columnists thinking they were a couple. For instance, after the April 7 congressional vote to end Prohibition, the Los Angeles Evening Herald and Express reported that Kay and Sterling were the first to raise their mugs at the Cocoanut Grove on the night beer started flowing once again.
Thompson and Holloway were not the only diamonds in the rough at KHJ. “The first show on which I worked was The Merrymakers, ” noted Sylvester “Pat” Weaver, the future president of NBC-TV (and future father of actress Sigourney Weaver). Although officially hired as a comedy writer, Pat was a jack of all trades. “I was allowed to write, direct, announce, and sometimes even act in programs, many of which I conceived and developed.”
Because Pat reminded her of a bird, Kay affectionately nicknamed him “Weaver Feathers”—a moniker she used for decades to come.
A few weeks after Merrymakers got under way, Kay was added to Laff Clinic and The Happy-Go-Lucky Hour, the latter of which paired her with thirty-one-year-old vaudeville performer Frank Jenks. With his shock of wavy red hair slicked back tight on his head, Frank had an infectious Irish grin and a salty delivery that delighted audiences. From the moment Kay and Frank shared a microphone, hilarity ensued, and so, starting March 6, they were given their own song-and-comedy series, Thompson and Jenks .
Kay also joined California Melodies, the most popular of KHJ’s broadcasts because, each week, the show featured big-name Hollywood guest stars such as Jean Harlow, Boris Karloff, Claudette Colbert, Edward G. Robinson, Mae West, and Dick Powell, who became Kay’s lifelong friend. Unlike some of her starstruck colleagues, Thompson impressed celebrities with her blasé ease and charm. Throughout her life, Kay would be most comfortable mingling with the glitterati—even though she was often the least famous among them.
Thompson was accompanied on all five of these series by KHJ’s thirty-two-piece orchestra conducted by Raymond Paige, who encouraged her to create unique vocal arrangements that he would then orchestrate. “Paige was already well known,” recalled Pat Weaver, “though not as famous as he would become in New York as the Radio City Music Hall conductor. He fit perfectly into our jocular style at KHJ.”
T outing its new starlet, KHJ got the Los Angeles Times to run a headshot of Thompson on March 11, 1933—the first time her photograph appeared in a major publication. It caught the eye of Leonard Sillman, who asked her to join his first “New Faces” stage revue, Low and Behold! at the Pasadena Community Playhouse, scheduled for a one-week limited engagement starting May 16.
Bound by her exclusive contract with KHJ, Kay had to get special permission from Don Lee to do the show. In exchange for agreeing to work around her performance schedule, the station would collect 20 percent of her outside earnings. She was already giving up 10 percent of her income to an agent the station had forced on her, Thomas Lee, son of her boss. The conflict of interest was astounding.
But for Kay, doing Low and Behold! was not about the money. She hoped the exposure would lead to movies and/or Broadway.
The cast of Low and Behold! would include such unknowns as Eve Arden (then billed as Eunice Quedens), Teddy Hart (brother of lyricist Lorenz Hart), Charles Walters (who later became a top choreographer and director at MGM), Lois January (who later appeared in The Wizard of Oz ), and, last but not least, Leonard Sillman’s hunky nineteen-year-old chauffeur, Tyrone Power.
On March 13, three days after the devastating Long Beach earthquake, rehearsals got off to a shaky start at a dance studio on Highland Avenue in Hollywood. “A lot of professional gnashing” was how Lois January described the rehearsals. “Fighting and feuding and ‘we don’t like this and that’—I was so unhappy with it. Kay, on the other hand, was a delight. She brought stability to the mishmash.
Thompson and Holloway were not the only diamonds in the rough at KHJ. “The first show on which I worked was The Merrymakers, ” noted Sylvester “Pat” Weaver, the future president of NBC-TV (and future father of actress Sigourney Weaver). Although officially hired as a comedy writer, Pat was a jack of all trades. “I was allowed to write, direct, announce, and sometimes even act in programs, many of which I conceived and developed.”
Because Pat reminded her of a bird, Kay affectionately nicknamed him “Weaver Feathers”—a moniker she used for decades to come.
A few weeks after Merrymakers got under way, Kay was added to Laff Clinic and The Happy-Go-Lucky Hour, the latter of which paired her with thirty-one-year-old vaudeville performer Frank Jenks. With his shock of wavy red hair slicked back tight on his head, Frank had an infectious Irish grin and a salty delivery that delighted audiences. From the moment Kay and Frank shared a microphone, hilarity ensued, and so, starting March 6, they were given their own song-and-comedy series, Thompson and Jenks .
Kay also joined California Melodies, the most popular of KHJ’s broadcasts because, each week, the show featured big-name Hollywood guest stars such as Jean Harlow, Boris Karloff, Claudette Colbert, Edward G. Robinson, Mae West, and Dick Powell, who became Kay’s lifelong friend. Unlike some of her starstruck colleagues, Thompson impressed celebrities with her blasé ease and charm. Throughout her life, Kay would be most comfortable mingling with the glitterati—even though she was often the least famous among them.
Thompson was accompanied on all five of these series by KHJ’s thirty-two-piece orchestra conducted by Raymond Paige, who encouraged her to create unique vocal arrangements that he would then orchestrate. “Paige was already well known,” recalled Pat Weaver, “though not as famous as he would become in New York as the Radio City Music Hall conductor. He fit perfectly into our jocular style at KHJ.”
T outing its new starlet, KHJ got the Los Angeles Times to run a headshot of Thompson on March 11, 1933—the first time her photograph appeared in a major publication. It caught the eye of Leonard Sillman, who asked her to join his first “New Faces” stage revue, Low and Behold! at the Pasadena Community Playhouse, scheduled for a one-week limited engagement starting May 16.
Bound by her exclusive contract with KHJ, Kay had to get special permission from Don Lee to do the show. In exchange for agreeing to work around her performance schedule, the station would collect 20 percent of her outside earnings. She was already giving up 10 percent of her income to an agent the station had forced on her, Thomas Lee, son of her boss. The conflict of interest was astounding.
But for Kay, doing Low and Behold! was not about the money. She hoped the exposure would lead to movies and/or Broadway.
The cast of Low and Behold! would include such unknowns as Eve Arden (then billed as Eunice Quedens), Teddy Hart (brother of lyricist Lorenz Hart), Charles Walters (who later became a top choreographer and director at MGM), Lois January (who later appeared in The Wizard of Oz ), and, last but not least, Leonard Sillman’s hunky nineteen-year-old chauffeur, Tyrone Power.
On March 13, three days after the devastating Long Beach earthquake, rehearsals got off to a shaky start at a dance studio on Highland Avenue in Hollywood. “A lot of professional gnashing” was how Lois January described the rehearsals. “Fighting and feuding and ‘we don’t like this and that’—I was so unhappy with it. Kay, on the other hand, was a delight. She brought stability to the mishmash.
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