By Rick Kaempfer
GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
O
ver the past twelve months, the
Chicago radio business has lost a
few of the great ones.
In December of 2013, Larry Lujack
passed away. His last official interview was
with IE, although we had no way of knowing it at the time. He didn't even mention
that he was sick. That column centered
around his time in Chicago radio, but his
stories about his bumpy road in radio before
arriving in town were left on the cutting
room floor. Here's a memorable story from
his early years in radio...
"I never had a problem with ratings, but
they kept firing me because I didn't sound
friendly enough. I had humongous ratings
in Spokane, so I thought I could get away
with anything. There was a commercial for
Volkswagen and it started out in German
the soundtracks, you name it. Mel was
impressed that it was something more than
just a conversation. He was also absolutely
hilarious. I'll never forget his last line of the
interview. He said: "Roy, do you always do
your show in your underwear?” I got to
know him a little bit over the years, spent
some time with him, went to his office in
Hollywood – kibitzed with him. When The
Producers came to Chicago, I ran into him on
opening night, and he remembered me, and
we spent some time with him. I don't know
if you remember, but we used to take tours
of listeners around the world to various different places, and one time we took a group
to Italy. We were in a village in Northern
Italy, and we pulled up to the hotel with our
coach, and I went to the front door, and Mel
was there. He said "ROY!” I said "MEL!” He
Larry Lujack, WLS 1967
("Achtung! Achtung!") and I thought it was
funny – it reminded me of those old World
War II movies. And I don't remember exactly what I said, but I apparently said something that made them think I was implying
this dealership was a cover for an underground Nazi movement in the United
States. It turned out that the Volkswagen
dealer was from Germany, flew for the
Germans in World War II, and his employees were all German and they were highly
offended. They were going to sue me and
the station, so the station fired me to get him
off their back.”
After the interview I told him that he
was holding out on us all these years. He
really was charming and delightful. He had
a ready answer for that as well…
"I'm so good at fakin' it,” he said. "I plead
guilty to being moody and easily depressed.
But I also knew that nobody wanted to listen to someone who was always down, so I
faked this whole charming and delightful
thing. Very successfully I might add.”
If he was fakin' it during our phone conversations, he obviously fooled me too. I
had a great time talking to him.
In September of 2014, another Chicago
radio icon, Roy Leonard passed away. I had
the chance to interview Roy a few years ago,
and we talked for several hours about his
legendary career. He had some incredible
stories, but I think this one about legendary
filmmaker and actor/comedian Mel Brooks
is my favorite…
"I can't remember why he was in town,
but he agreed to do two full hours with me.
A lot of his stuff was on record at the time,
and we did a lot of prep – my producer and
I, we had bits from his movies, music from
20 illinoisentertainer.com december 2014
was just hanging out at the hotel while his
wife (Anne Bancroft) was filming a movie.
Mel came on the bus and entertained us all."
In October of 2014, Cindy Gatziolis
passed away. She was one of the all-time
great public relations pros in Chicago radio
history, known particularly for her time at
the helm of the (FM98) Loop's promotion
department in the late '80s and early '90s.
When I interviewed her a few years ago she
was working for the (City Of Chicago)
mayor's office, but still considered that time
at the Loop the most rewarding part of her
career...
"It was a challenge to say the least to
please all the people all the time. Luckily I
didn't have to work alone. Between (GM)
Larry Wert, a myriad of program directors,
my excellent staff and the hard-working,
seldom-appreciated producers, we managed to make things work. I do recall one
work day that lasted nearly 24 hours, waking up at 3am to be at a (Steve) Dahl &
(Garry) Meier remote, working on all sorts
of details for the (Johnathan) Brandmeier 10
year anniversary show during the day, resting a couple hours and going to a Danny
Bonaduce event that went until about 2am.
What made it possible for me to do the job
without going insane, is that I believed in
those shows, and that goes for all of
them…the FM jocks like Skafish and (Bob)
Stroud, and Wendy Snyder who maybe
didn't have the light shining on them as
often. There will never be a more perfect job
for me than that one and I truly loved all
those people. ”
On behalf of those people who worked
with her, that feeling was most definitely
mutual.