Word: mack
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Died. Hank Gowdy, 76, star catcher for the fabulous 1914 Boston Braves, who defeated Connie Mack's heavily favored Philadelphia Athletics in the World Series, mainly because of Gowdy's .545 Series batting average, which still stands as a league Series record; of leukemia; in Columbus...
...Houghton Mifflin) by Jay Neugeboren, 28, an English instructor at Columbia, finds its anti-hero in black Brooklyn, but race is not his reason for being on the outside looking in. Mack Davis is a onetime All-America basketball star who got caught fixing games for the gamblers. Kicked off the court, Mack takes a job in a car wash ("I got the cleanest hands of any fixer around") and wears his cool like a man who couldn't care less. But he's crying on the inside, warming a cold old hope of playing with the pros...
...show is one of the few American institutions that have not changed since 1934, save for the fact that the Hour was trimmed to 30 minutes and Mack compassionately eliminated the gong that Major Bowes used as a hook. In an average week, 450 people are auditioned by Mack's nationwide talent scouts, but only nine appear in the two-minute performances. Mack, 62, is so well known that when he walks down the street, would-be artists often start dancing or singing for him. He keeps his home address in New York's Westchester County a secret...
...regularity after 35"), the Amateur Hour is part of broadcasting's Medicare generation. The oldest show on the air, it has been producing the tall corn since 1934, before most Americans now living were born. The late Major Bowes launched it on radio, and his top aide, Ted Mack, brought it to television in 1948. It is still the top-rated show in its time slot (5:30 p.m., E.D.T.), pulling 12,700,000 viewers a week. Last week, in a Methuselan milestone, its "wheel of fortune" went spinning for the 1,500th time...
...winners get no pay, only transitory glory. As Mack says, "People get enough of a thrill just showing off." Of course, the American Guild of Variety Artists estimates that 40% of its members got their start on the Amateur Hour. Some of the richest of them flunked their first test. One night 81 years ago, the audience awarded first prize to a South American who played the laurel leaf, while voting down another contestant, Ann-Margret. And in 1953, a swivel-hipped lad named Elvis Presley didn't get past the first audition...