Francis - Personal Interview with Zasu Pitts

When radio came along, studio publicity departments came up with the neat idea of bring the stars to your local station.  Of course, they couldn't afford all those airplane and railroad tickets, so they gave you the next best thing - a transcribed interview where your local announcer would interview a famous star.

This disc promotes the movie "Francis", the comedy with Donald O'Conner and the talking mule.  The interview was probably released in 1950 since "Francis" premiered in February and would have been in wide release throughout the spring and summer.  In the interview, Zasu talks about how she got her name, her reputation as one of the best party hostesses in Hollywood and, of course, her new movie. If you'd like to follow along or create your own interview with Zasu, here's the original cue sheet distributed with the disc. Zasu Pitts interview cue sheet - PDF, 600 kb Studios and tv networks still do this kind of thing today, with video interviews of stars distributed to tv stations where local reporters are cut into pre-recorded footage with "canned" questions.  I'm surprised that political figures haven't started doing the same thing. Our mp3 was transferred from an original 12" Universal Pictures red vinyl transcription, matrix number . Listener Christopher McPherson donated this fun little disc to my collection and provided a scan of the cue sheets.