Over There

At the Cubby-Hole Enlisted Men's club in Long Binh, 20 miles north of Saigon, about 300 G.I.s were having their spill of beer and good cheer. Suddenly a spotlight pinned an opening door, and out wafted a striking blonde. For a second, the soldiers were dead silent. Then stomping, cheering and pounding on tables, they scrambled over each other to get a better look.

Busty, freckle-faced Jan Brinker, 30, slowly struggled to the makeshift stage and began singing I've Got the Sun in the Morning. After that came some chatter ("Golly, you guys have been here a long time, haven't you?") and some more songs. The finale called for Jan to haul a bashful G.I. onstage and croon Love for Sale as she unbuttoned his shirt.

Beer & Slots. Most people in the U.S. have never heard of Jan Brinker, but in South Viet Nam she is almost as famous as Doris Day. Jan, and perhaps a dozen other little-known entertainers, have been touring G.I. bases for a couple of years, and in their own way have become headliners. The USO sponsors tours by bigger names, and Bob Hope visits the troops regularly; still, the demand for entertainment is so insatiable that it has created a flourishing year-round vaudeville circuit.

This is especially true in the boondocks, where the men have nothing to spend their money on but beer and slot machines. This enables the 300 enlisted men's clubs and the smaller numbers of noncom and officers' clubs to rake in profits of up to $16,000 a week. The clubs, in turn, can afford to shell out from $150 to $500 a show for professional comics from Australia, dance troupes from the Philippines and rock-'n'-roll combos from the States.

Back home, entertainers like Jan Brinker and most of her peers would be taking second or third billing in nightclubs. Johnny Leggett, 28, is a country-and-western warbler who never made it past the smalltime in the States, but in Viet Nam he pulls $1,000 a week. Margee McGlory, a Negro pop, blues and jazz singer who does a fair imitation of Eartha Kitt, makes only $300 a week, but that is more than she was able to earn at home. Oliver Pacini, an accordionist who has spent years playing small dates in and around San Francisco, earns $150-$200 a show and is extremely popular because of his nostalgic sing-alongs.

Blown Fuses. It is only three years since the Viet Nam circuit became the Orpheum of the Orient for adventurous performers. Most of the bookings are handled by Agent Joe Tomasi, now 28, who brought his first touring variety show into Saigon in the spring of 1964, and a year later formed the World Wide Talent agency with retired U.S. Chief Petty Officer George Albrecht. "The Vietnamese acts were terrible," Tomasi recalls, and he began flying out regularly to Manila, Hong Kong and Tokyo to fetch in outside talent. Today, W.W.T. handles about half of the paid professional entertainment appearing at U.S. military clubs; last year the agency booked 14 acts from the outside (paying them a normal top of $1,000 for five shows a week), was even able to peddle 25 Vietnamese bands, four Filipino bands, and 42 Vietnamese girl singers. W.W.T. provides accommodations, transportation within the country, and usually air fare to and from home.

Entertainers who go into the hinterlands know that the risks are real, the roads terrible, the living facilities primitive and the performing areas a nightmare. Many of them use taped accompaniments rather than Vietnamese sidemen (who somehow cannot get with the Stateside beat), so one of the more common perils is the blown fuse. But many performers do go, and not only for the pay and the experience. Says Jan Brinker: "We're here for the money, but we also feel an obligation to do what we can for the men out here."

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