The community of Denton, Texas,
which is north of Dallas,
is undertaking a gigantic program
to promulgate
industry to move into the
downtown area.
We have with us this afternoon
Denton's mayor, Zeke Martin,
who has a few words
to tell you about, the program
that is now underway.
Thank you very much.
This is a program in Denton that we
undertook a few short years ago
to promote economic
development of the city of Denton.
And this
is a program that our
steering committee with the Chamber
of Commerce, headed by its
chairman was Homer Bligh,
has
been working very diligently for
the past few years.
And now we're at
the culmination of this program
with the highlight of
a
record that will be
produced and distributed
in connection with an ad in Fortune
magazine
September, October, November this
year.
So, Morton, when did this
program
begin its embryo stage, so to speak,
in 1964?
And who is responsible
for carrying the ball, say,
the three years that it's been going
on?
The steering committee with the
Denton Chamber of Commerce, and
that's headed by its chairman,
Holmblad.
To my knowledge, this is the first
undertaking that a community your
size has ever taken in the United
States, going all out with ads and
Fortune magazine, plus
a fully produced album, which we
will get into a little later.
I believe we're
pioneering this line of advertising
for the city of Denton, Texas.
I don't know of another city in the
United States
that has done this regardless of
population, I believe, with our
mayor.
Martin, I know you folks are working
with quite a few people
to produce the ads, to produce
the albums.
One such person is Jody
Lyons, who I understand is
responsible for
composing the music, also
conducting the orchestra and singers
who will participate in this album
we have here this afternoon, Jody
Lyons.
Jody, how much time has been spent
in the production of this album?
Well, actually, we began to
talk about this album two years
ago.
We have been tossing ideas back and
forth for actually the two years,
the composition itself,
the combination actually putting
it down on this score paper and
writing the script and the written
word
four to five months.
Where did you get most of your your
facts and ideas putting
this this album together?
Well, you mean the industrial facts
are the actual idea of the
the idea of the entire
production.
In other words, how how much
did you go into depth and tying in
with industrial with the people
of the community and everything
like that?
Actually, all of the material
was furnished us by
the Denton Chamber of Commerce and
and with the help of
Joe Camp Junior, who is the account
executive, the advertising agency in
Dallas, Norsworthy Mercer,
that's handling this account we
compiled.
You wouldn't believe how much
data to come up with the
most important and salient points
having to do with what a dynamic
little city is.
And it is a city, not a town,
as the gentleman
said just a moment ago,
what type what type of music
will be in the background.
But when you hear this, it really
everyone has referred to this
as the record are a record
or we're going to produce a record.
Actually, what I like to think of
this as it's an
11 minute Broadway
stage production.
Hence my choice for
the man who's consummate skill
with the written word is known
in many places.
Thank you very much, Jody.
Well, we've heard from Mayor
Zeke Martin of Denton and also from
Jody Lyons, who is responsible for
composing the music and conducting
the orchestra of this wonderful
album, which, by the way, is
entitled Denton, Texas
in Sound and Music.
It's a 12 inch LP album,
and it is part of the city's Dynamic
Denton program, which is a long
term economic development effort
initiated in 1964.
But this is not all to the
story we also
happened to have with us this
afternoon.
The man who is going to narrate
this one to.
Album for the city of Denton,
he's known to many people
as a star of stage
screen television
and perhaps most noted
as a Shakespearean actor.
His name is Hans Conrade.
Mr. Conrade, I know
you are here for just
a short time.
It's a pleasure to have you in
the Denton Dallas Fort Worth area.
If I may say that on this auspicious
occasion, actually,
what type of narration will this be?
Well, I can answer
you succinctly.
It will be a type of narration that
from what I have just really gone
through, the script I say is of a
very high caliber and about
11 pages in length.
And more than that, I cannot say
I must further
make some difference in opinion
about my not my fame
or questionable notoriety as a
Shakespearean performer.
I don't know of any reputable
Shakespearean performer who might
hold those opinions.
Again, I would seem to be on the
defense today of
Jodi Lions' made reference.
I believe I flatter myself when I
was the gentleman that
unwittingly and I had no intention
of offending. However, I may be
established in the area of
written word. Evidently my spoken
word is something suspect.
If I refer to Denton as a town is
because I've been here three or four
times.
And I said that in the most
affectionate way because
the city, the word city suggests to
me who I'm city born and bred,
rather cold and impersonal
and the atmosphere and part of the
aspect that we hope to explain
to those gentlemen who will be of
influence and interest in
Fortune magazine ads and all this
propaganda thing.
And the recording will
be that the aspect
of Denton, close
as it is to the great metropolitan
centers of both Dallas and Fort
Worth, that as a place
to live as a town
affords a great deal of,
if not sylvan, certainly suburban
comforts that they and their
families and their workers might not
find elsewhere in such a complex
that will be so available to all the
technological and
economic and employment aspects
that this great golden triangle
possesses.
How long have you been an actor,
Mr. Cameron?
This is my 30 second season.
And did you really start out as
a Shakespearean actor and then
blossomed into other areas?
He's got my initial and
youthful ideals, which
as a man mature, early grown as you
are, you will recognize that every
boy must leave behind him at one
point or another. We make
compromises constantly with life
and however valid
and
meritorious such youthful
ideals and standards would be.
I was in those days
30 years ago, for an American
to be a Shakespearean actor would
have meant that he if he had tried
very hard, he would have had to make
himself inconspicuous in a company
of company of British players.
Now there's much more opportunity
for young classical actors.
I haven't done legitimately any
classical acting in years.
Frankly, that was
not. Now there is a market and I
find myself in another line of work.
I have to a great extent
a and it's
not flattering to think so, perhaps
a television personality
as well as an actor.
And although I perform primarily as
an actor, I cannot deny that a good
many tickets are sold on the
strength of a national
image that has been exposed.
I utilize your work to
x number of millions of persons on
one half hour
television show such as the Johnny
Carson or the Merv Griffin or Jack
Paar. And I will
play now if I live on pantomime as
if I live to be a thousand years of
age and I'm approaching
that, of course, I
will not be able to be
seen by that many number
of paying customers in theaters.
You play seven hundred eighty
a thousand two thousand in the
college, three thousand perhaps a
night, but that doesn't make fifteen
million in a long time.
About three weeks ago,
driving down from Tulsa
happened to hear an interview
between an NBC reporter and
Kate Ballard.
And it seems that Kate Ballard
is really down on Broadway
and the shows and so forth.
I guess she has had
bad luck and so forth.
And while she
had a heart and soul in it,
she is going to Hollywood where
she feels she's going to get a
better shake. Doesn't have to put it
as much time as you would on the
Broadway plays and
so forth.
Now, I'm sure in a lot more time
she's going to do a television
series and she'll work a lot
harder than she ever worked on the
stage.
Maybe she can.
One of those little tin
of peas that they do every week
requires at least five
days of 12 hour days each.
And you can learn to.
The people with whom you work,
it's very difficult work to
be a television star, it's very hard
work indeed.
The work in the theater is
considerably easier, even if I have
to travel four or five hundred miles
between towns every day before I
perform any of these three
areas in which you have worked
predominantly radio
the stage and movies,
which do you find to be most to your
liking?
Now, now the television and
the diplomatic aspect of such
a question would prompt me to say my
most pleasurable experiences when
I'm invited by Chambers of Commerce,
such as I am now engaged
in Texas to do this sort of work.
But that's rare indeed.
It's a rare pleasure.
Your audience will remember
something called radio.
I expect a little box with knobs
on it that
was in engaged in that as a
radioactive aircraft that is now
about as defunct as being a
dirigible pilot or a buggy whip,
and because the straps is no longer
followed. But this was a wonderful
time for an actor.
I did between 12 and 20 shows a
week, different parts every week
appearing and all sorts of roles.
Whatever you could sound, you could
play naturally in the
visual media, you're limited
to what you appear at that moment.
Also, there was a very rich area
of literature.
I worked. I was with Orson Welles
for seven years at the Mercury
Company. I worked with
Norman Corwin.
If the name is still unknown to you
and Irving recent
Archibald starred me many times
and that was a quality
of theater, a richness
that has never been matched by
even the wide screen and motion
pictures within the limits and
confines of the experience
and intellect of the individual
listener. You see, the theater
was so glamorous.
If I were making love to a
young woman on radio, that young
woman was as beautiful as her love
as I saw her.
And there's no living, breathing
actress. It can appear so to every
man and the audience.
And if we describe that we were in a
great battle, that field could be as
deadly and vast as the mind
could extend.
You see, and even on the wide
screen, there's nothing to match
that many corpses.
And if we said that we were in
the palace of the
Emperor of China in the 15th
century, that palace was as gorgeous
as you could imagine it.
I've got a sneaking suspicion that
it may be the National Association
of Broadcasters is going to be
calling on you very soon to do a
record for radio.
It's also a wonderful testimonial
and the only vital aspect of radio
from our standpoint of being an
actor on radio.
There are two shows left in America,
to my knowledge, one by the one
overseas armed forces radio
service that we do occasionally for
the poor man instead of the enemy's
bullets.
And the Salvation
Army sponsors one.
And that's the only thing that are
radioactive to which a radioactive
content is handled these days.
Mr Conrade, thank you very much.
This afternoon we have been speaking
with Mr Zik Martin,
who is the mayor of Denton, Texas.
Mr Jody Lyons,
who is the composer and conductor of
this brand new album, which will
be coming out very shortly entitled
Denton, Texas in Sound of Music.
And last but not least, the
narrator for the album.
Mr Hanschen.
We thank you very much, gentlemen.