The Milwaukee Journal – Feb 16,
1941
A Howling Success
That’s Dolores Gillen, Who Fills
Crying Need
THERE are many kinds of crying.
For example, there are those moans and laments which emanate from frustrated
horse and poker player. And there are those from girls whose daddy-kins forget
to bring new mink coats and wives whose husbands come home late. All these are
unprofitable, except possibly the girl-daddykins combination.
But for real, shining success in
the field the award goes to Dolores Gillen, a kewpielike creature without the
usual rotund frontal construction, who for a handsome sum, cries each day in
the year.
Miss Gillen recently told the New
York World Telegram how she has filled a crying need in the radio world by
having on tap everything from the low, chuckling, happy murmur of a baby to a
raucous, heart howl.
“The directors seem to like most
the fact I can get sex into a baby’s cry,” she said triumphantly. “ Not real
sex,” she added hastily. “I mean, I sort of differentiate between a boy and a
girl.”
When Miss Gillen coos and gurgles,
an idiotic look flashes across her face. When the part calls for a tantrum, she
wrinkles her forehead and contorts her face.
The professional crier started in
radio in 1932, doing ingenue roles.
“I just drifted into crying,” she
said. “I was on a program where there was supposed to be a baby’s cry. They couldn’t
find the record and I said I’d do it. The director liked it so much, he kept me
right at it.”
Miss Gillen’s ululations are heard
over CBS in the “Kate Hopkins” program, where she enact the part of Jackie, an
18 month old baby, and in the NBC program, “Against the Storm,” where she is 5
year old Peter Alden. She also does lots of guest work and appears on Kate
Smith’s program whenever a baby’s voice is needed.
Miss Gillen can offer no
satisfactory explanation of her prowess.
“I guess it’s just a trick throat,”
she said, “although it never hurts.”
Miss Gillen touched on a question
of professional ethics during the interview, giving rise to the belief there is
disaffection within the ranks of the nation’s baby criers, whom Miss Gillen
refers to as the “baby people.”
“I just use a folded handkerchief
in front of my mouth,” she said. “A lot of baby people,” she added with scorn, “use
pillows. That’s just an unnecessary prop. I can do just as well with a small
handkerchief.”
Miss Gillen said the entire secret
of baby crying is embodied in this advice:
“Muffle your sounds inside by
squeezing your throat without touching it with your hands.”
Asked how she acquired her
peculiar talent, Miss Gillen said she was naturally observant and loved
children and probably had “just picked it up.”
“When my kid sister was born,” she
said, “I got the job of wheeling her around. And then my father was a doctor I
used to see a lot of babies. But I haven’t been around children since I was a
kid.”
Miss Gillen was born in Prairie du
Rocher, III., and attended Webster college, St. Louis. Mo., the University of
Illinois and the University of Kansas.
She entered radio quite by
accident. She filled out an application at the NBC offices in Chicago, asking
for the position of hostess. But when the chief hostess saw the list of
experience Dolores has in collegiate drama, musical comedy and revues she
arranged an audition for the newcomer and three days later Miss Gillen was
rehearsing for her first radio drama.
During her stay in Chicago Dolores
was heard as Kay Houston in “A Tale of Today,” with Jim Ameche in…………nd Hotel
and “Attorney at Law,” as Nina in “Helen Trent,” and with Bob Elson on his “Man
on the Street” broadcasts. She left the Windy City a year ago and has been
working in New York City ever since.
In private life Miss Gillen is the
wife of a New york attorney, whom she married last June.
If the baby crying business ever
goes on the rock, Mr. Gillen has patent medicine business on tap. She is president
of the Mantho-Kreoamo Co. of Clinton. III., which manufactures 2 cold remedy
developed by Miss Gillen’s late father Dr. P. J. Gillen. M. D.
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