The Creamer

Eager adolescents jampacked Paris' gilded, rococo Opera House. Before the curtain went up, they dutifully pored over the program notes on "le jazz hot" which the Air Forces Band was going to play. But what they really came to hear was the band's shy, Detroit-born, 24-year-old Sergeant Johnny Desmond. He has been spreading havoc among European bobby-soxers since he first sang over BBC, five months ago.

Last week Sergeant Desmond--variously known as the "G.I. Sinatra" and "The Creamer," because of his smooth, creamy baritone--was getting fan mail in three languages: English, German and French. Restrained sample from a French admirer: "C'est formidable. . . . It is an experience very moving. I pray you to permit my felicitations."

Before he enlisted in 1943, black-haired, velvet-eyed Johnny sang with Bob Crosby and Gene Krupa. Then he signed up as a drummer--the Army does not admit "singer" as a musical classification--with Glenn Miller's Air Forces Band. (Major Miller has been missing since a December England-to-Paris flight, but the band continues to bear his name.) Desmond's G.I. job, which he is apparently doing sensationally well, is singing. His I'll Be Seeing You and Long Ago and Far Away, in phonetic French, makes young Parisians jump up & down, squeal "Bravo . . . Bis! Bis!" and clutter up the stage-door alley for a closer look at Le Cremair.

For an entertainer who is creating such a multilingual stir, Sergeant Desmond is modesty itself. When he sang for the 101st Airborne Division, his appreciative audience presented him with a complete paratrooper's outfit and honorary membership in the division. Johnny is especially pleased about the G.I. reaction: "I used to be afraid the real soldiers wouldn't like me," he says, "but they don't seem to mind me being a swooner." The band's publicity-minded program director, Warrant Officer Paul Dudley, says with boding triumph: "Sinatra is apt to push; The Creamer just bides his time."

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