The Brooklyn Daily Eagle from Brooklyn, New York • Page 75

Five BROOKLYN EAGLE MAGAZINE, SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1929. IsD HO k3 AID JCVOM ANCE EAD? By Garland Smith GETTING an -Interview with Rudy Vallee is about as difficult as getting into heaven. Not that we have ever had a chance to do that, but we figure to ourselves that the latter procedure couldn't be -much more impressive or much more roundabout than the former. To begin with, we had an appointment with Mr. Vallee' at the Paramount Theater, made with due ceremony by means of usher, doorman and private secretary, lor a certain afternoon.

But when we got there the cupboard was bare, so to speak no Rudy in sight. What About Rudy Vallee, Who Has Captured Imagination of Both Hard'Boiled Flappers and Sentimental Matrons We wandered upstairs and downstairs in the hinder parts of the theater, looking for him, and were finally told by a passing official that he was in the midst of a performance. So we perched on the s. tra backstage and awaited developments. At last appeared a nice man who turned out to be Mr.

Vallee's press representative. He ushered us up to the suite of rooms that was occupying at odd moments for dressing or resting or napping, during his Brooklyn engagement; and sat down in a big leather chair and prepared to wait some more. Explanations, inquiries, and tentative arrangements between us and the press representative. Then Mr. Vallee's young-lady secretary entered, chic and slim in a black satin frock, and most apologetic over the mis-nhfint the aoDOintment.

fP -iff 4 hii -ill HPS 1 Voices in the ante-room. The door opens, and in marches a stalwart attendant, Rudy's sax bearer, with the famous saxophone one of them, at least and the clarinet, which had just been figuring in the Paramount performance. And at last Rudy himself, tall and slender and elegantyes, indeed, elegant is the word, unless we say Vallee was born twenty-seven years age in Westbrook, Maine, a paper-mill town of about 10,000 population. He is, fittingly, of French-Irish descent. What Irish blarney, what Gallic suavity, he can put into that voice of his! From childhood Rudy has been musical His father wanted him to follow in his own footsteps as a pharmacist, but Rudy couldn't stunning looking exactly as you'd expect mm to iook.

Not pretentiously or consciously elegant or stunning, but naturally so, inevitably so, with his glowing, wall-groomed air of just having stepped out of a cold tub, and of having been ministered to by the most efficient of tailors and valets. The black of his dress-suit set off the brilliant color In his face. He looked as refreshing, as delightful, as full of sest as some popular upper-classman at a college prom and just about as old. A fleeting glimpse of him was all we had (with a hurried for he rushed into his dressing-room, out of his dress suit, and into street clothes, and was oft in his car for Manhattan. He suggested taking us with him and being interviewed on the way fancy, feminine fans! but it was decided to leave us in the bands of the press-agent, to make arrangements for a more leisurely interview the next week.

It was lucky for us that Rudy forgot that first ap-mintmnir nr coolly ignored it: we are not sure which Rudy Vallee. some of the best orchestras in the city. But his heart was set on a New York career. He pulled up his stakes in Boston and, armed with some letters of introduction, started out to besiege Broadway. He soon got all the jobs he wanted.

Things didnt eo any too smoothly, however, because Rudy had his for a week later we had the pleasure of seeing him own ideas about the way dance music should be played, and it was hard to convince the Broadway orchestra leaders that those ideas could be put over. Rudy's theory had always been that dance music ought to be played with perfect simplicity, with none of the eccentric "monkeyshines" that used to be considered necessary In a dance orchestra when jazz bands first became the rage. He wanted to do away with brass instruments, fanfares and elaborate orchestrations. He in action at the villa vauee; 01 sitting at uue ui uk tables at that charming night-club, under the aegis of Rudy's press-agent and in the company of some delightful friends of his, and looking and listening while Rudy made his saxophones sing, and led his band of Connecticut Yankees, and at intervals stepped upstage and whispered those melting love-songs into the microphone for the delight of adoring females all over the country. It was a sight to see Rudy sing into the microphone.

His voice was too low to be heard by the audience in the clubroom. This was not their inning. The Yankees kept up their playing all the while, and Rudy's seductive voice could only be imagined, as he stood there crooning the ear of the apparatus. But it didn't take much imagination to conceive of the sort of words he was uttering. It was really a pity for such a coaxing, pleading, adoring look as he assumed to be wasted on a mere microphone.

He was Young Love incarnate. Who said that romantic love was dead, or at its last rasD? Rudv Vallee's phenomenal success is a see it that way. Music was his passion, and as to a business in life, he thought he'd just let that work itself out. He had various jobs during his spare time while he was in high school, one of them being that of usher in a theater. There the music of the clarinet in the orchestra charmed him so that he saved his money till he could buy a clarinet.

He soon learned to play it, then somebody gave him a saxophone, and in a week he had mastered that sufficiently to play in an erchestra. He thought he could play the sax well enough. In fact; but about this time he heard a Victor record of Rudy Wiedoft, and that made him feel that he knew nothing. He straightway lost his heart to the saxophone king. He wrote a "fan" letter to Wiedoft, which led to a long correspondence, and to a course of saxophone lessons from Wiedoft by mail.

Did Rudy ever picture himself then, in his wildest dreams, as the recipient of the daily hundreds of fan letters that he gets "now? We forgot to ask him; but so it goes. On finishing high school, Rudy entered the University of Maine, but after a year there he changed to Yale, because he was already winning college fame and money as a saxophonist, and he wanted a wider field for his talent. He was in great demand at Yale to play at all the big dance3. For two years he earned about $1,500 a year, while carrying on his college studies at the same time. Then came a telegram from England asking if he could play for a year in the orchestra of the Savoy Hotel in London the finest band in Europe.

Naturally. Rudy accepted. He got leave of absence from Yale for a year, hurried to London, and captivated England's smart set with his playing, as thoroughly as he had already captivated the debutantes and dowagers of New Haven. Just before he was to return to America to finish his course at Yale he was invited to teach the Prince of Wales to play the saxophone; but he decided not to delay his college course any longer, and declined. Back at Yale, his popularity knew no bounds.

He was leader of the famous Yale Football Band and of the college dance orchestra. He helped to inspire the heroes of maiy a game, and was sought after to play at all the coming-out parties in the town. After his graduation in 1927 Rudy and his band went on a vaudeville tour across the country." When it was over, he stopped in Boston for a while, and led believed that the rhythm of a ragtime melody was enough to carry it over, without any outside trimmings that these merely detracted from the effect. Before long Rudy organized an orchestra of his own. This had been his dream since hi first college days; and now, by a lucky chance, he was able to mako that dream come true with dazzling completeness.

A new night club was being opened Don Dicker-man's "Blue Horse," in Greenwich Village which couldn't afford at first to hire a well-known tMii.j. mid this club gave Rudy his chance. He collected seven players, christened them "The Connecticut and proceeded to whip them into shape. As he says "We worked and sweated and cursed together until we got something different." "Something different" from the standardized jazz-band orchestra that had been Rudy's ideal; and now. with his Connecticut Yankees, he had at last realized it.

Then one evening Rudy happened to burst into song when the chorus of the number they were playing came around. The dancing stopped and the crowd went wild That was the beginning of his singing career. Soon after that Rudy and his band were engaged by a radio chain; and Rudy "arrived" in all his glory. The radio has been the means of his nation-wide popularity. He gets about two hundred letters every day from his admirers.

He reads as many of these as possible; sometimes he answers them. Rudy and the Yankees are going to Hollywood soon to appear In a "talkie," to be called "The Vagabond Lover." After that they will return to New York for another season. Then Rudy hopes to make a tour of Europe. refutation of that, at least as far as these United States are concerned. The great public here still wants its romance, its Love with a capital L.

It must be- very, very sad to the sophisticated, particularly to the earnest young women novelists of the day, to witness such debauches of sentiment. (One of these stern young women is reported to have said recently that Aldous Huxley would have to look out she could see signs of sentiment breaking in.) But there they are, these orgies of sentiment, cropping out ever so often, when some popular Idol catches the fancy of the crowd, just now -Vallee is undoubtedly the Sweetheart Preferred of Miss America, to say nothing of her mother and her maiden aunts. Rudy's real name Is Hubert Prior Vallee. He was dubbed "Rudy" by the boys at college, on account of his enthusiasm for Rudy Wiedoft, welt-known saxophonist..