"You
found me just in time . . . "
.
A
middle-aged mother and housewife, broke and unknown, Roberta Sherwood became
one of the all-time great nightclub success stories, capturing the hearts
of audiences everywhere with her strong, sweet voice, her simple, sincere
approach to ballads, and her trademarks - banging a cymbal, tapping her
foot, wearing glasses and draping a sweater over her shoulders. The
elder daughter of old-time minstrel showman, Robert Sherwood, she and her
sister Anne started their own vaudeville and nightclub act, appearing in
1932 in a Miami Silver Slipper revue, directed by handsome ex-Shubert
Broadway vet, Don Lanning. She quit show business to marry him and
struggled to continue to perform while raising a family - singing in lounge
bars, at a Kiwanis Club party, a firemen's ball or with a local dance band.
With her future seeming more and more hopeless, she finally landed a job
at a small late-hour drinking joint called Murray Franklin's in Miami Beach,
and the rest is history, as Walter Winchell recounts the story:
.
Magic
Wand
.
Song star Roberta Sherwood was my biggest show biz skewp.
She tried for nearly twenty-five years to "make" the Big Town. The
nearest she got to New York was Elizabeth, New Jersey. She married
Don Lanning, a Broadway musical comedy star, and they raised three sons
and once owned the largest restaurant on Biscayne Boulevard, Miami.
Then, several sour breaks - including Mr. Lanning's grave illness - put
them out of business. Roberta had to take whatever bar and grill
owners could afford - to feed her family.
"Sometimes," she said, "I got as low as ten dollars a night."
"Oh, Roberta," I said, "who works for ten dollars a night?"
"Hungry people," was the reply.
On January 15, 1956, I found her in a cafe at Miami Beach. She was
singing love songs, torch songs, sittin'on the porch songs - You're
Nobody 'Til Somebody Loves You, Cry Me A River, Take Your
Shoes Off Baby and Start Runnin' Through My Mind - and so many other
greats.
A few columns later I reported: "Att'n Networks, Recording Execs,
et. al: Take the fastest plane, train or bus and go to Murray
Franklin's place opposite the Roney Plaza, Miami Beach, and find yourself
a gold mine named Roberta Sherwood!"
The Copacabana landlord, J. Podell, booked her "blind" at five thousand
per week. She jammed his Copa every night. Top spots around
the nation booked her for as high as ten thousand per. Her records
and albums made her wealthier.
When I was at ringside at her premiere nights, she never looked at me until
she got to You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Loves You. The line
that made my heart smile, however, is when she grinned at me and tenderly
sang, "Just in time. You found me just in time . . ." |