Retired baritone reflects…on Nelson Eddy

Bobby Brittain performed for FDR and shared stages with Lucille Ball and Ethel Barrymore.

February 29, 2008
A 12-year-old Bobby Brittain entered Tin Pan Alley in the 1930s, dressed in his knickers and naively peddling words to a song he wrote.

Brittain loved to sing. The song “March of Dimes” put him in front of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, performing at a benefit of the same name, at the Waldorf Astoria. That performance resulted in a contact from the well-known William Morris Agency in Manhattan, N.Y.

Brittain had a lot going for him — everything except for his name. The agency already had someone by that name, so Bobby Brittain had to adopt a new persona, and it was the beginning of a successful career for a man known as Tommy Dix.

Today this 84-year-old, silver-haired baritone can still croon anyone back into yesteryear. The songs still sound in his heart, and he can still remember their impact on him as a youth.

The Williamsburg resident reflected back to 1935, when his mother took him to see “Naughty Marietta,” a play with Nelson Eddy.

“I heard Nelson Eddy sing, ‘Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life,’ and I began to cry,” he said.

When his mother asked him why he was crying, he told her, “That was beautiful.”

“I knew then, that’s what I wanted to do.” After winning a four-year scholarship to Manhattan’s High School of Music & Art, he became president of the science club, where the other half of his heart lies. He claims that someone entered his name into a drawing, and he was able to attend the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton University for a day, where he was privileged to hear Albert Einstein speak.

“I only understood a fraction of what he was talking about,” he says.

He was tempted toward a career in science, but singing also tugged at him and he found early success employing his voice.

“I got sidetracked,” Brittain said of his singing career. “We were poor, it was during the Depression and this was a great way to make plenty money.”

Show business gave him the chance to be the voice of Henry in the radio production of “The Aldridge Family,” among other shows. From those small beginnings, he catapulted into film; starring in “Best Foot Forward” with Lucille Ball. He lived on the West Coast for a couple of years after that, but quickly returned home. One of his songs from “Best Foot Forward” enjoyed widespread popularity, “Buckle Down Winsocki.” And, for anyone around in the 1960s, he was also the voice behind the television commercial tune “Buckle up for Safety, Buckle up.”

At the age of 15, he performed in the original stage version of “The Corn is Green,” with Ethel Barrymore.

“Don’t quote me, but I may be the only person still living from that show,” Brittain said.

As much as he enjoyed entertaining, he left the business at the age of 23.

“I didn’t like all the things that were going on, so I left,” Brittain said. “I didn’t want to be under the observation of audiences any longer. Being on tour was hard, and there was no privacy. I began to like music less, because it became a job.”

But he still loved to sing. Brittain can still sit and serenade you with his songs of long ago. He also can reminisce about his Army service during World War II, his two marriages, his son and life stories. He will reveal his love of science and the arts, and he will share tears about his beloved wife, Elizabeth, who he married in 1992 but who died two years ago.

Around his home are busts of Aristotle, Hypnos, Euripides, Beethoven and Thomas Jefferson; photos of Albert Einstein, who he holds in high esteem; and the complete collection of “Great Books of the Western World.”

“I aspire to be an appreciator of beautiful things — one should develop that sense early on. We need to stand on the shoulders of the ones that went before us. When an old man dies, a great library burns down,” he said.

He sums up his life by quoting a famous line that he lives by, from philosopher and mathematician Rene Descartes: “I think, therefore I am.”

Link

The Shocking Miss Pilgrim – a 99-year old screenwriter tells it as Hollywood was!

Here’s another book recommendation! I read an excellent review of this book and decided to check it out, noting that she discussed Louis B. Mayer. It’s a slim volume but very insightful into the 20s and 30s. Maas discusses all aspects of her life and times, the cutthroat industry, prejudice against women, the parties that were little more than orgies. Seems like some aspects of Hollywood haven’t changed much!

From the “Publishers Weekly” review: “In 1920, she answered a New York Times classified ad from Universal Pictures, becoming, at age 23, Universal’s N.Y.C. story editor. In 1925, she arrived in Hollywood, turned down a screen test and instead scripted a Clara Bow vehicle, The Plastic Age….. Maas trashes Hollywood legends, recalling Louis B. Mayer as “a very fearful, insecure man”; Clara Bow dancing nude on a tabletop; Jeanne Eagels squatting to urinate in the midst of a film set; and Marion Davies commenting on her affair with Hearst: “I’m a slave, that’s what. A toy poodle.”

From the Amazon.com review: ” In The Shocking Miss Pilgrim, Frederica–who met and married filmmaker Ernest Maas in 1927–shows how, despite her screenwriting abilities, her career in motion pictures was stymied by her outspoken disagreements with studio bosses, and how many of those around her gave into debauchery. (At one party, she reports, “undressed, tousled men chased naked women, shrieking with laughter. Included in this orgy was Ray Long, Mr. Hearst’s representative; Harry Rapf, my own producer; and even the immaculate Irving Thalberg–all drunk, drunk, drunk.”) Her memoir’s prose has a charming tone, perfectly matching her Jazz Age exploits, which take up the bulk of the story. She also discusses the decline of the Maas’s careers, which they finally abandoned after the Second World War, but not before writing a musical (called The Shocking Miss Pilgrim) for Betty Grable. The best passages concern Frederica’s adventures in a young industry that was still discovering itself, such as her part in the creation of a motion picture legend: newly arrived actress Lucille LeSueur came up to her one day and said, “I like the way you dress. You dress like a lady. I need that. I want to be dressed right. Smart. I figured you could help.” One shopping expedition later, and Joan Crawford was taking her first steps toward stardom. “–Ron Hogan

My only complaint was that the book wasn’t longer; still, this is an excellent eyewitness account of what it was like to be a woman in Hollywood. You can probably get the book through your local library system or order it at the link above.

Reviews still coming in for the Lubitsch/Jeanette MacDonald DVDs

…
His first sound film was The Love Parade, made in 1929, the first truly “talkie” year. His use of camera movement is only slightly constrained in this operetta starring Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald. The following year’s Monte Carlo was another leap forward, with its famous “Beyond the Blue Horizon” number, in which train sounds set the rhythm, leading to Jeanette MacDonald’s vocal and the choral backing of farmers as the train speeds by their fields. The Smiling Lieutenant (1931) is similar in tone and subject to The Love Parade, with an even smoother execution. And One Hour with You (1932) — a remake of The Marriage Circle (1924), one of Lubitsch’s best silents — is arguably the greatest of the four.

The “argument” is largely a matter of casting. Chevalier was known as “the French Jolson,” and, like the American Jolson, his style and persona have (to be kind) dated badly.

In addition to his often impenetrable accent, Chevalier’s repertoire of rolling eyes, raised eyebrows, smug grins and jaunty chuckles make his whole act somewhere between irritating and intolerable. Monte Carlo benefits hugely by having Jack Buchanan (The Band Wagon) in what would otherwise have been “the Chevalier role.”

Link

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