She is 77, but if these were the years when she was in her professional prime, she would still be called a girl singer. In today’s politically correct world, of course, she is a vocalperson or something equally goofy.
“Have you noticed that everyone today is an `actor’ “? asks Maxene Andrews. “No one’s an `actress’ anymore. Our language has gotten out of hand. As has so much in this country.”
At the moment, one of the two surviving Andrews Sisters is sitting in the Hard Rock Cafe, trying to deal with an oversize, messy Hard Rock Natural Veggie Burger as well as the thumping sounds of Janet Jackson and Bo Diddley.
Except for the few middle-age parents trying to score some togetherness points with their adolescents, it is doubtful that anyone in the place has ever heard of Maxene, Patty or LaVerne Andrews. Not to mention their signature songs of the ’30s and ’40s like “Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen,” “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree,” “In Apple Blossom Time” (Maxene’s favorite), “Any Bonds Today?” and “Beat Me, Daddy, Eight to the Bar.” Fact is, they were megastars of their day-Madonna, Michael Jackson and Barney the Dinosaur rolled into three.
There are guitars, posters and other artifacts on the walls commemorating the likes of James Brown, David Byrne and Guns N’ Roses, and the only mention of any kind of “Crosby” is followed by “Stills and Nash.”
Traveling with her agent and her tiny, year-old Yorkshire terrier, Murphy Brown, currently ensconced in a traveling bag, she is in town to plug “Over Here, Over There” (Zebra Books), a look at the Andrews Sisters and other USO stars in World War II, written with Bill Gilbert.
We have taken her to the Hard Rock-Decibel Depot itself-for a fish-out-of-water perspective. Call it perversity, if you want. Whatever, Maxene Andrews, it turns out, is a good sport.
`This isn’t music’
“This is a treat for me,” she said, checking out the menu and spotting the veggie burger, “because I’ve been on a restricted diet since my heart attack in 1982, right here in Chicago. Now, I can just close my eyes and pretend it’s a hamburger.”
The amplified sound, it is soon apparent, is not such a treat. “This isn’t music-it’s noise,” she says firmly.
“Go ahead, hum what you just heard, I dare you. I don’t know, I used to think I knew a lot about music. But I don’t know about the public’s taste. Well, this, too, shall pass.”
Are there any contemporary performers she does like? “There are a couple. Neil Diamond, Barry Manilow, k.d. lang-who has the most interesting new voice to come along in a long time.”
Someone mentions that Rosemary Clooney was in town a while back, and she perks up. “Rosie came here? I don’t hear anything about her anymore. It’s nice to know they’re hiring good talent.”
As the house music turns to the Police and Eric Clapton, someone else asks her opinion of the amount of money made by these folks and others. “It doesn’t bother me what they’re getting,” she says with a smile. “Although I do think it’s vulgar.
“It’s a kind of show business that’s so different. I just don’t admire it. I’ve never gone to see these people, but some of the things they advertise looks like carnival stuff with all those lights and flashes and all. And their wardrobe offends me.
“I know nobody cares, but I care, and I feel offended when I see a male performer with his hat on. You know, I’ve been sitting here watching that young man over there eating with his baseball cap on. I blame the family for that. Because I don’t think they’d like to see women come in and sit at the table with curlers in their hair.”
It isn’t that she is intransigently stuck in the ’40s, living on her memories and royalties. Granted, she may use a word like “malarkey,” but five minutes later she will proclaim that something is “b.s.” Noting that “retirement is a dirty word-the kiss of death, darling,” she has been giving concerts all over the country.
Long divorced from Lou Levy, who had managed the Andrews Sisters, she has a daughter and a son and lives near Sacramento.
“It’s more fun singing now because there’s no feeling of any kind of competition,” she says, sipping a diet Coke and munching on a seemingly forbidden french fry. “Everyone thinks that the people who come to hear me are nothing but gray hairs, but it’s a mixture of young and old. Of course, there are a lot of fellas who saw us during the war.”
90 million records sold
In 1991 choreographer Paul Taylor wrote a ballet, “Company B,” based on nine Andrews Sisters songs, and in 1973 Bette Midler triggered a revival when she recorded their old hit “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.”
LaVerne Andrews died of cancer in 1967, and Patty is still singing as a solo. In 1974 she and Maxene teamed up in a Broadway show, “Over Here!” but for years they have been estranged. “It’s because of her husband,” Maxene says softly. “He’s a fighter for control. Unfortunately, she’s married to him.”
Borrowing their style from the popular Boswell Sisters, the Minneapolis natives sold 90 million records, had 19 hits and made 21 (mostly awful) movies. “The records still sell,” says Andrews, who also has a solo album. “It’s amazing. That royalty check looks good twice a year.
“The way it worked, I sang the higher soprano, LaVerne was the alto and Patty always sang lead because she could never hear harmony. I mean, it wasn’t like we had a piece of paper with the notes written on it, because we couldn’t read music. I would take care of our music, LaVerne was Miss Clothes Horse and Patty had a great comedy trait.”
In her book, she notes that the sisters were never considered glamorous, that the GIs regarded them as the girls next door. She even includes the putdown of Groucho Marx, who, sharing a train ride with them, cracked, “I thought they made all their trips by broom.”
“There’s no sense going through life kidding yourself,” she says, getting ready for a photographer with a bit of self-deprecation (“I’ve brought my Elizabeth Taylor look today”).
“You know, we didn’t care if we were beautiful or not. We knew we sang well. People would tell me that we made them feel happy. Our songs were all upbeat. Much of that was Decca’s choice.”
Asked about the controversial lyrics to “Rum and Coca Cola,” she grins. “People can’t believe that we didn’t know what that was about. It wasn’t until we found out it was banned in some places that we started asking why, and they’d say, `Well, dummies, it’s about prostitution.’ Young people today can’t believe that people were so naive in those days. We were very infantile.
“However, next to today’s rock lyrics, those days seem wonderful. See, that’s another thing that stuns me about the youth of today. There are no surprises in life anymore. I mean, sex is right out there in the open, and so are dirty words. Why? We have a beautiful language. I don’t enjoy going to a movie and listening to four-letter words. And I’m no prude about that.
“Sometimes I get the feeling that the young generation is angry. It’s almost like they’re trying to get back at us for something, although they’ve had the best of it.
“Maybe that’s the problem. Hate has become very popular. You have the feeling the young people hate the old people, and a lot of the old people resent the young people.”
Working with the stars
Andrews and her sisters worked with everyone from Abbott and Costello to Bing Crosby.
“We realized almost from the beginning that Bing was moody,” she says. “If he came in with his hat square on his head, you’d leave him alone. But if it was at a jaunty angle, it was all right.
“We did a radio show with Gabby Hayes, who was such a phony and a really crabby old man. He was very vocal about his dislike for President Roosevelt, but when FDR died, the producers of the show had Gabby read the eulogy! He did a convincing job of acting-even got all choked up. That infuriated me. I wanted to hit him on the back.
“We played Bugsy Siegel’s Flamingo, but you never called him `Bugsy.’ It was always `Benny.’ He was a very handsome . . . murderer. His girlfriend was staying there, Virginia Hill. We’d see her out at the pool and chitchat. But we kept our distance from `the boys.’ “
During the war, the trio appeared in hundreds of USO shows in hospitals, factories and military bases at home and overseas.
“The USO told us there were certain songs you couldn’t sing-mother songs or patriotic songs. I think that was because they didn’t want the boys to start feeling sorry for themselves. They had enough to worry about, enough longing.
“This country was very united in World War II. Would it be so cohesive today? I would hope so, but I don’t think so. When people ask me about how entertainers could take off so much time to entertain the troops, they’re missing the point. The point is, everybody pitched in because they wanted to save their country.”
That said, she walks up to the upper floor of the restaurant to pose with her Yorkie, then heads outside to a waiting car.
The Hard Rock manager approaches her and presents her with the establishment’s lapel pins in the shape of a guitar and a piano. The music from inside encroaches into the warm midday air.
“Thanks for coming in,” he tells Maxene Andrews. “Don’t be a stranger, now.”
