High-Priced Pea Picker

Ever since he first loped onstage last fall opposite such formidable opposition as CBS's Playhouse go and ABC's Wire Service, it was clear that Tennessee Ernie was a new kind of Ford in TV's future. Jaws slack and chipmunk eyes watering, his mouth listing to port in a mustachioed half-smile, Ernie could slam into a fair-weather tune with authority, sink back languidly into some corn pone-and-molasses badinage about his pea-pickin' cousins (he claims 150 kinsfolk) or how to make porcupine meat balls. He could turn a muffed line into an "Ernie-ism" ("I'm as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rockin' chairs"), drive home a folksy Ford (Motor Co.) commercial, or tug tears with a lugubrious, deep-voiced version of The Lord's Prayer. "I'm not strictly country boy, and I'm not strictly pop," says Ernie. "You know I couldn't top Roy Acuff's Grand Ole Opry stuff, and I couldn't beat Como. So I mix 'em, and the people like it fine."

All Strung Up. The people like Ernie so fine that they have made him the only newcomer to Nielsen's sacrosanct Top Ten this year. His canonization among the highly mortal immortals of TV has been a triumph--if that is the word--of manner. Ford has the warmth and expansiveness of a Baptist revivalist, some of the relentless cracker-barrel wit of an Alben Barkley or Will Rogers. No hayseed, he has parlayed his deep-dish Southern accent and soft, self-deprecatory ways into hard money. Says his manager: "He appeals to old people with his hymns and spiritual songs. He has a tremendous appeal to little youngsters because of the name Tennessee Ernie. He is handsome enough and his low, masculine bass voice gives him sex appeal to women, but he is not good-looking enough for men to resent. Ernie himself is right from the workingman. They love and understand him. Let's face it, he's got mass appeal." Ford works an eleven-hour work day on his five daytime shows (soon to be dropped by him) and single night entry without getting ruffled. "The only one around here who has an ulcer is the producer, and he brought it over with him from the Gobel show," says an associate. "I don't think being all strung up like a cornstalk fiddle helps," explains Ernie.

Scared to Death. Easygoing Ernie grew up on a small farm near Bristol, a town (pop. 40,000) lying half in Virginia and half in Tennessee. There he ploughed tobacco rows, hunted coons and went cat-fishing. Occasionally the sheriff would ask him and his mother to come down to the jail and sing hymns to the prisoners. At 18 he was a $10-a-week announcer on a local station, went on to Cincinnati Conservatory of Music with ambitions of becoming a professional concert baritone. "But the folks was havin' to scratch and grind for a few bucks," so Ernie went back to odd radio jobs. In California he joined Hillbilly Cliffie Stone's local show, Hometown Jamboree, and made some records (Mule Train, Shotgun Boogie) that led to a guest appearance in Las Vegas. "I was scared to death to play before an audience of sophisticates and gamblers." In 1955, with his driving, metronome sense of rhythm, he recorded a coal miner's bitter lament called Sixteen Tons ("Saint Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go, I owe my soul to the company sto' "). Aided by some ingenious orchestration, it shot to the top of the nation's bestseller lists as fast as any record ever made, has sold 4,000,000 copies. His two albums of spirituals became quick and steady Top Ten sellers. With his considerable record royalties and TV fees, Ernie has bought a cattle ranch, where he spends most of his free time with his wife Betty, a California girl whom he calls "Pumpkin," and two sons, "Buck," 7, and "Little Bit," 4. But his ascent to the title of No. i U.S. Pea Picker has not turned his head or flawed his easy manner. "With TV, you don't have to make folks feel they have to put their coats on for you. You want to leave them with the feeling, 'It's been a nice visit. I sure hope you come back.' "

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