A Tribute to Al Zack

No less than 12 showbiz columns reported last week that the United Broad-casting System was (and I quote all 12 of the columnists) "readying" a special 90-minute Tribute to Al Zack. The show will be (and I quote 10 of the 12 columnists) "upcoming" on its subject's 60th birthday. Now that we have had Tributes to Richard Rodgers, Cole Porter, Lerner and Loewe, et al., UBS has got around to the man who is (and I quote Al Zack himself) "Songwriter Laureate for the Little Guy."

I felt there was a story in how a Tribute gets readied to the point where it is definitely upcoming, so I called Al Zack and arranged to see him.

Taxing across town, I found myself humming one of what he calls his grand old songs:

Back in Hackensack there's a little shackThat is just in back of the railroad track,But it's home sweet home to me--Where my sweetie true, with her eyes of blue,Of which she's got two, likes to bill and coo,And it's there that I would be . ..

I was met at the door of Al's apartment by his brand-new lovely blonde 19-year-old wife, Babe, who led me to the songwriter himself. He was in his huge living room, seated at his grand piano.

I discovered immediately that he was to be his own producer; that, in fact, the Tribute to Al Zack had been Al's idea.

"I wanted to give Babe a present for my birthday," he said, "because that's the way I am, fella. It's been a lot of work. Just clearing the time with the sponsors of the regular shows was something. Had to talk with beer people, cigarette people, underarm people. But they agreed. Then getting a sponsor. But I got one. Eaglets. The new small Eagle car. They'll pick up the tab."

"Well, you've got to get Marie Trenton first," said Babe.

Marie Trenton? This, I realized, was news indeed.

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Tribute To Al Zack

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"Featured guest," said Al. "Second billing."

"Eaglet won't firm it until Al gets her," Babe said. "And when he called her agent---"

"I'll get her," said Al. "She's my ex-wife, isn't she?" He turned to me. "Marie'll do a duet with me. Remember Drugstore Cafe?"

He struck a chord and went into the boys' chorus of that grand old song:

"Oh, when Rhoda and I have a soda and pieAt the drugstore cafe at noon,Oh, she pokes with her straw and we sit there and jaw,And spoon.

Oh, the wise soda jerk, with a wink and a smirk,Shirks his work while he hums a tune,'Cause he knows we make hay at the drugstore cafeAt noon.

We sit there on our stools,Whispering three words low,While our ice cream melts into pools,Till we have to go, back to work and so:

From the fountain we climb, but we're countin' the time,And it won't be an hour too soon,When my Rhoda and I have our soda and pieNext noon."

I applauded.

"Then naturally, Marie'll sing the girl's part, and we'll ride out together," said Al.

"But you got to get her first," said Babe.

"Is the mother of my child going to refuse the child's father?" He smiled at me and shook his head. "Babe's a worrier," he said. "Like she worried about would I get my class guest for the show. You gotta have one class guest on a Tribute," he explained, then hesitated for effect. "So," he said, "I got Francine Billington to come out of retirement."

Sir Laurence Olivier could not have thrown the line away with greater nonchalance.

Even the very young must know that Madame Francine Billington is legendary as possibly the greatest coloratura ever presented by the Metropolitan Opera; but only elderly types remember now that her early retirement was due to the scandal that linked her name with Al's.

Al was a struggling young songwriter of 22 or 23 when he met Francine Billington. At 35, she had behind her a childhood and early womanhood filled with breathing exercises, nine-o' clock bedtimes, foreign language lessons, dieting, vocalizing, avoiding drafts, memorizing arias, and little else. Young Al Zack became her first boyfriend.

As he freely admitted later, "It was a break for me that Francine and I fell in love for a while there," because he was able to persuade her to quit the Met for one season and go on the Pantages circuit with him, singing one aria and six of his songs. Gatti-Casazza was very angry, but it is possible that after the tour Madame Francine Billington would have been able to resume her operatic career had it not come to the attention of a gossip columnist--a friend of Al Zack's press agent, as it happened--that on all overnight stops on the tour's route she and Al were sharing a suite. Those were the years when to be accused of moral turpitude would ruin you if you were already famous--but conversely, if you were an unknown, it brought you fame. By the time the tour was over, Francine had already been told she could not return to the Met, but Al was in such great demand that--as he put it--"I got so busy I kinda neglected Francine, and we drifted apart." While they were thus drifting apart, Al married someone else; and about two months later, every tabloid reader read that Madame Francine Billington, unemployed opera singer, had walked into the old Pink Kitten Club, sweeping majestically past the headwaiter and moving unhurriedly to Al Zack's table, where she picked up Al's drink, threw it in his face, and walked back out of the night club whilst Al's brand-new, lovely 17-year-old brunette wife, Darlene, screamed imprecations after her.

It was Madame Billington's last public appearance.

I asked Al now: "Doesn't she hold a grudge?"

"What for?" he asked. "One, she needs the dough, and two, this is network television, brother." He laughed suddenly. "Know what she thought at first? She thought the Tribute was a Tribute to her. It kinda got me off on the wrong foot. I had to promise she'd sing an aria. And of course, Soup 'n' Fish. I wrote Soup 'n' Fish for her, remember?"

"How's her voice?"

"I had her do Soup 'n' Fish for me on the phone, a cappella," he said. "She'll get away with it. Great set of pipes for a broad of seventy-three."

"But the aria?"

"We'll tape it." He hesitated. "Might have to be cut for time," he said. "You know what burns me about Soup 'n' Fish? They're always saying Cole Porter wrote it, because it's so sophisticated. Cole's a good songwriter, don't get me wrong, but he always writes the same kinda song. He hasn't got my versatility. Cole couldn't write Drugstore Cafe or that patriotic wartime tune of mine--you remember? They Used to call It Here-o-Shima, but It's Where-o-Shima Now. Cole couldn't write a topical number like that. But I can write his kinda tune. Listen ...

"Other people like domestic evenings,Like to sit and yawn and read the news.Well, let them have their pipes and slippers,'Cause you and I have diff'rent views.

When Manhattan's blinking eyes Salute the darkened skies,Then you and I put on our soup 'n' fish.

From a cocktail lounge we goTo the town's most brilliant show,A girl and beau in soup 'n' fish.

Then a cab along the Drive,A million lights blink as we pass.In the river they resembleChampagne bubbles in a glass.

In a nightery at three,A song for you and me,Two sweethearts on a spree in soup'n' fish.

Finally wand'ring on the lawnIn Central Park at dawn,Holding hands in our best soup 'n' fish."

I applauded as he finished; but Marie Trenton was still on my mind.

In the competitive field of musicals, Marie Trenton is, of course, easily queen regnant. Everybody loves her simple charm, and when people are not standing in long lines for tickets to her shows, they're reading about her, in fan magazines, news magazines, Sunday drama supplements and tabloid columns. But they never read anywhere that she was once married to Al Zack. Even in the best-selling book, Singing About Myself, the autobiography of Marie Trenton as told to Gerold Frank, Al Zack is referred to not by name, but only as "my first husband."

"I've often wondered," I said, "how you and Marie broke up."

"Oh, she misunderstood something that happened when our kid was born," Al said.

He was referring to Teddy, who was probably 11 or 12 by now. The boy--not as a boy, but as a topic--was the despair of interviewers. A feature writer, trying to interview Marie Trenton about her triumph in England or her plans for next season, had to endure hours of talk about her son, Teddy. But she had been married so long and so happily to Dr. Bill Wenzel that I had honestly thought Teddy was Wenzel's son, not Al's.

Al was still talking about the Tribute: "Marie'll come back to do the next-to-closing number with me and my other wives," he said.

"Your other wives?"

"It's an idea I had," said Al. "A Tribute is a kind of a This Is Your Life kind of a thing, and so I'll have all my wives there, and we'll do this big sentimental number I wrote especially."

He struck a chord and sang:

"I love you all,You gorgeous gals.And though we've reached the point of no return,There isn't any call for you to burn ...Can't we be pals?"

"Then they sing:

"We love you, Al.All your old gals.We've had some laughs together here and there.Thanks awfully for the memories we share...Can't we be pals?"

"There's more. There's a couple lines where Babe invites them to our house any time they want to come. What it is, it's a civilized spot, but with heart."

"But will your former wives do it?" I asked.

"I've got' em already." He ticked them off on his fingers. "Milly, my third wife. No problem. All she wants is a plug for her roadhouse. She's got this roadhouse outside Philly. Then Darlene, my second." His eyes seemed to mist over. "She was a nice kid, Darlene, just seventeen and sweet when we got married. How did I know she'd take it personally when I had to leave her alone so much? And be jealous, and start drinking alone? Darlene was easy to get. She needs the money. Only thing, I've got to get some network joker to keep her sober for a couple days before the show. Then, of course, Marie Trenton, my fourth."

"You haven't got her yet," said Babe, "and, Al___"

"And Babe here, and that's it."

"Who was your first wife?" I asked.

"Oh. Annie. Kid from my home town. She won't be here. We got married when we were both eighteen, and when I came to New York, she just didn't fit in. It was best all around that she go back to the kind of small-town folks she understood. She didn't realize I was doing the very best thing for her. She could have had a good life, a small-time kind of a good life after she got back home, but..." He took out his handkerchief, wiped his eyes and blew his nose. "I don't want to talk about Annie," he said.

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah. But anyway, the rest'll be here, and it's going to be quite a number. I call it The Tolerance Song. We'll routine it right after Eddie Dennison and I do the alphabet tune."

"Eddie Dennison?"

"Sure. I'd have to have my old song-writing partner on the Tribute, wouldn't I? Especially since now he's the number-one comic on TV. This show has class, keed."

"But I thought there was coolness between you and Eddie."

"Not on my part," Al said.

"But didn't you testify against him?"

"All I did was I told the truth," said Al. "I mean, look: Out to Hollywood comes Representative MacHarty with his Special Committee on the Investigation of Subversives in the Entertainment Industry, and he subpoenas me."

"Eddie says you volunteered to testify."

"Well, sure, because one good way of getting in with the movie people around that time was if your agent could say you'd been a friendly witness. So I volunteered, but I said the deal was off unless they subpoenaed me. So they subpoenaed me, and nobody can say different."

"He's explained it to me," said Babe. "He was just advancing his career, that's all."

"That's right," said Al. "But if I'd'a been a Communist, it would have been easier, because I'd have had names to give them and something to repent about, you know? So I racked my brains and I remembered I did contribute my old raccoon coat to Spanish Loyalist Relief during the war, so I told them I did that, and told them I was sorry I'd been involved like that in a conspiracy against my country, but what I was, I told them, I was a dupe. So Representative MacHarty says to me, 'And what agent of the conspiracy against the jugular vein of this land of the free and home of the brave deceived and tricked you into contributing to the forces of subversion?' And I said Eddie Dennison, because it was true. It was Eddie said to me one day, 'Why don't you give that ratty old raccoon coat to Spanish Loyalist Relief?' So I told the truth. I was under oath, wasn't I?"

"I'll have to admit that," I said, "but still, I thought Eddie was sore about it."

"What was there to be sore? Look at it one way, and I made Eddie. Sure, the studios wanted me without him after that, but in the long run it was a good thing for Eddie, because he'd always been a funny man at parties, and so he went into club work as a comic, and look where he is now."

"That's right," said Babe. "I bet he's grateful to Al."

"Was it easy to get him?" I asked.

"Well, he hemmed and hawed maybe, but I told him, 'Let's be realistic,' I said. 'If it got out that you refused to participate in the Tribute to your old pal, why, maybe everybody would remember that investigation,' I said, 'and I don't imagine your sponsor would be very happy.' Well, he had to admit my thinking was very solid, so he's going to be on the Tribute."

"Congratulations."

"He'll do a special comedy routine, but we'll wind up singing together. Our old Alphabet Song."

Al turned to the piano and played and sang it:

"A B C D E F Gee, I love ya.H I J K L M N Oh, boy!P Q R you mine?S T U're divine.Double you--and you'd be twins.Oh, joy!

The Xs on the letters that I send yaAre kisses for each letter in yourname.Y do I love you?Z answer is I do--And that is why I constantly exclaim--

A B C D E F Gee, I love ya.To C your I's is A B C D-vine.You have so much A B-uty.You're my M N O P Q tee.Zenobia Prodzieniewsky, you're mine(My alphabet baby)--Zenobia Prodzieniewsky, you'remine!"

"Was there ever a better alphabet number?" asked Al.

"It's as good as any alphabet number ever written," I said.

"Well," said Al, "there's your story. A Tribute to Al Zack, starring Al Zack himself, with Francine Billington, Marie Trenton, Eddie Denni---"

"You haven't got Marie Trenton," said Babe. "And I hate to mention it, because I know how mad you get, but her agent said she wouldn't appear with you to save her own life."

For a full minute Al Zack drummed on the piano keys without striking them. "All right," he said finally. "I told you and told you, but you gotta be shown, huh? OK, so I'll show you. Got the number of that school?"

"It's on the telephone pad," said Babe.

Al crossed the room, sat on the cobbler's bench, picked up the gold telephone, and dialed.

"Hello?" he said. "I want to speak to young Teddy Zack. Emergency." He winked at us. "Well, this is his father, so you better get him out of class. All right, I'll wait."

He waited for some time. Neither Babe nor I had anything to say, but finally Al spoke.

"Wanted to try something on you," he said. "I gotta thank the sponsors that relinquished their time for the Tribute. I told them, I said, 'Look, it's a hundred thousand bucks you won't have to spend that week, and I'll give you a plug all the same.' In song, I told them. So I've written this song for them. Here ... hold this phone, Babe."

Babe took the phone, and Al returned to the piano. He played and sang:

"My thanks to Drake's Light BeerI croaks(Makes all my life completer).My thanks to Elks, the mildersmokes(Brand X and Y can't beat 'er).And thank you, Bluebird Spray-Onfolks(My underarms are sweeter).Thank you, thank you for this timetonight!"

"Like it?" asked Al Zack.

"I'm sure it's what they want," I said.

"I knew you'd like it."

At the phone, Babe said: "Hello? Teddy Zack? Just a minute, please. I'll connect you."

Al, striding across the room, said to me: "I got a knack for that singing-commercial stuff. I could make a bundle if I wanted to prostitute myself." He took the phone Babe was holding out to him. "Hi, there, Teddy, pal," he said. "No, no, not that daddy. Your real father. Al Zack ... That's right ... Well, I been busy ... It's great to hear your voice ... Gosh, it's been how long? ... I'll be darned. I'll bet you're six inches taller ... See, I was out in Hollywood for a while there, and since I been back, I been ...

"See you? Sure, but I got something better than that. How'd you like to be on TV with me? ... No, your mother will let you. She's going to be there, too. Fact is, they're going to give your old man a Tribute on TV. What do you think of that? ... No, I really want you. Wouldn't want to go on without my pal Teddy, would I? ... Now, look: What present would you like? I'm gonna send a present to you ..." He motioned to Babe to take down what present the boy wanted, and as she looked frantically around, I handed her my pencil. "What?" said Al, and then he laughed. "Hey, you really have been growing up there, Teddy. Which Kim? Novak, Stanley, Hunter? .... Oh. Oh, I see. A book called Kim. OK ... All right, look, I'm gonna firm it up with your mother, and I'll see you at the rehearsal. She'll know the time ... Yeah ... Well, better get back to your class, huh? ... I know you do, Teddy, I think of you all the time, too ... So long now, fella."

He hung up and said to Babe: "All right. Now, you got Marie's number from Celebrity Service?" When she pointed to the pad beside the phone, he put the receiver to his ear and again started dialing.

The Phone was answered immediately, but Al had some trouble with the person on the other end, who wouldn't let Al talk to Marie.

Finally Al said: "Look, you go tell Miss Trenton that I just spoke to our child, Teddy, and if she doesn't want Teddy to cry himself to sleep with disappointment, she better speak to me."

He waited then for some time, then finally said: "Hello, Marie ... All right, all right, I know ... Well, calm down and I'll tell you what I said to him ... Yuh, yuh, I've got to admit that, Marie. I'm sorry about that ... I was out on the Coast for a while there, and since I been back, honest, I haven't had a minute... All right, I know how long it's been. I said I'm sorry, didn't I? ... Well, here's the pitch. I don't know whether your agent, when he turned down the chance for you to be on my Tribute, whether he ever told you a thing about it, but... Well, I'm surprised, Marie, because I certainly would have thought you'd realize how much it would mean to Teddy... Look, I've just been talking to him. Naturally I wanted him on the Tribute to his own father, and ... Well, I'm sorry, Marie, but I didn't think what your agent said came from you. I couldn't believe that, and, frankly, there's no need crying over spilled beans, because now Teddy is really hot to appear on the Tribute, and ... So if you want to disappoint him ... Yeah ...Uh-huh ... Well, aside from your own feelings, what? ... Ah, that's my baby ... I knew you'd come through, a trouper like you ... Look, I'll send you the rehearsal schedule, OK? ... OK. Goodbye. Nice talking to you, baby."

Al hung up.

"You got her?" asked Babe.

"Sure I got her. You got the name of that book? Order it."

"All right. And if it's about Kim Novak, I'll get a copy for myself. Everybody," Babe said to me, "tells me I look like Kim Novak."

Al was crossing to the piano.

"For the close, the whole company," he said. "Folks. Remember it?

"Some like coffee,Some like tea,But what I likeIs ev'ry--bod--ee ...'Cause I ... like ... folks!

"All together now," said Al, and Babe and I joined in:

"I like folks.I like their jokes.They can be blokesOr even old soaksOr kids with CokesOr tough cowpokes--Just as long as they're folksI like 'em--'Cause I ... like ... folks!"

We sang it loud and enthusiastically. And that's how the entire company--Al Zack, Francine Billington, Eddie Dennison, Marie Trenton, Milly, Darlene, Babe and young Teddy--will be singing it on your television screen on the third Thursday of next month.

As I was leaving his apartment, Al Zack said: "Gonna give the show a real good write-up, keed?"

"Well," I said, "I've certainly got a lot of notes here."

"I knew you'd give it a rave," said Al. "We're pals from 'way back, you and me. Remember in Acapulco that time, that blonde at the hotel there that you tried to hide from me?" He laughed merrily. "And the time riding back from the benefit in Detroit that you had to make out your income tax on the train because it was the last minute? What a hell of a fiction writer you were that day! And that time in Frisco---"

"I'll give you a really fine notice, Al," I said. "Honest."

"I knew you would," said Al.

A Tribute to Al Zack is going to be a wonderful show. It has class. It has comedy. It has heart tugs. It has wonderful music. Al Zack is the greatest songwriter who ever lived. I can't rave enough about his show. (That girl in Acapulco was strictly jailbait.) Al Zack is not only a great songwriter, he's a great man. Don't miss his wonderful show.