Kate the Great

The undisputed first lady of radio as of 1939 is 235-lb., 29-year-old Contralto Kate Smith. For eight successful radio years Kate Smith has used her booming, unschooled voice, plus occasional bursts of hearty Americanism to sell millions of dollars worth of cigars, automobiles, coffee and, since 1937, General Foods cake flour, baking powder and salt. From her paychecks she has tucked away $1,000,000, mostly in Government bonds, but she is still unmarried, lives alone. She has won 15,000,000 weekly listeners, but she can count scarcely a dozen intimate friends.

Last week this publicly expansive first lady was guaranteed her radio job, at a salary of at least $7,000 a week, for three more years, in a non-cancellable contract the like of which has been written in radio only once before (for Jack Benny two years ago). Most radio contracts, no matter what their other terms, are cancellable at 13-week junctures. Kate's may be suspended, but only in case of war.

Thirteen years ago Kathryn Elizabeth Smith was an uninhibited 16-year-old lummox of a girl singing and doing the Charleston in Washington, D. C. amateur shows. Broadway Showman Eddie Dowling brought her to Manhattan as "Tiny Little" in Honeymoon Lane. During more than four years of Broadway (Hit the Deck, Flying High), the comics of the show business treated her to so many cruel fat-lady gags that finally, bitter and hurt, she packed and went home.

But a phonograph recording executive named Ted Collins, believing she had better assets than her figure, put her in radio. Simplicity, Collins decided, would put her over. So her introduction became simply: "Hello everybody, this is Kate Smith"; her farewell: "Thanks for Listenin'." Soon Kate was giving a fine account of herself in CBS's then toughest spot, competing for listeners with NBC's Amos 'n' Andy. She dedicated programs to shut-ins, plugged firemen's benefits, camps for underprivileged, visited cripples, became radio's No. 1 Benefit Girl. To "expand her prestige as an outstanding American woman" Collins last year arranged a three-a-week noonday broadcast of homely comment, book & play criticism. Sensitive to the rising tide of Broadway patrioteering, Kate last year got Irving Berlin to write God Bless America exclusively for her, sang it week after week until last month, when it was released to other patrioteers.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.