The Chesterfield Supper Club began on December 11, 1944, as a 15-minute radio program, airing at 7 pm weeknights on the
NBC Radio Network. This musical variety show was sponsored by
Chesterfield cigarettes and featured live musical performances.
Perry Como initially hosted
The Chesterfield Supper Club five nights a week. Initially, Como's female singer was Mary Ashworth. The idea for the radio show originated with Doug Storer, who was then an advertising executive with the Blackman Company. Storer had heard Perry Como on his non-sponsored
CBS radio program and believed he would do well in a radio show of the type he was proposing. Storer recorded a demo of the radio show with Como as its host and Mitchell Ayres and his Orchestra providing the music. He took the recording to the advertising agency that handled the Chesterfield cigarettes account. During the first year, Como was backed by the
Ted Steele Orchestra, followed by the Lloyd Shaffer Orchestra at the end of 1945 until 1948.
The Satisfiers vocal group was also part of the program; they also made many records with Como. Beginning on the show's second anniversary, he hosted the show on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, while
Jo Stafford was the host on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Stafford returned to California shortly after becoming a co-host of the program. She began her twice-weekly broadcasts from Hollywood in November 1946, backed by her future husband,
Paul Weston. Stafford's Hollywood "Club" broadcasts featured the vocal group The Starlighters; in 1947 she recorded her version of the show's theme song, "Smoke Dreams", with them. One of the regular features was a "Hollywood Star of the Week" contest where an actor or actress would be featured as a "guest star" singing a song and the listening audience would guess the star's identity for prizes. The broadcasts of April 5, 1946, made from a
TWA plane at an altitude of 20,000 feet, are believed to be the first network radio broadcasts from an airplane. Jo Stafford, Perry Como, and the entire staff made the flight. There were two mid-air
Supper Club broadcasts: one at 6 pm and another at 10 pm for the West Coast. A total of three flights were made; an earlier rehearsal flight for reception purposes was also made. In addition to the cast and the band's instruments, there was also a small piano on board. The three stand-held microphones brought onto the plane turned out to be less useful than expected. The cast then resorted to hand-held microphones, but the plane's cabin pressure made them very heavy and difficult to hold after a few minutes. Less than two months after the airborne
Supper Club broadcasts, Chesterfield had an idea to take the program on a week of remote broadcasts: flying into Washington, DC for the Monday show, to London, for the Wednesday one and winding up with the Friday night show in
Havana. The plan appears to have fallen from favor when it was learned that the taxes which would have been imposed on the Shaffer orchestra as foreign musicians performing in the UK meant Chesterfield would have needed to pay all orchestra members three times the amount of salary they were receiving at the time. By 1947, announcer
Martin Block was based in the Los Angeles area. Block did the announcing from Hollywood on the same days that Stafford hosted the show. Announcer and sportscaster
Mel Allen took over the New York announcing duties for that year. When Block's West Coast contract was up, he returned to New York as the show's announcer. Block was also the announcer for the
Supper Club television show. Como was still broadcasting from New York, now backed by the
Mitchell Ayres orchestra. The Satisfiers were replaced by the singing
Fontane Sisters, who also appeared with Como on the televised
Supper Club and his later television shows. ==Television==