1953–54 Volume 78 No 1–5 - Phi Delta Theta Scroll Archive

THE SCROLL of Phi Delta Theta for May, 1954 395
to Pete Martin' stories. In stories written by
me alone, the heat is really on me, myself,
to try to make the story readable."
When he uses the Dictaphone, he merely
parks the desk mike on the table, uses a
foot pedal to keep the thing rolling, and
that's that. He finds that after a little while
the one he's interviewing forgets the recorder.
Occasionally he finds someone who
is frightened by a microphone. If that happens,
Pete falls back on the older, slower
and clumsier method, pencil and notebook.
Most of his stories come hard, as any
writer will attest. The easier, and the most
enjoyable, are the "author participation"
assignments. These are the kind which
finds Pete working for a day as a bit player
in the movie "Command Decision" and reporting
what happened to him in the experience.
Another time he donned (just to
show his versatility) a beautician's jacket
and wrote "What Women Tell Their Hairdressers."
As a part of covering the Hollywood
beat, Pete really got in there and took part.
He had a screen test, was made up to look
like Ben Franklin and Will Rogers, played
as an extra, and watched the daily miracles
of sound men, producers, propmen, and
other unsung specialists. He took Hedy
Lamarr shopping, helped to put a Hollywood
waitress through a studio glamorizing
process (complete with falsies), and was
himself a participant or observer in many
Hollywood fantasies.
The Hope story took a year, not in actual
writing time, but in all of its aspects. It
started with a contact with Hope in New
York last February when the comedian was
a guest of honor at a Friars dinner. When
the Post lawyers finally negotiated a contract
and a basis for working, Pete went
to Cleveland to talk to Hope's brothers,
boyhood friends and vaudeville partners.
Thus armed with questions to ask Hope,
Pete arrived in Beverly Hills in June to
begin work. Before actually sitting down
with Bob about the tenth of July Pete filled
in the time by interviewing Hope's movie,
radio and television pals and co-workers.
"I finished interviewing Hope about six
weeks later," Pete continues to relate. "My
secretary transcribed the interviews, a process
which took about a month and a half.
After that my work was mostly with pencil,
scissors, and pastepot. I finished the nine
articles for the Post about the end of November.
Then I went to Palm Springs to
get Hope to read what he'd said, make
changes and corrections in the copy, and
OK it. I received the final okayed carbon
from Hope the Monday after Christmas,
an hour and a half before I took off on a
two weeks' vacation, the first one I had all
of last year and I needed it badly."
With Crosby, Pete went to visit him at his
summer home at Hayden Lake, Idaho, and
worked with Bing for about two hours a
day for five days. Later he got on the steamship
Liberie with him (he was on his way
to Europe to make "Little Boy Lost"), and
they worked for two hours a day for six
days. When Crosby returned from Europe
Pete had another hour and a half session
with him in New York. When the star went
back to California he dictated a number
of Dictaphone belts all by himself and airmailed
them back to Pete.
Working with Hope, Pete reports, wasn't
that simple. Hope's life is a madhouse of
multiple jobs. There's TV and day and
night-time radio shows; there are movies,
personal appearances, benefits he plays,
flipping around the country on business or
entertainment assignments.
"It was all hell trying to get a date with
him to actually go to work," recalls Pete.
"Sometimes four or five days would elapse
between interviews. With most Hollywood
stars, the worst possible time to work with
them is while they're making a movie. It's
just the opposite with Hope. The time I
chose to work with him was while he was
working all day long, six days a week, on a
forthcoming movie to be called 'Casanova's
Big Night.' That was the only time I could
be sure he'd stay in one place."
Crosby considered himself a co-author.
"Usually," comments Pete wryly, "when this
happens it's a pain in the neck to a writer."
However in Crosby's case it was a great
help. He wrote into the manuscript not
only sentences, but whole paragraphs, and
each time he touched it, it sounded more
like Crosby. "Crosby has a real gift for
phrase making and a highly individual