TEX AND JINX Radio & Television BROADCAST HISTORY:
April 22, 1946- February 27, 1959.
WEAF (WNBC, WRCA), New York weekdays at 8:30 A.M. until 1954; at 1:00pm,1954-1955; then at 6:30 and 10:35pm until July 31, 1958, moving briefly to WOR, broadcasting at 2:15pm.
In a rare extended live interview Gary Cooper address the issue of censorship in motion pictures comparing the more conservative rules applied and implemented in Hollywood as compared to those more liberal approaches in Europe. He states that when movies are able to be more explicit, and touch on human issues and values, in a more realistic way, a greater honesty and thoughtfulness is achieved.
Interviewer Tex McCrary asks Cooper his opinion on the quality of older Hollywood films. He states that films such as those made by Cecil B. DeMille stand up to the test of time and points out the example of Gone With The Wind which had such magnificent production values. He agrees that many older Hollywood films have become dated.
Gary Cooper provides an interesting anecdote when he was visiting in France, seeing the movie Morocco, which he stared in, dubbed in French.
Other topics discussed include his love of making films in Mexico where he has made three including his most recent film, Vera Cruz. Cooper reflects on the beauty of the country as a backdrop for an adventure. Cooper talks at length about the making of this motion picture which has just opened in theaters prior to this interview. Gary accepted making Vera Cruz based on only reading a rough unfinished 60 page draft of the script but one that appealed to him as soon as he read the draft.
Gary Cooper adds some amusing anecdotes including one related to working with Native American Indians.
The subject of television is discussed and its influence over the Hollywood system, actually making producers consider better scripted films and more innovation to compete with TV, a new medium which Gary has never appeared live save for quick appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show (Toast of the Town) and an Academy Award show, winning Best Actor for High Noon.
Copper expresses his thoughts about appearing on live television which he states may be fun to do in the future, and having never worked, live, in theater or on the stage.
Additional thoughts are addressed by Gary Cooper including never having worked on a film in Europe but filming not too long ago, Return to Paradise, in Samoa.
NOTE: There is some "crackle" noise transferred from the original 16" Electronic Transcription. However, the level and clarity of the broadcast is excellent.
In addition to the Kollmars (Dorothy Kilgallen and husband Richard Kollmar) and the Fitzgeralds (Pegeen and husband Ed Fitzgerald), another well-recognized New York couple, newlyweds Tex McCrary and Jinx Falkenburg, added their own bread-and-bacon banter to the local airwaves between 1946 and 1959. Their gabfest, initially Hi Jinx but later revised to Tex and Jinx, was beamed over WEAF which was subsequently re-lettered WNBC and later WRCA. In limited doses, the flagship outlet of the National Broadcasting Company transmitted "Meet Tex" and Jinx to the whole country during 1947 and 1948.
Tex and Jinx devoted most of their airtime to lofty and noble concepts, visitors and sidebars. Tex and Jinx [on WEAF-WNBC-WRCA] were interviewing Bernard Baruch, Margaret Truman, or Ethel Waters…. McCrary built the show on the assumption that the early morning audience was not stupid, as programmers generally assumed; that people in general had fresher minds and were more open to serious topics at the beginning of the day.”
Their joint radio venture began in April 1946 just 10 months following their nuptials (June 10, 1945). Launched as a breakfast feature, the series later shifted to afternoons and finally into the evening hours before departing the air a dozen years afterward. They were branded by one journalist “Mr. Brains and Mrs. Beauty.”
In early 1947 NBC put them on its television network as a portion of a Sunday evening quarter-hour dubbed Bristol-Myers Tele-Varieties. The McCrary's were naturals for TV,” wrote a reviewer, with their combination of friendly chatter, interviews, and features. That summer Tex McCrary and & Jinx Falkenburg were awarded an exclusive Sunday night half-hour format under the appellation "At Home with Tex and Jinx." A decade later, during the 1957-58 season, the duo hosted a daytime NBC-TV showcase, "The Tex and Jinx Show."
When hepatitis sidetracked Falkenburg in 1958 from their broadcast commitments, McCrary carried on solo for a brief period of time on their radio.
In the 1980s the couple separated, remaining on genial terms. McCrary died in New York on July 29, 2003 and Falkenburg expired just 29 days later in the same city, on August 27, 2003.
NOTE::
The scores of TEX AND JINX SHOWS archived by Archival Television Audio, Inc. were originally obtained as original 16" Electronic Discs from Barry Farber, producer of the show (1957-1959), in 1960 after he had begun his own career in front of the mike at WINS Radio.
These discs were subsequently transferred to 1/4" reel to reel tape, and then disposed. These broadcasts preserved in the library of Archival Television Audio, Inc. are rare and represent the largest known collection of TEX AND JINX extant broadcasts in the world.
Today's Guest: Gary Cooper.
NOTE:
THIS TRANSCRIPTION ANALOG TO DIGITAL RECORDING WAS MADE FOR GARY COOPER'S DAUGHTER, MARIA COOPER JANIS July 6, 2023.
AND, interestingly, less than a year later after the Cooper TEX & JINX interview was broadcast, Jinx Falkenburg would have her most memorable interview in her career as confirmed by her son John in a phone call and letter to yours truly, Phil Gries.
JOHN McCRARY
9/10/2001
Dear Phil,
[Letter in response to receiving a requested audio air check by Jinx Falkenburg ("Tex & Jinx" live radio broadcast) with guests Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando and Sid Caesar]
"Thank you again for the cassette. As I mentioned on the phone, my mother, Jinx (Falkenburg), has always said that that interview with Marilyn (Monroe) - Dec. 12, 1955 - was her most difficult interview ever."
Sincerely,
John McCrary