In December of 1952, shortly before my mother’s New York television career ended, she appeared in a benefit show; it was for the War Wounded Christmas Fund of the New York Journal-American newspaper. At the time, she was singing on Morey Amsterdam’s local TV program, Breakfast with Music; the program aired weekday mornings on New York station WNBT (later renamed WNBC), and also starred musician (and bandleader) Milton DeLugg.
The benefit took place at Skouras’ Academy of Music in New York, and included appearances by Dagmar, Gene Rayburn, Skitch Henderson, Faye Emerson, Clifton Webb, Morey Amsterdam, Herb Sheldon, Jackie Robinson, Marguerite Piazza, and Ben Grauer, who served as the show’s MC. The above Journal-American picture (rather wrinkled, unfortunately) appeared in the paper the week before the benefit, and featured Herb Sheldon, my mother, and Morey Amsterdam. The picture below (a Xeroxed image, which, one also notes, has accumulated scrapes and other imperfections, over time) was part of a feature in the newspaper after the show took place.
