The Doodles Weaver Show (1951)

An Interview with Milton Delugg - Part Two

 

Kliph Nesteroff: Broadway Open House lead to so many different things. Of course, it established the template for late night television. It was the predecessor to The Tonight Show as the very first late night entertainment comedy show.

Milton Delugg: Sure.

Kliph Nesteroff: Dave Garroway guest hosted Broadway Open House and that, presumably, lead Pat Weaver to placing him as host of the first morning entertainment program, The Today Show.

Milton Delugg: And he became a star.

Kliph Nesteroff: The other people that auditioned for the hosting job on Broadway Open House ended up getting their own shows.

Milton Delugg: Yup.

Kliph Nesteroff: Also it lead to Frank Sinatra cutting a single with Dagmar, Jerry Lester signing with Coral Records and yourself getting a recording deal with MGM.

Milton Delugg: Yes. All of those things are true! It was just a remarkable time and really, Kliph, if we hadn't been the only thing on late at night - I don't think any of us would have been as important or as lucky as it all turned out.

Kliph Nesteroff: Despite the free-wheeling nature of the show - it did have writers. Some of those writers became big names like Danny Simon...

Milton Delugg: The two brothers - Danny and Doc. Danny Simon and Neil Simon.

Kliph Nesteroff: Also Allan Sherman.

Milton Delugg: Yes. Danny and Doc became big writers on Broadway.

Kliph Nesteroff: Did you have much involvement with the comedy writers on the show?

Milton Delugg: Well, we started off all alone and I think Jerry hired the writers. So, I wasn't too involved with them. It was like - "Jerry opens door. Delugg walks out wearing accordion and says something." You know?

Kliph Nesteroff: Jerry Lester left and he was replaced for a spell by Jack E. Leonard, Buddy Hackett, Jan Murray...

Milton Delugg: Yup. Fat Jack. He was the original Don Rickles and he was always very nice. He was a very heavyset man. Jan Murray left and got his own show and I was also musical director on that. Now, you wanna talk about budgets - I had a three piece orchestra. That was it.

Kliph Nesteroff: Was that Charge Account?

Milton Delugg: Charge Account and a show called Treasure Hunt... which later Chuck Barris did. I got to meet Chuck Barris in the early fifties. He came from Philadelphia, wanted to come to New York, and was selling something called Cue TV. You ever hear of that?

Kliph Nesteroff: No.

Milton Delugg: It was a little machine that sat on the top of the camera and it rolled and you could read the script. You didn't need cue cards or anything like that.

Kliph Nesteroff: The original teleprompter.

Milton Delugg: Exactly. Of course, once Chuck sold Cue TV to NBC and ABC and CBS and Dumont - there wasn't anymore business. That's all there was. He wanted to be a songwriter and he wanted to be on television.  He is such a dear man. We talk many times a year and our relationship is very good. He presented ABC with a show... he had been a page or a gopher... he became Assistant of Daytime and he came with a show called The Dating Game. They turned it down and so he put as much money as he could together, came to California, and sold the same show to ABC out here and it was an immediate hit.

Kliph Nesteroff: I spoke with someone not long ago who I think you would have worked with on the Jan Murray show. Micki Marlo.

Milton Delugg: Oh my Lord! Yup. My golly! She did Charge Account. Very pretty girl. Good singer. She had a couple of hit records. That lady is a big talent.

Kliph Nesteroff: You worked on a show that nobody remembers called Seven at Eleven. What do you recall about it?

Milton Delugg: Sure. Seven at Eleven was one of the after-shows of Broadway Open House and there were seven of us on the show. I had about four men in the band and there was Buddy Hackett and somebody else. There were seven people.

Kliph Nesteroff: And what do you recall about the early Buddy Hackett?

Milton Delugg: He was just a little bit too powerful for television. Johnny Carson loved him a lot and used to put him on. I thought he was a real funny man.

Kliph Nesteroff: Was he difficult, though?

Milton Delugg: Off and on - yes. The answer is... yes.

Kliph Nesteroff: Two other actors I have listed as being on Seven at Eleven, two great comic talents, Herbie Faye - and Sid Gould.

Milton Delugg: Herbie Faye and Sid Gould. They were both very good. They were not quite strong enough to have their own shows and both funny.

Kliph Nesteroff: Herbie Faye you eventually saw all the time on The Phil Silvers Show - Sgt Bilko.

Milton Delugg: Yeah. That's right. You know, Bob Hilliard and I... Bob was a lyric writer. We wrote a show, a musical, called Bilko.

Kliph Nesteroff: Oh, really?

Milton Delugg: Yeah, but Phil Silvers didn't want to do it. He said he had five or six years of playing that soldier character on television and he was looking for a new kind of part.

Kliph Nesteroff: Wow, I had no idea.

Milton Delugg: Early sixties.

Kliph Nesteroff: You just had the idea or you went ahead and wrote the production?

Milton Delugg: We wrote it and there were some pretty good songs in it. Bobby was a remarkable lyric writer. Very good. Nothing ever happened with any of it. Once Phil turned it down, you're not going to get someone else to play that part.

Kliph Nesteroff: Phil Silvers was great in Top Banana.

Milton Delugg: Oh, he was wonderful. Was there a show called High Button Shoes? I think so. It was a musical - not on TV. Jules Stein, Sammy Cahn... and there was a hit song in it. 

Kliph Nesteroff: Phil Silvers was a powerhouse. He could steal any scene.

Milton Delugg: And he did (laughs).

Kliph Nesteroff: You mention working on Guys and Dolls. Did you get to know George S. Kaufman at all?

Milton Delugg: Really, no. I knew who he was, but we were never friendly. It wasn't like with Frank Loesser, who was such a help to me. Like I tell you, lucky.

Kliph Nesteroff: I must ask you about Fred Allen.

Milton Delugg: What a talented man. My golly and a nice man too. I got to do his television show.

Kliph Nesteroff: Judge for Yourself.

Milton Delugg: Yeah and, Kliph, it wasn't a hit at all. It wasn't for Fred. It was a kind of a talent show and it didn't show him off like it should have, but that was Goodson Todman.

Kliph Nesteroff: Did it upset Fred Allen that he was never able to truly break through in television?

Milton Delugg: I think so. Jack Benny who was his dear close friend was a smash - and Fred wasn't. It bothered him a little.

Kliph Nesteroff: Also on that show was the singer Kitty Kallen.

Milton Delugg: Right. I did a lot of hit records with her.

Kliph Nesteroff: She is still alive somewhere. She is underrated. She clearly influenced many other singers - most notably Patsy Cline.

Milton Delugg: She had something wonderful going for her. She always sounded like a young girl. It didn't matter if she was thirty-five years old, she still sounded like a kid and I did a lot of songs with her.

Kliph Nesteroff: Also Bob Carroll and a group called The Skylarks were both on Judge For Yourself.

Milton Delugg: Yes, they were a group that was very good. 

Kliph Nesteroff: The director was Jerome Schnur.

Milton Delugg: Jerry Schnur was the first director I was ever friendly with. He directed Two For the Money which was Herb Shriner and he was a big talent. He was Mark Goodson's man and he did a helluva job.

Kliph Nesteroff: Fred Allen's Judge for Yourself and Herb Shriner's Two For the Money were very, very similar. 

Milton Delugg: Yes.

Kliph Nesteroff: Fred Allen was supposed to be the original host of Two For the Money...

Milton Delugg: Yeah, well, he was... let me see. I get them mixed up. Two For the Money was a such a hit that they were sure Fred Allen would make it with this - but it didn't fit him. Or he didn't fit it. But he was a dear man. 

Kliph Nesteroff: People don't talk much about Herb Shriner these days.

Milton Delugg: You're right. Each of these guys had a different sense of humor. His kind of a joke was he came from a small town, "It was so small that on Fridays we used to go to the park and watch the cannon" or "On Thursdays I'd go the local bakery with my girlfriend and look at the cookies and I would watch her face break out." Those were Herb Shriner type of jokes. That's the way he thought.

Kliph Nesteroff: The first comedy material Woody Allen ever sold was to The Herb Shriner Show.

Milton Delugg: Yes. It's true. You know something? After five and a half years, Herb decided he didn't want to do anymore game shows. They gave him a shot at his own [variety] show, but something was wrong with it. I had the band on that, but it just didn't take off at all. 

Kliph Nesteroff: He didn't do much in the nineteen sixties.

Milton Delugg: He used to buy antique cars. I guess you know the story. He was in one with his wife and something happened to the car or the driving mechanism and they ran into a lamp post. Both of 'em. A bad ending.

Kliph Nesteroff: You did another show that nobody remembers called Battle of the Ages with Morey Amsterdam.

Milton Delugg: Sure!

Kliph Nesteroff: What do you remember about that?

Milton Delugg: I remember I did the music!

Kliph Nesteroff: (laughs)

Milton Delugg: There were contestants over sixty and under sixty. It was just a way to get another  show on the air. It wasn't a good idea.

Kliph Nesteroff: All through this time during the fifties you were so busy doing these TV shows, but you also started working fulltime for a couple of record labels.

Milton Delugg: Yes I did. Like I told you about King Records with Hoop Dee Doo. The other track on the record was Rollercoaster and that became the closing theme for What's My Line. Can you imagine? For twenty years! An accordian solo! My God. I did a lot of work at Columbia and I was all over the joint.

Kliph Nesteroff: And Bob Thiele appointed you head of the music department at Signature Records and at Dot Records.

Milton Delugg: Yup and we had a few hits. When Bob was at Coral, Good Lord, he had Don Cornell, The McGuire Sisters, you name it. He was very hot and he was very good. He found a fellow by the name of Jackie Wilson. Remember him?

Kliph Nesteroff: Hell, yes. Of course.

Milton Delugg: Bob brought me this fellow Jackie Wilson who sang five bar phrases. Nobody seemed to be able to match it with anything. I got lucky and I did a mess of hits with him.

Kliph Nesteroff: He went on to be kinda the flagship singer at Brunswick Records.

Milton Delugg: Yup.

Kliph Nesteroff: He had a sad ending to his life too. He was on the bill of one of these Dick Clark Legends of Rock n' Roll tours. He was onstage singing a phrase from a love ballad, "My hearrrrrrrrrt!!!" And at the same time fell backwards and his heart stopped beating. Everyone thought it was part of the act, but he slipped into a coma and never came out of it.

Milton Delugg: That's true. Everything you heard was true.

Kliph Nesteroff: Bob Thiele and Dot Records - one of his first releases was an album called Poetry for the Beat Generation featuring Jack Kerouac. Do you remember that?

Milton Delugg: I don't remember that because it wasn't very musical and I was his musical director. He found all kinds of artists I would never have picked. That's the worst part of it! I was a damned fool and he was right. But he found people I would never have picked and he was right!

Kliph Nesteroff: I'm just guessing, but perhaps you are referring to some of his clients like Buddy Holly and Sonny Curtis.

Milton Delugg: Yes, Bob Thiele had them on Coral. Buddy and the drummer used to listen to the playbacks and look like bookends. They'd just stare at each other. I remember thinking, "Jesus Christ. Where did they learn to speak?" He said, "Well, in that second chorus we sped up and then we slooed down." Can you imagine someone saying, "slooed down?" But boy, were they hits.

Kliph Nesteroff: I understand you met Carol Burnett probably before anyone else.

Milton Delugg: Sure. I was doing The Paul Winchell Show and she was either going to be my girlfriend or the girlfriend of Jerry Mahoney who was one of the puppets. And Jerry won out and she became the puppet's girlfriend. I think Carol was about fourteen then. She remembers that too. Paul Winchell was another big talent. Remarkable. 

Kliph Nesteroff: When you were around Winchell did you ever hear him talking about the famous artificial heart that he would go on to invent?

Milton Delugg: Well, he did invent that and he was always working on something. He was a mechanical genius. He was the first one to truly figure out how not to move your lips in ventriloquism. You can't say "very" without moving your lips, but you can say "there-y" with a "T.H." and make it sound like "very." He was able to substitute words and letters and he was the one who figured that out by himself.

Kliph Nesteroff: Something I find remarkable about your career in television is that - there was no other bandleader of your era that got so much screen time. There were lots of other bandleaders in television, but they were pretty much relegated to the orchestra pit - whereas you seem to participate in sketches and on-air banter in almost every show.

Milton Delugg: Yes, well, it all came from that one line about Dagmar. "Who cares?" Honest to God. "Jerry, this is the new chick with the band." He looked at her and that was like a three minute take because she really was stacked, y'know. And that's when he said, "How does she sound?"

Kliph Nesteroff: You're the template for all that came after. Johnny Carson would banter with Doc Severenson and David Letterman with Paul Shaffer. You paved the way for all of that.

Milton Delugg: Lucky. Let me tell you, I was lucky.

Kliph Nesteroff: Well, what was it like working with Johnny Carson in the early days of his Tonight Show?

Milton Delugg: He was a loner. He really was a loner. After he said goodnight and I started the theme he was gone. You'd look up at his desk and he was already gone. He just really was a loner. We never got to socialize. Different from any of the other hosts that I worked with.

Kliph Nesteroff: Why did you not continue on with The Tonight Show?

Milton Delugg: Chuck Barris. My good friend. I used to send all the takes from New York for The Dating Game and The Newlywed Game and The Mother-In-Law Game and whatever Chuck had out here in California. He called and he said, "Milton, I need a live band on my show." That lead into The Gong Show. So I came out from New York with my family for eight weeks and ABC took that show for two nights a week and NBC took it for five days. That was the big reason and I never had such a good time in my life! You have no idea. We had every hooker auditioning because they could make more money in a minute and a half on The Gong Show than they could make in two weeks working the street!

Kliph Nesteroff: (laughs)

Milton Delugg: Kliph, it was remarkable.

Kliph Nesteroff: Your composition Rollercoaster was used as the end music on What's My Line, but you never actually worked physically on the show. Were you in the orchestra pit on I've Got a Secret?

Milton Delugg: I played it many times. They also used a recorded theme, but every once in a while they would have a live orchestra because they would have somebody on who sang or danced or did something in which they needed live music.

Kliph Nesteroff: Did you get to know the I've Got a Secret panelist Henry Morgan?

Milton Delugg: You know... I was in the army with Henry Morgan!

Kliph Nesteroff: Really?

Milton Delugg: Yeah! We were stationed in Santa Ana. That's a little town about thirty or forty miles from Los Angeles. That was basic training for the Air Force and Henry was in the unit and I was in the unit. Isn't that remarkable? And you knew about it!

Kliph Nesteroff: Well, I didn't know about that detail. I've always been a fan of his because of all the comedians of that era, nobody is as biting or as cynical as he.

Milton Delugg: That's right. I did a radio show with him at that time. They used to let us out of basic training one day a week to do a radio show. Can you imagine? My God. More luck. I liked Henry Morgan a great deal. Johnny Carson would have him on once in a while too. Johnny liked him.

Kliph Nesteroff: And you also worked on The Bill Cullen Show. Cullen does not get credit for how quick of a wit he was.

Milton Delugg: You're right and what a charming man. He had a bad leg. I don't know where that came from. I think polio when he was young or something, but it sure didn't slow him down. Worked on his morning show five days a week. 

Kliph Nesteroff: You know, Milton, the way I first became familiar with your work was not from any of these television shows and it was not any of your famous compositions. I was first introduced to you by way of a wonderful little novelty album called The Monster Ball on United Artists...

Milton Delugg: No kidding!

Kliph Nesteroff: Your name isn't even on the cover. It says "By The Vampires."

Milton Delugg: (gasps)

Kliph Nesteroff: In small print on the back it says Milton Delugg and his Orchestra.

Milton Delugg: Sure. A fellow by the name of Sonny Lester ran the company. Every record company has a [stock] catalogue. That was one of the catalogue albums. Oh my Golly. Jesus.

Kliph Nesteroff: And that album is just great. I listen to it all the time. I love it. I don't know who was doing the faux Karloff and Peter Lorre type voices that are inserted over some of the songs...

Milton Delugg: I don't remember either, but it's got to be kind of corny?

Kliph Nesteroff: Well, it has those silly Bela Lugosi impressions over some of the groovy music...

Milton Delugg: Yes, but the music has got to be kind of corny!

Kliph Nesteroff: No!

Milton Delugg: That was in the sixties!

Kliph Nesteroff: The music is fantastic! That's what makes it!

Milton Delugg: Good Lord. 

Kliph Nesteroff: That is why your name was burned into my brain!

Milton Delugg: Jesus Christ. Well, thank you. Thank you, Kliph.

An Interview with Milton Delugg - Part One

Kliph Nesteroff: Your first real job in show business was at Paramount Studios in the house orchestra.

Milton Delugg: Yes. I was on staff. There was an opening and they decided they could use an accordion player. In the thirties all the studios had staff orchestras and they had, Kliph, staff song writers. At Paramount there was Frank Loesser, Hoagy Carmichael, Burton Lane, big time people. They would assign them pictures to write and you're scoring this picture. I became very friendly with Frank Loesser who was a dear man and one of the biggest talents that ever happened. He was a tremendous lyric writer and he was a little frustrated because he wanted to be words and music like Cole Porter. He needed, what you might call, a musical secretary. Because we were so friendly I turned out to be the guy. Incidentally, I wrote and played on King Records. Syd Nathan.

He wanted an accordion album and I had to write four instrumental songs. One was a polka and I called it Hoop Dee Doo. There was another Dizzy Fingers type of number called Rollercoaster and two more numbers I can't remember. I got lucky. I always said that luck beats the heck out of talent in our business. It really does, seven days a week, boy, if you're lucky. And I was lucky with those two songs. The polka I took to Frank Loesser and he liked it, so he did the lyrics. It was a number one song! All of a sudden I was a songwriter! I don't know if you know the song, Kliph...

Kliph Nesteroff: Hoop Dee Doo?

Milton Delugg: Yeah.

Kliph Nesteroff: Yes, I certainly do.

Milton Delugg: "Hoop Dee Doo! Hoop Dee Doo! I hear a polka and my troubles are through..." Now, about thirty bars later comes the end and Frank had a line, "Hand me down my soup and fish. I'm gonna get my wish! Hoop Dee Doin' it tonight." And I said, talking to the biggest lyricist in the country, "Frank, it's a pedestrian line." He said, "You got a better line than hand me down my soup and fish?" I thought I was very hip, so I had a line, "Check my hat and park my gum! California, here I come!" He very carefully and very slowly explained that I was a complete idiot.

Kliph Nesteroff: (laughs)

Milton Delugg: All of a sudden you don't throw in a hip or funny line forty seconds after the song. If you haven't sold it by then, you weren't ever going to sell it. As much of a help as I was to him, he was a tremendous help to me. A number one song.

Kliph Nesteroff: You became friendly with Frank Loesser, but did you become friendly with Hoagy Carmichael as well?

Milton Delugg: Not as friendly as with Frank. Hoagy, you know, had a career and he was a singer. He had a couple of records that sold pretty well too.

Kliph Nesteroff: He was, perhaps, higher up the food chain than Frank and yourself at that point.

Milton Delugg: Exactly. Exactly, but Frank went on to write Guys n' Dolls and Where's Charley and How to Succeed. Luckily he took me with him all the time and, boy, what an education. It was wonderful for me.

Kliph Nesteroff: You had a long association with Frank Loesser and a long association with Abe Burrows and they were responsible, along with George S. Kaufman, for Guys n' Dolls. Did you have a part to play in the production of Guys n' Dolls yourself?

Milton Delugg: Sure! All the way through. The biggest reason I went to New York was Abe Burrows. I was doing a little radio show with him. At that time, 1949, the orchestras on The Fred Allen Show or The Jack Benny Show had maybe sixteen strings. They were twenty piece orchestras, twenty-four piece orchestras. I could do a show with ten or twelve men. That's all I had with Abe. Never did get around to the twenty-four men because of budget problems.

Kliph Nesteroff: You were fronting Matty Malneck's Orchestra, not just on radio, but in nightclubs as well. You backed up Joe E. Lewis when he was performing at Slapsy Maxie's on Wilshire Blvd back in 1947.

Milton Delugg: Sure! Matty had the band first at Slapsie Maxie's and I played the accordion with him. He wasn't too well a man and he turned over the baton to me.

Kliph Nesteroff: What do you remember about the venue Slapsie Maxie's?

Milton Delugg: Well, Slapsie Maxie Rosenbloom and Ben Blue and Sammy Lewis owned it. Slapsie and Ben were very busy fellas entertaining the ladies and finally Sammy bought the club from them and they always worked there. But it was really Sammy's club and he never changed the name of it. They were terrific to work for. Slapsie was wonderful and Ben Blue was a very funny man and a helluva dancer. Yeah, terrific.

Kliph Nesteroff: I've talked to a lot of the old comics of that era and a lot of them say that Ben Blue was the funniest guy ever.

Milton Delugg: Oh! He was remarkable! And he had that great deadpan face. Just terrific.

Kliph Nesteroff: He was from Toronto.

Milton Delugg: Oh, that I didn't know.

Kliph Nesteroff: Another credit of yours - you worked on Spade Cooley's radio show.

Milton Delugg: Yup! Sure did. I don't know if he's still with us anymore... ah, I'm sure he's not.

Kliph Nesteroff: Well, didn't he go to jail?

Milton Delugg: Well, yeah... okay. He stomped his wife. He got mad and killed her. He went to jail, for sure. While I was with him I learned a great deal about country music and I became the country music director for RCA for a while. That was with Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers and a lot of big stuff that you would know. Big acts.

Kliph Nesteroff: What was Spade Cooley's temperament like? Knowing what happened with the murder of his wife - were there any signs inherent before that he was off-kilter?

Milton Delugg: He was a very nice guy! I was surprised. The other fellows in our little group seemed to know him a lot better than I did. I was such an outsider, though. I tell ya. I started playing the piano... all parents gave their kids piano lessons when they were six or seven years old. My father saw a sign in the window that said, "Buy an accordion, sixty-seven dollars, get seven free lessons." So he couldn't pass that up. He came home from work one day with an accordion and a teacher. It was a very fortunate thing for me. I was trying to play the accordion like Benny Goodman was playing the clarinet! There was some swing attached to it, you see? Up until then the only accordion music was the Light Cavalry Overture or Over the Waves and tangos.

Kliph Nesteroff: That comes through in your television work. Your music is super upbeat and jazzy unlike, say, an accordion player such as Lawrence Welk...

Milton Delugg: The accordion was pretty big in the South and a couple of places, but maybe it was the sound of the instrument. I don't know. If you're a violinist or a trumpet player, you're a musician. If you're an accordion player... you're an accordion player! You know? You just didn't fall into the category.

Kliph Nesteroff: An outsider.

Milton Delugg: Exactly.

Kliph Nesteroff: Before you appeared on the Abe Burrows radio program, you had already worked with him. You played piano on his 1947 Decca album that he put out...

Milton Delugg: Yeah... by golly!

Kliph Nesteroff: So clearly you had an association with him before that radio show.

Milton Delugg: Yes, for quite a while. Abe was probably the best comedy writer in the business. He was the head writer on Eddie Cantor and Duffy's Tavern and a million shows. He was just bright, wonderul and humorous.

Kliph Nesteroff: Do you think the reason that Breakfast with Burrows and The Abe Burrows Show failed was because Abe was almost too bright?

Milton Delugg: Yeah, they didn't last at all. It was a shame. I'm not sure what the reason was. But I got on that show because I could do it with less men. Beside being Abe's friend, now you get to the budget.

Kliph Nesteroff: Abe Burrows used to write gags for Henny Youngman.

Milton Delugg: Yup. He wrote one-liners and he was in the stock business and a runner and then he became a gagwriter and then the number one writer around town.

Kliph Nesteroff: The Abe Burrows Show had The Lynn Duddy Singers.

Milton Delugg: They were wonderful singers. I remember them very well.

Kliph Nesteroff: Whatever became of them?

Milton Delugg: Boy, I guess... time. I don't know if anybody is still alive. I'm not even sure of me!

Kliph Nesteroff: (laughs) You played nightclub dates with Abe Burrows including somewhere called Le Directoire.

Milton Delugg: Yeah, it was a high-class, French... Abe was fairly successful [in nightclubs] but his humor was a little above nightclubs, you know? I worked with him many places. We played the Milwaukee Athletic Club!

Kliph Nesteroff: There is a forgotten 1949 ABC television show you worked on called A Couple of Joe's initially hosted by Big Joe Rosenfeld - who was replaced by Warren Hull. You were orchestra leader.

Milton Delugg: Yes, I had a lot of these five-a-week shows. Some with Jan Murray, some with Bill Cullen. All of those shows was part of luck. They wanted people that could lead an orchestra that wasn't twenty men.

Kliph Nesteroff: You were orchestra leader on The Herb Shriner Show - but also - one of the music directors was Raymond Scott.

Milton Delugg: Yes, that was before a show called Two For the Money and I was music director for Herb on that. Raymond Scott did Herb's radio show. He was a very talented man - both Raymond Scott and Herb Shriner.

Kliph Nesteroff: Did you actually work with Raymond Scott?

Milton Delugg: I got to know him after a while. You know he wrote a lot of big instrumental hits... uhhhh...

Kliph Nesteroff: Powerhouse.

Milton Delugg: Powerhouse. Oh, yeah. The Toy Trumpet. A whole bunch of wonderful ones.

Kliph Nesteroff: Did you become privy to his electronic experiments?

Milton Delugg: No, I didn't, but you know, at his house... I didn't work on any of that stuff, but he was very inventive. He was just wonderful with electronic sounds. He was married to a girl who sang on Your Hit Parade. Dorothy Collins. His brother was a fellow by the name of Mark Warnow who had the orchestra on Hit Parade. Mark Warnow was music director and Raymond's real name was Harry Warnow. I think so.

Kliph Nesteroff: We mentioned Herb Shriner. You had a lifelong association with comedy shows and comedians.

Milton Delugg: Yes and let me tell you, Pat Weaver was running NBC. When I went to New York with Abe Burrows and Frank Loesser, when it got to be ten or eleven o'clock at night - television just showed a test pattern. They'd play The Star Spangled Banner. I was always wishing I had written The Star Spangled Banner! It was on every night and that's how you went to sleep. Pat decided he wanted to put on entertainment late at night. Later that became The Tonight Show and he wanted to open the network [broadcast day] with The Today Show. I was around. We were friends. There was a comedian around named Jerry Lester and a very buxom lady named Dagmar. Oh boy, was she stacked! That's what the show was and there was no script. I brought Dagmar on and I said to Jerry, "Jerry, this is the new chick with the band. She's going to sing with us." He said, "How does she sound?" I said, "Who cares!" You blurt out things sometimes that are humorous. After that I was given lines and I became funny.

Kliph Nesteroff: The show we're talking about is Broadway Open House hosted by Jerry Lester. But before Lester was host it was supposed to be hosted by a character named Creesh...

Milton Delugg: It sure was and he became ill. We did a pilot and then he became ill and the poor guy died. Now the time was open because it was pre-sold. They had to get somebody to be the host and fortunately they picked Jerry Lester.

Kliph Nesteroff: Do you remember anything about Creesh? He was apparently a Texan piano player.

Milton Delugg: I don't remember a lot. Pat said, "I've got this fella and I want him to do it. You guys are going to be on every night." I said, "Glad to meet ya." You know, what are you going to say? We did the pilot and then the poor guy died and Pat was looking around for somebody.

Kliph Nesteroff: I have written down that three different people auditioned to replace Creesh including Jerry Lester. A gal named Jinx Falkenburg...

Milton Delugg: Yup!

Kliph Nesteroff: And Tex McCrary.

Milton Delugg: They both got daytime shows.

Kliph Nesteroff: Oh, really?

Milton Delugg: Yup. They both were on five days a week. Pat put them both on television, he liked them. But he picked the right person for Broadway Open House. Then after the first year, Jerry and I and Pat had a meeting and he said, "I'd like to know that I can have you fellows signed up for something two, three, four times a week just so I know I've got you." Jerry said he'd like to be on like Jack Benny and be on just once a month. Pat gave him a shot at that and he didn't make it with that. He was much better off with the five nights.

Kliph Nesteroff: Once a month appearing on Broadway Open House or once a month on something else altogether?

Milton Delugg: It was a separate show.

Kliph Nesteroff: It was called The Jerry Lester Show or something?

Milton Delugg: Exactly. Like Jack Benny. Like The Jimmy Durante Show - a lot of comics had a once a month show.

Kliph Nesteroff: One of the reasons Jerry Lester was perfect on Broadway Open House was that he was a very quick improviser. If something fell apart live - he always had a quick save.

Milton Delugg: Yes, he did. There was no writing at the start - there was no nothing. And we really thought we were so funny, honest to God, and we were such a hit. Nobody stopped to think that the real reason we were was that we were the only thing on! That was it! If you didn't watch us - the Star Spangled Banner was on every other channel. You could watch NBC and get an hour of entertainment.

Kliph Nesteroff: The theme song for Broadway Open House was called The Bean Bag Song.

Milton Delugg: Right.

Kliph Nesteroff: Why was it called that?

Milton Delugg: Well, Jerry kept saying that he was a beanbag. Anybody that was cool or hip became a beanbag. So for Coral Records... they came to us and said they wanted us to record, to write the beanbag song. At the risk of sounding like a real ass... this song... "I'm a beanbag! I'm a beanbag! A flippity floppity beanbag. Flip. Flop. A skip and a hop. Whenever I'm with you." Now, that's not much of a song. But that was the song!

Kliph Nesteroff: When Jerry Lester comes out at the start of the show a chorus would sing, "And Jerry Lester is his name..." and Jerry would shout something like "I don't mean beanbag!" "and Jerry Lester is his name!"

Milton Delugg: That's right!

Kliph Nesteroff: I always wondered what that meant.

Milton Delugg: Well, that's what it was. Exactly. We used to start the show with that. "Here is the fella who is the star of the show - and Jerry Lester is his name! Duh-dah-dah beanbag! And Jerry Lester is his name!" And Jerry would come out.

Kliph Nesteroff: Broadway Open House often had stand-up comedians on as guests. I don't know if you would remember this because he was a total unknown at the time. But one of the stand-up comics that made their television debut on Broadway Open House was a young impressionist named Lenny Bruce.

Milton Delugg: I do remember. My golly. It was so early... I think it was 1949. Somewhere in there. A clarinetist - Woody Herman... Woody Herman used to come on when he was in town... he found him. Those were wonderful days for me, Kliph. And they were lucky.

Kliph Nesteroff: That show is a lot of fun to watch because it seems so free wheeling. Seemed like you guys were having a lot of fun.

Milton Delugg: We did. We did all of this stuff and there was no one [on the air] opposite us.

Kliph Nesteroff: Somebody else you had a long association with - even before Broadway Open House - was Morey Amsterdam.

Milton Delugg: Morey was, I must say, a dear friend to me. Morey used to call me three or four times a day - he just wanted to make sure the phone was working (laughs). You know, he was such a nice man. Gosh. Everyday at nine o'clock in the morning we were on the air with Morey on NBC.

Kliph Nesteroff: The Morey Amsterdam Show.

Milton Delugg: Yeah.

Kliph Nesteroff: With Art Carney?

Milton Delugg: No, that was the night time show. That was on Dumont. This Morey Amsterdam Show was on NBC. He was always working.

Kliph Nesteroff: What did his morning show consist of?

Milton Delugg: Morey, a six man orchestra and a girl singer by the name of Francie Lane. That was it! Then whoever was around and wanted to be on - Morey stuck 'em on.

Kliph Nesteroff: And Francie Lane was on Broadway Open House as well, right?

Milton Delugg: Yes. For a while she was a red headed lady. Very classy and very cute and she was sometimes the test pattern. If you could get that red hair to show against the clothes then your cameras were right.

Kliph Nesteroff: Morey Amsterdam said that it was hard to get a studio audience for a show that was broadcasting late at night, so they used to recruit people from the Greyhound station.

Milton Delugg: Yes! That's true. And it was even tougher to get them at nine o'clock in the morning! We'd be rehearsing at seven o'clock in the morning. Whatever writing was, which was very, very little, Morey did. A big, big talent, Kliph. He was just wonderful. By golly.

Kliph Nesteroff: What was Studio 6B in Rockefeller Center, where Broadway Open House was filmed, like?

Milton Delugg: It was a legit studio and we would do The Tonight Show from there twenty years later. I did The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson from 6B. 

Kliph Nesteroff: I heard Dave Garroway hosted Broadway Open House briefly, just after Jerry Lester left and just before Garroway got The Today Show.

Milton Delugg: Yes. They tried a few people. They tried Buddy Hackett. They tried Dave Garroway. They tried Jan Murray. They tried a lot of people.

Kliph Nesteroff: One of your most famous compositions, Orange Colored Sky, debuted on Broadway Open House.

Milton Delugg: Yes, it did. I wrote it and then I took it to Frank Loesser and he actually wrote the last sixteen bars. "An orange colored, purple stripe! Pretty green polka dot sky! Flash! Bam! Alakazam! And goodbye!" That's the best ending you could ever ask for in a song. "And goodbye!" It was terrific. You know? How about that for luck?

Kliph Nesteroff: What went on between Jerry Lester and Dagmar? There was always talk about professional jealousy and that it lead to the demise of Broadway Open House and, really, the demise of Jerry Lester's career as a whole.

Milton Delugg: There was an occasional conflict. It was Jerry's show and sometimes Dagmar was a little bit too strong and too popular.

Kliph Nesteroff: I heard that the breaking point for Jerry Lester was when Dagmar appeared on the cover of Life Magazine.

Milton Delugg: Yeah. Also, Kliph, she got her own show.

Kliph Nesteroff: Which you were also on.

Milton Delugg: Sure.

Kliph Nesteroff: Dagmar's Canteen. That show didn't last that long either. I've watched a couple and it's pretty creaky stuff.

Milton Delugg: Yeah. Shabby show. They just didn't make it.

Kliph Nesteroff: Seems like it was rushed to cash in on her popularity.

Milton Delugg: Yes, I think so. Her name was big enough and Pat Weaver liked her, but I don't think enough time was taken.

Kliph Nesteroff: She had a hard-nosed manager named Danny Hollywood. Do you remember that?

Milton Delugg: Sure, I do! He actually appeared in a couple of shows.

Kliph Nesteroff: When things were most tense between Dagmar and Jerry Lester, I heard there was a big court battle over the rights to the name "Dagmar."

Milton Delugg: I really don't know. That I don't know. She really just came in, like I said,  I forget who the producer was. He said, "You introduce Dagmar. She's going to be the singer." And of course, she couldn't sing at all.