The Versatile Thrushes

Funnyman Jack Paar appraised Songstress Betty Clooney (sister of Rosemary) with a businesslike eye last week and regretfully decided to drop her from his CBS-TV Morning Show. In her place he hired blonde Edith Adams, probably no better at singing than Betty. Why did he do it? Explained Paar: "We're on the air 15 hours a week, mostly without script, so everyone has to double in brass. Edith Adams can do any dialect, sing in Italian, German and French, and mimic personalities from Louis Armstrong to Marilyn Monroe. What's more, she's full of ideas, and ideas are what we live on."

TV comics from coast to coast could nod in solemn understanding. For years a girl singer needed only to 1) be pretty, 2) have a good voice, 3) possess sufficient composure to clutch a microphone without falling off the bandstand. But television has added extra demands: more and more, singers are expected to save their breath for such nonvocal antics as handstands and soft-shoe routines.

When Eydie Gorme joined Steve Allen's NBC show Tonight a year and a half ago, she was simply a garden-variety pop singer. Now she can fly across the stage via hidden cables like Peter Pan, do a tap dance, play dramatic skits, deliver commercials for Helene Curtis spray net, and nimbly field and return an ad lib.

In auditioning singers, CBS's Robert Q. Lewis listens with one ear to a girl's voice, watches with both eyes to see what tricks she may have up her sleeve. He values Vocalist Jaye P. Morgan because she can "read a line," work on a trapeze and do acrobatics. He is pleased that Lois Hunt, once a junior soprano with the Met, "has come out of complete stuffiness to rise to any occasion." Carol Bushman, one of the four Chordettes, wins his praise for her "farm-type humor."

The demands on all TV thrushes are not quite so strenuous. Arthur Godfrey's hired hands have had to learn to ice-skate and swim, but, mostly, his singers need only look at the floor with humility while Arthur tells viewers what good kids they are. On the George Gobel Show, Peggy King's main nonsinging chore is to rub noses with Funnyman Gobel before he wanders offscreen. Denise Lor's task is more elusive: Garry Moore hired her because he thought she was "somebody the Middle West would like." The Midwest likes her.

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