Talking Reporter

Aided by 51 newspapers throughout the land, Cineman Carl Laemmle's Universal Newsreel daily flashes current events before the eyes of ten million cinemagoers in 10,000 theatres. Last week Newsreeler Laemmle enlisted more aid. To replace the explanatory captions in his newsreels he contracted to have the explanations spoken by a voice already familiar to his customers, the radio baritone of Graham McNamee, broadcaster extraordinary. A new title was invented for the occasion: Talking Reporter.

After hearing Graham McNamee describe the Dempsey-Tunney fight of 1927, a fairly hardboiled newspaperman* wrote: "Tears, murders, fever were in that voice. . . . I thought from time to time he was going to break down and cry. The emotional load was too great for a human heart."

The new title of Talking Reporter did not mean that Graham McNamee was going to shoulder a new assortment of emotional loads. He will not be present when the newsreels are taken. The 51 newspapers/- film local news, send it to Universal Newsreel's Manhattan laboratory. There Talking Reporter McNamee will view it. As he watches he will make remarks, which will be recorded on discs synchronized with the film. National Broadcasting Co. will not lose its No. 1 event-describer. McNamee's hour-a-day with Universal Newsreel will be sandwiched in among his regular announcing engagements.

In person Graham McNamee is lean, light-haired, with prominent nose and upper teeth. Born in Washington, D. C. in 1889, he grew up to be a semiprofessional baseballer in St. Paul, Minn. Then he found his baritone voice was better than his throwing arm. He was a church soloist in Bronxville, N. Y. where he romantically won his wife with the aid of an elopers' ladder. Called one day for jury duty in Manhattan, he found himself near No. 195 Broadway, then headquarters of WEAF. He walked in, took a voice test, got a job. Fame came quickly. His reporting of the long-drawn 1924, Democratic National Convention in Manhattan established him as most popular U. S. announcer. Soon no football game, world series, horse race, prizefight, inauguration was complete without him.

Between national events, Announcer McNamee attends Elks dinners, conventions, baby parades, makes "personal appearances" in vaudeville. His usual fee for livening up an Elks dinner is $250.

Among countless perquisites of popularity he can number:

Keys of the city: Boston, Detroit.

Police badge: Detroit.

Pipe: Meerschaum, with gold band, from Vineyard, Mass.

Eggs & Flowers: A little old lady-fan in White Plains, N. Y. used to send them regularly, followed finally by all her family silver. The eggs were 'always fresh.

Prayers: nightly, from a nun.

Inscriptions on Photographs: "Radiantly yours," "Ethereally yours," "In appreciation of the greatest thrill of my life."

Titles: "Such a help," "The only one." "The man with a million friends." "The ace of announcers." S. L. ("Roxy") Rothafel calls him "A real pillar of radio.''

*William F. McDermott in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

/-Some of them: New York Evening World, Chicago Daily News, Kansas City Journal-Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Indianapolis News, Minneapolis Morning Tribune, Atlanta Journal, Cincinnati Times-Star, Denver Rocky Mountain News.

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