Lee Gordon

The Big Show

Gordon's new company, which traded as The Big Show Pty Ltd, opened an office at 151 Bayswater Road, Rushcutters Bay and in January 1955 he hired book-keeper and future promoter Max Moore as his assistant. Six months later Moore was elevated to the position of tour manager, and he coordinated most of the Big Show tours. The other Big Show staff at this time were Alan Heffernan (general manager), Perla Honeyman (publicity officer), Clive Mahon (assistant to Lee Gordon), Colleen McCrindle (Gordon's secretary) and receptionist Moira Delray.

Gordon negotiated a deal with venue owners Stadiums Limited for the use of their venues in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, at a cost of AU£500 per session, and arranged the hire of Centennial Hall in Adelaide and suitable venues in other major cities. Stadiums Ltd was a famous Australian company that had been purchased in 1916 by colourful Melbourne business identity John Wren, whose life and career was the inspiration for John West, the central character in Frank Hardy's controversial novel Power Without Glory. Stadiums Ltd owned large venues in most Australian capital cities, including the Sydney Stadium, Melbourne Festival Hall and Brisbane Festival Hall. Through the first half of the 20th century these halls, which were originally built as sporting arenas, had hosted many major Australian boxing and wrestling matches, but they were ideal for Gordon's purposes since their "in-the-round" arenas were at the time the largest indoor venues in Australia's three east coast capital cities.

The notable except to this was Melbourne. The first Big Show tours in 1954 and early 1955 were all presented at the old West Melbourne Stadium, but it was destroyed by fire in the early hours of 24 January 1955, just before the last two Melbourne concerts of the first Australian tour by Frank Sinatra, whose shows had to be hastily relocated to the Melbourne Town Hall. The venue was soon rebuilt as Melbourne Festival Hall and was reopened in mid-1956, in time for the Melbourne Olympic Games, but in the interim Gordon was obliged to use a range of other Melbourne venues including the Town Hall, Leggett's Ballroom in Prahran, the Royal Exhibition Building, and the Palais Theatre in St Kilda, until the Olympics had ended and the new Festival Hall was again available for regular concert bookings.

With the Stadiums deal in place, Gordon refitted the stage at the old Sydney Stadium, installing Australia's first rotating stage, which was placed on top of the old fight ring in the centre of the arena. Located in Ruschcutters Bay, the Stadium was only a short distance from the Big Show office, but it was far from luxurious. Locally – and quite accurately – known as "The Old Tin Shed", it was a very rudimentary structure by modern standards. It was octagonal in shape, with raked wooden seats facing towards the central stage, and it had a maximum capacity of around 11,000. It was built with an iron and wood frame rising from a brick base, but the roof and walls were covered in corrugated steel, which was both unlined and uninsulated. This created a formidable echo which often made music and lyrics difficult to hear clearly, and although it proved to be well-suited to providing a facsimile of the 'slapback' echo found on many rock'n'roll records, once the audience started screaming, the reverberation made it impossible to hear anything, even on stage. At The Beatles' concert there in 1964, one Sydney newspaper sent along a sound engineer, who reportedly monitored the sound level from the hordes of screaming teenyboppers at well over 100 decibels. Adding to its drawbacks, the building had no air-conditioning or forced ventilation and its metal skin made it both unbearably hot in the sweltering Sydney summer (when many concert tours were scheduled) and deafeningly loud in heavy rain.

Gordon's "Big Show" tours were classic mid-20th century variety "package shows", starring a major imported performer (usually a singer) as headliner, with several other imported acts supporting, including singers, dancers and standup comedians. Because of his extensive connections in his homeland, and the musical trends of the day, virtually all the imported headlining acts on Gordon's Big Show tours were Americans. Early Big Show lineups did not feature a local support act, but due to both local Musicians Union rules and the high cost (relative to today) of transporting large backing ensembles to Australia from the US, a local orchestra or band was typically employed to provide backing for the visitors. For the first four Big Show tours of 1954 the visiting artists were backed by the local Wally Norman Swing Band; Norman was an accomplished jazz trumpet played and arranger who had previously played in the band led by Les Welch. For most subsequent tours 1955-59 for which a larger band was required this was provided by an orchestra led by Australian bandleader and arranger Dennis Collinson, who was Lee Gordon's musical director from 1955 until Collinson's death in 1959.

However, as the rock'n'roll boom grew in popularity and electric instruments came into wider use, there was less and less need for large backing ensembles. Another significant development over the course of Gordon's career was that, as his promotions began to concentrate more on rock 'n' roll, he began to include local rock acts like as supports. The first instance came out of necessity when one of Gordon's star attractions – Gene Vincent – was delayed en route and missed the first two shows of the tour, forcing Gordon to turn to rising local star Johnny O'Keefe and his band The Dee Jays to fill the gap until Vincent and his group arrived; this exposure also proved to be the turning point in O'Keefe's career. Another notable instance was that of singer Diana Trask, whose inclusion as a support led to her being encouraged to go to America by the tour's headliner Frank Sinatra. The presence of local performers on these prestige tours greatly boosted their national popularity, although it sometimes proved to be a double-edged sword for Gordon, because the formidable confidence, showmanship and musical prowess of the local acts (who were also keen to prove their mettle against the imported stars) occasionally upstaged the visiting Americans.

Although Gordon's Big Show tours soon came to dominate the market, and he was able to secure the lion's share of the top jazz, pop and rock'n'roll attractions of the period, he did not have the field to himself for long. Only one month after his first promotion, a jazz tour in July 1954, rival Melbourne-based promoter Kenn Brodziak presented his first international music tour, headlined by American jazz drummer Gene Krupa.

Ella Fitzgerald/Buddy Rich/Artie Shaw tour, July 1954

Lee Gordon's first concert promotion, staged in July 1954, was an all-star variety 'package' tour featuring three of the biggest names in American jazz-vocalist Ella Fitzgerald, drummer-bandleader Buddy Rich and clarinettist-bandleader Artie Shaw, supported by comedian Jerry Colonna. It was a significant event in many respects. Fitzgerald's inclusion was a cultural breakthrough because it marked the effective end of the de facto Australian ban on African American jazz performers (see below). It was also an historic moment in the career of Artie Shaw – he had visited Australia once before, during WWII, but his 1943 concerts were restricted to service personnel only, so this 1954 tour was to be the first and only chance most local fans had to see him in concert. And, as Shaw indicated in press interviews at the time, he was to retire from performing altogether later that year to concentrate on writing. Although he did eventually return to performance for a few years in the 1980s, this was as conductor only, so his 1954 Australian tour was the very last time in his career that he fronted a band as clarinettist.

The Big Show tour played at the Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane Stadiums to a rapturous reception, although it was also marred by a racial controversy. A contemporary article in the Melbourne Argus newspaper reported that the first two concerts of the tour in Sydney on 23 and 24 July featured only Artie Shaw and Buddy Rich, because Fitzgerald did not arrive in time for these Sydney shows. Although the Argus report quoted a local spokesperson for Pan-Am, who denied that they had been refused seats because of a "color bar", that was indeed the cause, and this was confirmed in December 1954, when Fitzgerald, Henry, Lewis, and Granz jointly filed a civil suit against Pan-Am for racial discrimination. As revealed by the original court documents (now in the U.S. Archives) Fitzgerald et al. alleged that Pan-American Airlines officials in Honolulu had ordered the singer and two of her three travelling companions (her assistant and cousin Georgiana Henry and her accompanist John Lewis) to leave the plane, even though they all had first-class tickets, and that they were even refused permission to re-board the aircraft to retrieve their luggage and clothing – although her (white) manager Norman Granz was not similarly treated, thus making it obvious that their treatment was based on their colour. In a 1970 television interview, Fitzgerald was asked about the incident and she confirmed that she had successfully sued the airline for racial discrimination and was awarded what she described as "a nice settlement".

As a result of the incident, Fitzgerald and her band were stranded in Honolulu for three days until they could board another flight to Australia and they missed the first two concerts of the tour, so Big Show had to organise two additional free shows in Sydney on 30 and 31 July to compensate ticket-holders, and an additional scheduled concert in Newcastle featuring Fitzgerald only also had to be cancelled after she fell ill. The Argus article noted that Shaw and Rich's Sydney performances were enthusiastically received, but that Shaw (who was famous for his perfectionism) took the unusual step of stopping the music halfway through the opening number, due to mistakes in the performance by his Australian backing ensemble, the Wally Norman Orchestra, although he was quoted as explaining to the audience: "The boys have tried really hard during the last few days, but they can't be expected to do three months' work in that time. I know I am setting a precedent by interrupting the number but I know you would rather me do that than for me to gloss over mistakes."

A number of later Australian sources claim that Gordon either just broke even, or lost money on this tour. Available contemporary press evidence about the grosses and costs of the tour throw some light on the question. A short article published in the Melbourne Argus just after the tour quoted Gordon's partner Benn F. Reyes as saying that the tour had grossed AU£46,000 in nine days – roughly equivalent to AU$1.5 million today – and that this was more than any other Australian theatrical venture to date. In a Melbourne Argus article published just before the tour, Benn Reyes remarkably revealed that the show's four stars would be paid US$10,000 per week each (about AU£5000). but the necessity of scheduling two free shows and the cancellation of the Newcastle concert would certainly have eaten into the whatever profit the company might otherwise have made.

A related item in American Billboard magazine published in September that year reported that an American "show business syndicate" was seeking to entice top American performers to tour Australia, that the syndicate was already in talks with performers including Johnnie Ray, Bob Hope, Nat King Cole, Guy Mitchell and Jane Powell, and that the syndicate was also negotiating to bring "key American jazz talent" to Australia. Of particular note is the report that the recent Fitzgerald/Shaw/Rich tour had set a new box office record in Australia and had grossed US103,000 over 13 performances. The article also records that the heads of this promotion syndicate were Lee Gordon and his old friends Arthur Schurgin and Benn F. Reyes. Reyes was a former journalist and veteran publicist with extensive experience in the Hollywood film industry; after his collaboration with Gordon he went on to become Vice President of Polaris Pictures, the production company set up by Stanley Kubrick, and Reyes worked closely with Kubrick on his three major films of the 1960s, Lolita, Dr. Strangelove and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Reyes died suddenly in 1968, aged 53, shortly after the release of 2001. Schurgin (1920-2003) was a veteran Detroit-based concert promoter who brought The Beatles to Detroit in 1964 and promoted local appearances by Harry Belafonte, The Monkees, Sammy Davis Jr., Nat King Cole, Elvis Presley, Artie Shaw, and Buddy Rich.

Johnnie Ray first tour

Gordon's second tour was headlined by popular American singer Johnnie Ray in August 1954, on which Ray was supported by popular American film and stage dancers Peggy Ryan & Ray McDonald, and standup comedian Dave Barry, and this proved to be the turning point in Gordon's brief career. A week after tickets went on sale, receipts were so poor that Gordon faced ruin — according to Max Moore, visits by overseas acts were so rare at that time that many people thought these early tour promotions were hoaxes.

In an effort to save the tour, Gordon reportedly fell back on his marketing skills and launched a promotional blitz – he had millions of 8"x8" leaflets printed, which entitled the holder to a free extra ticket for every ticket sold, and had these "twofer" leaflets dropped from planes over Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. The tactic worked and the tour was a sell-out success. Remarkably, although some four million of these promotional leaflets were printed, Powerhouse Museum curator and music historian Peter Cox revealed in 2010 that he had never seen one, and the museum did not have one in its collection. The tour was reportedly a huge financial success – the Melbourne Age reported that Ray earned £30 per minute for each of his sixteen concerts and that he had three tuxedos and several shirts and ties ripped to pieces by emotional fans. Police posted extra officers at Mascot airport for his departure from Australia but the extra police and Ray's two "burly" personal bodyguards turned out not to be needed and he left the country quietly at the end of the tour.

Louis Armstrong tour

Gordon's next promotion was another landmark in Australian entertainment – the first Australian tour by jazz legend Louis Armstrong and his group, who played 22 dates in October / November 1954. Alongside Fitzgerald's earlier visit, these tours marked the first times that African-American jazz performers had toured extensively in Australia as headlining acts since the notorious incident in 1928, when visiting jazz band Sonny Clay's Colored Idea were deported from Australia, after members of the band were allegedly found in 'compromising' situations with white women in their Melbourne accommodation. Since that time, according to Australian jazz historian Andrew Bissett, there had been an effective ban on African American groups entering Australia, and given that the White Australia Policy was still very much in force in 1954, the fact that Gordon was able to pull this tour off was a remarkable feat. Just prior to Armstrong's arrival, Gordon was quoted in the Sydney Daily Telegraph, lamenting that the airfares to bring Armstrong and his troupe to Australia was costing him almost as much as Armstrong's fee -- Armstrong was reportedly being paid AU£10,000 (US$22,400), but the airfares for him and his entourage, which included his wife, five musicians, a singer, and a staff of six assistants, was costing Gordon US$19,000.

Gordon's final tour of 1954 in December starred The Andrews Sisters and African-American singer Billy Daniels, who was famous for his million-selling signature song "That Old Black Magic". Although only two of the three Andrews sisters (Maxene and LaVerne) were part of for the tour, it was a success. According to a contemporary press report Maxine and LaVern stated that Patty no longer sang with them because her husband objected. but the reality was that the trio had formally split the previous year due to interpersonal tension (particularly between Maxene and Patty) that had been growing since the deaths of their parents in 1948 and 1949. When her sisters only learned via the press that Patty had decided to go solo, this precipitated a rift that ended the group until Maxene and LaVerne decided to continue as a duo in 1954. Even after they reformed problems persisted – in October that year Maxene and LaVern had appeared on the Red Skelton Show performing a parody number in which Skelton impersonated the absent Patty in drag and Patty was so incensed by this that she filed a cease-and-desist order against Skelton, and shortly after their Australian visit Maxene took a near-fatal overdose of sleeping tablets, although LaVerne insisted to the press that it was accidental.

Gordon's entrepreneurial spirit was highlighted by a press item which detailed a new "experiment" he was undertaking. Gordon had chartered a 700-seat train to bring fans from Newcastle to Sydney on the afternoon of the first Daniels-Andrews Sisters concert. The special train would take fans to Sydney's Central Station, from where they would then be driven direct to the Sydney Stadium in chartered buses. Gordon was quoted as saying that he wanted to test local interest in his Big Show tours in Newcastle, that if it was successful, he would charter another special train from the upcoming Nat King Cole tour, and that he would consider scheduling dates for future tours in Newcastle itself.

1955

Gordon and Big Show made local showbiz history during 1955 with no less than six first-time Australian tours by major American acts. Gordon kicked off the year with Nat King Cole (supported by singer June Christy and comedy duo Dan Rowan and Dick Martin) in early January. This was followed only a couple of weeks later by the first Frank Sinatra tour, then the first Frankie Laine tour in February, the landmark second Johnnie Ray tour in March, actress and singer