Breakfast in Hollywood
Encyclopedia
Tom Breneman
Thomas Breneman Smith was a popular 1940s American radio personality known to his listeners as Tom Breneman....
who broadcast from 1941 to 1948 on three different radio networks: NBC, ABC and Mutual
Mutual Broadcasting System
The Mutual Broadcasting System was an American radio network, in operation from 1934 to 1999. In the golden age of U.S. radio drama, MBS was best known as the original network home of The Lone Ranger and The Adventures of Superman and as the long-time radio residence of The Shadow...
. These unscripted shows were spontaneous and involved much audience participation. Breneman's many guests included such stars as Jimmy Durante
Jimmy Durante
James Francis "Jimmy" Durante was an American singer, pianist, comedian and actor. His distinctive clipped gravelly speech, comic language butchery, jazz-influenced songs, and large nose helped make him one of America's most familiar and popular personalities of the 1920s through the 1970s...
, Andy Devine
Andy Devine
Andrew Vabre "Andy" Devine was an American character actor and comic cowboy sidekick known for his distinctive raspy voice.-Early life:...
and Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
.
Then radio personality Breneman was in Hollywood having lunch in 1940 with friends at Sardi's Restaurant on Hollywood Boulevard when he realized the location's potential for a radio program. He quickly found an audience when he began broadcasting his Breakfast on the Boulevard January 13, 1941 on KFWB Los Angeles. Breakfast at Sardi's aired on the Blue Network
Blue Network
The Blue Network, and its immediate predecessor, the NBC Blue Network, were the on-air names of an American radio production and distribution service from 1927 to 1945...
from August 3, 1942 until February 26, 1943 when the title was changed to avoid confusion with Sardi's
Sardi's
Sardi's is a restaurant in New York City's theater district at 234 West 44th Street in Manhattan. Known for the hundreds of caricatures of show-business celebrities that adorn its walls, Sardi's opened at its current location on March 5, 1927....
in New York.
Breneman's program went through numerous title changes but was best known as Breakfast in Hollywood (1948-49). He had numerous sponsors, including Kellogg's cereals
Kellogg Company
Kellogg Company , is a producer of cereal and convenience foods, including cookies, crackers, toaster pastries, cereal bars, fruit-flavored snacks, frozen waffles, and vegetarian foods...
, Ivory Flakes
Ivory (soap)
The name "Ivory" refers to a series of products created by the Procter & Gamble Company , including varieties of a white and mildly fragranced bar soap, that became famous for its pure content and for floating in water. Over the years, the bar soap has been altered into other varieties...
, Planters Peanuts
Planters
Planters is an American snack food company, a division of Kraft Foods, best known for its processed nuts and for the Mr. Peanut icon that symbolizes them. Mr. Peanut was created by grade schooler Antonio Gentile for a 1916 contest to design the company's brand icon...
, Aunt Jemima Flour
Aunt Jemima
Aunt Jemima is a trademark for pancake flour, syrup, and other breakfast foods currently owned by the Quaker Oats Company of Chicago. The trademark dates to 1893, although Aunt Jemima pancake mix debuted in 1889. The Quaker Oats Company first registered the Aunt Jemima trademark in April 1937...
, Minute Man Soups and Alpine Coffee. By the mid-1940s, Breneman had ten million listeners. The popularity of the radio program was such that he created his own magazine, and in 1945 he opened his own establishment, Tom Breneman's Restaurant, located on Vine Street off Sunset Boulevard. Organist Korla Pandit
Korla Pandit
Korla Pandit , born John Roland Redd in St. Louis, Missouri, was a musician, composer, pianist, organist and television pioneer. He was known as the Godfather of Exotica.-Early career:...
was only one of the musical talents who performed at the restaurant.
Film
In 1945, flushed with success, Breneman promoted the production of a 90-minute feature film, Breakfast in Hollywood (1946) starring Breneman, Bonita GranvilleBonita Granville
Bonita Granville was an American film actress and television producer.-Early life:Born in Chicago, Illinois, Granville was the daughter of stage actors, and made her film debut at the age of nine in Westward Passage...
, Beulah Bondi
Beulah Bondi
Beulah Bondi was an American actress.Bondi began her acting career as a young child in theater, and after establishing herself as a stage actress, she reprised her role in Street Scene for the 1931 film version...
, Edward Ryan
Edward Ryan
Sir Edward Ryan PC FRS was an English lawyer, judge, reformer of the British Civil Service and patron of science.-Early life:...
, Raymond Walburn
Raymond Walburn
Raymond Walburn was an American character actor who appeared in dozens of Hollywood comedies and an occasional dramatic role during the 1930s and 1940s.-Life and career:...
, ZaSu Pitts
ZaSu Pitts
ZaSu Pitts was an American actress who starred in many silent dramas and comedies, transitioning to comedy sound films.-Early life:ZaSu Pitts was born in Parsons, Kansas to Rulandus and Nellie Pitts; she was the third of four children...
, Billie Burke
Billie Burke
Mary William Ethelbert Appleton "Billie" Burke was an American actress. She is primarily known to modern audiences as Glinda the Good Witch of the North in the musical film The Wizard of Oz. She was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance as Emily Kilbourne in Merrily We Live...
and Hedda Hopper
Hedda Hopper
Hedda Hopper was an American actress and gossip columnist, whose long-running feud with friend turned arch-rival Louella Parsons became at least as notorious as many of Hopper's columns.-Early life:...
, featuring musical numbers by Spike Jones
Spike Jones
Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny and other Warner Brothers cartoon characters, performed a drunken, hiccuping verse for 1942's "Clink! Clink! Another Drink"...
, the Nat King Cole Trio and Andy Russell
Andy Russell (singer)
Andy Russell was an American popular vocalist, specializing in traditional pop and Latin music.He was born Andrés Rabago Pérez in the Boyle Heights area of East Los Angeles. He was one of ten children born to parents who were Mexican immigrants of Spanish descent...
. Songs included "It Is Better to Be Yourself" by Nat King Cole and "If I Had a Wishing Ring" by Marla Shelton and Louis Alter
Louis Alter
Louis Alter was an American pianist, songwriter and composer. Alter was 13 when he began playing piano in theaters showing silent films...
. The film is available on DVD from Mill Creek Entertainment in the Classic Musicals 50 movie pack. It has played on Turner Classic Movies, which offers this description of the storyline:
- As day breaks in Hollywood, California, many women make their way to Tom Breneman's popular radio show Breakfast in Hollywood. Among them are Elvira Spriggens, who hopes Breneman will notice her crazy hat; Dorothy Larsen, who is trying to find her fiancé, a sailor; Annie Reed, an elderly woman who lives alone with her old dog, Tippy; and Frances Cartwright, a dowdy, middle-aged woman with a philandering husband. On his way to the show, Breneman stops to pick up Ken Smith, a hitchhiking sailor from Minneapolis, and offers him a ticket to the program. After saying goodbye to Tippy, Annie, meanwhile, is hit by a car driven by Frances' husband, who is hurrying to meet a young woman. Although the police summon an ambulance, Annie is determined not to miss Breneman's show, and insists that she is unharmed. Nonetheless, the police detain Cartwright for questioning. During the program, Breneman interviews people in the audience. Learning that Ken and Dorothy are both from Minneapolis, he introduces them. When Dorothy tells Ken her fiancé's name, Ken at first says he knows him, but quickly retracts his statement, confusing Dorothy. Next Breneman chooses the silliest hat in the audience to try on. He is about to fulfill Elvira's dream and choose hers, when he spots Hedda Hopper seated nearby and picks hers instead. Then Dorothy is declared the winner of the "wishing ring." When Breneman awards an orchid to the oldest guest, Annie is thrilled to accept it. Finally, Frances wins a beauty kit.
- After the program ends, Annie faints. When Breneman learns that she was hit by a car, he insists that she go to the hospital. Annie is reluctant to leave Tippy alone, so Ken offers to walk the dog and invites Dorothy to go with him. Later, when Dorothy gets angry after he kisses her, Ken reveals that her fiancé has married another woman. Brokenhearted, Dorothy runs away. Because Annie is seriously injured, the police arrest Cartwright, and Frances, unaware of her husband's predicament, impulsively slips into a beauty salon for a makeover. Distraught over losing Dorothy, Ken begs Breneman to help him get her back. Then, worried about Annie's condition, her nurse asks Breneman to look in on her. Annie tells Breneman that she is ready to die, but when he tells her about Ken and Dorothy, her interest is piqued. By the time Breneman reaches the bus station, Dorothy's bus has left and Ken has disappeared. He asks the police to bring Dorothy back to town and has his secretary try to locate Ken.
- As Frances leaves the salon looking beautiful, a just-released Cartwright is getting a shave and haircut next door. She overhears his plans to go to the races with a young woman, and furiously berates him. Meanwhile, Ken brings a bone to Tippy, and Annie tells him that Breneman is having Dorothy arrested. Feeling protective, Ken hurries off to Breneman's club. Cartwright also comes to the club, searching for Frances. After a few misunderstandings, Ken and Dorothy are reconciled, as are Frances and her husband. Breneman then telephones Annie to let her know that Ken and Dorothy will be married. Outside the club, Elvira stops Breneman as he leaves and shows him a hat given to her by Hedda Hopper. Breneman admits that the hat is very silly, tries it on, and kisses the happy Elvira goodnight.
At the age of 46, Breneman died April 28, 1948 in Encino, California
Encino, Los Angeles, California
Encino is a hilly district of the city of Los Angeles, California, United States. Specifically, it is located in the central portion of the southern San Fernando Valley and on the north slope of the Santa Monica Mountains...
, and other hosts, including Garry Moore
Garry Moore
Garry Moore was an American entertainer, game show host and comedian best known for his work in television...
, stepped in as replacements, but without Breneman, the ratings dropped, and the program came to an end in January 1949.