Amos 'n' Andy

It is related that some time ago the proprietor of a Washington cinema theatre observed that his audiences were unusually sparse around the hour of 7 p. m. He was told that Washington housewives, husbands and children, instead of flocking to his theatre immediately after dinner, were staying home by their radios to hear the daily ten-minute broadcast of a blackface team called Amos 'n' Andy. To the proprietor it seemed incredible that such a brief radio feature could substantially affect his profits. But he wired his theatre for radio, broadcast Amos 'n' Andy regularly from the stage, and with amazement watched his empty seats fill up. Other nationwide theatres soon found it profitable to follow.suit.

Then arose complaints from theatre managers who were paying high prices to have Amos 'n' Andy appear in person (Publix Theatres paid the pair $6,500 weekly). They averred that the radio scheme permitted their competitors to present Amos 'n' Andy practically without cost. Last week Variety, theatrical weekly, announced that National Broadcasting Co., sympathetic to this objection, would take legal action against the broadcasting theatres on the ground of infringement of copyright.

Observers have recently been forced to the conclusion that Amos 'n' Andy are essential to the early evening entertainment of a large proportion of the U. S. public. Two months ago their broadcasting hour was changed so that the Western time zones received their skits in the middle of the afternoon. From those zones were sent more than 100,000 letters protesting that this arrangement deprived working people of the chance to hear them. Amos 'n' Andy now oblige by broadcasting (usually from Chicago) over an Eastern NBC network at 7 p.m. (E.S.T.) and over a Midwest and Western NBC network at 11 p.m. (E.S.T.).

The overwhelming appeal of this pair, whose daily mail is prodigious, whose popularity unquestionably exceeds that of any other radio performers, consists chiefly in their blending of simple narrative interest with skillful Negro characterization. People who for years have followed the fortunes of Mutt & Jeff and the Katzenjammer Kids are naturally agog to discover what will happen to Amos 'n' Andy in their next radio installment. People who have roared mightily at Moran & Mack and the late great Bert Williams are naturally prepared to enjoy the Negroid inflection and viewpoint of Amos 'n' Andy. Their dialogs describe the homely adventures of two Negro boys (Amos is high-voiced, nervous; Andy is deep-voiced, domineering) who operate, with one cab, the "Fresh-Air Taxicab Company of America, Incorpulated." They lead humble love-lives and club-lives ("The Mystic Knights of the Sea"), and run a whole gamut of perplexities and predicaments not too exaggerated to be recognized by their listeners. They are supported by a host of supernumeraries, but they produce all these voices themselves, including that of an occasional dog. So intimately concerned do their audiences become with the careers of Amos 'n' Andy that letters arrive each day expressing hopes or fears for their enterprises, warnings, all manner of comment.

High-voiced Amos is Freeman F. Gosden, 31, native of Richmond, Va. He is a tall, erect blonde with tight, wavy hair, a broad brow and wide-set eyes. He was raised with a Negro "mammy" and a Negro playmate from whom he gained much of his extraordinary knowledge of racial peculiarities. Aged 10, he dove into Annette Kellerman's tank. Aged 12, he held eggs for the magician Thurston. For a year he went to military school in Atlanta. During the War he served in the Navy, then became a traveling tobacco salesman. Returning to Richmond he did a clog dance in a home talent show directed by Chicago professionals. They offered him a job coaching similar productions; he accepted.

Deep-voiced Andy is Charles J. Correll, 40. He is shorter than his partner, thickset, pompadoured. He was born in Peoria, Ill., sold newspapers, worked with his family's construction company, played the piano in a cinemahouse at night. He won local dancing contests, sang in minstrel shows, acted in neighborhood dramas. Finally he too became a professional coach. One of his assignments was in Durham, N. C., where he had to teach the business to a neophyte named Freeman F. Gosden. For six years they staged musical shows, plays and circuses for such organizations as the Elks, American Legion and Shriners, carried properties and costumes around the country in innumerable trunks. In 1924 they were made office managers of the company, took a Chicago apartment. For fun they obtained a radio tryout without pay. This led to regular engagements. First they sang songs, told stories; gradually they evolved their blackface manner. Gosden taught Correll the dialect; for a while they were known as Sam 'n' Henry. In March 1928, they first performed as Amos 'n' Andy.

After that, radio's invisible filaments slowly sensitized the entire nation to their talk, and the nation liked it. They have always written every word of their material. They make phonograph records as Amos 'n' Andy and, of their singing, as Correll & Gosden. In 1927 both were married. They are completely absorbed by their work; wherever they go they mingle with Negroes to develop their style and substance. Negroes delight in them because they recreate, not burlesque, the Negro attitude and idiom. Those who have seen them broadcast say that they often have to smother their own laughter (Gosden did it once by dousing a glass of water over his head), and they have more than once been observed with tears in their eyes.

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