himself as a musician with skills beyond his years and soon became a first call flautist for dance and recording dates. The work provided him with enough money to return to Mason City on August 29,1920, and marry Peggy. (2)
Back in New York City, Meredith set aside his education to fulfill a boyhood dream. He won a position with John Philip Sousa’s famous band where the trill of his piccolo was key in Sousa‘s Stars & Stripes Forever. But the touring Sousa band separated the newlywed couple for weeks at a time, so Meredith left the tour in 1923 to join the pit band of New York City’s Rialto Theater. It was a classic case of his being over-qualified for the job but the challenge of his life was just around the corner in October, 1924, when Meredith became first chair flautist with the New York Philharmonic under its legendary and demanding conductor, Arturo Toscanini. The 22 year old Willson wasn’t fazed, however, and he moonlighted with the New York Chamber Music Society. He also became intrigued by a relatively new invention that was fast becoming wildly popular - radio.
Meredith’s fascination with radio and its potential led him to leave his New York commitments and head west in 1928 to become Music Director of KJR/Seattle and create the station-sponsored 70 piece American Philharmonic Orchestra which was scheduled to present an inaugural season of outdoor concerts. But summers in the Pacific Northwest can be unpredictable. Weeks of cold wet weather killed attendance and doomed the project into an inescapable financial hole. Nevertheless, intuition told the 26 year old that his future was in radio, so after a few scoring assignments for films he became Music Director for Don Lee’s KFRC/San Francisco in 1929.
It was at KFRC where Willson met future band leading legends Xavier Cugat, Phil Harris and Kay Kyser. He also created the weekly show, Big Ten, in which his studio band and singers would present his arrangements of the week’s Top Ten Songs from Billboard - years before Manhattan Merry Go Round and Your Hit Parade introduced their versions of the idea. (See Top 40 Radio's Roots on this site.)
Seemingly tireless, Meredith also worked shows at NBC’s KPO and KGO which led to his first Network Radio exposure and caught the ear of Variety’s critic Sid on the Blue Network from KGO, at 3:45 p.m., on Tuesday, October 4, 1932. His review - with Willson’s name misspelled - appeared in the October 11th issue and is the first to recognize Meredith‘s skill as an arranger:
MEREDITH WILSON BAND. Coast instrumental outfit is more or less buried in mid-afternoon on a national sustaining period and dispensing swell music. But there’s nothing commonplace about the renditions. Originating in San Francisco, these orchestrations come cross-country with a lilt that most radio dance bands lack. Wilson further emphasizes what seems to be a growing difference between Atlantic and Pacific orchestras - the boys on the other coast are trying. There’s ample evidence that sponsors will sooner or later find this out. It’s to be particularly noted in the case of Wilson. Combination is obviously composed of competent musicians besides which their arrangements are intricate and tuneful without falling into the error of over-orchestration.
Another Variety review from April 3, 1934 echoed the praise, concluding: Wilson, (sp inc), rates as one of the best things on the air out of the West or anywhere. He's worthy of an evening spot from coast to coast. It would be ideal stuff for Sunday night.
NBC noticed his skills as well. After a short assignment on Hugh Dobbs’ Ship of Joy, Meredith was assigned to NBC’s Sunday afternoon Carefree Carnival in 1933 and picked up his own half hour Meredith Willson Show at 8:30 p.m. on Monday nights over the summer months of 1935. More assignments from the network culminated in his being named Music Supervisor for NBC’s Western Division in 1936. A year later he moved to Los Angeles and took Carefree Carnival with him. With its name changed to The Signal Oil Carnival it became the first program broadcast from NBC’s new studios at Sunset & Vine, two weeks before its official opening.
Beginning in July, 1937, Willson began his long association with General Foods by taking over the musical direction of Maxwell House Showboat from Al Goodman. He was the only survivor of the sinking Showboat when the hour became the elaborate Good News of 1938 produced with MGM. (See Good News on this site.)
Good News was also the first network exposure of Meredith Willson as a personality and comedian. This episode of Good News from June 16, 1938 provides a sample of the Iowa corn-fed persona he was developing which critics seemed to only tolerate in respect to his musical abilities which were expanding into composing hit songs. With broadcasters’ boycott of ASCAP music looming, Meredith wrote a new ballad to replace the Good News theme, Always And Always. Glenn Miller’s recording of Willson's composition, You And I, was a Billboard best seller for 19 consecutive weeks and later became Lanny Ross‘s theme song.
Willson popped up on the June 25th 1940 episode of NBC's Fibber McGee & Molly when it was announced that Meredith Willson’s Musical Review would be the sitcom's summer replacement. A sample of that show from July 23, 1940 is posted with another example of Willson’s thinking ahead of his time. First, he presented a large number of songs in clusters. Listeners' knowledge of music was challenged because none of the songs were identified until the end of the show - a variation of the gimmick later employed by Stop The Music!
Good News began its fourth season on September 5, 1940, without movie studio ties or Frank Morgan and cut to 30 minutes as Maxwell House Coffee Time starring Fanny Brice, Dick Powell, Mary Martin and Meredith Willson. Working in radio every week, Willson also found the time to compose the acclaimed score for Warner Brothers’ film The Little Foxes in 1941, which included the spiritual Never Too Weary To Pray. His work resulted in an Academy Award nomination for Best Musical Score of A Dramatic Picture. (3)
He joined the Army as a Captain on November 26, 1942, and was made Music Director of Armed Forces Radio Service based in Los Angeles. All of the AFRS productions for U.S. Armed Forces were under his command including the legendary all-star variety show, Command Performance. (See Command Performance.) Two of Willson’s postwar Command Performance host appearances are posted here, from May 25, 1947 and October 5, 1948.
Upon his release from the Army as a Major, Meredith resumed his busy Network Radio career with half hour shows for Canada Dry Ginger Ale and once again, General Foods, which had replaced Frank Morgan with George Burns & Gracie Allen on NBC’s Thursday night Maxwell House Coffee Time. The first program from September 20, 1945 is posted here in which Meredith shares second billiing with Bill Goodwin, Mel Blanc and the Les Paul Trio. The plot introduces him as the Burns’ next door neighbor and he explains his new arrangement device, Chiffon Music, to Gracie. A follow-up show on October 18th has everyone excited when rumors spread that “bashful bachelor” Meredith Willson is going to be married.
The popularity of Willson and his Chiffon Music prompted General Foods to give him the Maxwell House timeslot over the summer months of 1946 during Burns & Allen’s hiatus. His own half-hour also gave him the opportunity to write and deliver his own monologues, like this salute to song pluggers: "When it come to patience, I'm mere beginner compared to the men who plug songs. Do you have any idea what patience a plugger must have to get just one plug? In the first place, do you have any idea what a song plugger is? Well, a song is published and somebody has to get it played and sung on the radio so you people out there will want to buy a copy. Now, the fellow who does that has to have the tact of an English butler, the stubbornness of a theme song and the patience of the triangle player with the Philharmonic. He has to walk Kay Kyser's dog, play chess with Eddy Duchin, wax Paul Whiteman's mustache and change Harry James' baby. He has to park Rudy Vallee's staton wagon, laugh at Fred Waring's jokes, play flute duets with me and carry Guy Lombardo's fiddle. He must whistle Boccherini for Toscanini, take Iturbi to the Derby, break his promise to John Charles Thomas and listen steady to Nelson Eddy, get a Bromo for Perry Como, read Dick Tracy to Count Basie and play tennis with Skinnay Ennis. My hat's off to you, Music Men and tp all of your Number One Plugs."
Variety, which hadn’t taken too kindly to Meredith’s air persona in the past was complementary in its review of August 21, 1946: “…Willson combines easy going banter and snappy music to make it one of the superior summertime music shows. Maestro - metamorphosed into emcee - has some cute gags, a folksy manner and a drawling amiability to give the program an individualized homey manner.” Reactions like this earned him a half-hour show on CBS for 26 weeks beginning on October 2, 1946, Sparkle Time, sponsored by Canada Dry.
Meredith also returned to the Burns & Allen cast for the 1946-47 and 47-48 seasons as music director and a supporting character. The last show of the year on May 29, 1947 is a good display of his comedic talents. Leaving Burns & Allen in the fall of 1948 Willson took over a 26 week series of Wednesday night half hour concerts on ABC for General Foods’ Jello while creating an unusual commercial technique for Jello.
The first two minutes of the The Aldrich Family on October 21st introduces The Talking People, Willson’s five singers - Norma Zimmer, Betty Allen, Maxwell Smith, John Rarig and Bob Hanlon - who spoke in unison as one individual. (4) General Foods paid $21,500 in additional line charges, plus talent fees, to switch during 40 weekly broadcasts from The Aldrich Family’s New York studio to NBC in Hollywood for Willson’s Talking People commercials. (5)
General Foods also called on Meredith Willson to give it a month’s worth of early television shows on New York City’s NBC outlet, WNBT(TV). Willson later described the experience in his book Eggs I Have Laid as having a pitifully low budget and no assistance. But it had a silver lining in the form of a review by Harriet Van Horne, critic of The New York World Telegram who once described Willson as a cross between Titus Moody and Walter Damrosch:
WILLSON SPARKLES ON VIDEO Well, I’ve seen Willson’s Talking People and they’re neither freaks nor kewpie dolls. Only apparent idiosyncrasy is that all five of them, including two handsome girls, wear Bobby Clark spectacles. Meredith Wiilson wears spectacles, too. His are the heavy, black-rimmed kind worn by scholarly young men in plays, and by assorted characters around town who want to look like scholarly young men in plays.
Truly, Mr. Willson surprised me. After listening to him on the radio - and liking it not much - I was prepared for a plain chap from he plains, brow wet with honest sweat. He’d be forever leainin against a lamp post - or maybe sittin’ on the cracker barrel down at the gen’l store - chewing a wisp of straw and telling interminable tales, all beginning, “When I was a boy back in Mason City, Iowa…” But no, Mr. Willson is well-tailored, clean-shaven and altogether a man of the world. He’s practically always in the mood to chat and the only hint of bucolic philosopher is in his manner of speaking. He still refers to Mason City, Iowa, at every possible opportunity.
Meredith Willson, the author, made his debut on the March 10, 1949 episode of The Hallmark Playhouse when the otherwise serious series adapted his whimsical autobiography, And There I Stood With My Piccolo. He explains its curious title in the first few minutes of the broadcast.
Meredith is best remembered by Network Radio historians for his two years as Musical Director for the elaborate NBC Sunday night variety program, The Big Show, in which he often addressed its hostess, the autocratic Tallulah Bankhead as “Miss Bankhead, Sir!”
He remained with The Big Show from its first broadcast on November 5, 1950 until its last on April 20, 1952. (See Tallulah’s Big Show.) It was during this period that Willson wrote the modern yuletide classic, It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas.
His contributions to the program reached their peak on March 9, 1952 when Shepperd Strudwick led a ten minute capsulated adaptation of Willson’s only novel, “Who Did What To Fidalia?” at 41:40. His tale of a talented girl’s journey from Ft. Dodge, Iowa, to Broadway was followed on the show by a satire of the story with Ethel Merman.
At 1:08:15 of the same program, comic Phil Foster “sang” Willson’s novelty, I Take A Dim View, and at 1:16:00 Tallulah Bankhead “moderated” a five minute take off on the literary panel show Author Meets The Critics to “discuss“ Wjllson‘s novel, with Merman, Foster, Strudwick, Joe Frisco, Peter Lorre and Richard Eatham. The bit actually sounds more like a tribute to It Pays To Be Ignorant.
Nevertheless, all is well at the end of the program as the entire cast reassembles to contribute a line apiece to Willson’s sign-off theme, May The Good Lord Bless And Keep You Til We Meet Again. (6)
Except for an occasional guest shot on television, little was heard from Meredith Willson for five years after The Big Show was cancelled. He was in his fifties, had earned a small fortune with his talents and living comfortably in the Los Angeles suburb of Brentwood. Few except his family and close friends knew that he was working on the achievement of his lifetime.
America found out on December 19, 1957, when his creation, The Music Man, opened at the Majestic Theater in New York City and ran for 1,375 performances and then became a hit movie. Now, almost 60 years later, it’s a cinch that The Music Man is playing on some high school, community theater or professional stage somewhere in America today. (7)
That continuing tribute to his work is seemingly observed by the smiling statue of Meredith Willson in Mason City’s Music Man Park. He never forgot his hometown and his hometown has never forgotten him.
(1) Meredith and his siblings remained close throughout their lives. He always credited Dixie with helping him in the early development of storylines for The Music Man and when Cedric’s travels as a renowned consulting engineer took him nearby, he often sat in with Meredith’s studio orchestras.
(2) Meredith and Elizabeth (Peggy) Willson were divorced in 1947. He married Russian opera singer Ralina (Rini) Zarova in 1948. Widowed in 1966, Willson married his former secretary, Barbara Sullivan, in 1968. The union lasted until his death in 1984. Meredith Willson had no children.
(3) Willson scored a second Academy Award nomination in 1942 for his score of Charlie Chaplin’s classic, The Great Dictator, written and recorded in 1940.
(4) Norma Zimmer later gained fame as Lawrence Welk’s Champagne Lady for 22 years.
(5) Willson also wrote the grating but catchy Jello Duet, (Oh, the big red letters stand for the Jello famileee…), sung by Ezra Stone and Jackie Kelk at the opening of Aldrich Family broadcasts beginning on October 28th.
(6) May The Good Lord Bless And Keep You Til We Meet Again was the farewell expression of Meredith’s mother to her Mason City, Iowa, Sunday school class every week.
(7) Meredith Willson subseqently wrote the music for The Unsinkable Molly Brown and Here's Love.
Copyright © 2017, Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com
| good_news___6-16-38.mp3 |
| fm_m__6-25-40.mp3 |
| m_willson__musical_rev___7-23-40.mp3 |
| burns___allen__9-20-45.mp3 |
| burns___allen__10-18-45.mp3 |
| burns___allen__5-29-47.mp3 |
| command_performance__5-25-47.mp3 |
| command_performance__10-05-48_.mp3 |
| aldrich_family____10-21-48.mp3 |
| hallmark_playhouse__3-10-49.mp3 |
| the_big_show___3-09-52.mp3 |
