Having Fun with Mother

Trooping into & out of a green-walled Manhattan studio one night last week were a Long Island housewife, a Parisian antique dealer, Actress Gertrude Lawrence, two delinquent boys, a city judge, Critic John Mason Brown, an employment agent, an interior decorator, and Nobel Prizewinning Physicist Robert Millikan. When the last interview was over, four hours later, 66-year-old Eleanor Roosevelt appeared to have as much energy as when she started. She also had, tidily recorded on platters, enough material for at least a week of the 45-minute Eleanor Roosevelt Program (Mon. through Fri., 12:30 p.m.) over Manhattan's WNBC.

First, a Teaser. Another Roosevelt--son Elliott--is deeply involved in the show. His official position is president of the radio-TV "package" firm, Roosevelt & Jones, Inc. But, possibly because Mrs. Roosevelt's radio show and her TV show (Sun. 3:30 p.m., NBCTV) are the only ones he has on the air, Impresario Elliott serves in many other capacities. He often rounds up talent for the radio program, his determined salesman's geniality in offhand invitations such as the one he gave Fred Allen: "Come on over and have some fun with mother." He supervises the recording of interviews ("Hold it, Mother, there'll be a teaser first"), and he writes and personally delivers the commercials for such sponsors as McKettrick Williams dresses; Sitroux tissues; Manischewitz products; the Toni Co.'s Bobbi Pin Curl Home Waves, and the Illinois Meat Co.

Mrs. Roosevelt's own inexhaustible fund of chatty conversation and the glamour of her guests (some of the recent ones: Boxer Ezzard Charles, Cartoonist Al Capp, Minister Perle Mesta, Actress Tallulah Bankhead) have given the program a 2.7 Pulse rating against the 2.3 of her veteran rival Mary Margaret McBride. But what disconcerts many listeners is the drumfire of basic-English commercials, fead in pear-shaped Grotonese, with which the show is slittered. Mrs. Roosevelt may murmur to a distinguished guest: "And now I think Elliott would like to say something . . ."

A Real Feeling. What Elliott would like to say is a good word for the sponsors. Often, he drags other Roosevelts into the spiel: "The other day we were driving in from the country and one of the children suddenly called out that there was a great, big bird in the sky . . . Sure enough, there it was, the great big Flamingo blimp, advertising Flamingo orange juice . . ." or ". . . In fact, Mother. I remember when you used to buy numbers of the famous Emerson portables to give away as Christmas presents ; . ."

This lending of the Roosevelt name to the hawking of noodle soup and hearing aids has already inspired a broad parody from New York World Telegram & Sun Columnist H. I. Phillips, as well as the expected blasts from Westbrook Pegler. Elliott is saddened by such comments, but not surprised. "You always get carping criticism, people saying it's nothing but a money-making proposition," he explains. "But mother has a real feeling of achievement now that she has twelve sponsors. Sponsors are a sign of success."

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