Mrs. Rannous said:
Now I'm waiting for Wikkid's story. He's just gotta have one.
i'm getting pigeon-holed here.
nothing on Miss Storm., specifically, but Burlesque was responsible for my first real award nomination.
as i've told before, in '75 my gf was selling ad time for a Boston radio station and her customers biggest prob was the actual productions of their commercials. she kept begging me to use my studio expertise to help her w her clients, so i made some spots for Bezerko Bob's Buick and The Blinds Man to chill and keep her naughty & anxious. the GM liked my voiceovers and asked me if i'd read the news (sidebar: the guy who eventually got the job was Robert "Naked Bobby" Desiderio, who will be known to Cheers fans as the proprietor of Gary's Olde Towne Tavern) for them.
i really liked doing this, so i'd go in to WCOZ, produce spots for my gal, write some copy and go on at 6pm. i didn't let them pay me cuz i wanted to keep myself positioned for the the right job (that ended up being my later-syndicated half-hour comedy show,
Zero Hour, a whole nuther story). i couldnt really go for News Director cuz i had no Edu or experience and news reader seemed like it was a bottomfeeder pay grade, so i asked the GM if i could do stories on my own. as long as they were self-produced (ie: free) he was fine with it.
anyone who's been to Boston's Govt Center has seen the giant brass kettle in front of a coffee shop (now a Starbucks, of course) across Court St. well, somebody told me that all the "entertainers" from Boston's legendary Burlesque theater, the Howard - which had been torn down to build Govt Ctr - still got together regularly there to reminisce about the good ol' days. i stopped by one Thursday and they were hootin' & hollerin' to stories of the excesses & escapades of their own and the great & famous acts who'd passed thru. i insinuated myself among them and ultimately asked if i could do a piece on em. i assembled a sound team (like in Better Call Saul, now i wish i'd gotten video, of course) from Emerson College and we got 3 hours of great stuff, i found an editor to make sumn out of it and ended up with 5 nice reports. put em on the air and my boss liked em well enough, to pay for my next story, which happened to be about a Georgia governor who had begun his campaign for President 6 months before anyone else by going around to coffee klatches in surburban New Hampshire. can't remember if that turned into anything or not......
somewhere in the vaults of WHDH (my station's parent company) are the tapes from both of those stories and i shonuff would love to hear em again. the old vaudeville comics and variety actors, were my concentration during those interviews, but the memory i come away with was from the dancers, some of whom were insistently ladylike and moral about what they did. of course, the real hoochies would then chime in and we'd have us a grand ol' laugh.
so, that's my Burlesque story. Of course, i'm saving the tale about my father and the legendary Satin Doll until she dies (still with us @ 90sumn)
ETA: oh, #### - i buried the lede. anyway, i had no idea there were awards for Excellence in Radio - which is like having awards for Subtlety in Politics - but, several months later i found myself nominated for both my Burlesque @ Oriental Tea Shop and Carter stories. bought a proper suit and went to a dinner and such, but........