In at Last

Though he is only 22, Singer Eddie Fisher has had plenty of chances at the big time. When he was 18 he got as far as Manhattan's expensive Copacabana, even though his talents were hidden behind a bevy of beautiful arm-waving chorus girls. Two years ago, he won an Arthur Godfrey Talent Scouts contest. Last fall, Eddie Cantor heard Fisher singing at a summer resort on the Catskill borsch circuit and signed him to tour the country with his own show. But each time, the big chance seemed to fizzle out, and Fisher went back to dates in small clubs and theaters, cutting an occasional record for RCA Victor's second-string Bluebird label.

This summer Eddie Fisher got another chance. Suddenly in need of a replacement, the big Riviera Club across the Hudson from Manhattan called Fisher in, put him on as headline singer.

Coming out on the Riviera's big floor, he sang such ballads as / Wanna Be Loved, Wanderin', There's No Tomorrow, stopped the show. His warm, strong baritone, faintly reminiscent of Tony Martin's, still had the natural flow and phrasing which he had developed by singing in a Philadelphia synagogue, and the unsophisticated delivery which "I got," he says, "from helping dad hawk fruits and vegetables from a truck when I was a kid." When the reviews appeared next morning, Fisher was described as "merely wonderful," "a sensational singing voice and style," "terrific," "a big hit."

Last week there were more signs that Eddie Fisher was in at last. Victor had moved him onto its bigger-selling black label. Outside Broadway's huge Paramount Theater, the bobby-soxers were gathering to throb when their new boy does his stuff (five shows a day for $1,000 a week). With movie, television and nightclub bids rolling in, big-voiced little (130 Ibs.) Eddie Fisher seemed to have his big chance firmly in hand.

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