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Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of

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Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is

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Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,

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Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,

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Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet

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Speaker 1: of Curiosities. The smell of fresh ink gun paper, the

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Speaker 1: crack of the spine, the sight of one's book on

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Speaker 1: a bookstore shelf. These are the things that make publishing

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Speaker 1: so alluring. However, the chances of getting represented by a

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Speaker 1: literary agent, then having one's manuscript accepted by a publisher

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Speaker 1: are pretty slim. There seems to be gatekeepers every step

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Speaker 1: of the way. Chuck Ross met those gate keepers before.

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Speaker 1: During the nineteen seventies, Ross had been an aspiring mystery

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Speaker 1: novelist making ends meet by selling cable TV subscriptions door

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Speaker 1: to door. When the day was done and his feet

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Speaker 1: were sore from walking all over Santa Monica, California, Ross

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Speaker 1: sat down at his typewriter to put words on the page.

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Speaker 1: He spent nights and weekends plotting out a mystery novel

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Speaker 1: he was sure would become a hit. Ross knew he

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Speaker 1: would be one of a hundred other authors mailing in

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Speaker 1: their books to prospective publishing houses that month, so he

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Speaker 1: did something to stand out. He fixed a seal over

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Speaker 1: the last few pages to hide the big reveal. If

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Speaker 1: an editor had gotten to the point and wanted to

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Speaker 1: see how it ended, they could break the seal and

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Speaker 1: read on. Ross sent his manuscript to over a dozen

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Speaker 1: publishers and then waited for their request to pour in.

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Speaker 1: Weeks later, his mailbox started filling up, and Ross noticed

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Speaker 1: something peculiar. Not only had every publishing house rejected him,

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Speaker 1: but many had barely read the manuscript at all. Most

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Speaker 1: had still left the seal in place over the last

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Speaker 1: few page is another writer might have sent their novel

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Speaker 1: out to different publishers or tried their luck with literary agents.

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Speaker 1: Not Ross. He got to work on another book right away,

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Speaker 1: except this time he branched out from the mystery genre.

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Speaker 1: His next manuscript was a collection of short stories and

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Speaker 1: conversations told from a first person point of view. None

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Speaker 1: of the characters or settings had names, and its subject

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Speaker 1: matter was much more serious than a simple Who Done It.

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Speaker 1: It touched upon a man's life in Poland controlled by

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Speaker 1: the Soviet Union, followed by the character's eventual move to

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Speaker 1: the United States. He touched upon themes of capitalism, violence, sexuality,

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Speaker 1: and loneliness. It was his finest work and a stark

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Speaker 1: departure from the kind of material he had tried to

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Speaker 1: get published before. Ross mailed out sample pages to four publishers,

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Speaker 1: and just like before, each publisher sent back a rejection letter.

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Speaker 1: But he wouldn't give up. He continued to work on

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Speaker 1: his story collection until it was ready to send out

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Speaker 1: in its entirety. In nineteen seventy nine. He's some mimitted

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Speaker 1: the full book under the pseudonym Eric Demos, to fourteen

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Speaker 1: more major publishers. Apparently the extra work didn't help. Ross

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Speaker 1: received rejection after rejection from every editor who read his book.

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Speaker 1: They called his prose lucid, but his content on inspiring

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Speaker 1: literary agents responded the same way. All twenty six that

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Speaker 1: Ross had reached out to it seemed nobody wanted his

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Speaker 1: new book, which was surprising considering it had already won

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Speaker 1: the National Book Award. Ross's collection, titled Steps, wasn't actually

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Speaker 1: his to begin with. It had been written by author

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Speaker 1: Jersey Kazinski in ninety eight. You see Ross, frustrated by

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Speaker 1: publishers indifference to his first novel, had wanted to try

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Speaker 1: a little experiment. He retyped several pages of Kazinski's second book,

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Speaker 1: which had already sold over four hundred thousand copies by

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Speaker 1: that time, and sent them in under a different name.

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Speaker 1: When that didn't work, he'd tried again with the whole book,

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Speaker 1: only to achieve the same results. What had surprised him most, though,

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Speaker 1: was one publisher's decision not to accept it. After all,

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Speaker 1: they had been the real publisher of Cosenzi's book, the

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Speaker 1: one that Ross had retyped. Another publisher who had released

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Speaker 1: Kazinski's first novel, admired the writing and style of Steps,

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Speaker 1: going as far as to compare it to the work

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Speaker 1: of one of their own authors, Jersey Kazinski. Unfortunately, it

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Speaker 1: just didn't, as they put it, add up to a

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Speaker 1: satisfactory hole. Sadly, Ross's stunt didn't earn him his own

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Speaker 1: book deal, but he did write a piece about it

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Speaker 1: for a popular magazine, which led to a new career

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Speaker 1: as a freelance journalist for publications like The Hollywood Reporter

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Speaker 1: and San Francisco Chronicle. Ross wasn't ready to give up

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Speaker 1: his experiments just yet, he tried his luck one last

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Speaker 1: time in n except instead of testing the saleability of

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Speaker 1: bestselling novels, he used an iconic film. He sent two

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Speaker 1: hundred and seventeen Hollywood agencies a copy of his brand

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Speaker 1: new script, Everybody Comes to Rix. He told the story

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Speaker 1: of a club owner during World War Two who helps

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Speaker 1: his long lost love and her new husband, who are

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Speaker 1: rebels on the run from the Germans. Ninety agencies refused

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Speaker 1: to read it due to a policy regarding unsolicited submissions,

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Speaker 1: eight felt it was too similar to another film, and

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Speaker 1: thirty eight agencies flat out rejected it. They said Ross's

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Speaker 1: dialogue was excessive and the storyline was weak, among other

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Speaker 1: negative comments. Thirty three agencies, though, recognize what they've been sent.

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Speaker 1: One agent went so far as to tell the writer

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Speaker 1: that he'd already seen the film one hundred and forty

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Speaker 1: seven times. If you haven't guessed already, Ross had mailed

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Speaker 1: out the script for Casablanca. Suffice it to say his

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Speaker 1: prank was not the start of any beautiful friendships. We

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Speaker 1: can't always help who we become, so my to who

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Speaker 1: we are is grounded in what we come from. It's

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Speaker 1: no surprise that children of musicians often start bands of

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Speaker 1: their own, or that sons and daughters of famous actors

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Speaker 1: becomes stars in their own rights. Francis didn't have a

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Speaker 1: chance either. Her parents, Ethel and Frank Gum, had been

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Speaker 1: vaudevillian entertainers before settling down in Grand Rapids. They ran

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Speaker 1: a movie theater together, which featured a stage where their

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Speaker 1: fellow vaudevillians would perform. Together. They had three children, Mary Jane, Dorothy, Virginia,

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Speaker 1: and Francis, the youngest. Francis was born in nine two

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Speaker 1: and was performing for audiences by the time she was

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Speaker 1: just two years old. Her debut came when she walked

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Speaker 1: onto the stage during a Christmas show at her parents theater,

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Speaker 1: singing jingle bells alongside her two sisters. There was an

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Speaker 1: act that would seal her fate and her future forever.

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Speaker 1: The family was forced to move a few years later

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Speaker 1: after illicit rumors started to swirl about her father. Frank

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Speaker 1: Ethel and the girls headed west to Lancaster, California, where

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Speaker 1: heats an ownership of another theater. Ethel, on the other hand,

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Speaker 1: had no interest in running a theater again. Instead, she

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Speaker 1: saw something special in her daughters and how audiences reacted

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Speaker 1: when they performed. She became their manager, signing them up

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Speaker 1: for dance lessons to help them break into the movies.

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Speaker 1: Her efforts took a toll on her marriage, though Ethel

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Speaker 1: was often away from home with the girls as she

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Speaker 1: hauled them from audition to audition while Frank watched the

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Speaker 1: theater and the young men who worked there. Francis, Mary Jane,

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Speaker 1: and Virginia Dorothy got their first taste of fame in

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Speaker 1: short films, which they performed in together from the late

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Speaker 1: twenties to the mid thirties. Under their mother's guidance, they

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Speaker 1: even sang and danced their way onto the vaudevillian circuit,

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Speaker 1: taking the stage together as the Gum Sisters. Unfortunately, the

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Speaker 1: name didn't wow audiences. A theater in Chicago once listed

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Speaker 1: them as the Glum Sisters. They changed their last name

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Speaker 1: after that, though the origins of the change are still

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Speaker 1: contested to this day. A common story claims that vaudeville

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Speaker 1: star George Hustle inspired their new surname after commenting on

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Speaker 1: their beauty during a show. As with other duos and

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Speaker 1: trios in Hollywood's heyday, one member always stood apart from

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Speaker 1: the rest for the sisters, it was Francis. Burton Lange,

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Speaker 1: a songwriter for MGM Studios, had been in the audience

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Speaker 1: at the Paramount Theater when the sisters came on stage

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Speaker 1: to perform. As soon as Francis opened her mouth, lane

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Speaker 1: was sold. He called the head of the studio's music department,

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Speaker 1: Jack Robbins, to tell him about the young girl's amazing voice.

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Speaker 1: Francis was invited to MGM the following day for an audition.

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Speaker 1: She arrived with her father and performed two songs with

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Speaker 1: Burton Lange accompanying her on piano. When it was over,

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Speaker 1: Robbins ran out of the room. Minutes later, he came

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Speaker 1: back with the head of MGM himself, Louis B. Mayer,

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Speaker 1: who was so floored by her singing he paraded writers,

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Speaker 1: producers and directors from all over Hollywood through the room

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Speaker 1: to hear her. Francis's marathon audition had begun at nine

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Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning and didn't finish until seven thirty

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Speaker 1: at night, but it had done the trick. The Gum

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Speaker 1: Sisters were no more. Only Francis had been signed to MGM.

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Speaker 1: She started attending school at the studio while acting and

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Speaker 1: singing in big budget motion pictures. She practically grew up

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Speaker 1: in the Hollywood system, going from a straight laced girl

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Speaker 1: next door to the sophisticated songstress she was known as

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Speaker 1: later in life. Over the course of her career, she

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Speaker 1: would perform in over twenty five films with such stars

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Speaker 1: as Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Angela Lansbury, and Mary ast Her. Sadly,

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Speaker 1: her father never got to see the little girl become

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Speaker 1: the star. On November sixteenth of nineteen thirty five, frank

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Speaker 1: Gum was diagnosed with meningitis. Francis, then thirteen at the time,

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Speaker 1: was singing on an NBC radio show while her father

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Speaker 1: was in the hospital. He passed away the next day,

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Speaker 1: but he would have been proud of her, watching her

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Speaker 1: rise to the status of cultural icon. Though the world

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Speaker 1: would never whisper the name of Francis Gum among Hollywood legends,

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Speaker 1: they would certainly come to know and practically revere, the

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Speaker 1: girl who traveled somewhere over the Rainbow to become none

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Speaker 1: other than Judy Garland. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided

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Speaker 1: tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting

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Speaker 1: Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me

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Speaker 1: Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make

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Speaker 1: another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,

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Speaker 1: book series, and television show and you can learn all

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Speaker 1: about it over at the World of Lore dot com.

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Speaker 1: And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,