She was wonderful to me. She’d meet me an hour before the cameraman and the director got there, and we’d go over scenes. She said to me, ‘I want you to be good, but I get a lot of money, and I better be good myself!”

I went to see an opening of Freddy Martin’s orchestra at The Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. The girl I was dancing with said, “Why don’t you take the name Martin?” There was a magazine in those days that had a series about a gambler from Maryland, and he was a very interesting character, and his name was Tony. So there you are.

He called me into his office -- he had everyone who was in that picture come into his office. L.B. used to tell people how he wanted the part played. He was very pleasant, very nice, and it would be like a coach having a personal interview with the quarterback -- that’s the way it was. He’d act out the part.

Fox tried to get as many people in it as they could. At the time, that was Zanuck’s way to exploit people who were under contract at 20th Century Fox. We didn’t question in those days. We did what we were told.

Alice was all for me. She helped me. She was wonderful. I dated her, and then we got married. She was the first lady I was stuck on. We were both very young. The marriage dissolved because I was on the road a lot. She was great to be around.

Singing to a monkey was very difficult (laughs). Once I was in the middle of singing to the monkey, and the monkey got nervous or something and started to climb up the rafters of the set! So, they said, “cut!” and the man who owned the monkey tried to get this monkey down. They couldn’t get the monkey down, so somebody said, ‘Get Harry Cohn, he’ll get the monkey down!’ Harry Cohn was the president of the studio! Finally, the monkey came down. The man had brought some food -- a lot of food, for him.

Wonderful. We got along beautifully together. She was great. (on Rita Hayworth)

I never knew anything about contracts. I had an agent, I was doing everything then, doing radio shows with Burns and Allen. I was recording, and I had so many things to do. I don’t remember. I only knew I was going to Columbia to make a picture with Rita Hayworth.

I felt the importance of being the leading man at Columbia. They were very pleasant to me. Remember, Fox was a vast, huge studio. They had about ten pictures going at the same time. At Columbia there were one or two, at the most. We got the A treatment at Columbia. Very nice.

I can’t figure out how well I danced. I danced as well as, let’s say, Spencer Tracy! (laughs) We practiced quite a bit. A little toe -- a little tap dance. Listen, dancing is not my forte!

Yes. I called [Cyd] and said, “I’m going to New York to do Guys and Dolls -- I was at the Chez Paree in Chicago. She said, “Well, you’re going to be a father, and you won’t be home.” That’s when she told me we were going to have Tony, Jr. I had to sign a contract for nine months, and I wouldn’t have been home. It would’ve been a rough go.

I didn’t care about movies, to tell the truth. It wasn’t for me. I loved working in clubs. I loved Las Vegas. I worked there, and I was an owner. I worked the Chez Paree, The Copacabana. I enjoyed all those years singing. I like an audience in front of me.

Esther was fun. She used to make food every night. She was a good cook. We were all doing the picture at Cypress Gardens, Florida, and at night Van Johnson would say, “What are we having for dinner?!” And we would all go and have food with her. She was very nice -- Esther was wonderful.

There was nothing left for me to do. You know, it’s all part of a lifetime. What I’d love to do most was play baseball, and I tried out in high school. I was always a big baseball fan, and I used to hit left handed and right handed. So, when I went to college, they asked my coach from high school if I would be good enough for a scholarship. He said, “Al Morris bats left handed and right handed -- and strikes out both ways.” That was their report on me.