U.S. Stars Down Under

Frank Sinatra pressed his nose against the window of the landing plane, saw the huge crowd below and muttered. "Oh, no!" When he emerged, the bobby-soxers shrilled, "We want Frankie!" while 10,000 fans fought for positions. One well-dressed woman kicked off her shoes and started climbing a wire fence as the gum-chewing singer hurried off to a 75-minute press conference. It might have been 1945 in the U.S., when Frankie was the teen-age rage, but it was 1955 in Sydney, Australia.

Frankie was scheduled to make twelve appearances in Melbourne (pop. 1,522,-930) and 14 in Sydney (pop. 1,861,685). In Melbourne his arrival was front-page news, but he disappointed thousands of fans by ducking into a waiting car ("Let's see the mug," yelled the fans. "Is he too proud to show himself?"). He missed a big luncheon party and was the target of jeers and attempted violence by young toughs but he and his troupe sang for some 55,000 people in four days. "This is the greatest," he said in Sydney. "I've never seen anything like it."

Sinatra's wild reception was the latest--and biggest--in a series of triumphal visitations by U.S. stars that began last July. The Artie Shaw-Jerry Colonna-Ella Fitzgerald-Buddy Rich troupe, which grossed a record-breaking $103,500, came first. Others followed fast. Drummer Gene Krupa was drummed in by a corps of Aussie drummers beating out Sing, Sing, Sing. Crooner Johnnie Ray touched off the wildest teen-age hysteria in Australian history. Stripper Gypsy Rose Lee was condemned by both the Baptist and Roman Catholic churches. Crooner Nat "King" Cole summed it up: ""Boy, no artist can afford to leave out Australia."

The U.S.-Australia entertainment relay was started by a 35-year-old Florida showman named Lee Gordon. He found that most of the entertainers touring Australia were British or else molto serioso musicians. But he also found that most of the local films and records were made in the U.S., decided that Australia was hungry for American entertainers. By booking big names into big boxing stadiums, he could afford to pay expensive air fares and still show a profit.

Last week the Down Under boom suffered a temporary setback. When Sinatra returned to Melbourne from Sydney, he found the 8,000-seat stadium burned to the ground, had to move to a smaller (3,000) hall, and Promoter Gordon faced a bleak week. Worse, Brisbane's newspaper Truth quoted Australia's Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer Arthur Fadden who was "very perturbed" about the influx of profit-hungry American entertainers. "They are like butcherbirds," * said he. "They fly in, pick up the worm and fly away again." Nevertheless, Aussie audiences went on cheering, and when he flies home this week, Singer Sinatra will carry back a reported $40,000 net.

* The Deputy Prime Minister has his ornithological facts wrong: butcherbirds (shrikes) do not eat worms, nor do they eat and run. Instead, it is their practice to impale insects, field mice and small birds on thorns, and later return to the natural larder to eat at leisure.

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