In our original book, we mentioned that Mr. Stewart had appeared on the Martin and Lewis Show on September 30, 1952. The show was well publicized and Stewart was named as the guest in many of the ads. Below are a display ad and a quick summary, both from the San Antonio (TX) Express of the day of the broadcast:
Unfortunately the show was not available and little information about it was known. No audio of the appearance has yet surfaced, but the script for the program has! The show was sponsored by Chesterfield cigarettes, which were manufactured by the Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company. That company sponsored many radio shows and kept a library of the scripts used on those programs.
Now, thanks to the University of California, San Francisco, Legacy Tobacco Documents Library, the script is available online and can be viewed and read here:
Martin and Lewis Show September 30, 1952, Script
I’ll give you some highlights of the script, but you might want to visit this site and read it for yourself, especially if you’re never read a radio script before.
The first page of the script shows the crew members who worked on the show:
One of the writers was a thirty-three year old Norman Lear. Twenty years later, Lear would establish a TV dynasty, writing and producing such shows as All in the Family, Sanford and Son, Maude, Good Times, The Jeffersons, One Day at a Time, Mary Hartman Mary Hartman, Fernwood 2 Night, Different Strokes, The Facts of Life, Who’s the Boss and many others.
Although we speculated in the book that Sheldon Leonard and Ben Alexander might have appeared on this show, they did not. In fact, the only person to appear who is not mentioned on the first page is NBC announcer Hal Gibney who assisted George Fenneman with the Chesterfield commercials.
The program began with Dean singing Walkin’ My Baby Back Home. He was then joined by Jerry Lewis and they spent the next four and a half pages doing their comedy routine for the evening. This was followed by the first commercial.
After the commercial, Dean introduces Stewart, who says that he is excited to finally meet Jerry Lewis because he has heard so many strange things about him. When he is introduced to Jerry, Jimmy says, “The last time I saw anything like this, Humphrey Bogart was standing knee deep in water, pulling it off his chest!” He was referring, of course, the the scene in The African Queen where Bogart and Katharine Hepburn are removing leeches from Bogart’s body. The dialogue continues and eventually Dean asks Jimmy about his twin daughters. Unfortunately, Jimmy never gets to say anything about them because Jerry doesn’t like to hear stories about other peoples’ children. One of the funniest lines Stewart was given was to occur during this exchange, but it was cut from the script. After Jerry tells one of his outrageous stories, Dean and Jimmy were to have this exchange:
Today, a six year old could deliver the line and no one would think anything of it. But, back in 1952, the censors must have thought the joke too risque.
Finally, the conversation gets around to Stewart’s film from earlier that year, Carbine Williams. Stewart mentions that the prisoners in the jail had their own radio station and Dean and Jerry wonder what a typical show might have sounded like. With that, George Fenneman introduces a scene coming from Twelve-Worth Prison’s WPEN. The breakfast variety show is hosted by the Happy Boys – “Fingers” Stewart, “Knuckles” Martin and “Elbows” Lewis (the “Elbows” nickname came from a comment Lewis had made during the opening comedy dialogue with Martin. He mentioned that he had been to Boris Karloff’s house the day before and Boris had served elbow macaroni…made with real elbows). During the show, Jimmy gives a testimonial for the breakfast cereal “Fixies” and gives a weather forecast where he delivers the line, “Snow today…followed by guards in overcoats tomorrow!” At one point near the end of the sketch, Jimmy calls Jerry “Babe-Face Levitch.” Of course, Levitch is Jerry’s true family name.
Following another commercial, Dean sings You Belong to Me. After this is what the script calls a “bumper;” Dean and Jerry thank Jimmy for being on the show and Jimmy returns to say, “Goodnight boys, goodnight everybody.”
In this photo, Stewart has script in hand and appears ready to go…Martin and Lewis, not so much.
(Update December 14, 2017)
Although Martin & Lewis were very famous, this was their first attempt at a radio show. As a result, their budget was small. You can see by the contract below, Jimmy Stewart was paid just $1000 for his appearance.
