Marie Matthews 1934-2024

Sad news to report, Marie Matthews, the singing voices of Young Scrooge and the Cratchit daughter in Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol, and the last surviving cast member, has passed away after a long illness.  She is most well known for her touching rendition of Bob Merrill's heartfelt lyrics in "Alone in the World" from the classic 1962 animated TV special.

Although this was her most famous role, her singing voice can also be heard in a number of films: Julius Caesar (1953), The Egyptian (1954), Bhowani Junction (1956), Counterfeit Traitor (1962) and The Singing Nun (1966).  Later she appeared on screen in the TV movie Weekend Nun (1976) and in the series, Angie (1976). 

During the research phase on my book on the making of the groundbreaking special, Marie proved to be the most difficult cast or crew member to find.  There were numerous Marie Matthews in California and I considered it no small victory when, after numerous dead end letters and calls, I asked the man on the other end of the line if this was the number for the Marie Matthews that had sung in Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol.  Yes, it is, replied her husband, Wayne, ending a months long search.

From L to R, Jack Cassidy, Marie Matthews and Joan Gardner

Marie had a fascinating story of how she came to be part of the cast, which is recounted in my book. Although it had been 45 years before, she provided key details about the song recording session which helped to flesh out the events of that momentous day.

Shortly after the book was published in 2009, Roberta and Judy Levitow were in New York at The Paley Center for Media and somehow the fact that their father, Abe Levitow, directed Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol came up which quickly led to a request for a presentation and screening of the classic animated special that December at the Paley.  I was asked to bring a cast or crew member to participate in the event and I approached Marie about joining me.  She readily agreed and ended up performing "Alone in the World" live and on stage for an appreciative audience.

Unbeknownst to me, Marie had never been to New York City.  Adding to the specialness of the trip, we visited St Patrick's Cathedral, where her father had once played the organ.

A few years later, and fifty years after the recording session, in 2012, Marie, her daughter Melinda and I were treated to a tour of the Warner Hollywood lot and the soundstage where she sang "Alone in the World" and "Lord's Bright Blessing," which was the subject of a previous blog post here.

Many times over the years, we would get together for a Christmas lunch at The Smokehouse restaurant in Burbank, which once shared a parking lot with the UPA studio, where Marie auditioned for the part and where the special was actually produced.  It had become a part of my Christmas tradition.

One of the hardest parts about researching and writing a book isn't the actual process, although that's plenty difficult, it's becoming friends with the interview subjects and then having to say goodbye, sometimes just a few years later.  Most everyone who graciously participated in the book has now left us and I'm grateful to have met and spent time with each one of them as well as having been able to tell their stories.  Marie will be missed by her children and grandchildren as well as the millions of viewers who were touched by her singing in Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol.  It goes without saying that I will miss her, too.  Thank you for everything, Marie.

Back in print!

 After 8 years of being out of print, I'm pleased to announce that my book on the making of the first animated Christmas special is back in print!  But wait, there's more!  This edition is softcover but instead of reprinting the 2009 book, this is a reprint of the 2012 deluxe slipcased 50th anniversary edition, which had 48 more pages than the original and over 200 more images.  This edition has the added bonus of 2 more pages with 6 more rare photos from the song recording session, photos that were uncovered years after the deluxe edition had sold out.  

To sum up, this printing has 180 pages vs the original edition's 128 pages and 439 images vs 232 in the original.  Because of the limited print run of the deluxe version (only 250 copies), very few people have seen the extra material.  If you only own the first printing, you owe it to yourself to get this version, it's the most complete edition ever printed.  Available online only from the usual suspects like Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

The making of Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol

Welcome to my 100th post on this blog!  It's been 6 years since I published the first edition of Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol: The Making of the First Animated Special, which recounted the virtually lost story of two Broadway songwriters, Styne and Merrill, and the once cutting-edge animation studio, UPA, both of whom had an outsized impact on all future animated Christmas specials.  The book that no publisher would take on went through two sold-out printings and an out-of-print special commemorative 50th anniversary edition because I decided the story was compelling enough to publish it myself.

I'm sorry to say that the limited print runs have ensured that any edition of the book you can find from third party vendors will now likely be both rare and pricey.  However, if you're looking for a special Christmas gift or just want to get the book before it's gone forever, I recently discovered a few treasures in storage so here's your last chance.  This is a list of the final remaining inventory:

First printing of the book, signed by the author and 9 of the original cast and crew, #50 of 50: Marie Matthews, Laura Olsher, Jane Kean, Bob Singer, Gloria Wood, David Weidman, Bob Inman, Marty Murphy and Anne Guenther.  $199

50th Anniversary Collector's Edition, signed by the author,  #204 of 250, #248 of 250.  This edition was revised and expanded from the first edition with 48 new pages and over 200 more images.  Includes a separate Blu-ray/DVD with bonus material, which features the lost Overture and one of the song demos played and sung by Styne and Merrill.  $175 each. 

If you'd like to purchase any of the above items, send me an email at info@oxberrypress.com.  First come, first served.

To all my readers over the years, have a Merry Christmas!

Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol, live

Douglas Sills, who will be performing the role of Magoo/Scrooge.

It's been talked about for years, doing a live, theatrical version of Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol and here's what might be the first step--a benefit concert featuring all the songs from the special sung by current Broadway performers.  The event happens December 15th in New York, details can be found here.  I understand it's being sponsored by Jule Styne's widow, Margaret Styne, with several other key players laboring behind the scenes for the last 18 months or so to bring it to fruition.  If any of you are fortunate enough (or well-off enough) to see it, write in with details.  Here's hoping it leads to a full-blown theatrical staging: an animated musical set on the Broadway stage actually being performed on the Broadway stage!

Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol, revisited

As the Christmas season is upon us, it seems only fitting that I should start out the month of December with a new post sharing some recent discoveries from Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol. 

I learned many things researching, writing and publishing three editions of my book on the making of the classic special, but perhaps the most salient thing I learned is that no book is ever complete.  When I put together the 50th anniversary edition, I did everything I could to make it the most complete version of the book using new information, artwork and photos.  After 5 years with the material, it seemed like anything waiting to be discovered had already been found.  And for a couple of years I was right.

However, life is never that simple.  When Lea Orgel, widow of producer and MMCC creator Lee Orgel, needed to move into an assisted living facility because of declining health, I was asked by her daughter, JoAnn, to help her dig through a lifetime's worth of boxes in Lea's storage unit.  We went through all the boxes pertaining to Lee's career in entertainment but found nothing of significance regarding the Christmas special.

Three months ago, JoAnn called me asking me to take a look at several boxes she had discovered that had been marked in such a way as to mislead us as to the nature of their contents.  Because we had already gone through so many boxes, I assumed that what was in these boxes was most likely material from Lee Orgel's later career, and my assumption proved to be largely correct.  There were stacks of art from the mid-60s to the mid-70s, most of it drawn by Corny Cole, everything from The New Three Stooges to a variety of ABC After School Specials, from unproduced pilots to prime time animated specials.  One pilot, the Morey Amsterdam-produced Black, Cloke and Dagga, was the subject of a previous post on Cartoon Research.  (Images from the other projects will be posted in a future blog entry.)

But the most amazing find was hidden in a letter-sized box, which appeared to contain merely a 2" stack of photos from Lee Orgel's Capitol Theater days, signed 8 x 10s from famous and obscure singers and musicians who performed at the theater.  The images were fascinating as a time capsule but also interesting to see well-known performers like Doris Day as they were in the 40s.  However, in the middle of that stack of photos were fifteen 4 x 4" photos taken during the song recording session for Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol!  Photos that hadn't been seen since they were taken and had never before been published, photos that I would have loved to have included in the 50th anniversary edition, photos that gave just a tiny bit more insight into that historic day.

As there are no plans to do another edition of the Magoo book, I have decided to post the photos here.  For the first time in 52 years, here are the long lost images:

Jule Styne with Jane Kean, the biggest find in the batch.

Production manager Earl Jonas talks with Hank Saperstein while Jim Backus reads the trades.

Lee Orgel confers with Jim Backus.

Jim Backus chats with Hank Saperstein.

Paul Frees with Jule Styne.  In the background are Royal Dano, left, and Earl Jonas, right.

Walter Scharf conducts a rehearsal as Backus listens.

The Recording of Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol, Pt. 2

The studio entrance in the 1940s

In a previous post I discussed the history of the facility where the dialogue sessions for Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol took place, Ryder Sound Services.  In honor of the special’s 50^th anniversary today, we will be visiting the facility where the songs were recorded, the Scoring Stage on the Samuel Goldwyn lot or Stage 7 as it was also known.

The west entrance of Stage 7 today

The Goldwyn lot has been around since 1917, and has been variously known as the Hampton Studios, the Pickford-Fairbanks Studio, the  United Artists Studio and for most of its history, the Samuel Goldwyn Studios.  For a period, Warner Bros. owned the lot, calling it Warner Bros. Hollywood but today, it’s known simply as The Lot.  Some of the features shot there include the silent version of Robin Hood, West Side Story, Some Like It Hot and Porgy and Bess.  TV shows to film there, either on the backlot or on stages include The Fugitive, Dynasty and Sid and Marty Krofft’s, Sigmund and the Sea Monsters.  The backlot no longer exists and has been taken over by an electric substation, partially seen in the upper right corner in the photo below.  

View of Stage 7 from the adjacent parking structure

For 45 years, the Goldwyn scoring stage was considered the premiere orchestral recording facility in the motion picture industry.  Lee Orgel had aimed high when he went looking for songwriters for the first animated Christmas special, snagging two of the premiere Broadway songwriters of the time, Jule Styne and Bob Merrill.  He continued in that same vein with his choice of recording venues, using first Ryder Sound for the dialogue sessions and then the scoring stage on the Goldwyn lot for the day-long song recording session.  Walter Scharf later returned to the stage to record the bridging score with a 27 piece orchestra.  (More photos from the song recording session can be seen in my book.)

Jim Backus, Joan Gardner, Jule Styne, Laura Olsher, Royal Dano, Paul Frees and Walter Scharf

The stage had a hardwood floor which was highly prized for the recording of music and, at over 8000 square feet, was large enough to handle a 60+ member orchestra as well as the addition of choral groups if needed.  It was sought after by many composers, and the songs and score for the Christmas special joined an illustrious list of movie scores recorded at the facility—The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape by Elmer Bernstein, Marnie and Torn Curtain by Bernard Herrmann and both The Wizard of Oz and portions of Gone with The Wind.  Frank Sinatra, who shot The Manchurian Candidate and Guys and Dolls on the lot, recorded The Concert Sinatra album on the stage in 1963.  (Sinatra had his own private bungalow on the lot for 35 years, which still stands today.)  Pictured below are 7of the Oscars awarded to the facility for Best Sound.

By 1972, the scoring stage had fallen into disuse and served as studio storage.   In 1974, a fire on the Sigmund sound stage destroyed that stage as well as several others.  While some of the stages were rebuilt, others were not and the decision was made to convert the former scoring stage into a shooting stage, ripping out the hardwood flooring.  Today, the stage is home to one of the largest cycloramas in Hollywood.  A ‘cyc’, as it’s known in industry jargon, is used primarily for special effects shots in order to avoid the joint where the walls meet the floor and provides a sense of infinity with a concave curve joining the horizontal and vertical planes.

I asked the singer for Young Scrooge, Marie Matthews (pictured above), to reminisce at the facility where she recorded her songs 50 years ago.  We were granted permission to visit the lot and sound stage by studio manager, Dusty Barbee and were guided by Security head, Dave Del Prete, who is also the lot’s unofficial historian.  Much has changed on that stage in 50 years and the presence of the huge white cyclorama which spans the entire length and almost the entire width of the room is overwhelming.  In the shot above, Marie is standing just a few feet in front of where Sinatra is pictured below.  

With the aid of photos taken during Sinatra’s recording session for The Concert Sinatra album, Marie was able to remember that the songs were recorded in the center rear corner of the above photo, where most of the musicians are sitting.  However, due to the position of the cyclorama, we were unable to visit that portion of the stage.  She also recalled that Jim Backus, suffering from a bad back, would close the lid of the grand piano between takes and lie down on it for relief.   As photos from the song session attest, the space didn’t seem nearly as large as it does in the photo above but the stage was neither as brightly nor as fully lit as in this shot, making it seem less imposing.  Recording configurations that no longer exist and the use of sound dampening isolation booths around each of the singers would have also further constricted the space.

Jack Cassidy, Marie Matthews and Joan Gardner rehearsing Lord's Bright Blessing

Marie had not been on the lot since she recorded the songs in 1962 and was delighted to revisit the stage and the facilities.  For me, standing in the room where two of Elmer Bernstein’s most iconic scores were recorded was inspiring but being there with Marie Matthews and knowing that the songs and score for Mr. Magoo’s  Christmas Carol made the moment truly special.   Those songs and score made their debut fifty years ago tonight.  Be sure to catch NBC’s airing of the special on Saturday, December 22^nd at 8 PM.  

Darrell Van Citters and Marie Matthews outside Stage 7

Special thanks to Dave Del Prete for taking time out of his busy day to show Marie, her daughter Melinda and me around the stage and lot, Dusty Barbee for allowing us access to the facility and to Heidi Ewart for making the arrangements.

Walter Scharf, composer

While the songwriters Jule Styne and Bob Merrill were responsible for the emotional anchor points of Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol, the man who tied the various themes together and underscored the emotions between the songs was Walter Scharf.  Like any good film composer, his music was there to heighten the story’s emotions without ever calling attention to itself.  He was the consummate craftsman; his cues for Christmas Carol are so subtle yet so well written and arranged, one is never consciously aware of how much they enhance the film.   Despite his impact on the final product, he never once mentions the film in his autobiography, Composed and Conducted by Walter Scharf, or lists it in his filmography.  He even includes a picture in the book from the Christmas Carol scoring session, in which he is conducting with Jim Backus at his side, but gives no indication of what project it’s from.

 

His involvement in the process was significant although relatively short.  At the beginning, Scharf was there for all the vocal auditions, accompanied the candidates on the piano and consulted with Jule Styne on final choices.   At the song recording session, he repeatedly rehearsed the singers while Styne meticulously listened in on the performances and Scharf conducted the live orchestra as the performers laid down their tracks to tape.  Much later, after production was complete, he wrote the score that bridged the spaces between Styne and Merrill’s well placed songs, conducting the final scoring and choral sessions.  

Although he overlooked his work on the first animated Christmas television special, Walter Scharf sailed right through the heart of American popular entertainment in the twentieth century.  He began his musical career in New York playing the piano when he was 4 and by the age of 16, orchestrated Manhattan for Richard Rodgers; at 20, he orchestrated Girl Crazy for George Gershwin.  He worked with future film star Alice Faye in New York and soon followed her to Rudy Valle’s radio show, later ending up in the Hollywood film business when Valle came west to make a film for Warner Bros.   While at Warner’s, he worked with Al Jolson and Marion Davies, as well as scoring a number of films.

Before long he headed over to 20^th Century Fox to work with his old friend, Alice Faye, who had suggested him to Darryl Zanuck for use on musicals.  It was there that he met Jule Styne, whose job was coaching singers for movies, and the two began a friendship that would endure for the rest of their lives and result in a number of collaborations over the years.  Styne eventually ended up at Republic Pictures and several years later, Walter Scharf rejoined his old friend when he was brought in as head of the Republic music department.  While running the department, Scharf still managed to score well over a dozen features including some with John Wayne and Roy Rogers.  Tired of his role as administrator, Scharf wanted to get back to composing and left for Universal Studios, where he worked on a variety of films, some starring the likes of Abbott and Costello and Francis the Talking Mule.

After a brief stint for Howard Hughes at RKO and then for Sam Goldwyn on Hans Christian Andersen with Danny Kaye, he moved to Paramount in the 1950s, working on films starring Bing Crosby.  There he met Irving Berlin, who, according to Scharf, began writing “White Christmas” in Scharf’s office with Walter taking down the first notes; he was the first to hear Berlin play it.  Others he worked with while at Paramount were Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis (including the 1963 classic, The Nutty Professor,  Frank Sinatra on The Joker’s Wild (which was the debut of the song, “All the Way”, written  by Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn), and several Elvis Presley films starting with the second film, Loving You.

The 60s saw Walter Scharf re-unite with his old friend, Jule Styne, first on Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol, later on The Dangerous Christmas of Red Riding Hood and finally on the film version of Funny Girl.  Television scoring began to dominate more of his schedule and film score buffs will likely remember his work from the mid-60s series, The Man From Uncle and Mission: Impossible.  He next turned to documentaries when David Wolper engaged him for the Jacques Cousteau specials; soon he was also scoring National Geographic specials as well.  He was incredibly prolific scoring for TV, doing over 500 shows in his career.  Scharf admitted to having no problem working weekends and holidays.

In the 70s, Walter Scharf worked with Lee Orgel and Mr. Magoo one more time, scoring the NBC special, Uncle Sam Magoo.  Shortly thereafter he contributed to the pop culture classic, Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, which he orchestrated and arranged from a score by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse.  His next film, Ben, was the sequel to Willard, the movie about a loner obsessed with rats.  To sing the title song he composed (with lyrics by Don Black), he brought in the Jackson 5, led by 13 year old Michael Jackson; within 2 months of making the track, they were #1 on the pop charts.  Both the song and score were nominated for Academy Awards and although neither one won, the song did net him a Golden Globe.  Over his long career, Scharf was nominated 11 times for an Oscar, won 4 Emmys, 2 Radio awards and 1 Golden Globe. 

In addition to composing the score for both Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol and Uncle Sam Magoo, Walter Scharf worked on two other animated projects-he was an uncredited orchestrator for the Fleischer feature, Mr. Bug Goes to Town and wrote the music for Filmation’s Journey Back to Oz!

In his later years, after he done just about anything and everything in film scoring, it was clear that Walter Scharf still retained values in a business that often overlooks them.  Interviewed by a newspaper reporter he said, “…composing for documentaries is what I love to do most.  The creative challenges are varied and endless.  In addition, TV documentaries offer clean, family entertainment, and I’d rather be associated with that kind of project than any other.”

Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol song folio

It only took 49 years but now, for the first time ever, a collection of the sheet music from Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol is available from Alfred Music Publishing.  It's a bound and illustrated folio containing all of the songs and lyrics from the special in their complete versions, including the deleted middle section of the singing waiters from “It’s Great to Be Back on Broadway”.  The edition includes a foreword by yours truly and was monitored and approved by the Styne estate. It’s a great compliment to last year’s DVD release and song release.  This a small press run so if you’ve been wanting to play and sing these tunes at home or include "Lord's Bright Blessing" as part of your Christmas caroling, don’t wait.  It’s available here now and in music stores, retailing for $14.99.  Amazon also has it here.