Al Martino

I am an actor, or at least was one. I did a lot of community theater in New England. I once found myself doing rehersals for three different plays, for three different companies at the same time. It was, and still is my drug of choice.
Any actor will tell you that radio or television is fun, to a point, but the stage, the audience reaction, the smell of the greasepaint and the roar of the crowd, is like no other form of performance.
So when Wally Beach called me one day when I was working at WMAS, and asked me to be Al Martinos emcee, I said, well...um...sure. Wally was a peculiar sort of man. His dreams were as high as the stratosphere, his realitys were, to say the least, lower than whale crap. He had been in and out of theaters all over Western New England, certain that his next gig was, "The One"! Unfortunatly, it never came to pass, and Wally went to that great agents room in the sky several years ago.
The call to me was for a series of shows he, somehow, convinced Martino's people to commit to. I can somehow hear it now. " There will be thousands of people breaking down the doors to see him. I will charge top dollar for every seat. The venue is as pristine as you can possibly get". Wally was never really a success, but he could sell gasoline to a guy on fire. Wally said he just needed me to emcee the first two nights, and with Al's reputation, and my following in Western Mass., this show couldn't miss. One catch..it was a freebee. I said, "Wait a minute. You want me to emcee Al Martino for two nights, at a great venue, pack the house, and you want me to do this because I am a nice guy?" He said yes. So I said, "OK". I asked him where this amazing show was to take place. He said it was a magnificent venue, The Canoe Club. THE CANOE CLUB?? I said, "Where the hell is the Canoe Club?" When he told me, my mind flashed back 30 years to this place on the Connecticut river. In June of 1966, a girl I was nuts about, Penny Page, agreed to be my senior prom date. How I pulled this off, to have Penny as my date, is comperable to how Wally got Al Martino to perform at the Canoe Club. It is impossible, but I did it. Penny was the heartthrob of every guy in High School, and after the prom, somehow, we wound up at the Canoe Club on the Connecticut river, for fun and dancing, and whatever.
Well, now I knew where the venue was, I agreed to my fee, (insert laughter here),and I was set for the first two nights to emcee the Al Martino show.
There are places in the area that have been around for a very long time. Establishments that have grown, built a community reputation, and are 20 times larger and more popular than they were 30 years ago. A week before the Martino show was to come to Holyoke, I decided to go out to the place to get familiar with this, I imagined, now Holyoke institution. I drove down Route 5, crossed over the railroad tracks, cruised down the dirt road, and rounded the corner....and, There It Was!! The exact same building that I was at on the night of my senior prom thirty years ago! I had stepped back in time. It was exactly the same as it was in the sixties. The picnic tables were still around the perimiter. This place is a reconverted barn. Nobody was around, so I pushed the door open. Nothing was different. I went to the wall near the river where I tried to grab Penny's butt, and found the knuckle imprint in the plaster wall where she had swung at me, and I had ducked. Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the Canoe Club.
The following Monday night, I got this cheesy Tux from some discount place in the area, and went to the Canoe Club to be the emcee for one of the most recognized talents in the industry. This was Johnny Fontaine, the guy who got slapped by Marlon Brando in The Godfather, a man who was on the record charts from the fifties through the ninties, and it was up to me to introduce him to the citizens of Western Mass.
Showtime was about ten minutes away. I peered out throught the curtain to look at the house. Twenty-six people. Apparently, Wally figured if he made me the emcee of this show, I would talk about it on the air, and there would be no reason to pay for advertizing for this show. So I found out, I was the only one in the state that talked about this week long show. Wally never promoted this thing. All the people in the audience were my listeners, all twenty-six of them.
I found out the opening night, that Al had an opening act. Nothing like being prepared. It was a comedian, a terriffic guy named Corbett Monica. Corbett was Sinatra's opening act for years in Vegas, and what a terrific guy he was. We struck up a friendship, and I miss him to this day.
I met Corbett, we through a few bits together down in back, and now it was showtime. The house started to fill up. At curtain, twenty-seven grey haired old ladies were in the audience, along with Linda, my wife, and her Aunt Flo.
I got center stage, the curtain opened, and my audience cheered. They were all listeners to my radio show. Had I said no to Wally's request to emcee the show, NOBODY woud have been out there, because NOBODY knew this show was going on. I introduced Corbett, he came out, shook my hand, did his set, then I came back, introed Al, and he came out, and did his thing. Fabulous. At itermission, Al was not a happy Goombah. He grabbed me and told me he wanted to see Wally Cox now! I said, "Ah, Wally Cox is dead Al, you mean Wally Beach?" He started laughing, and apologized, but he was not happy. Wally never showed up that first night.
So night number two rolls around, and the same show goes on, except that for the second night in a row, Al pulls a dance partner out of the audience for a number he is doing, and again, it is my wife Linda. We had maybe forty in the house that night. The Canoe Club. July. One hunderd and one degrees. No A.C. Wooden windows that open out, and no screens on them. Owls carrying chickens through the air from one side to the other. It was not pretty. One night, we thought a pipe had broken till we realized it was the sweat of the band pouring off of the stage.
After Tuesday, Wally called me and begged me to continue there, because his other emcee had to mow his lawn or something, and because I had made a friendship with Corbett, I agreed. Thursday's show, the audience was almost non-existant, so Friday, I went on the air in my morning show, and announced that tonight was WMAS night. You can see Martino, and Corbett Monica for free just because you're a WMAS listener..call now!. The phone lines went nuts. I was a hero, because not only was I making the station into good guys, but I was peppering the audience, plus there might be seven or eight people that would come, and actually pay for their tickets. Even Penny Page called and said she'd go except for the fact that I once tried to grab her butt there, and there were just too many bad memories connected with the Canoe Club because of that.
Almost 100 people showed up that night, and I invited Al, Corbett and any of the fifteen band members to come to my house for a cookout the next day. Like every night, Linda went with me, and Al pulled her out of the audience to dance on stage with.
Saturday came, and we had a cookout in the back yard here. Al couldn't come because he had to visit an old friend in Springfield. Al Bruno. Corbett came, two members of the band, and the band leader. I gave him a few Judy Garland albums because he was a collector of Judy's music. We were outside, and the rains came, so we moved inside, and had a great afternoon.
We did the show that night, and Sunday night. Al told me it was the worst week of his life. Corbett told me, if he was opening for Sinatra, Wally would never be seen again.
Nobody ever got paid for that show. Not me, not Corbett, not Al, nobody. There was one amazing story that came out of that week, a very funny story Corbett Monica told Linda and I in our living room that rainy Saturday afternoon.
It seems that somewhere in the 1960's, Al Martino came to Springfield to perform at the Storrowtown Music Tent. This was a venue owned by Mike Iannucci and Ann Corio. They were married then, and I have been a guest in Ann's home. They're both gone now. Al was performing for a week there, no doubt, to much larger houses than the Canoe Club offered.
One day, during the course of his Storrowtown Tent stint, Al decided to go to downtown Springfield. I don't know why...perhaps he was bored. He went into a store, I think it was Steiger's Department store, and was looking around. He found something he liked there, and for some reason, we will never know why, he used the old five finger discount to get it. Somebody saw him, and he was arrested.
At the height of his popularity on the radio, Al Martino was arrested in Springfield, and the story spread across the land, reaching the "trades" in California.
Word has it that the late Al Bruno helped Mr. Martino get through this episode, but before it was over, Variety Magazine ran a story about it. Buddy Hackett read this story,about the great Al Martino being pinched for shoplifting, and sent a telegram to Al Martino. The telegram read as follows: " Dear Al,
Sorry to hear of your recent troubles. I have one favor to ask. The next time you go shopping, could you please pick me up a toaster.
Love, Buddy Hackett"