Amateur Talent Contest

When Marie was sixteen she and a brother, George and a brother Bob and a friend Arthur entered an amateur talent contest. Marie played the piano and sang, George played the violin, and Bob played the banjo. Their friend, Arthur played the guitar. They won second place. This amateur contest opened the doors for Marie and her brothers to meet what were to be and at that time were already actors and actresses; there she met Roy Rogers at the Cummings Theater. They played at the Waylon Playhouse and met Barbara Stanwick and Myrna Loy.

Marie said that one night her mom didn’t want to go to the circus grounds with her dad, so he took Marie since it was Ladies Night.
That night she got to meet a Hillbilly singer by the name of Hank Keene and has his music book. I looked him up on the computer and he was a very famous country western classified as hillbilly in those days, singer and banjo player.
Marie got to meet Gene Autrey at the Strand Theater. She said that he talked to her some and was very pleasant. She also got to meet Jack Benny and his wife Mary Livingston. I was not aware that Jack Benny was very adamant about being nice to people and to not push people away that came to see him. That may be why he was so popular with his fans along with the fact that he was very funny. Marie said that a lot of people did not think that Jack Benny could play the violin, but in fact, he was a virtuoso violinist.
Marie could yodel also and did some for me. She apologized for not being very good. I said that was fine because I can’t yodel at all!
Marie was not allowed to continue to be part of the group for a long time because she was a girl. That was not proper to hang out with the guys. She did, however, sing at weddings and birthday parties, when the group was asked to play. I asked her how much they were paid, and she said about two dollars a piece a night. One of the pictures shown is their theme song. Every time they played they played this song which is in a music book with Dick Powell on the cover and is ear marked to this day, so she could easily turn to the music she needed for the first number. The other picture is the Hank Keene music book which sold for fifty cents.
I thought it was interesting she said she used to smoke. Soon she noticed that she couldn’t hit the high notes and quit because the doctor told her too or she would not be able to sing at all. Marie was never able to hit those notes again even though she did stop smoking.