Word: nila
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...Eddie Cantor. 81. Still opposed to space ships and six-shooters, Nila Mack begins her 23rd year of presenting witches and fairy godmothers. Her popular racfio program: 1. Uncle Billy's Whiz Bang...
...nearly a quarter-century, Nila Mack has been against new models in heroes. She doesn't care for spacemen (Buck Rogers), cowboys (the Lone Ranger) or clear-eyed adolescent adventurers (Jack Armstrong). As writer-producer-director of Let's Pretend (Sat. 11:05 a.m., CBS), she has stuck to her conviction that young radio listeners still like giants, witches and fairy godmothers best. Says Nila: "I'll back seven-league boots and magic wands any time against six-shooters and space ships...
...even TV has cut into the 600-700 letters a week written by Let's Pretend fans. In some families, three generations listen to the familiar, often-repeated stories enacted by Nila's casts,' largely juvenile. Cinderella, the favorite, has been given 22 times in as many years. Runners-up are Sleeping Beauty, Rumpelstiltskin, Jack and the Beanstalk, Beauty and the Beast and what Nila persists in calling-in near-blasphemous defiance of Walt Disney and the brothers Grimm-Snowdrop and the Seven Dwarfs...
...exactress who toured with Nazimova in War Brides during 1914-15, Nila is a childless widow in her late fifties. Her scripts, in which, as she says, "the good are very good and the bad get just what they deserve," come out flatly against racial prejudice, boom such worthy sentiments as honor and service in good causes. Her sound-effects men developed some wonderful sizzling and steaming noises when boiling oil was poured over Ali Baba's 40 thieves hiding in jars. Bluebeard gets his just deserts, too, but only by implication: "The kids are tickled to death when...
Last week, Let's Pretend began its 23rd year on radio and its ninth under the sponsorship of Cream of Wheat. Nila has no plans for shifting to TV. Two years ago, her sponsor asked her to estimate how much it would cost to put the show on television. Nila sent in a figure (an estimated minimum of $8,000 a week, or three times the cost of her radio show), says: "I haven't heard a word from them since...