Estella Karn, The Tough-Talking Program Manager
Behind the Radio Talkshow of Mary Margaret McBride
It could be said that behind every great radio personality's phenomenal
success is a manager who pushes. It was certainly so in the case of
Mary
Margaret McBride, pioneering radio talkshow host. Estella Karn was the
woman
behind the woman. McBride said at the time of leaving her highly successful
ABC network show that Karn had been both her personal manager and her
program manager." Karn had also been her promotional manager and her
press
agent. Karn's office was a one-of-a-kind public relations firm: she
was a
one-woman band. McBride said: "I could not have lasted on radio 20
years
without her."[1]
With Karn promoting and producing the program, McBride had logged
broadcasts on the flagship stations of every radio network, for many years
having a studio at Rockefeller Center: station WOR, for the Mutual
Broadcasting System, from 1934 to 1940; for CBS, from 1937 to 1941; for WEAF
and WNBC, for NBC, from 1941 to 1950; and WJZ, for ABC, from 1950 to 1954.[2]
Sidney Fields noted in his "Only Human" Column for The New York Daily
Mirror
, that by October 1953, McBride was heard over 200 stations on the ABC
radio
network at 1 p.m. daily, broadcasting out of her own apartment off Central
Park. In the program, the talkshow host averaged about 2,500 letters
weekly
and earned a "fat four-figure salary."[3] There were reports that she
had made
$200,000 in 1952, not including royalties for books and magazine
articles.[4]
McBride reputedly paid Karn fully one-third of her earnings.[5] The
talkshow
host paid the radio program's staff of twelve out of the other two
thirds.[6]
McBride in fact considered Karn her "partner."[7] Karn could also be known as
the woman who made McBride an international celebrity. As Collie Small of
Collier's noted about Karn: "She helped propel Mary Margaret into
radio,
shoved her into television, and even forced her to buy her first fur
coat
when they went to Missouri for 'Mary Margaret McBride Day',"[8] Nov.
22, 1940
[sic]. That's the day on which Gov. Lloyd Stark told listeners on a
nationwide broadcast[9] why McBride was the most listened-to woman on
radio.[10]
Nov. 22, 1940, was the first and only day ever that the national media
descended on Mexico, Mo., where McBride had held her first job after
graduating from the Missouri School of Journalism (1919), that of city
editor of The Mexico Ledger. During the hoopla surrounding the media
event,
numerous press releases were generated out of Karn's Manhattan office
throughout October, November and December. Hundreds of magazine and
newspaper articles followed, including one for Life magazine. Karn must
have phoned the local organizers repeatedly because Editor L. Mitchell
White
of The Ledger, McBride's first boss, published daily updates of the
upcoming event, which included facts only someone in McBride's office would
be privy to.
McBride also was hyping the event to her listeners on her program over the
CBS network.[11] Someone even thought it would be nice if Curtis
Mitchell,
editor of Movie-Radio Guide and another Ledger alumnus, would come on her
program to present to McBride the Award of Merit "for excellence in
broadcasting." Then Mitchell could follow her back to Missouri for the
special day, where he would serve as master of ceremonies on back-to-back
broadcasts.[12] Someone thought it might be good as well, because
McBride was
the most well-known Ledger alumnus, for the newspaper itself to have a
special alumni celebration in conjunction with M.M.McB. Day. The event
would
be used to honor the White family, who had served as editorial heads of the
newspaper for almost 75 years. Someone even thought to write an article
about the most listened-to woman in the McBride's broadcast studio --
Estella Karn.[13] The ironic fact, it that Karn probably generated that
press
release too.
Karn was not so different from many in later years who had survived the
Depression of the 1930s. In times of plenty, she would buy twenty of
something when one item would do, just in case adversity hit. She was
especially enamored with old silver and old glass,[14] and would buy many
copies
of pieces she already owned. McBride would implore Janice Devine, the
legwoman on the show, to restrain Karn's buying impulses.[15] But no one
every
had much luck in restraining Karn once she set her eye on something,
or her
mind to something. An unformed idea once it was conceived by Karn,
crystallized, then formed into many facets -- as in the cut of fine crystal.
In Karn's professional life, she would not pursue one idea when putting
twenty into motion was possible. It was almost as if she believed the
old
saying that putting one's eggs in one basket would surely doom one to
failure. One should have many baskets, with many eggs and -- just in case
--
organize an Easter egg hunt so the desire will be there to find all those
eggs. If you can get the egg hunt in the middle of a great event with
some
great newsmakers, such as on the lawn of the White House, so much the
better. The irony about Karn carrying so many baskets full of eggs is that
she rarely dropped one. She had the stamina and persistence of vision
to see
to it that nary an egg was broken.
McBride attributed Karn's impulses to do more than was often thought
necessary to an impoverished youth; more particularly, Karn as "a poor
little girl at sixteen, depending on her own efforts and never having
enough
of anything."[16] McBride could understand Karn well on this point. Even when
the talk show host was making a lot of money, she saw the poor farm
just
around the corner; she worried about being poor and alone and
unloved."[17]
Memories of years of struggle during her youth made Karn vulnerable as
well, and she collected hardscrabble persons with hardluck stories in
the
same way she collected silver, glass and broadcasts. McBride said Karn
was
touched by almost any sobstory. McBride added, "Undoubtedly she
sometimes
believed the tales, but even if she wasn't sure, she helped just to
avoid
the possibility of suffering she understood so well -- hunger and
destitution."[18]
This fear of destitution often kept Karn working hours on the minutiae of
arranging daily radio schedules. She did not trust anything to chance.
She
hated to release these little details to anyone else because she was
certain
no one would care as much as she did about getting things done right.
Writer Collie Small apparently had some insight into the psyche of Karn.
Small said in Colliers the program manager took the time to count 300
M.M.Mc. imitators.[19] Somewhere early in McBride's career as talkshow
host Karn
decided to collect all the McBride broadcasts. At the time, McBride said
she asked Karn, "Why on earth do you want to waste all that money on
recordings? Who would want to listen to those old things?"[20]
Karn countered, "Oh -- when I'm old I'll sit by the fire and play them."[21]
Karn, in the case of McBride broadcasts, made a fortuitous decision.
Someone else was ultimately interested in those recordings. Beginning in
1991, Janet McKee at the Library of Congress continued to go through
the
only extant file of the McBride broadcasts, those recorded by Karn.
McKee is
putting the broadcasts on more durable disks for the Sound and Recording
Section. In that file are the one and only voice recordings of many
famous
and near-famous persons McBride interviewed, spanning a quarter of a
ce
ntury.
During the final broadcasts in 1954 at ABC, it was noted that McBride and
her radio family had produced 15,000 broadcasts.[22] It was estimated
that she
interviewed 30,000 persons during that tenure.[23] The broadcasts form
a living
repository of generations past: what Americans were talking about --
as it
happened, who Americans were listening to -- as it was said. McBride
reminded her fans that the 20-year period of her broadcasts covered
years of depression, recovery from depression, return to posterity,
preparation for war, war and its aftermath. [Her broadcasts]
record the
voices and sometimes revealing thoughts of the leaders in many fields
during that period.[24]
Karn was the one who made the decisions that drew the great and near-great
to the program. Rose Feld, a reviewer for the New York Herald Tribune,
called Karn a brilliant entrepreneur, "no headliner herself but a
manipulator of headlines."[25] Karn was trained early in hype.
Her life indeed had been one of extreme contrasts in her formative years.
Karn had been educated in a convent.[26] However, as a teen-ager, she
liked to
tell others, she had run away from a guardian to join the circus, and
later
worked with tough-talking carnival folks. In Karn's own way, she was
creating a myth about her own her beginnings. But, her romanticization of
those early years was based on fact.
In San Francisco, her career began like many young journalists; she cut
clippings for the United Press. She found a job doing publicity for an
amusement spot, which in turn translated into a position as "advance man"
for the Al G. Barnes Circus.[27] Karn was known for pulling off
colorful
publicity stunts for the circus, Once she walked down the boardwalk at
Venice, Calif., "tugging a stuffed elephant, all tied up in pink
ribbons."[28]
Following that early publicity experience, Karn believed there was
nothing
she could not promote.[29]
After advancing the careers of lion tamers, Karn had started in New York
tamely enough, working at the Interchurch World Movement, writing
press
releases for missionaries. It was there, in 1920, that she had met
McBride.
Meanwhile, McBride said Karn was certainly someone she did not expect
meet
while working for a church organization. Karn arrived in the New York
offices of the organization a week after McBride.[30]
Describing her first impressions of "Stella," the person who would become
her lifelong confidante, McBride said: "I can see her now, a tiny
creature,
well under five feet, heavy red-brown hair in a great bun, brown eyes
eager."[31]
Physically, Karn was not prepossessing. But there was something about her
that spoke of boundless energy. In the thinly disguised fictional work
of
Tune in for Elizabeth, McBride provided a pseudo-portrait of a
publicity
agent that sounds very similar to Karn. McBride says the agent "looked
more
than equal" [32] to the job, exuding energy that was apparent:
There was no mistaking her efficiency, any more than you could miss the
charm of her crisp, tailored suit and blouse, her close-cropped black
curls under a wispy black valentine of a hat. Her eyes were
a snappy
black and her movements were as quick as a bird's.[33]
Karn's renown had preceded her. McBride said Karn already had a reputation
as the best promotion person in the business. The rest of the staff
was
surprised that Karn was hired sight unseen at $65 a week: "The news of
this
vast pay had preceded her and we were prepared to loathe her. But she
proved
so friendly that we forgave her and acknowledged she knew more about
publicity and promotion than all of us put together."[34]
Karn apparently approached the conventional job for the church
organization in an unconventional way. McBride said Karn
was just what the place needed, though at first the missionaries were a
little taken aback by her informal ways and shoe business vocabulary.
She always referred to them as "mishes" and spent hours
asking them
about their lives in Timbuktu, Zanzibar or wherever they came
from.[35]
One of Karn's most ambitious projects was a prayer "with piety and punch,"
to be heard around the world. McBride said of the prayer:
When she described it you could fairly see all the people of the earth
gathered together in their own lands just when the sun rose
over the
mountain, desert, forest or plain, intoning in their many
languages the
same prayer.[36]
Ernestine Evans, in the New York Herald Tribune, said meeting with Karn was
"the reddest letter day in Mary Margaret's experience":[37] "It began a
life-long friendship, and ultimately MMBcB's having a mighty press agent
all
her own, and parties galore with circus and carnival people and press
folks."[38]
Apparently, Karn moved in with McBride and a third friend, Hortense
Saunders, shortly thereafter. They moved into a one-room apartment in an
old
brownstone house on lower Fifth Avenue. Saunders had worked with McBride
for the Cleveland Press and had followed her to New York.[39] McBride
soon
learned Karn would be someone unusual to know. The first Christmas in
Manhattan, McBride reports she went on a double-date to Delmonico's,
watched
a cooch dance at Karn's party on Washington Street at an Armenian cafe and
midnight mass at a Greek Orthodox Church around the corner -- a
spur-of-the-moment excursion led by their new roommate.[40]
McBride and Karn were also thrown together in their work. They were sent to
cover a convention in Atlantic City, and provided with two rooms and a
connecting bath there. McBride talked about her naivete in a private
incident. Karn apparently rescued her from being scalded when McBride was
taking her first bath in a bathtub. The former farm girl from Missouri
did
not know how to turn on the cold water.[41]
Juxtaposed with this image of McBride's Victorian modesty and farm girl
naivete is the specter of bathing beauties out on the boardwalk
parading
around in the most revealing beach garb of the day, wearing black
cotton
stockings and subdued fabric that covered them from head to toe.
It was in Atlantic City McBride got to know Karn well. Between sessions
McBride she and her travelling companion
explored together the auction rooms, the fortunetellers' booths, the
salt water taffy emporiums, the seafood restaurants, and
were even
pushed along the boardwalk in a double roller chair.
Inevitably, Stella
knew not only the man who rolled us but the woman who cut silhouettes
and two of the fortunetellers. She had been with each one in
some
carnival or circus, and I stood around on one foot and then the
other
while she reminisced with them.[42]
McBride said she could never get enough of Karn's "so-different
atmosphere." Karn trained her in the handling of "mishes" in publicity trips
and visits with carnies and circus people. Karn always introduced her as "a
towny" but would explain McBride was "a good Joe."[43] McBride thought Karn
would rather talk about being a circus press agent than to have to do
it all
over again.[44] While Karn talked to tattooed ladies and women lion tamers,
McBride really liked to talk to writers.[45]
McBride remembered from the time that she dated a man named Max, who turned
out to be a married man. Karn, meanwhile was attending Columbia University.
She liked her Chinese professor and a fellow student who was Siamese, from
her international law class at Columbia.[46]
The interfaith movement had its financial backing withdrawn,[47] after they had
been eight months on the job.[48] They were out looking for work again.
Disagreements arose with the landlady, and the three were soon evicted from
their apartment. Karn would move with McBride and Saunders into a
Greenwich
Village loft, a dingy, fourth-floor walk-up on Fourth Street. Drawing
straws
for rooms, McBride got the large bedroom, Hortense,a small one, and Karn,
the couch.[49] This was one of McBride's worst times; she said Karn
even got
despondent: "We were so hungry at time that we held long conversations
about
what we would eat when we finally got jobs."[50]
Karn and McBride went to many interviews. When McBride found a job writing
for The New York Evening Mail, it was Karn who thought of a
celebration.
Karn did the best she could after "living on nothing a year." She had
treated McBride a package of her favorite cookies, Coconut Dainties.[51]
Karn,
shortly thereafter started working in promoting a new medium -- radio.
Radio critic Betty Colfax noted this about Karn's promotional background
radio, "She's had white elephants and gold mines."[52] Some of the
gold Karn
mined in her early radio career with WOR were entertainers Paul
Whiteman,
Vincent Lopez, Rudy Vallee, the Pickens Sisters.
It is no coincidence that Karn's friend McBride became a ghostwriter for
Karn's clients. When McBride's job as reporter for The Mail folded
during
Frank Munsey's newspaper buy-out during the mid-1920s, Karn suggested
that
she capitalize on the phenomenon of radio. McBride "edited" articles
by
Whiteman and Lopez for The Saturday Evening Post.[53]
Karn got McBride to invest profits from those magazine articles in the
stock market. Both of them lost a fortune when the market crashed.
McBride
reportedly lost $100,000.[54] Karn, meanwhile, would later tell friend
Betty
Colfax -- in her own style -- she had "dropped a neat $60,000 in that
disaster, which sent many male victims leaping from window sills to
oblivion
on the pavement."[55]
Lean times came again for the two, but Karn still held on to her radio
contacts. When the bottom subsequently dropped out of the magazine
market
during the Depression, it was Karn who recommended McBride try out for
WOR's
talkshow position of "Martha Deane" -- and the rest is history. Listeners
to early broadcasts were certain that Karn had taken on a white
elephant,
but McBride soon proved herself as talkshow host. After all, as Betty
Colfax
noted, McBride had the help of someone who would earned the reputation of
"the best promotion woman in America."[56]
In the program's offices at West 45th Street, Karn was often on the
telephone selling anything connected with McBride, speaking to as many as
three at a time. It was there she kept the living "McBride
repository":
hundreds of copies of every article, in addition to the dozens of copies
of
books and many recordings of the radio programs.[57] She had begun
filing
broadcasts in the early 1940s. McBride thought it was around the time of
Pearl Harbor. Karn reportedly also had a secretary take down the
broadcasts
in shorthand -- just in case.[58]
McBride said to describe Karn's office "as a disciplined beehive would be
under-painting the picture."[59] Besides two secretaries, Karn worked
with a
small staff. Extensive clipping files were kept on past and potential
guests. The several thousand letters from fans were sorts and filed
daily.
McBride signed even routine replies prepared by her secretaries. Other
letters were redirected to guests who had appeared.[60]
A portable radio set for checking programs, stood in one corner cubby hole;
framed in ground glass, "the conference room" sometimes emitted angry
bellows. It was known as the sweatbox because Karn interviewed sponsor
and
would-be sponsors there.[61]
Karn reportedly could smell a press agent's exaggeration of a product from
miles away.[62] She kept an extensive file on sponsors grouped
together with the
histories of their firms. There were files for those who had passed muster,
files for those who tried to make the grade, and files for those who did
not even try. In Tune in for Elizabeth, the radio manager said about
sponsors:
It's one thing to believe your merchandise is better than the other
fellow's, to sit up nights planning ways to make it better.
It's quite
another to say it's better, without chapter and verse. [She
pointed her
pencil at the bottom file.] Those few sinners stuck by their claims so
we threw them into outer darkness.[63]
It was here that some were cast into the outer darkness, following the
complaints of fans. It was not unknown for the staff to raid the local
stories to see if sponsors were delivering on schedule or that the
produce
was as good as the sponsors claimed.[64]
Karn apparently had carte blanc entertainment privileges to McBride's
apartment. Sometimes the staff would raid McBride's cupboards, testing
the
food sent to her by the sponsors. One time the staff tested
gingerbread by
making twelve kinds of cookies and four upside-down cakes in one
evening.[65]
Sometimes Karn would direct the staff would eat in the dining room of
McBride's apartment, even if the talkshow host were gone on an
engagement.
The room was paneled to the ceiling. It reportedly had a fine Sheraton
table
and a highboy in rose mahogany and Sandwich glass.[66] Karn new that in
informal repasts, McBride used the Spode china. For fancier layouts, she
brought out the Crown Derby.[67] McBride said that from the dining
room, "There
was a breath-taking view of Central Park from a great window -- a
glistening
lake, dark trees and tall white buildings, like sentinels, rimming the
whole."[68] It was from this apartment that McBride conducted her last
years of
broadcasting for ABC.[69]
McBride apparently found Stella Karn's behests difficult to overcome.
McBride said, "Stella was my chief booster, frequent deflator, and head
of
my radio family."[70] But much of McBride's success turned on Karn's
day-to-day
decisions as program manager for the "Martha Deane Show," as well as the
later broadcasts for "The Mary Margaret McBride Show." Karn had
unflagging
curiosity, and pressed McBride to ask more questions on the air. Karn
spent
a lot of time talking up the show to advertisers.[71] McBride called
Karn the
best of managers:[72]
[B]ecause of her intense curiosity about everything, her business sense
and her intuition, she was the best manager a radio program ever could
have. If we had not met in our early twenties when we each had a job
in an interfaith organization, I am convinced I would have
been out of
radio forever before my first six months on the job.[73]
McBride also called Karn "an indefatigable slave driver." McBride said even
when Karn was 4,000 miles away she kept a watchful eye on her professional
partner's activities. McBride referred to the time Karn stayed in New
York
while she was in Norway, interviewing King Haakon. The program manager
rigidly checked on McBride's schedule to make sure she was carrying out
all
the plans.[74]
King Haakon was honoring McBride for her broadcasts on Norway's stand
against the Nazis during World War II. Karn sensed McBride -- in the
midst
of all the adulation -- might be resting on her laurels because the
talk
show host was talking on the air about being overwhelmed by the honor.
Karn
sent McBride a short-wave message, "Madame Queen, don't start to
believe
your own publicity!"[75] The incident occurred during the interview
with King
Haakon. McBride's heated exchange with Karn had been heard on the air.
The
king reportedly was distressed when McBride assured an aide that it
had been
heard by all.[76]
Karn knew McBride liked to fancy herself the monarch of the microphone.
McBride in fact said that in radio she was queen of the world, her
world
anyway.[77]
A short list of several major honors bestowed on McBride during her radio
career explains why McBride could make that claim. In 1936, McBride
was
awarded a medal by the Women's National Exposition of the Arts and
Industries for the year's "greatest contribution to radio."[78] In 1938,
McBride was awarded the Missouri School of Journalism's Medal of
Honor.[79] Then
two years later, as previously noted, the governor of Missouri named a
"Day" after McBride, and other accolades followed.
The 1950 Associated Press Poll of women's editors across the nation voted
her the outstanding woman of the year in radio.[80] Also in 1950
McBride joined
Edward R. Murrow in receiving the One World Award for radio work, in a
ceremony at the Waldorf Astoria. They were among seven public figures to
receive the award in the campaign for world peace, human rights and
international statesmanship, including one of McBride's friends, Carlos
Romlus, president of president of the United Nations.[81]
In 1952, because of McBride's successful home-spun delivery of her
sponsor's commercials, the Sales Executives Club of New York named her one
of America's 12 greatest salesmen -- she was the only woman in the
group.[82]
She joined an distinguished roster that included Conrad Hilton and the
Rev.
Dr. Norman Vincent Peale.[83]
When Karn sarcastically pointed out to "Madame Queen" not to let all this
adulation go to her head, she was indirectly reminding McBride that
someone
else had played a major part in manufacturing the kind of image that
leads
to public acclaim. Someone else had arranged the programming that
brought
major newsmakers to the studio for interviews. Someone else had
solicited
the sponsors for McBride's show. If McBride did not have the sponsors
in the
first place, she could not have been America's top saleswoman in the second
place.
All those unspoken "someones" were Estella Karn. And Karn was certainly not
a drone who buzzed around the queen bee, even when the radio hostess had an
All-American rose named after her and was duly listed in the seed
catalogues for "blooming in queenly dignity, Mary Margaret McBride will
remain in never-fading glory through the hottest summer weather."[84]
Karn,
after all, had aggressively sought even that title for McBride, as part
of
an advertising campaign for a sponsor during a noteworthy
broadcast.[85]
Then there were those mind-boggling extravaganzas thought up by Karn for
McBride's 5th, 10th and 15th anniversaries on Radio. McBride had to be
pushed into trying them. Karn assured her they would work, then labored
hard
to make it so:
> On the fifth anniversary of McBride's first broadcast, on May 31, 1939,
25,000 women came to hear her at a big public appearance at Grand
Central
Palace -- only several hundred were expected, and many were
turned away.[86]
> On May 31, 1944, McBride celebrated her tenth anniversary before a rally
of that filled the old Madison Square Garden.[87]
> On May 31, 1949, the 15th anniversary, Karn brought off a celebration to
top a fifteenth anniversary party for May 31 in the house that
Ruth built
and Joe Dimaggio maintained[88] -- Yankee Stadium.
Karn's publicity releases at that time noted that in McBride's years on
radio, she had conducted 12,000 live radio interviews "with a wide and
impressive a variety of names as are listed in Who's Who," a great many
who
were men."[89] Someone at the program -- probably Karn -- noted the
trends and
said, the next such celebration would probably have to be held in the
Grand
Canyon.[90]
The woman who thought up "grand" schemes, planned big and worked hard,
argued strongly for her own points in a disagreement, which invariably
occurred almost daily on the radio program. The most of McBride's
audience
already knew of their feuds because Karn and Mcbride had previously
had one
of their "more unrestrained arguments" -- as McBride phrased it -- on
the
air. The conversation involved Perot, the goat. The year was 1935,
when
McBride had only been on the air, at WOR, only two years. McBride had br
ought Perot home from a sabbatical in Paris. This fact was broadcast
from
the Ille de France, just as McBride was disembarking in the New York
harbor.[91]
It seems that McBride and Karn did not know that their ship-to-shore
telephone conversation was being picked up by the listening audience.
McBride said listeners subsequently wrote and quoted verbatim the
conversation in which Karn complained about Perot about being an old goat
and not a little lamb.[92] Karn thought a lamb would make better
publicity than
a goat -- and could not Mary have known she should have had a little
lamb
with her when she returned from France?
McBride and others speak openly of Karn's hair-trigger temper. Colfax said,
"Estella is like an unpredictable volcano. She's always erupting in the
most unexpected moments."[93] McBride apparently acknowledged Karn's
explosive
temper by saying, her manager enjoyed life more than anyone else
"even with
her tantrums."[94] Fortunately, Karn's temper also made her a formidable foe,
who often had to stand tough in negotiations with station and network
executives.[95]
McBride and Karn's volatile relationship was once compared with the working
relationship of Kate Smith and Ted Collins. He too had almost a fanatical
devotion to his client, which caused him "to show fury at the
slightest hint
of criticism."[96] However, his fury was directed not at Smith, but her
critics. Both manager-performer teams were compared to the partnership of
Anna Sosenko and Hildegarde. Incidentally, while Karn took one third
of all
profits from the McBride broadcasts, Smith and Collns shared 50-50, an
agreement said to be immensely profitable to both.[97]
People said Karn bossed McBride.[98] And, Karn did boss her around, but this
was not the first time McBride had fallen into such an alliance. Her
day-to-day relationship with Karn was not so different that the
relationship
she had with Mortie Lynn Tyler (Whitlow), who had been McBride's roommate
at boarding school, years ago at William Woods.[99] As one writer
pointed out,
McBride apparently thrived in personal relationships in which she was
alternately scolded and petted.[100]
Rose Feld said in the New York Herald Tribune that Karn could cut McBride
to the quick by referring a particular performance with the words
"sweetness
and light,"
a charge which "bitterly irked" McBride.[101] Karn even argued with McBride over
how she should entertain her own mother (Elizabeth nee Craig)[102]
when she came
for a visit. McBride said: "I felt that I ought to know what my own
mother
would like and Stella was just as sure that Lizzie, as she called my
mother,
would prefer her way."[103] McBride indicated how heated disagreements became
between her and Karn in an article carried in The New York Daily
Mirror:
When two women get into an imbroglio, they almost invariably proceed to
a nasty name-calling session that lasts until one of the participants
runs out of epithets, haughtily tosses her head and storms
off. Then
comes a period when the two cut each other dead. . . .
Eventually this
gets to be boring and inconvenient for both participants. .
. . At
length on some slight pretext the girls [sic] fall on each
other's
neck, have a sip of coffee together and thereafter-- or until
the next
donnybrook -- remain friends.[104]
A radio critic who had noticed McBride's quote in The Daily News said
appreciatively that McBride had mapped out a plan for getting along on
"this
turbulent old planet" that men in public affairs could learn from.[105]
Another critic, with The New York Times, said when McBride tried to
dissolve a crisis in tears, Karn said she "jacked her up with plain talk
over a double portion of Luxuro ice cream cake with pecan and
butterscotch
sauce at Schrafft's."[106] McBride did not particularly like Karn to
use
expressions like that. One imbroglio was caused when Karn reportedly told
Philip Hamburger, a writer for Life, that
whenever Mary Margaret privately becomes poutish and begins to whimper
(a condition which can be induced at the drop of a muffin),
the
swiftest way to restore her equanimity is to offer her a piece of
cake
or candy.[107]
Even though their battles were notorious, but McBride said that perhaps
they needed the relief their "wild quarrels" brought them.[108] In
fact, one
newspaper critic called Karn McBride's "other self."[109] a kind of
alter ego
that helped her keep perspective. McBride said, no two persons were so
unalike as she and Karn: "My reaction to a crisis was to dissolve in
tears;
Stella's was to charge into battle."[110]
Karn's criticism would be cutting to many of the radio family and others
with whom she worked on a daily basis. When Karn was informed through
a
frantic cable from Janet Devine that a transmission from the Virgin
Islands
couldn't be played on the air because of a broken wire, Mcbride said
her
program manager had snorted and dictated a message: "Get Boy Scout
Manual
and learn to tie square knot."[111]
And, perhaps McBride had her own relationship in mind when she said
although Karn would be touched by sob stories, mental suffering was
difficult for her to comprehend. McBride said of Karn, "She could be hard
without ever realizing what she was doing to the other person. Perhaps
subconsciously she felt it wasn't much use seeing the other person's side
since the other person was wrong anyway."[112]
No matter how much Karn argued with McBride, the radio manager apparently
believed in her friends. Karn believed that if a woman was a good
newspaper
reporter, you could do just about anything.[113] And, McBride was her
favorite
newspaperwoman. It was a case a sobsister being loved by a collector
of sob
stories.
Betty Colfax said Karn's loyalty to friends was highly valued. Colfax
writes:
Estella has more friends than any other woman I every knew. . . . She's
always there when you need her -- quietly seeing you through the worst
moments, offering not only sympathy, but concrete help.[114]
McBride also wrote that Karn was a great woman, a genius, the most
generous, loyal friend anybody ever had, but she could also be
unreasonable,
hard-boiled, even cruel, impossible to move once her mind was made up.[115] The
radio critics who dealt with McBride's managerial consort had similar
adjectives to describe Karn. Feld of the Herald Tribune described Karn as
shrewd, stubborn, capable and domineering, but also warm dependable
and
wholly devoted.[116] Add to these adjectives, those by Richard Dorrance
of the
Movie-Radio Guide, who called Karn "bustling . . . with a mind like a
steel
trap and just about as inexorable."[117] Perhaps she had to be all
those things.
McBride said of Karn at the end of her programming with ABC:
She is the one who takes the hard knocks. She's a peppery, courageous
individual (just the opposite of pessimistic me) who is
positive
everything will turn out exactly the way she intends it to. And
quite
often it does too, for she is a genius at getting what she
wants.[118]
As one admirer said, "Estella Karn is the feminine answer to a charge made
not so long ago by an industrial executive that 'women can't take it
in
business.'"[119]
Rewording that, McBride said the "exasperating and wonderful thing" about
Karn was that she was nearly always right about everything.[120] Karn
could
always remind McBride that she had advised against leaving WOR and the
original Martha Deane Show over Mary Margaret's insistence, to go with
the
sponsorship of Florida citrus growers of a CBS network show.[121] And,
it was
Karn who succeeded in having the program's subsequent cancellation by
CBS
announced, in McBride words, "as gently as possible."[122] It was also
Karn who
was convinced McBride she should go back to her 45-minute radio
talkshow --
then worked long hours to make it come about with a new program on
WEAF, the
flagship station of the NBC network. McBride later remembered that Karn
gave up her vacation, and drove herself so hard that she developed a
baffling skin ailment.[123]
McBride said about her manager: "No matter how unlikely her ideas may have
seemed to begin with, I usually had to admit in the end that by some
miracle
of intuition, she had called the turn. I never yielded without a struggle,
and I'd argue for hours while she went straight ahead, hardly
listening."[124]
McBride said,
I came to accept as best I could Stella's belief that you have to do
right according to your own convictions. She respected that
obligation
in others and expected them to do the same for her. In our
long
friendship and in all our working together, though she argued me
down
on many questions, she never tried to change me once she
realized it
was a matter of principle with me. She was an effective
leaven for the
way I had been brought up, with the idea that there was no
middle
ground between good and evil, right and wrong.[125]
Karn apparently was McBride's evil twin. Although Karn loved a battle and
felt deprived when she was unable to wage one,[126] McBride also had a
temper.
She talked about calling Karn an "idiot" and "spendthrift" after her
friend
bought a pamphlet called a Dream Book with a quarter tip when they scarcely
had money to eat while living in Chelsea.[127] McBride said, even after she had
done everything to spoil her pleasure for purchasing the booklet, Karn
"was
thumbing through the pages with undiminished zest." McBride said of
her
friend, "She even tried to read some of them to me, convinced that I
would
eventually be as charmed as she was by her find."[128]
Savants can also be good twins. Karn could see possibilities where no one
else could see them. Karn was not like typical New Yorkers, described
by
McBride as being "likely to have a hazy idea that the big continent
they
hear about on the other side of the Hudson tunnel isn't quite
real."[129]
It was Karn who insisted McBride interview "every one of the authors who
wrote about journeys to Mars and flying saucers, even when they were
obvious
fakes":[130] "Her favorites were a man who claimed he had talked to a Martian
and another who had seen little green creatures get off a flying
saucer in
the Western Desert. She took these guests to dinner and questioned
them
exhaustively."[131]
One of their wild arguments led to the special programming on the opening
of the United Nations. McBride and Karn were in one of those
imbroglios,
this time, in which Karn was trying to get McBride to go to San
Francisco,
the site of the UN opening and the place where Karn had launched her
professional life. McBride finally said in exasperation, "Stella, why don't
you go? You need the change and so do I."[132]
McBride said Karn was on a plane within three hours. McBride wrote in Out
of the Air about the programming from San Francisco:
She had a wonderful time, interviewing mostly representatives of the
little countries because she said they weren't getting any
headlines.
She was always more interested in small nations than in big
ones. I
doubt if she slept at all for three weeks. Day and night she
was
rounding up men in burnooses, women in saris, Arbas, Egyptians,
Yemenites, Lebanese. Daily her recorded interviews were vivid
fascinating accounts of people and customs then unknown to the
general
public.[133]
McBride said the insurmountable difficulties that arose on the trip back
from San Francisco were solved "in thoroughly Stella-esque
fashion."[134] Because
Karn planned to visit her brother in Texas on the return flight to New
York, she missed the special chartered flight for reporters. McBride
said
the situation was the kind of challenge Karn enjoyed.[135]
When Karn could not get booked for a flight, McBride said Karn called the
airline and ordered a crate for live freight. She had planned to send
herself back in the box. She argued with the airline administrators that
the
regulations did not exclude humans. Somebody got bumped from the flight.
McBride said Karn thrived on pushing her point, "Stella would smile
that
delighted guileless smile she had on such occasions and sweetly read
the
printed regulations aloud."[136]
Karn once slipped on a troop train carrying only sailors. By the time
officials noticed her, Karn reportedly had made herself for endearing to
the
troops that they made her an honorary sailor so she could ride.[137] McBride
said, "When I met her, she came off the train surrounded by dozens of
dear
friends -- the sailors."[138]
The fervid discussions started from the San Francisco broadcasts continued
for years because those Karn interviewed would drop by her office to
talk.
McBride said that no matter how complicated Karn's life might be at
the
time, she'd drop everything to talk to them during their New York
visits.[139]
Because of her pugnacity, Karn had many coups. During the Cold War, Karn in
the final months of her life planned broadcasts from Luxembourg at the
height of that country's rose season. McBride said the program resulted
in a
scoop about the first detailed description of secret factories in
Luxembourg. The Germans were planning a terminal attack by "a new and more
deadly from of the V-2 bomb."[140]
Karn one day decreed that McBride must devote weekends to expeditions" that
might turn into adventure stories to be told on Monday."[141] McBride said that
through these excursions, she was eventually sold on history:[142]
So many Fridays when the broadcast was over we --Stella, Janice, and I
-- set off by automobile or airplane for some spot, usually
historical,
that would provide material. These broadcasts quickly became
highlights in our week, and invitations poured in."[143]
McBride said it was Karn who tracked down some hobos, and McBride spent
some time with them.[144] McBride said that from Karn's circus
experience, she
had even acquired a flair for the flamboyant and a picturesque
vocabulary.[145]
Karn wanted to equip a ship to sail around the world to study the habits of
people who lived on out-of-the-way islands. McBride visited Haiti and the
Virgin Islands, chiefly because Karn was interested. Karn even
collected
money for the ship enterprise but had to give it up because she could
not
get anyone else interested in the idea.[146]
Perhaps the best Karn coup was arranging for McBride to the cover the
coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.[147] Karn was also someone who credited
women
for those kinds of projects with which they had been traditionally
involved.
She was the driving factor behind recognizing those involved in local
civic betterment projects. Karn and McBride were in tandem here. McBride
said Karn's most ambitious effort in civic recognition was the project
she
launched with the co-operation of the United Church Women, the
National
Council of Catholic Women and the National Council of Jewish Women. The
project aimed to discover what women in all parts of the country were
doing
for civic betterment.[148]
Among the judges were Fannie Hurst; Dorothy Lewis, coordinator of radio for
the United Nations; and Ruth Bryan Rodhe, former United States minister to
Denmark. Judges from the religious community were Myrta Ross of the
United
Church women, Elsie Elfsenbein of the National Council of Jewish Women
and
Marietta Barkhorn of the National Council of Jewish women.[149]
Winning the awards were Lulu Fairbanks of Seattle (for civic betterment),
Kate Carter of Salt Lake City (for preservation of American history),
Lillian Bishop of Salt Lake City (for civic reform and prison work),
Bertha
Schwartz of the Bronx (for battling drug abuse) and Mother Alice of
St.
Clare's Hospital (for building of hospitals).[150]'
Considering all that McBride said publicly about Karn throughout their long
working and personal relationship, it seems almost tongue in cheek for her
to say -- looking back after the final broadcast arranged by Karn in
the
apartment overlooking Central Park (May 1954): "I can't say that we
have
agreed perfectly all these years but we have a mutual respect and
affection
that means much to both of us" [emphasis added].[151]
Perhaps there is room for two "Queen Bees" in a hive after all.
Endnotes
[1] Cynthia Lowry, "I've Learned to Love" in Woman's Home Companion (May 1
954), p.
67.
[2] Mary Margaret McBride, entry in Current
Biography (March 1954), p. 38.
[3] Sidney Fields, "Only Human" Column in T
he New York Daily Mirror (October 4,
1953), p. 41.
[4] C
urtis Mitchell, "Mary Margaret's Magic" in Coronet 35 (January 1954): p. 132
.
[5] Barbara Heggie, "Mary Margaret's Miracle" in Woman's Home Companion
76 (April
1949): p. 82.
[6] Stuart Little, "Mrs. Rooseve
lt and Elliott to Do Daily NBC Women's Program" in New
Yo
rk Herald Tribune (October 1, 1950).
[7] Mary Margaret McBride, Out of the
Air (New York: Doubleday: 1960), p. 11.
[8] Collie Small, "Private Life of
a Pied Piper" in Collier's (December 4, 1948),
p. 37.
[9] Dr
aft of Proclamation for "Mary Margaret McBride Day" (October 31, 1940). Lloy
d Crow
Stark Papers, Western Historical Manuscripts Co
llection, 23 Ellis Library, University of
Missouri.
[
10] Mary Margaret McBride, entry in Current Biography (1942), p. 52.
[11
] "Miss M'Bride Honored With Award" in The Mexico Ledger, Mexico, Mo. (Novem
ber
13, 1940).
[12] "Mary Margaret McBride, Here Nov. 22, Is 'Specialist
in Friendship'" in The Mexico
Ledger, Mexico, Mo. (Novemb
er 11, 1940). Citing in part, Richard Dorance,
"The Pleas
ure of Simple Things" in Movie-Radio Guide (n. month, n. date,
1940).
[13] "McBride Manager, Businesswoman Who 'Can Take It'" in The
Mexico Ledger,
Mexico, Mo. (November 16, 1940). Quoting
Betty Colfax, "Big Stars and Baby
Elephants," Women's World (n.d., probab
ly 1940).
[14] McBride, Out of the Air, p. 36.
[15] McBride, Out of the Ai
r, p. 37.
[16] McBride, Out of the Air, p. 36.
[17] Lowry, "I've Learned t
o Love," Woman's Home Companion, p. 68.
[18] McBride, Out of the Air, p. 40
.
[19] Small, "Private Life of a Pied Piper," Collier's, p. 36.
[20] McBri
de, Out of the Air, p. 11.
[21] McBride, Out of the Air, p. 11.
[22] "Mary
Margaret McBride to Give Up Radio Program" in New York Herald Tribune
(March 9, 1954).
[23] McBride, Biographical Sketch No. 3886,
Associated Press Biographical Service, 50
Rockefeller
Plaza, New York (July 1, 1954)); in McBride morgue file in The New York
Times.
[24] McBride, Out of the Air, p. 11.
[25] Rose Feld
, "She Was Champ in Her Field," review in New York Herald Tribune [on
Out of the Air] (February 26, 1961).
[26] Curtis Mitchell, "Ma
ry Margaret's Magic" in Coronet 35 (January 1954): p. 134.
[27] "McBride M
anager, Businesswoman Who 'Can Take It'" in The Mexico Ledger,
Mexico, Mo. (November 16, 1940).
[28] "McBride Manager . . . 'Can Tak
e It'," The Ledger (November 16, 1940).
[29] Mitchell, "Mary Margaret's Mag
ic," Coronet, p. 134. See also Dick Dorrance's
thumbnail
sketch of Mary Margaret McBride in Movie-Radio Guide (late 1940,
before November 11), reportedly edited by Curtis Mitchell. See also
Mary
Margaret McBride, A Long Way From Missouri, autobiog
raphy (New York:
Putnam, 1959), p. 30.
[30] Mitchell, "M
ary Margaret's Magic," Coronet, p. 134. See also Dick Dorrance's
thumbnail sketch of Mary Margaret McBride in Movie-Radio Guide (late
1940,
before November 11), reportedly edited by Curtis M
itchell.
[31] Mary Margaret McBride, A Long Way From Missouri autobiography
(New York:
Putnam, 1959), p. 29.
[32] Mary Margaret McB
ride, Tune in for Elizabeth [Career Story of a Radio
Inte
rviewer] (New York, Dodd, Mead & Company, 1945), p. 22.
[33] McBride, Tune
in for Elizabeth, p. 22.
[34] McBride, A Long Way From Missouri, p. 30.
[3
5] McBride, A Long Way From Missouri, p. 30.
[36] McBride, A Long Way From
Missouri, p. 30.
[37] Ernestine Evans, "A Mellow Memory Book," review of A
Long Way From Missouri in
New York Herald Tribune (March
1, 1959).
[38] Evans, "A Mellow Memory Book," Herald Tribune (March 1, 1959
).
[39] McBride, A Long Way From Missouri, p. 31.
[40] McBride, A Long Way
From Missouri, pp. 32-34.
[41] McBride, A Long Way From Missouri, p. 37.
[42] McBride, A Long Way From Missouri, p. 37.
[43] McBride, A Long Way Fro
m Missouri, p. 39.
[44] McBride, A Long Way From Missouri, p. 45.
[45] McB
ride, A Long Way From Missouri, p. 57.
[46] McBride, A Long Way From Misso
uri, p. 55.
[47] McBride, A Long Way From Missouri, pp. 61-62.
[48] McBrid
e, Sketch No. 3886 of Associated Press Biographical Service.
[49] McBride
, A Long Way From Missouri, p. 51.
[50] McBride, A Long Way From Missouri,
p. 64.
[51] McBride, A Long Way From Missouri, p. 71.
[52] "McBride Manage
r, Businesswoman Who 'Can Take It'," The Ledger (November 16,
1940). Quoting Betty Colfax, "Big Stars and Baby Elephants," Women's W
orld
(n.d., probably 1940).
[53] "McBride Manager, Busin
esswoman Who 'Can Take It'," The Ledger (November 16,
194
0).
[54] John Hutchens, "A Long Way From Missouri," book review in New York
Herald
Tribune (March 5, 1959).
[55] "McBride Manager,
Businesswoman Who 'Can Take It'," The Ledger (November 16,
1940).
[56] "McBride Manager, Businesswoman Who 'Can Take It'," The Ledge
r (November 16,
1940). Quoting Betty Colfax, "Big Stars a
nd Baby Elephants," Women's World
(n.d., probably 1940).
[57] McBride, Out of the Air, p. 36.
[58] McBride, Tune in for Elizabeth,
p. 56.
[59] McBride, Tune in for Elizabeth, p. 60.
[60] McBride, Tune in f
or Elizabeth, p. 68.
[61] McBride, Tune in for Elizabeth, p. 60.
[62] McBr
ide, Tune in for Elizabeth, p. 61.
[63] McBride, Tune in for Elizabeth, p.
61.
[64] McBride, Tune in for Elizabeth, pp. 76-77.
[65] McBride, Tune in
for Elizabeth, p. 78.
[66] McBride, Tune in for Elizabeth, p. 83.
[67] McB
ride, Tune in for Elizabeth, pp. 83-84.
[68] McBride, Tune in for Elizabeth
, p. 83.
[69] Jack Gould, "Mary Margaret M'Bride Switches to WJZ" in The Ne
w York Times
(October 10, 1950). McBride, Out of the Air,
p. 147.
[70] McBride, Out of the Air, p. 32.
[71] McBride, Out of the Air
, pp. 35-36.
[72] McBride, Out of the Air, p. 42.
[73] McBride, Out of the
Air, p. 42.
[74] McBride, Out of the Air, p. 134.
[75] McBride, Out of th
e Air, p. 32.
[76] McBride, Out of the Air, p. 135.
[77] McBride, Out of t
he Air, p. 55.
[78] Entry on McBride, Current Biography (1941), pp. 52-54.
[79] "'Mary Margaret' Will Quit Daily Radio Stint After 20 Years for New We
ekly TV Show"
in Columbia Missourian (March 8, 1954).
[80] "Miss McBride Voted Woman of the Year in Radio by AP Poll" in Journali
sm Alumni
News 3: 1 (January 15, 1951): p. 1. Sarah Lockw
ood Williams Papers, Western
Historical Manuscripts Collection, 21 Ellis L
ibrary, University of
Missouri-Columbia.
[81] "Peace Hon
ors Announced" in The New York Times (no day, 1950, morgue file
#141630, McBride, at The New York Times).
[82] Mitchell, "Mary Marga
ret's Magic," Coronet, p. 131.
[83] "Trade Frontiers Found Expanding" in Th
e New York TimesE(1952; undated item
in McBride's morgue
file, #141630, The New York Times).
[84] Small, "Private Life of a Pied Pip
er," Collier's, p. 28.
[85] Small, "Private Life of a Pied Piper," Collier'
s, p. 28.
[86] McBride, Out of the Air, p. 53.
[87] Allen Churchill, "Mary
Margaret McBride," The American Mercury 63, 301
(Januar
y 1949): p. 7.
[88] Robert C. Ruark, "Mary Margaret" in New York World-Tele
gram (May 16, 1949).
[89] "The McBride Phenomenon" in Newsweek (May 30, 194
9), p. 50.
[90] McBride, Out of the Air, p. 141.
[91] McBride, Out of the
Air, p. 63.
[92] McBride, Out of the Air, p. 63.
[93] "McBride Manager, Bu
sinesswoman Who 'Can Take It,'" The Ledger (November 16,
1940). Quoting Betty Colfax, "Big Stars and Baby elephants" in Women's
World (n.d., probably 1940).
[94] McBride, Out of the Air, p.
42.
[95] "McBride Manager, Businesswoman Who 'Can Take It'," The Ledger (N
ovember 16,
1940). Quoting Betty Colfax, "Big Stars and B
aby elephants" in Women's
World (n.d., probably 1940).
[
96] Ben Gross, I Looked and I Listened, informal recollections of radio and
TV (New York: Random House, 1954), p. 139.
[97] Gross, I
Looked and I Listened, p. 139.
[98] Time (December 2, 1926), p. 82.
[99]
Mary Margaret McBride, "Memories of My Roommate" in Echoes From the Woods
(March 1945), p. 4.
[100] McBride, "Memories of My Roommat
e," Echoes From the Woods, p. 4.
[101] Feld, "She Was Champ in Her Field,"
Herald Tribune, (February 26, 1961).
[102] "Mary Margaret McBride of Radio
Talk Show Dies," obituary in The New York Times
(April 8
, 1976).
[103] McBride, A Long Way From Missouri, pp. 205-206.
[104] "Call
All Statesmen" in New York Herald Tribune (March 6, 1955), news item
in M
cBride morgue file of The New York Times. Quoting The New York Daily
News (n.d.). Hand-written note on clipping, "by Sann."
[105] "C
all All Statesmen," Herald Tribune (March 6, 1955).
[106] Samuel T. William
son, "The Girl From Home," review in The New York Times (March
1, 1959).
[107] Philip Hamburger, "Mary Margaret McBride: A Supersaleswoman Shares Adv
entures of
Mind and Stomach With a Host of Radio Liste
ners" in Life 17 (December 4, 1944): p.
48.
[108] McBrid
e, Out of the Air, p. 36.
[109] "Woman of the Week" (March 20, 1943) [New Y
ork Post?]; McBride's morgue file
in The New York Times.
[110] McBride, Out of the Air, p. 39.
[111] McBride, Out of the Air, p. 34
.
[112] McBride, Out of the Air, p. 40.
[113] "Mary Margaret McBride, Here
Nov. 22, Is 'Specialist in Friendship'" in The Mexico
Ledger, Mexico, Mo.
(November 11, 1940).
[114] "McBride Manager, Businesswoman Who 'Can Take I
'," The Ledger (November 16,
1940). Quoting Betty Colfax,
"Big Stars and Baby elephants" in Women's
World (n.d., p
robably 1940).
[115] McBride, Out of the Air, p. 33.
[116] Feld, "She Was
Champ in Her Field," Herald Tribune (February 26, 1961).
[117] "Mary Margar
et McBride, Here Nov. 22, Is 'Specialist in Friendship'," The Ledger
(November 11, 1940).
[118] Lowry, "I've Learned to Love," Woma
n's Home Companion, p. 67.
[119] "McBride Manager, Businesswoman Who 'Can T
ake It'," The Ledger (November 16,
1940).
[120] McBride,
Out of the Air, p. 41.
[121] McBride, Out of the Air, p. 102.
[122] McBri
de, Out of the Air, p. 107.
[123] McBride, Out of the Air, p. 108.
[124] M
cBride, Out of the Air, p. 39.
[125] McBride, A Long Way From Missouri, p.
41.
[126] McBride, A Long Way From Missouri, p. 66.
[127] McBride, A Long
Way From Missouri, p. 66.
[128] McBride, A Long Way From Missouri, p. 66.
[129] Mary Margaret McBride, America for Me (New York: MacMillan, 1941), p.
56.
[130] McBride, Out of the Air, p. 34.
[131] McBride, Out of the Air, p
. 34.
[132] McBride, Out of the Air, p. 41.
[133] McBride, Out of the Air,
p. 41.
[134] McBride, Out of the Air, p. 42.
[135] McBride, Out of the Ai
r, p. 42.
[136] McBride, Out of the Air, p. 42.
[137] McBride, Out of the
Air, p. 42.
[138] McBride, Out of the Air, p. 42.
[139] McBride, Out of th
e Air, p. 41.
[140] McBride, Out of the Air, p. 41.
[141] McBride, Out of
the Air, p. 45.
[142] McBride, Out of the Air, p. 46.
[143] McBride, Out o
f the Air, p. 45.
[144] McBride, Out of the Air, p. 45.
[145] Mary Margare
t McBride, "My Most Unforgettable Character" [about Estella Karn] in
Reader's Digest 80 (January 1962): p. 99.
[146] McBride, Out of
the Air, p. 34.
[147] McBride, Out of the Air, p. 149.
[148] McBride, Out
of the Air, p. 14.
[149] McBride, Out of the Air, p. 14.
[150] McBride, O
ut of the Air, p. 14.
[151] Lowry, "I've Learned to Love," Woman's Home Com
panion, p. 67.
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