Singer Julius La Rosa, fired on Godfrey show, dies at 86
Steve Karnowski
AP
May 15, 2016
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Julius La Rosa - Eh, Cumpari
Julius La Rosa's firing was just the beginning of the ruination of Arthur Godrey's image and reputation, and Godfrey had
nobody to blame but himself.
What led up to the La Rosa firing: Godfrey might have had a public image as America's folksy and slightly dippy uncle,
but behind the scenes he was a tyrant who treated his cast like infants. Not long before the La Rosa incident, Godfrey
ordered the entire company to ballet lessons; La Rosa wasn't the only member of the company to balk. Numerous
histories of network radio and early television also record Godfrey fuming over the fact that La Rosa often got more
fan mail than he did. "Young and good looking," John Dunning would write in
On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-
Time Radio, "La Rosa seemed poised on the brink of a major career, and there were no stars on Arthur Godfrey's
shows."
19 October 1953: La Rosa sings "I'll Take Manhattan" at Godfrey's request for his big closing spot. As La Rosa finishes,
Godfrey purrs, "Thanks ever so much, Julie. That was Julie's swan song with us. He goes out on his own now, as his
own star, soon to be seen in his own programs, and I know you wish him Godspeed the same as I do." As eventual
CBS historian Robert Metz would record it, in
CBS: Reflections in a Bloodshot Eye, "Julie was still just a kid. He
didn't know that a swan song was the legendary last utterance of a dying swan. Somebody had to tell him he'd just
been canned---on the air."
It didn't stop there. The moment the show was off the air, Godfrey executed his musical director Archie Bleyer. Bleyer's
crime: He'd formed Cadence Records with La Rosa, and the label's recent offerings included one by Don McNeil, the
longtime host of radio's nationally-syndicated
The Breakfast Club, a rival to Godfrey's morning program. The next
morning, the firings of La Rosa and Bleyer were national headlines. Godfrey in his damn fool hubris counterattacked---
his accusations included claiming La Rosa had lost his humility, something anyone who knew La Rosa well would call
bull, especially considering La Rosa's politeness in refusing to criticise Godfrey publicly while thanking him for giving
him his big break---and only looked like an idiot for doing so. (He looked like an even bigger idiot when singer Ruth
Wallis, whose stock in trade was raunchy double-entendre novelty records, recorded "Dear Mr. Godfrey," a satire
on the La Rosa firing which took plenty of shots at Godfrey's "no humility" comment---and the record made the
national top 20.)
Then Godfrey took apart everything he'd built. He rejected Bill Lawrence's return to the show after his Army stint---
Godfrey claimed Lawrence's "bobby soxer fans" drove him nuts, but the real reason was Lawrence's romance with
fellow cast member Janette Davis: Godfrey objected to cast members dating or romancing each other. Which is
why many thought the real reason he dumped Archie Bleyer was because Bleyer was romancing Janet Ertel of the
Chordettes---who also recorded for Cadence, and who were also keys to the Godfrey show. (Bleyer and Ertel married
a year after the great Godfrey purges; the marriage lasted until her death in 1988, and Bleyer died a year later.) There
were rumours, too, that one of the reasons La Rosa got into Godfrey's crosshairs was his romance with Dorothy
McGuire of the singing McGuire Sisters, at a time when McGuire was separated from her husband and contemplating
divorce; Godfrey was said to have pressured McGuire to end the romance.
Godfrey also rid himself of the Mariners, the Hawaiian singer Haleloke, and producer Larry Puck---whose crime,
apparently, was dating yet another Godfrey company member, Marion Marlowe. His shows began folding one after
the other until he finally took himself off television in 1959 during his battle with lung cancer; after surgery to
remove the infected lung, Godfrey remained on radio until 1972, a shadow of what he'd once been.
La Rosa was only wounded temporarily from the Godfrey firing. Ed Sullivan snapped him up for a round of gigs
on his own Sunday night variety show. La Rosa would have the biggiest hit of his career, "Eh, Cumpari," after
he was dumped by Godfrey. The hit records might dry up in short order, but La Rosa had a couple of television
shows of his own later in the 1950s. In the 1960s, he made a second career as both a disc jockey (on New
York WNEW-AM, the city's longtime home of the Great American Songbook long before anyone called those
songs and that music that name) and a kind of saloon singer who graduated to touring high-end nightclubs.
He earned a lot of respect for that second career. He even landed a daytime Emmy nomination for a brief
role on the NBC soap
Another World in the 1980s.
He did pretty good for the guy who's still remembered mostly for being fired on the air. It may have been
CBS president Frank Stanton, listening to Godfrey bitch about La Rosa's alleged lack of humility, who
suggested to the mercurial Godfrey, "You hired him on the air, why don't you fire him on the air," a suggestion
Stanton eventually admitted was a big mistake. (La Rosa's Navy buddies tipped Godfrey off to his talent,
and Godfrey put him on, saying after his spot, "When Julie comes back from the Navy he'll come see us"---
a bona fide job offer.)
To the day he died, Julius La Rosa credited Godfrey with his success---but invariably added, "He wasn't a
very nice man." There was even talk of Godfrey doing a reunion project with those he worked with
in the salad days---including La Rosa, who decided enough time was gone that it couldn't hurt. The project
was killed when Godfrey tried to pressure La Rosa into going public with "the real reason" he got canned on
the air: La Rosa supposedly asked out of his contract to go on his own. Knowing that to be a lie, La Rosa
quietly began to remind his old boss about the ballet lessons dispute---and Godfrey exploded. La Rosa
left post haste, and the reunion project died.
