Kate Smith Speaks was a daring broadcast venture by Ted Collins, Kate Smith’s personal manager and business partner. Inspired by Kate’s extraordinary appeal as singer and radio hostess, Collins believed she could also be an influential commentator, especially with women. With CBS President William S. Paley’s approval, the initial broadcast went over the airwaves at 3:30 p.m. EST on Monday, April 4, 1938. For the first eleven weeks it was an unsponsored (or sustaining) program. After a summer hiatus, the time slot was moved to high noon, where it would remain a fixture for thirteen seasons.
General Foods, Kate’s sponsor for the weekly variety hour, assumed sponsorship, the first product advertised being Diamond Crystal Shaker Salt. For the first year the program was broadcast three times a week, on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. By fall 1939 it assumed Monday-Friday status.
By 1940 Kate Smith Speaks was the most listened-to program in daytime radio, an honor it would hold for nearly a decade. So popular was it that CBS insisted it be aired all summer too. Kate and Ted agreed, but only if it could be done from Kate’s summer home on Buck Island at Lake Placid. CBS consented and strung the necessary cable.
Bob “Believe it or Not” Ripley described the studio in her guest house as the smallest broadcast studio in the world: a paradox, because Kate must have been the largest entertainer in radio.
Kate Smith Speaks developed a format retained throughout the years. Collins began with “It’s high noon in New York and time for Kate Smith. Here she is.” Kate would say “Hello, everybody” and read the first item, after which she would turn to Ted and ask, “And now, Ted, what’s new?” He would read a few news items, ending with, “And that, at the moment, is what’s new.” Kate would then say, “And in the news behind the news…” Increasingly, as time passed, Ted entered into informal discussions with Kate. Sometimes they aired friendly disagreements. Frequently they’d get to laughing over some frivolous item, such as a fish story or a new hat style or a banana split eating contest. The audience loved their apparent spontaneity.
Occasionally Kate’s voice would quaver with emotion, or she would speak so forcefully and deliberately that the listener just knew she was pointing her finger or shaking her fist. She obviously put her heart and soul into these broadcasts.
Kate’s topics ranged from new creations for the housewife to fashion trends to advice about child rearing (though she was single) to how to send mail to GIs overseas. She often recommended wholesome books, plays, or movies. And she frequently aired her views about such topics as treatment of the elderly, underpaid teachers, or juvenile crime. Her closing signature was “Thanks for listenin’ and goodbye, folks.” During wartime, she added “Remember, if you don’t write, you’re wrong!”
After more than nine successful seasons on CBS, Kate Smith Speaks moved to the Mutual Network on June 23, 1947. (Both the last CBS and the first Mutual broadcasts are included here.) She was unhappy with the censoring of some of her topics. After accepting the 1947 American Brotherhood Arts citation from the National Council of Christian and Jews, she held a press conference. To quote Time Magazine, “…the woman who had come to be known as perennially good-tempered slashed out at CBS.” She stated, “I don’t see why I should let anybody try to tell me how to run my program.” Ted stayed out of the fray, commenting, “I think Miss Smith is leaving Columbia because she has a better contract.” Her audience turned the dial as suggested and found the new network, remaining loyal to Kate for four more years.
Except for the day of The Kate Smith Hour, the broadcasts originated from the living room of Kate’s Park Avenue apartment. The daily routine was that Kate would receive and go over the next day’s script the night before. Ted would arrive at 11:15 and any alterations would then be made. At 11:45 her cocker spaniel Freckles would be exiled to a bedroom and at 12:00 sharp they’d turn on the mike, which was on the table at which they both sat with their scripts. The program, often described as folksy, was indeed against a homespun backdrop, though always very professional. There was nothing amateurish about either Miss Smith or Mr. Collins.
Kate had a special rapport with her audience. She spoke as if she was with us at the kitchen table while we ate our lunch. Her voice had a timbre and conveyed a sincerity that compelled the listener to pay attention and, occasionally, to respond aloud. She charmed us, you might say. She could talk about an individual or an event “in the news behind the news” that would hold her audience spellbound. Or she would paint a word picture of a country store or the starry sky or the seashore so vividly that in our imaginations we could see it clearly. To be sure, she had a capable staff of writers, but it was her delivery that could turn a routine item into something special.
Kate Smith Speaks spanned a singular period of monumental importance in American history: from peacetime Depression of the late 1930s through the second World War, the post-war recovery years, and into the Korean War of the 1950s. A reading of these fascinating scripts provides insights into the way Americans thought and lived in those days long past: our values, changing conditions on the home front, and the timelessness of many of society’s problems.
Ted had every script saved and placed in some forty Morocco-bound volumes for Kate. They reposed in her French provincial bookcase and are now part of the Kate Smith collection in the Howard Gotlieb Special Collections Department of the Mugar Memorial Library of Boston University.
For more information about Kate Smith, the Kate Smith Commemorative Society, and items available for purchase, please check the website www.katesmith.org.
Friday, April 13, 1945
The President died yesterday afternoon at Warm Springs, Georgia. The nation mourns the only President the U.S. has known since 1933. Note that today is Friday the 13th.
Hello, everybody!
Out in Missouri, in the heart of our great country, a very old lady is praying this noon. She’s 92 and she’s a mother. She’s praying because her son has just taken over the world’s biggest and greatest job. She’s Mrs. Martha Truman, mother of the President of these United States. “We are praying,” she said, “that God will guide him.” I think the rest of the nation might well join in that prayer. And now, Ted, what’s new?
(News)
During the past eighteen anguished hours, you have heard through your radios and read in your newspapers many eloquent tributes to Mr. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, guiding light of this great nation, known to all of us simply as Mr. Roosevelt, or Mr. President. Let this tribute of mine be simple. Let it be little words straight from the heart at the passing of a friend, as well as a leader among men.
For in the beginning, there was no fanfare, no drum rolls, no oratory. There was just a little American boy, growing. A little American boy playing like other American boys, with abandon; skinning his nose, wearing holes through his shoes, planning to run away to sea. He always loved the sea and the sailing ships. His mind always reached out to far places and brave adventures. Strangely, and in jest, destiny spoke to him when he was a lad of five. With his mother, he was meeting for the first time a President of the United States, President Grover Cleveland, and the great statesman looked at the youngster, Franklin, and greeted him with these words: “I’ll give you a wish to remember for the rest of your life, young fellow: Pray to God that he never lets you become President of the United States.”
The boy forgot those words as soon as he heard them but his mother carried them in her heart for the rest of her life, and Destiny must have been listening and smiling triumphantly then. And so, he grew from short trousers to long as other boys had grown before him. He studied, he played pranks, he was graduated with honors and won the all-school Latin prize, a prize that meant less to him than the record he established for the running high kick. He went to college; Harvard claimed him as its own. He fell in love and married his cousin, Anna Eleanor. They lived in a small house in New York and he became associated with a law firm; a simple pattern, a direct pattern, an American pattern. It would always remain an American pattern, but already Destiny was reaching out to the young man who had grown up at Hyde Park. The people wanted him for their candidate for the State Senatorship. That was the beginning of greatness, the beginning of his loss of privacy. Henceforth he would be a public servant; history groomed him as she saw fit.
He was Assistant Secretary of the Navy during the first World War. He ran for Vice President on the ticket with Cox and knew defeat. Yet his life was full and active and busy. He lived close to the sea whenever he could. He enjoyed sailing; took long walks in the woods with his sons. And then the Fates that had given him health and the joy of living, snatched health away. He was stricken with the dread affliction, infantile paralysis. He who had strode the country lanes, had stood at the tiller with the wind in his face, was to know these things no longer except in his memories. For three years Franklin Delano Roosevelt fought to move, fought to live, and in those years he learned much, as all who die a living death must learn. And his suffering left him older and wiser, more tolerant. Then he was taken to Warm Springs, and after a year had passed, he knew the joy of walking again with the help of a cane: walking slowly, painfully, but walking! It was then that his dream began, the dream of a foundation that would make it possible to help others afflicted with infantile paralysis. Later, at the urging of his friends, he consented to run on the Democratic ticket for Governor of New York state. He had but one more step to go to become a leader of men.
It was in March 1933 that he began his duties in the White House, and even then, long before the beating of the drums of war, he was weighed down with responsibilities. Remember those days? The banks had closed; there were breadlines; men and women shivered on street corners selling apples. Depression and want stalked across the land that was America. America, land of promise, land of plenty, almost without hope in those heartbreaking days of 1933, apathetic, questioning, doubtful — afraid! And the new President spoke and said: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Depression did not vanish overnight, but there was new life in the nation, new spirit in the Capitol. The banks were re-opened, the farmers were aided, money was put into circulation. The man who had faith in America, gave America back faith in herself. And all the time the mounting shadow grew across the seas, the shadow of war. He knew no such thing as isolation, knew that America could not escape, but he loved peace, just as all Americans love peace. For a time he tried to fight to build up the Army, the Navy. He was criticized, his policies were attacked, but there were few among the millions who ever questioned his sincerity of purpose, his deep, abiding zeal for America, and at the time he was elected to a third term, he received the greatest tribute of confidence that could come to any man.
There’s no need to repeat the annals of his greatness when war did engulf us, or his magnificent leadership through those dark days when we were stunned and horrified by the suddenness of the lightning bolt in the Pacific. You all know these things, for it was then, in the midst of our common peril, that all of us, from the man in the street, from the bootblack to the grocer to the banker, to the leaders of our Allies, began really to know Franklin D. Roosevelt, for all the world listened to him, and leaned on him. Thus came the burdens that proved too heavy to bear: work, and travel to the far corners of the earth. Worry, loneliness, problems, big tall thoughts in the stillness of the long night; responsibilities of a magnitude few of us can even understand became part and parcel of the life of this one man. Freedom of Speech — that freedom of speech that Americans delight in — hurled accusations at him, doubted him, questioned him, but never doubted his sincerity of purpose, never doubted that he was giving his life in his country’s cause. We all knew he must falter and some day fall; we all knew his physical health was growing weaker and weaker, and yet when we heard his cheerful, confident voice over the radio, when he imbued us with his courage, we forgot the iron braces and the wheel-chairs. We forgot the strained look on the face of the man aged too soon by the responsibilities of war. He was a simple man. I think I remember him best as he was in those good days before war cast its blight on the world. I remember him as he was that evening in the White House when the King and Queen of England were there and I had been invited to sing some of his favorite songs and some of theirs. And there, even in the presence of royalty, he was outstanding in his graceful manners, his dignity, his genial informal courtesy, his magnetic personality that won admirers and friends for him even among those who disagreed with his political beliefs. Yes, I remember him best as he was on that evening when I stood there and sang simple American songs for the illustrious group gathered in that room. And singing, I watched his face and saw him smile, and when the songs were done, he applauded heartily and thanked me, saying he loved the old songs best. That evening is something pretty special to press between the memory pages of my heart, and though I saw him many times after that, they were serious times when there was no singing of old songs but only talk of war and bonds, and meetings in the far-flung corners of the earth.
And now he’s gone. A great soul has passed beyond the care and the worry of this mortal world, and we who mourn his loss offer our prayers and our tears, and a nation is bereft. But there is a greater tribute than tears, greater than mourning. Let us, every American, man, woman, and child, wherever we are, at home in the United States or on the battlefronts of the world, offer the tribute of a high resolve. Let us pledge ourselves now to shoulder gloriously the burden he has had to lay down, to follow his leadership, to fight as he has fought: to keep faith as he has kept faith through those dark days that lie far behind us now. Let that be our tribute to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, outstanding leader and great American gentleman. May he who died in the midst of war rest, in peace!
Thanks for listenin’ and good-bye, folks!
Tuesday, August 26, 1947
Hello, everybody! Now is the lovely time all over this nation, when that old American custom of holding State Fairs is flourishing in the warm August sunshine! Fairs in New England, in New York state, in Texas, Kansas, and Minnesota, just to name a few! They differ slightly according to the general location: down in Texarkana, Texas, for instance, they’re getting ready for the Four States Fair and part of their festivities, of course, will be a rodeo, as well as the exhibits of beef and dairy cattle, chickens, flowers, hobby shows, etc. The Four States Fair at Hutchinson doesn’t get under way until about the middle of September. Some of New England’s fine fairs are over already, something to look back on with pleasure, but many are still coming up. And right now the Minnesota State Fair at Minneapolis is holding its 88th annual event, with all sorts of agricultural, cultural, and commercial exhibits. Whether the featured events are calf roping, bronco riding, and prize steers, or midget auto racing and maple sugarin’ and square dancing, fairs are always a lot of fun.
It’s the time when you forget all about work for a whole big exciting day, and pack the family off to the fair, off to see whether your jellies and jams, your quilts and embroideries, your cakes and your pies will win a prize, and to have a good gossip with friends and neighbors you’ve been too busy to see much of during the summer. As for the youngsters, their eyes shine at all the wonderful sights to see at the fair: the fabulous games, the enormous Ferris wheel that carries them up in the clouds! Sometimes I hear grown folks say with a sigh, ”Fairs aren’t what they used to be when I was a child!” Of course they’re not! And when your mother or your grandmother was a child they weren’t the same as when you were little either. Time was when youngsters went around with peppermint candies and apples on a stick. Time was when Eskimo pies and snowballs, flavored with bright-colored syrups, were the latest refreshment. Now it’s double-decker ice cream cones. But the fairs haven’t changed so very much after all, I guess.
They’re still magic fairylands of music and fun and things to see and do, and if you can’t turn back the clock and be a child again, the next best thing is to take a little girl or boy to the fair. Then, maybe once again, you’ll catch their fever of amazement and excitement, and see all the sights through their enthusiastic eyes. And if you do, the scene will be gilded with star-dust and you’ll have the best time ever!
And now, A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR…
(Opening Commercial)
KATE SMITH: I’m happy to report as summer’s end approaches that there have been relatively few cases of infantile paralysis in the country this summer.
Delaware is a notable exception, since it has reported 74 cases.
The United States Public Health Service says there have been increases in 32 states during the week that ended August 16th, yet the total of 411 cases reported throughout the country during that week is less than one-fourth of the number of cases reported in a corresponding week in 1946.
Last year was the worst polio year since 1916 but unfortunately, less than one-fifth of the cases were paralytic, for some unknown reason.
As you may know, polio isn’t always of the paralyzing variety.
Doctors know that every summer the hot weather will bring infantile paralysis, but they cannot predict where the disease will appear, or to what degree. But as I said in the beginning, there have been few cases this year and for that we should be thankful.
Now, Ted, what’s new?
(News)
KATE SMITH: And in the new behind the news, sometimes I find out things the long way ’round…
TED COLLINS: You mean the hard way, Kathryn!
KATE SMITH: Well, I wouldn’t exactly say that, because somehow or other, when some question is puzzling me, I’m sure to discover a little item that sets me straight. For instance, out in Seattle, Washington, I’m told, there’s a night-blooming primrose which is rarely seen in the west and it blooms every evening in the garden of Mr. Frank B. Weber, of Seattle. And here I am, thousands of miles away from the Evergreen State, and I’ve been puzzling my brain over a little flower in my own garden that insists upon blooming only at evening, and now I know it’s a night-blooming primrose! Mr. Weber says his night-blooming flowers are as accurate as a railroad watch — it begins to bloom promptly at 7:30 each night and produces from 16 to 32 blossoms by eight o’clock. In four weeks of blooming it produced 600 blossoms. Mine isn’t as wonderful as all that, but it intrigues me because it sheds its beauty and fragrance long after my heavenly blue morning glories have closed their eyes tight and gone off to sleep!
And now, I’ll be back in just a moment but first, OUR ANNOUNCER!
(Closing Commercial)
For countless generations, men in many parts of the world have followed the art of fashioning by hand from silver many beautiful and useful articles: beautifully designed bowls, graceful candlesticks, bracelets, rings — they’re all objects that require great skill on the part of the craftsman.
But here in America, a young New York woman, Margaret Craver, is proving that there’s plenty of room in the silversmith field for members of the so-called weaker sex. Right now, in Providence, Rhode Island, Miss Craver is attending the very first working conference for silversmiths ever held in the United States. She’s really more than a guest at this meeting of those who make exquisite hand-wrought things of the precious metal, for she organized this conference herself. She is meeting with teachers from schools in all parts of the country in an effort to encourage more widespread creation of fine silver here in America. During the war, Miss Craver used her knowledge in physical therapy programs of various army, navy and air forces hospitals. Then, just last year, she was honored for her outstanding work. She was the only American, and the only WOMAN, invited to a London meeting of an organization of British silversmiths and goldsmiths. And the English, as you probably know, are among the world’s most skilled workers in these crafts.
I speak of Miss Margaret Craver and silversmiths and their first conference today for several reasons: first, it’s something that’s happening NOW. Second, it seems to me important to discuss every now and then various ways of doing manual work, because there are so many disabled veterans confined to wheel chairs who are interested in hearing about the work of all kinds. Then, too, I always believe in giving credit where credit is due, and certainly Miss Craver deserves a great deal of credit for competing so successfully in what has long been considered a man’s field.
You know, in this machine age, this plastic age, it’s somewhat of a relief to realize that the art of working with your hands is not a lost art. The hollow-ware and other hand-wrought pieces turned out by Miss Craver and others will retain their beauty and originality for many years to come. They’ll add to the tradition of the American taste for lovely things, for when you fashion something by hand, whether it be a patchwork quilt, a hooked rug, a crocheted bedspread, a painting, or a silver bowl, the beauty is something more than the size and shape, for into each hand-made thing, I think, we put a little of our love, our dreams, a little of our soul, and that’s something no machine, however efficient, can ever give, for it lacks the golden personal threads to weave into the tapestry. Think of that, as you work with your hands. Be proud of your accomplishment as you fashion the articles of your own creation. It’s a part of yourself you’re giving to help beautify the world in which we live!
Thanks for listenin’ and good-bye, folks!
Table of Contents
About Kate Smith
About Kate Smith Speaks
About the Compiler
I. The Depression Years
April 4, 1938
April 6, 1938
May 2, 1938
June 22, 1938
October 4, 1938
November 10, 1938
May 27, 1939
June 24, 1940
December 10, 1940
May 1, 1941
Kate The Great
II. Wartime
December 9, 1941
May 19, 1942
October 6, 1942
January 21, 1943
September 21, 1943
December 24, 1943
June 7, 1944
July 13, 1944
August 14, 1944
January 1, 1945
January 5, 1945
January 30, 1945
April 13, 1945
April 26, 1945
April 30, 1945
August 14, 1945
August 15, 1945
III. The Postwar Years
June 28, 1946
August 28, 1946
December 2, 1946
February 24, 1947
June 4th, 1947
June 20, 1947
June 23, 1947
August 11, 1947
August 26, 1947
June 7, 1944
November 14, 1948
November 25, 1948
December 31, 1948
May 6, 1949
May 9th, 1949
IV. The Korean Conflict
January 2, 1950
January 19, 1950
January 20, 1950
February 7, 1950
March 31, 1950
April 25, 1950
July 3, 1950
May 1, 1951
June 15, 1951
Kate Smith Speaks
50 Selected Original Radio Scripts: 1938–1951
© 2013 Richard Hayes. All Rights Reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopying or recording, except for the inclusion in a review, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This version of the book may be slightly abridged from the print version.
In order to properly appreciate what these scripts sounded like on the air, contact the publisher at the address below for a free CD of Kate Smith Speaks shows. (Scripts for three of these shows are in this book.)
Published in the USA by:
BearManor Media
PO Box 1129
Duncan, Oklahoma 73534-1129
www.bearmanormedia.com
ISBN 978-1-62933-038-9
Edited by Annette Lloyd and Michael Schemaille.
Cover Design by Valerie Thompson.
eBook construction by Brian Pearce | Red Jacket Press.
Although Kate Smith is remembered as a singer of popular songs, and especially of “God Bless America,” she admitted in a 1977 radio interview that she most enjoyed her Kate Smith Speaks commentary program on the radio. She said it brought her closest to the listening audience. Surely she also realized the impact it made and the importance of her contribution to shaping public opinion. She was one of the three most-admired American women, the others being actress Helen Hayes and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.
Kathryn Elizabeth Smith was born May 1, 1907 in the nation’s capital, where she grew up. As a child she loved to sing and dance for any available audience; one might say she was a born entertainer.
Discovered by producer/performer Eddie Dowling while performing as a teenager at the RKO Keith vaudeville theater in Washington, she was given a role as a comic buffoon in his musical Honeymoon Lane at the Knickerbocker Theatre in New York. A showstopper from the start to the end of her fifty-year career, she regaled audiences with her fat-girl Charleston dance. Deep down, however, she was hurt that she wasn’t taken seriously for her singing ability.
She joined a road company as a black-faced mammy singing “Hallelujah” in Vincent Youmans’ Hit the Deck. Then she landed a starring role in George White’s Flying High. Upstaged and ridiculed by Bert Lahr at every performance, Kate’s critical acclaim failed to counteract her supreme misery. One August night, Ted Collins, a vice president of the Columbia Phonograph Company, chanced to take in a performance of Flying High. Impressed by Kate’s singing voice, he made an appointment for her to meet at his office. This resulted in his becoming her personal manager and launching her radio career in 1931. Soon Smith and Collins formed the Kated Company in a 50-50 partnership, maintained for thirty-three years on a handshake.
Kate had a theme song, “When the Moon Comes over the Mountain,” with lyrics partly composed by her as a girl. It was her musical signature for nearly fifty years. Her radio greeting was simply, “Hello everybody, this is Kate Smith.”
In addition to six fifteen-minute radio broadcasts each week, Kate was appearing on stage at leading theaters. She broke the record at the Palace Theater, staying for eleven weeks.
In 1933 Kate went Hollywood, with a cameo role in the The Big Broadcast and starring in her own feature picture, Hello Everybody! That fall she went on tour coast-to-coast with a vaudeville ensemble called Kate Smith and her Swanee Revue. That winter she caught a severe throat infection and was advised to go to a cold climate, so she ventured north to find the village of Lake Placid in the Adirondack Mountains. So enamored was she that she bought a house on Buck Island and had it renovated into Camp Sunshine, her summer home for forty years. She broadcast Kate Smith Speaks there for eleven summers.
The Kate Smith Hour, her prime-time variety show, began in 1936 and lasted for a decade, sponsored by General Foods. She said, “Being fat and happy, I could always sell food.”
On November 10, 1938, the eve of the twentieth anniversary of the armistice that ended the First World War, Kate introduced a song that would change the course of her career forever. It was Irving Berlin’s anthem God Bless America, his most important composition. She was proud to be called a flag-waver. The script in which she gives the background to the song is included here, as is the one for May 27, 1939, in which she mentions her forthcoming Command Appearance at the White House as guest of the Roosevelts to sing for the King and Queen of England.
Our entry into the second World War resulted in stepped-up activity for Kate and Ted. Collins became an important CBS newsman and Kate added special broadcasts for the military and radio spots for the war effort. She was a key war-bond seller, responsible for the sale of some $600 million worth on her radio marathons.
President Reagan awarded her the Medal of Freedom for these efforts. [See the script for September 21, 1943.]
When Kate’s career began to fade in the late forties, Ted Collins decided that she ought to try television. Critics predicted failure because of her weight, but on September 25, 1950, she proved them wrong. The Kate Smith Hour, a weekday afternoon variety hour, soon became number one (What else was there to watch except the test pattern?) and remained there for its four-season run. Kate’s spontaneity, her expressive face, hearty laugh, warmth, and agility for a heavy person made her a success in the video medium.
Gifted with perfect pitch and the ability to remember a melody upon hearing it played only once or twice, Kate Smith never studied music. A crowning achievement in her career came November 2, 1963, when she gave a concert at Carnegie Hall. Accompanied by a 100-piece orchestra conducted by Skitch Henderson, she could have sung all night. The concert was recorded by RCA and it sold a million copies.
Disaster came in 1964. She fractured an ankle just before opening at Miami’s Fontainebleau Hotel in her first night club appearance in many years. Then she suffered a severe throat infection. On May 27, Ted Collins died of a heart attack at Lake Placid. Devastated, Kate went to Palm Beach to stay with a dear friend. While there she slipped in the bathroom, her arm going through the shower door. Hospitalized, she required 152 stitches. Brave and undaunted, she decided to go on with her career.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Kate made numerous guest appearances on the top musical and variety shows. In 1973 she became the unlikely good luck charm for the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team, singing “God Bless America” at key games, which they nearly always won. After they won the Stanley Cup she was the star of the gala parade, as the entire City of Brotherly Love opened its heart to her.
In 1972 Kate made her first appearance at a Nevada nightclub. So successful was her two-week engagement that she returned the next year for three weeks.
She was named Grand Marshal of the 1976 Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, a fitting honor for a beloved patriot of many years. She sang “The Star Spangled Banner” at the Rose Bowl.
That August, she was taken ill with complications from diabetes and remained hospitalized for several weeks. Her recovery was prolonged and never complete. She died in Raleigh, North Carolina, on June 17, 1986, at the age of 79. Her remains lie in a mausoleum at St. Agnes Cemetery at Lake Placid.
Richard K. Hayes is a retired high school biology teacher. He has always loved popular music from the swing years as a hobby. His favorite female vocalist is Kate Smith, and his favorite male singer is Pat Boone. His favorite swing band belonged to Glenn Miller.
When a “fan club” for Kate was formed in 1967, he was asked to be the editor of its publications, including two journals per year titled Our Kate. When Kate heard this, she called to thank him and tell him about her latest career projects. Now, some 45 years later, Richard serves as archivist for the 200-plus members of the Kate Smith Commemorative Society, which held its 25th annual Kate Smith Festival at Lake Placid in May 2012.
Richard first met Kate Smith on January 7, 1971, when he was invited to New York City to attend the taping of some commercials she was making for Chase & Sanborn. She invited him to her Camp Sunshine, her home at Lake Placid, that summer. At both locations they taped interviews for club members. He returned to the camp in 1974 to record all of her air-check songs from radio broadcasts to tape.
He attended several of her live concerts in the 1970s, always “meeting and eating” with her afterwards. In her declining years he visited her at her Raleigh, NC, home for several birthday parties. Each time he earmarked selected Kate Smith Speaks scripts from the bound volumes to photocopy, with this publication in mind.
In the early 1900s he researched and wrote her biography, When the Moon Came Over the Mountain, which was published by McFarland. In 2003 he published a coffee table book called Kate Smith: The Early Years (1926-31), from scrapbooks Smith kept, as well as items from Hayes’ collection of her memorabilia.
Richard would encourage readers to order the compact disc with the Kate Smith Speaks broadcasts. As you read the scripts you can imagine what the voices of Kate and Ted Collins would sound like on the radio.
As Kate would say: Thanks for listenin’ and reading.
Monday, April 4, 1938. First broadcast. Kate explains the nature of the program, defends the National Anthem.
Wednesday, April 6, 1938. Washington, D.C., cherry trees were imported from Japan. Kate reviews Our Town.
Monday, May 2, 1938. Kate tells of a work weekend at her Lake Placid summer home, reviews a new novel, “Freeland,” and talks about hospitality.
Monday, June 22, 1938. Some Maine lobsters have been shipped to Camp Sunshine! National Grandmother’s Day. Last broadcast of the first season.
Tuesday, October 4, 1938. First sponsored broadcast. Kate speaks about her summer and of the importance of radio.
Thursday, November 10, 1938. Kate gives the background of a new song, “God Bless America,” which she is to introduce tonight. She interviews the editor of Vanity Fair.
Saturday, May 27, 1939. Last broadcast before summer vacation. Kate tells the history of Memorial Day, mentions her coming appearance at the White House reception for the King and Queen of England next Thursday.
Monday, June 24, 1940. First broadcast from Kate’s island summer home at Lake Placid, done in a converted closet in her guest house.
Tuesday, December 10, 1940. Kate has attended her sister Helena’s wedding. She has laryngitis, recommends books for Christmas giving.
May 1, 1941. Not only is today Kate’s birthday (she is 34), but she fails to note that it’s also the tenth anniversary of her first CBS broadcast.