Frank Fontaine MC's the Mary Lee Tucker Benefit Show – 1957 – Part 2

It’s impressive just how much time and effort went into putting on the Mary Lee Tucker Christmas benefit shows of the 1950s and 60s. Besides booking nationally known talent like Frank Fontaine to headline and emcee the show, there was the auditioning and selection of local acts to make up the majority of the program.

Sometimes there were additional professional acts added to make the show even more spectacular. For the 1957 show, the Cornell Sisters were added to the list of performers. As the article below (which appeared in the Lorain Journal on November 28, 1957) notes, the Cornell Sisters had appeared in Detroit and Chicago nightclubs, as well as on the Arthur Godfrey Talent Scout program.

The Sisters were in town for an engagement at Ben Hart’s Showbar in early December. At some point in their career they issued a 45 RPM record with One Sided Love on one side and Walking Along on the other.

But getting back to the show. On December 4, 1957 the Journal included a last promotional article for the show, which was to take place that night. The High Toppers dance group were featured in a cute photo.

As expected, the show was a big success, raising $1,500 (that’s $13,000 in today’s money). Frank Fontaine was featured in a photo in the article below, which ran the next day.

The article stated that Fontaine kept the show moving at a fast pace. "He ‘fractured’ the audience with his ventriloquist bit in which he used two St. Mary High School boys picked from the audience as his “dummies,” it noted.

“He brought down the rafters with his impersonations of Arthur Godfrey, Amos and Andy, Alfred Hitchcock, Peter Lorre, Claude Rains, Jimmy Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, Charles Boyer, Jimmy Durante, Winston Churchill, Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Liberace and Billy Eckstine.”

Other performers included Maria Bryant, who played the accordion while blindfolded and wearing gloves and with the keyboard covered with a black cloth; the Mozambi Trio, three ‘educated and talented apes’ in formal attire (behind the rubber ape masks were Harry Mayer, Russ Owens and Nate Margolis); the Jimmy Dulio 14-piece band, which supplied all the music for both professional and local entertainers; Joe Kohart, who did a pantomime of Elvis Presley; tap dancers Sandy Humphrey and Danny Walker; and many, many more.