Sneak-In Success

Comedienne Joan Davis, who does visual pratfalls on the screen and verbal ones on the radio, went back on the air last week with a new distinction. For the first time, she was her own boss--and under a million-dollar-a-year contract which makes her the highest-paid woman performer in radio.

With that million, she has to hire her own announcer, musicians, singers, and stooges. One of the first she hired ("I want to get the bobby-soxers; in fact, I'm going to get the whole damn family in") was Crooner Andy Russell. Her substantial radio success is a surprise to almost everyone but herself ("I've always had to sneak in and make good"). She got her first radio break as a guest on Rudy Vallee's Village Store in 1941, was enough of a hit to be hired as a regular. Then Vallee joined the Coast Guard and Co-Star John Barrymore died. Everybody, including the sponsor, thought the program would collapse with just Joan Davis to hold it up. Instead, its popularity climbed. Last year Hooper for some time rated it the No. 6 attraction on the air.

There were still skeptics; they pointed out that she had a sure-fire spot--right after Bing Crosby. Now long-nosed, twangy Joan Davis is on another network, with another sponsor (CBS, Mon., 8:30-9:00 p.m., E.W.T.) and all on her own. Her first step on the new show was to change the village store to a tearoom. Like most successful female zanies, she would now like to be a little more dignified about it; Joan Davis' manhunting haunt act on Tea Room is considerably more decorous than her old show. Says she: "In my heart I feel I am so much more than a screwball."

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