Past Issues
A Conversation With Tony Martin
by Laura Wagner
Last month Laura Wagner covered the life and career of Tony Martin. Though better known as a singer, Tony made some interesting films that still delight viewers today. In the interview below Tony and Laura focus on his acting career which began in the Thirties and lasted over twenty years. -- Editor
LW: You came to Hollywood in 1935 because of Louis B. Mayer.
Tony Martin: Yes, I was working in San Francisco with an orchestra. I sang a song L.B. liked called “Poor Butterfly.” It was on a radio program that hit Los Angeles. He was down at Malibu Beach with a group of people, and he said, “Who’s singing that song? Get him!” They checked it out and brought me down for a screen test.
LW: What do you remember about that first screen test?
Tony Martin: That was very difficult. I did it with an actress, Irene Hervey. That was for a picture with Joan Crawford, but I didn’t get the part. I don’t think I did too well because I went right from the screen test to RKO.
LW: Did you meet Mayer at the time of the screen test?
Tony Martin: No. I didn’t meet him until 1940 when he put me into a picture called Ziegfeld Girl. He called me into his office -- he had everyone who was in that picture come into his office. L.B. used to tell people how he wanted the part played. He was very pleasant, very nice, and it would be like a coach having a personal interview with the quarterback -- that’s the way it was. He’d act out the part.
LW: So RKO signed you on in 1935. How did the name change (Al Morris to Tony Martin) come about?
Tony Martin: I went to see an opening of Freddy Martin’s orchestra at The Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. The girl I was dancing with said, “Why don’t you take the name Martin?” There was a magazine in those days that had a series about a gambler from Maryland, and he was a very interesting character, and his name was Tony. So there you are.
LW: Do you remember the small parts you did at RKO?
Tony Martin: I had a small, very-little-to-do-part in an Astaire picture, Follow the Fleet, and Irving Berlin did the score. I was supposed to sing “Let’s Face the Music and Dance,” but I was told I wasn’t going to sing in that picture because Fred Astaire did all the singing. So, that took care of that.
LW: Do you think he could have been jealous of that voice of yours?
Tony Martin: No, he wasn’t jealous! He didn’t care. At that time, his wife had a lot to say about it apparently. She didn’t want anyone else singing in his pictures. I received a nice note from Fred in 1938. I had just made it as #2 singer in a list for Billboard, and he sent me a nice letter telling me how pleased he was for my success.
LW: So, why did RKO let you go suddenly?
Tony Martin: Well, my agent [Nat Goldstone] maneuvered it for me. It was getting slow, and they weren’t planning anything. They weren’t really going to make any musicals except for the Astaire and Rogers musicals, so I went over to 20th Century-Fox.
LW: Is it true that you were dubbed, singing “When I’m With You,” in “Poor Little Rich Girl” (1936)?
Tony Martin: Yes, I was. I don’t recall his name, but I called him up downtown, he was with an orchestra in Los Angeles, and I told him, I wish he sang a lot for me (laughs), and I was sorry they didn’t use him.
LW: What did you think of Darryl Zanuck? I know many actors disliked him.
Tony Martin: Well, I didn’t dislike him. He was nice to me. He knew what he wanted [at Fox] -- he had confidence. He took Don Ameche and Ty Power, and he built a studio.
LW: One of the best roles you had at Fox was “Banjo On My Knee” (1936).
Tony Martin: That was a wonderful part. I played “Chick Bean” -- bean, as in lima bean. Joel McCrea was a wonderful man. I enjoyed him. Miss [Katherine] DeMille was in the picture with Walter Brennan and Buddy Ebsen. We had a lot of fun on that picture. LW: How was Barbara Stanwyck to you on that? Tony Martin: She was wonderful to me. She’d meet me an hour before the cameraman and the director got there, and we’d go over scenes. She said to me, ‘I want you to be good, but I get a lot of money, and I better be good myself!”
LW: She sang with you in that movie. Did you help her?
Tony Martin: She sang a little bit. We went to the recording session and she’d ask me and I’d say, “That’s OK -- it sounds all right.” She wanted to do it live, but we had to pre-record. She was very helpful to me.
LW: You had another major part in an A picture, “You Can’t Have Everything” (1937) with Alice Faye.
Tony Martin: Alice was all for me. She helped me. She was wonderful. I dated her, and then we got married. She was the first lady I was stuck on. We were both very young. The marriage dissolved because I was on the road a lot. She was great to be around.
LW: You seemed to be an after-thought in “Life Begins
at College (1937). All you did was sing a couple of numbers.
Tony Martin: Fox tried to get as many people in it as they could.
At the time, that was Zanuck’s way to exploit people who
were under contract at 20th Century Fox. We didn’t question
in those days. We did what we were told.
LW: Your next, “Ali Baba Goes to Town” (1937) was
with Eddie Cantor. What was he like? Tony Martin: Very flippant.
We’d see him only once in a while. He’d do a scene,
then run to his dressing room -- he was writing, he was doing
a
radio show, he was busy. He didn’t help anybody [on the set].
He was a tremendous star -- and we were nothing. Very pleasant,
“hello -- good morning -- how are you,” that’s
it.
LW: Louise Hovick -- Gypsy Rose Lee -- appeared in this with you.
Tony Martin: Gypsy was fun. She was a lot of laughs. She’d entertain. She had a lovely home in Malibu that she rented during the picture, and we always went down there and spent the weekend. She was a good hostess.
LW: You had a leading role, with Alice, in “Sally, Irene and Mary” (1938).
Tony Martin: I enjoyed that. I sang a song, with Alice, on the rooftop (sings): “There’s a half moon on the Hudson, and a half of a moon is plenty of moon for the both of us.” That was a good one.
LW: In some of these Fox productions, you had a mustache.
Tony Martin: Zanuck wanted it. He thought I looked too young. It made me look more mature.
LW: Did you like it?
Tony Martin: I’d take it off every night! That’s how they did it back then!
LW: I thought it was real! Anyway, then you made a movie with The Ritz Brothers -- “Kentucky Moonshine” (1938).
Tony Martin: (laughs) That was a wild one. I did “The Prologue to Pagliacci.”
LW: It was a swing version!
Tony Martin: Yeah, Jule Styne put that together for me. That was fun. I became good pals with Jimmy, Al and Harry [Ritz]. We all hung around together all the time.
LW: What was it like being in a movie with them? I mean, they were wild!
Tony Martin: (laughs) My goodness! When Harry would move those eyes around, I would go crazy!
LW: At the end of the movie, you sang “Moonshine Over Kentucky,” and they’re singing with you -- in drag!
Tony Martin: Try to keep a straight face! I laughed like heck, I couldn’t stop it!
LW: What were they like personally?
Tony Martin: We were together all the time. During the shooting,
at lunch. Harry was a wonderful, funny man. He loved everybody,
he wasn’t conceited, a happy-go-lucky man, and he loved to
make people laugh. If you told him a joke -- he liked to hear
people tell jokes! Jimmy was a great dancer. He and I would go
to the clubs. We’d double date. He loved
to dance the mambo, the samba, and all that. An excellent dancer.
Al was a married man, and he was a homebody. Al liked to play
the horses, he used to go to the racetrack all the time. We were
very close.
LW: A different kind of role came to you with “Winner Take All” (1939), as a boxer.
Tony Martin: I really trained for that one. I studied boxing for about four weeks.
LW: I’ve heard how snobbish your leading lady Gloria Stuart was. Please tell me it’s untrue.
Tony Martin: Well, I never got to talk to her. I did scenes with her, but I never talked to her. Let’s just say she was ... we just never talked. There was no regard, it was just, “Good morning -- good evening,” that was all.
LW: You had a great leading role, at Columbia, in “Music In My Heart,” which was made in 1939 but released the following year. Did you sign a contract with Columbia?
Tony Martin: I never knew anything about contracts. I had an agent, I was doing everything then, doing radio shows with Burns and Allen. I was recording, and I had so many things to do. I don’t remember. I only knew I was going to Columbia to make a picture with Rita Hayworth.
LW: Did you enjoy working with Rita?
Tony Martin: Wonderful. We got along beautifully together. She was great.
LW: You sang the hit “It’s a Blue World” in that one.
Tony Martin: And, “O Punchinello.” I sang to the monkey. (sings): “O Punchinello, don’t be a down-hearted fellow.”
LW: You’ve worked with children and animals in your career. Aren’t they supposed to be the hardest to act with?
Tony Martin: Singing to a monkey was very difficult (laughs). Once I was in the middle of singing to the monkey, and the monkey got nervous or something and started to climb up the rafters of the set! So, they said, “cut!” and the man who owned the monkey tried to get this monkey down. They couldn’t get the monkey down, so somebody said, ‘Get Harry Cohn, he’ll get the monkey down!’ Harry Cohn was the president of the studio! Finally, the monkey came down. The man had brought some food -- a lot of food, for him.
LW: What was the difference for you working at Fox and Columbia?
Tony Martin: I felt the importance of being the leading man at Columbia. They were very pleasant to me. Remember, Fox was a vast, huge studio. They had about ten pictures going at the same time. At Columbia there were one or two, at the most. We got the A treatment at Columbia. Very nice.
LW: Is it true Jerome Kern wrote “All the Things You Are” for you? I know it was in the Broadway show “Very Warm For May.”
Tony Martin: Yes, that’s right. I think he had written it before, but he wanted me to do it. It was one of his favorite songs. He told me he had written it for me originally.
LW: When you went over to MGM, you got to work with the great Busby Berkeley, who did all the musical numbers for “Ziegfeld Girl” (1941).
Tony Martin: Buz -- he was a dreamer. He’d come on the set, and he’d dream up the whole scene and what he wanted to do. It would be opposite of what we rehearsed because he’d have a dream and do it. He was a master of the camera and knew how to handle all the people.
LW: For your next at the studio, you did “The Big Store” (1941), with The Marx Brothers.
Tony Martin: They wanted me for that picture. We all belonged to the Hillcrest Country Club. We’d play golf together. I played Zeppo’s part in that picture. The War was coming, and Zeppo had a factory where he manufactured war equipment.
LW: Before you went off to war, weren’t you supposed to appear in a musical with Eleanor Powell?
Tony Martin: I was cast but never got to do it. I remember one of the songs in it (sings): “It’s the last call for love.”
LW: “Ship Ahoy!” You were going to be her leading man in it? Red Skelton did that. How do they go from you to Red?!
Tony Martin: Whoever they had left got to do it! (laughs)
LW: What did you encounter when you came back from the war?
Tony Martin: After the war, musicals were a real letdown. Metro did some good ones after [but] they were cutting down after the war -- we all went.
LW: What do you remember about the “Show Boat” sequence in “Till the Clouds Roll By” (1946).
Tony Martin: As a result of that, I didn’t get to play the lead when they made the movie Show Boat (1951). It made a difference with the exhibitors.
LW: Is it true you were going to be the lead in “The Kissing Bandit” (1948)?
Tony Martin: Yes, I rehearsed that one very much. I learned riding a horse -- everything. I didn’t do it. [Producer Joe] Pasternak got mad at me because I wasn’t paying attention.
LW: Maybe he should have been mad at Sinatra! He looked and acted terrible in that one.
Tony Martin (laughs): That’s one he’d like to forget!
LW: Kathryn Grayson once said she couldn’t stand kissing him because he was so skinny. You would have been more believable in that.
Tony Martin (laughs): Well, we’ll go back and make a remake -- OK?
LW: On to better things! How did it come about that you were co-producer of “Casbah” (1948)?
Tony Martin: [Nat Goldstone and I] liked the script, and I was a freelancer -- I wasn’t attached to any studio then. So, we put the money together and made the picture. It was called a “Marstone Picture.” It was a fun picture, and I enjoyed it very much.
LW: What were your duties as co-producer?
Tony Martin: I took care of the musical end. I had Walter Scharf
conducting. I wanted Leo Robin and Harold Arlen -- because I wanted
good music. I loved the part. [The movie] is still played in France
-- it’s what they call a “cult movie.”
LW: Weren’t there problems with the picture?
Tony Martin: We released through Universal, so when they leased
[it] out, they sent one of their own pictures along with ours.
And they would take most of the take at the box office. But our
picture didn’t cost anything, The whole production only cost
$500,000 -- if anything -- the whole thing. We did it for artistic
reasons. We drew a small salary from
the production, and we had a percentage of the picture. Universal
made money. They [later] wanted me to go back and make another
picture over there --
LW: And you said no!
Tony Martin: Absolutely -- no!
LW: Good for you! Didn’t your next, “Two Tickets to Broadway” (1951) have a prolonged shooting schedule because of producer Howard Hughes’crush on Janet Leigh?
Tony Martin: It went on and on and on! He was stuck on her and wanted to keep her on the picture.
LW: A hidden talent was revealed in that movie: you danced!
Tony Martin: I sure did (laughs). I found out that singing was better for me.
LW: You danced, just as well as ... Cyd!
Tony Martin: I can’t figure out how well I danced. I danced as well as, let’s say, Spencer Tracy! (laughs) We practiced quite a bit. A little toe -- a little tap dance. Listen, dancing is not my forte! I’ll always remember Buz Berkeley strapped me to a camera to sing a song to Janet Leigh. It was a waltz, (sings): “Are You Just a Beautiful Dream?” Well, you see, Buz decided he wanted to have my profile in the camera while she danced, and they strapped me up on a camera and took me up 35 feet, while they shot the dance! I was so glad when they were finished shooting that.
LW: How come you didn’t get Esther Williams in “Easy To Love (1953)?
Tony Martin: I don’t know why anything! That wasn’t my concern ever. Let’s put it down like this -- I made no demands. I just did what I was told and enjoyed every minute of it. I always thought how lucky I was to be there, rather than be up in Oakland practicing law. I was grateful for everything I ever did. I never complained about a role. Like, “No, I don’t want to do that” and “Why should I do that?” -- nothing like that. It was “Yeah, when do I start and what am I wearing?”
LW: Do you think that’s why you didn’t have an even bigger film career?
Tony Martin: I didn’t care about movies, to tell the truth. It wasn’t for me. I loved working in clubs. I loved Las Vegas. I worked there, and I was an owner. I worked the Chez Paree, The Copacabana. I enjoyed all those years singing. I like an audience in front of me.
LW: You made 32 movies!
Tony Martin (laughs): It killed time.
LW: Oh, come on! OK, back to “Easy to Love.”
Tony Martin: Esther was fun. She used to make food every night. She was a good cook. We were all doing the picture at Cypress Gardens, Florida, and at night Van Johnson would say, “What are we having for dinner?!” And we would all go and have food with her. She was very nice -- Esther was wonderful.
LW: How about Bob Hope, who you co-starred with in “Here Come the Girls” (1953)?
Tony Martin: He was busy. I never got to see Bob much on that picture. He was always playing golf or sitting with his writers for his radio show. He asked for me to be in that picture. I had done a couple of things with him -- we were very friendly. I guess he’s all right. Listen -- he’s got all the accolades -- he’s had it all, done it all.
LW: I always thought you would have been a perfect “Sky Masterson” in the movie “Guys and Dolls” (1955) -- were you up for it?
Tony Martin: Yes, I was supposed to do it. The wardrobe was picked out, and Mr. Goldwyn wanted me to do it. But there was a problem with getting the picture started and problems with the director. So, they got Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and he took the reins, but he wanted Marlon Brando.
LW: Didn’t you do the show on stage?
Tony Martin: Yes, I played it in New York. I played it around.
LW: I think you fit the image perfectly.
Tony Martin: Everyone likes to play that role. I’ll tell you who [Sky Masterson] was. He was Pepe Le Moko! [He] was originally Pepe, same style! It was a good part to play anyway. I was supposed to do that on Broadway.
LW: Instead of Robert Alda?
Tony Martin: Yes. I called [Cyd] and said, “I’m going
to New York to do Guys and Dolls -- I was at the Chez Paree in
Chicago. She said, “Well, you’re going to be a father,
and you won’t be home.” That’s when she told me
we were going to have Tony, Jr. I had to sign a contract for nine
months, and I wouldn’t have been home. It would’ve been
a rough go.
That’s when I ducked out. I recommended Robert Alda. I had
picked the wardrobe to wear, it was almost the same as the wardrobe
I picked for Pepe Le Moko -- black shirt, silver tie, and single
breasted suit. That’s the only regret I ever had, not playing
that role -- I’d loved to have played it!
LW: In 1955 you made a great musical, “Hit the Deck.” Your co-star was the great Ann Miller.
Tony Martin: She’s fun. Great, great fun. A wonderful, wonderful girl. Laughing all the time, fun all the time and sweet. We see each other all the time.
LW: Now, here’s a strange film on your resume -- “Quinncannon Frontier Scout” (1956) -- what the heck was that?!
Tony Martin: I did that to please my son. He’s running
around with Randy Scott’s son. [They] were in grade school
together, and Scott’s son said, “Your dad can’t
shoot a gun -- your dad can’t ride a horse.” He used
to tell me that all the time. So I called up a producer and said,
“You’re making a western -- let me make a western for
you.” He said, “Can you
ride?” I said, “I’ll try.” He said, “Can
you shoot a gun?” I said, “I’ll try.” I studied
for two weeks and did the picture.
LW: So, what was it like doing a western?
Tony Martin: It was a pleasant experience. We shot it up in Utah. A lot of fun, [but] it’s rough. You have to get up at five in the morning, and we made it in twelve days!
LW: What was that like? That’s a lot of pressure.
Tony Martin: They just set up the camera -- and rolled. Whatever you said came out, that was it. “Cut! Print it! Next!”
LW: You went to England to make your last major role, “Let’s Be Happy”(1957).
Tony Martin: The biggest fun I had was playing golf at St. Andrews. I had always wanted to play [there]. I was a golfer in those days. We also shot scenes at St. Andrews. I always remember a thing that happened. St. Andrews, at the time, allowed no women in the club house. So, when my make-up woman came to do my makeup, they said, “No, you can’t come in!” So, every morning, we were shooting for a week out there, I’d sit on the running board of a big automobile outside and the make-up woman would do my make-up out doors, we couldn’t go inside!
LW: How about Vera-Ellen? What was she like to work with?
Tony Martin: Vera was as sweet as can be. She wasn’t too well then. She didn’t eat. She had anorexia. She used to take her thumb and her middle finger and always press them to her face -- she was worried her face was too large. She tired herself out. She was as sweet as can be.
LW: So, why didn’t you continue the films?
Tony Martin: There was nothing left for me to do. You know, it’s all part of a lifetime. What I’d love to do most was play baseball, and I tried out in high school. I was always a big baseball fan, and I used to hit left handed and right handed. So, when I went to college, they asked my coach from high school if I would be good enough for a scholarship. He said, “Al Morris bats left handed and right handed -- and strikes out both ways.” That was their report on me.
LW: Would you consider any acting roles today?
Tony Martin: I have television things I can do. I just want to go around the world doing a concert here, a concert there, and -- just relax.