October 19, 1953: Arthur Godfrey Fires Julius LaRosa

Arthur Godfrey (left) and Julius La Rosa

October 19, 1953: On his morning CBS radio show, Arthur Godfrey Time, host Godfrey fires his best-known performer, Julius La Rosa, saying, "That was Julie's swan song with us." On the radio show, and on the evening TV show Arthur Godfrey and His Friends, Godfrey had made La Rosa a singing star in late 1951, but justified the firing by saying he had "no humility."

Well, La Rosa was certainly humiliated, very publicly, as few people in that era had been. As it turned out, the real reason was that La Rosa was getting more fan mail than Godfrey, so maybe a lack of humility was warranted, on his part.

Comedians began working the phrase "no humility" into their routines. Cabaret singer Ruth Wallis, who normally couldn't get on the radio because she worked sex-related double-entendres into her songs, had the only Top 40 hit of her career with a song titled "Dear Mr. Godfrey."

Frank Stanton, then president of CBS, said, "Maybe it was a mistake," that Godfrey shouldn't have fired La Rosa on the air. Godfrey compounded the mistake by firing his bandleader, Archie Bleyer, who had founded Cadence Records and made La Rosa his 1st signing. Bleyer had produced records by Don McNeill, whose ABC radio show was Godfrey's competitor -- not a very successful one, but close enough to bruise Godfrey's apparently fragile ego. Losing Bleyer's production talents hurt Godfrey even more, as the show's quality went downhill.

Almost immediately, Ed Sullivan booked La Rosa onto his own CBS show, Toast of the Town. (It was renamed The Ed Sullivan Show in 1955.) This led Godfrey to end his friendship with Sullivan. La Rosa had more and bigger hit records without Godfrey than with him, and had his own TV show (albeit only as a Summer replacement series) in 1955, '56 and '57. In the 1970s, he became a disc hockey on New York station WNEW, AM 1130, which specialized in the Big Band era, of which La Rosa was one of the last big stars.

In 1981, Godfrey's manager tried to put together a TV special, a reunion of the "Little Godfreys." La Rosa was willing to appear, but Godfrey insulted him during the preparations, and he walked off, and the special never happened. When Godfrey died in 1983, pretty much all anybody wanted to talk about was how he treated La Rosa.

Bleyer is now probably best known for producing records for The Chordettes, a vocal quartet that included his wife, Janet Ertel. On their best-known song, the 1955 Number 1 hit "Mr. Sandman," Bleyer provided the percussion by slapping his legs, and also played the "Sandman," by answering, "Yeeees?" He died in 1989, a year after Janet.

In 2003, Bob Murphy, knowing that he was dying of cancer, retired as a broadcaster for the New York Mets. I was at his last game, and La Rosa, his favorite singer, was invited to sing the National Anthem. At age 73, the Brooklyn native still had a fine voice. He lived until 2016.

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October 19, 1953 was a Monday. Basketball star Lionel Hollins was born on this day. This was also the day on which Ray Bradbury published his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451. I have a separate entry for that event.

Baseball season ended 13 days earlier, with the New York Yankees beating the Brooklyn Dodgers in the World Series. Football was in midweek. The NBA season started 11 days later. And while the NHL season was underway, there were no games scheduled. So there were no scores on this historic day.