Oakland Tribune from Oakland, California • Page 54

SCREEN RADIO WEEKL i 1 xi i eaio otars ixnit i wo. nen rur a rew By Betty Goodwin OU HEAR A fT nmtlmg needle are clicking in the OU HEAR A ydmk broadcasting siudios. Marian Bar- ney is not ciiampion, ana lot of strange I gm "Rat and Drums," a close sec- noises in a broadcasting studio rduring rehearsals. You hear the cut-ups ask ing the engineer, How I doin Ma?" And the engineer cracking back, "Worse and worse." You hear violins being tuned and throats being cleared. Frantic cries of "Where's my page five?" "I'd like to find th bird who tyrote this script I have to look, for my lines with a microscope." "Quicker with the mu sic cues this time, fellows.

We've eot half an hour for this program, not half a day," And lately there's been a new noise, the steady clicketty-clack and clacketty-click of knitting needles. Bone needles, wooden ones and steel. The knitting rage is spreading like fire before a wind, and the laps of the radio stars are blooming with red, blue, pink and yellow yarns. I mean, the feminine stars. It's a shame, for purposes of this story, that I can't find a single man who's following the Prince of Wales' ex- serves its- purpose as a time-killer.

Every time Helen sees it she ravels the whole thing out, gives Patti another lesson and tells her to begin over again. If the yarn doesn't wear out before the thing's finished that muffler will be a valuable museum piece some day. ORETTA CLEMENS -f 7 ample. Even Jack Benny and Fred Allen, who have practically no reticence, refused to discuss the knitting question. Allen said, "Now if you'd asked me about crocheting, that would be different.

I was just this morning pacing my great estate, looking for a likely spot for a crochet ground." And Benny said the only thing that would interest him in knitting would be Marlene Dietrich to hold the yarn. "But it's a vicious circle," he went on. "Because with Marlene holding the yarn how could I stand to have my hands full of knitting needles?" Nk. i in is another radio youngster who has more enthusiasm than skill as a knitter. She's hard at work on a little something which she stoutly contends will be a dog sweater, "I know pink's a funny color for a dog," Loretta told me, "but you see, when I started out I thought it was going to be a dress for me.

I kept casting on stitches till I thought I had enough to go around an elephant. But the longer I knit on it the smaller it There's one good thing, though. If it gets too small for a dog I can always give it to a cat." (If I'm not careful I'll be giving you the impression that knitting is just a joke to the radio girls. That really isn't the case. There are lots of expert knitters and lots of serious-minded ones.

And even Loretta Clemens' knitting shouldn't be taken lightly just because she has a sense of humor. A sense of humor is a pretty universal characteristic of radio people and it's one of the things that makes you like Among the Serious Knitters three are outstanding Marion Barney, who plays Mrs. Davis on the Red Davis sketches over NBC-WJZ; Helen Claire, who plays the role of Betty Graham, heroine of the "Roses and Drums" serial, and Adele Ronson, popular NBC actress. Miss Barney learned to knit during the war th it is, she made things which she called socks although hey looked more like a lying-down capital For some reason the feet always came out twice as long as the leg part. But during the intervening years Miss Barney has got sock-knitting down prt.

She knits them by the dozen for her husband, whose shanks are the envy of all other golfers. YoUNG Helen Claire concentrates on sweaters. The one-. she was knitting when the accompanying picture was taken is brilliant sapphire blue very tricky as to the square, collared neckline. As usual, when Helen finishes it she'll give the sweater away.

She's knit so many sweaters she's actually lost count, and yet she has only two of her own and those are "store-bought." Louise Bernhardt, the golden-haired NBC contralto, is what you'd call a "creative knitter." Or a knitting designer. She scorns all patterns and diagrams and makes up original designs and color schemes. The longer I write the more knitters I think of, so I'd better follow the editor's advice and "bite it off" right here. Except just a minute a yarn has to have a surprise ending. The surprise is that programs get on the air any more, what with singers and actresses wrapped up in their knitting and the rest of the cast knee-deep in ravelingtl 0 LET'S leave the men out of it and concentrate on the radio women who knit'.

Women are really the only ones who could get by with it. Imagine the small pieces a production man would fly intoif the hero of the dramatic serial boomed out, "Wait just a minute, Hal, till I finish purling this row." It takes a woman, an unusually charming woman wearing her verybest smile, to get by with that. Jane Froman, the lovely NBC singer, is one of the prettiest knitters and a pioneer. Whereas some of the girls just knit for the fun of itJane knits with a purpose and in a big way. She's almost always packing around a practically entire knit suit.

Several people have accused her of running a knitting syndicate. They" don't see how such a- busy young woman could possibly get so much done. One rehearsal she'll be casting on stitches for a sweater and the next time she'll have the sweater finished and be hilf way down the skirt Almost everythingNhe knits is red which, in time, you'd expect either to blind a girl or drive; her mad. Jane says it has the opposite effect on her, though. "I guess I get used to seeing red," she told me, laughingly.

"It doesn't bother me a bit. And anyway, it proves I'm not bull-headed." The Pickens Sisters also rank high among radio's prominent knitters. They say it's been a life-saver for them, too, during their long season in the Broadway musical hit, "Thumbs Up." Helen Pickens is the expert in the family. She began years ago, knitting clothes for her dolls, and she's been at it ever since. At a matter of fact, Helen may have, started the knitting fad in radio.

While other artists were twiddling their thumbs, trying to read and otherwise fretting over the inevitable "waits" during radio rehearsals, Helen sat placidly in studio corners knitting her way to" peace. "There isn't any other pastime quite as suitable for radio," she says. "While you're knitting you can read over your script or hum through your songs. You don't have to have quiet. My sister, Patti, used to try reading while we were waiting for our cues.

After a few minutes, of course, she was fit to be tied. The musicians were always tuning up their bass viols and running through a few scales on the saxophone. Or else the dramatic part of the show was going over and over its crises." You see, radio' rehearsing is a little bit like movie-making. Certain scenes or songs or episodes are rehearsed over and over again. All the others in the cast have to sit patiently and put up with it.

Their jue may comeany. minute. At the same time they have to be quifittr flp. ping pong, no gossip, no loud talk and laughter. So Helen Pickens became and more an object of envy.

She taught blond Sister Jane and between them they've turned out a lovely afghan. Now Patti, who's the youngest and smallest Pickens, has also started to "knit two and purl two," She hasn't got to the point of knitting and rehearsing at the same time. In fact, she's been working about two months on a plain blue muffler. "Every time anybody talksto me I drop a stitch," she confessed tome. "And see here, some of my knitting's big and some of it's little.

I can't seem to make all the rows look alike but maybe I'll learn." It's true, Patti's muffler does look a little like 'a caterpillar in motion but it.