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TUNE IN TOMORROW by Mary Jane Higby

TUNE IN TOMORROW

By

Pub Date: Oct. 7th, 1968
Publisher: Cowles

The author should have written radio soap operas instead of starring in them. At least they could have been overly funny because she has a very catchy sense of humor and certainly a lot to laugh about. She got in at the frantic start when tone deaf ex-switchboard operators turned directors and put out historical opuses. Our Mary turned Bloody Mary Tudor in her first role. Years later she was to play the villainous Cynthia in Helen Trent, a program subjected to mysterious technical difficulties--in one chapter the hero intoned, ""My darling, my darling what can I do?"" and a voice boomed out, ""Ah for Chrissakes, lay the dame and get it over with."" Then there was Lolly Parsons and her infamous boycott of the Pickfai broadcasts; the day the tenor forgot the lyrics to the Lord's Prayer, meetings with Fred Allen, the Marx Brothers. Winchell, Edward Everett Horton, the forming of the Union, audacious auditions, commercials and the oh-so-many things that went wrong. For eighteen years the star of When a Girl Marries, Miss Higby looks back with a jaundiced but affectionate eye. Is there anyone in the audience? Yesterday?