Robert Helpmann - Surfer Doll (1964)

(Eaton Magoon Jr - Edward J. 'Eddie' Miller)
 Australia (US recording)
Original version with these lyrics
#28 Adelaide | #83 Australia

Single February 1964 on His Master’s Voice (Australia), and on Blue Pacific (USA).

Robert Helpmann (1909-1986) was aged in his mid-50s at this time. The distinguished Australian ballet dancer, choreographer, stage and film actor, writer, director, producer and media personality was later Sir Robert Helpmann, knighted in 1968.

Produced by John De Marco at Blue Pacific Records in Hawaii. (Could this have been recorded in September 1963 when Helpmann directed the Royal Ballet Company at the Waikiki Shell in Honolulu?)

Surfer Doll is a rewritten version of Sugar Doll (1961), copyrighted in September 1960, published by co-writer Eaton Magoon Jr’s Hawaiian Recording & Publishing Company. In 1964, just before the release of Robert Helpmann’s record, Surfer Doll was registered with the note Applicant states previously registered as Sugar Doll… new lyrics.   

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“Surfer Doll”, a rock ‘n’ roll tune that Magoon wrote with Eddie Miller, now of Los Angeles, became one of Australia’s top songs in 1964

Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 1967 [source]

Top song? Not commercially. Perhaps in some people’s hearts, most likely in Adelaide.

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Robert Helpmann later collaborated with Surfer Doll/Sugar Doll co-writer Eaton “Bob” Magoon Jr on Thank Heaven For The Heathen, a 1968 stage musical with music and lyrics by Magoon, book by Magoon & Helpmann. It was reworked as Heathen! for a Broadway opening in May 1972. A further revival played in Hawaii and New Zealand, entitled Aloha! A Spectacular New Musical, and a cast album was released in NZ (1981).

Original composition - Sugar Doll (1961)

(Eaton Magoon Jr - Edward J. 'Eddie' Miller)
 USA
Original version: published work

Sugar Doll was copyrighted by its writers Eaton “Bob” Magoon and Eddie Miller in 1961 then re-registered as Surfer Doll in 1964.

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The record that never was?

Did co-writer Eddie Miller release a recording of Sugar Doll? Around May-June 1961 some syndicated US newspaper columnists plugged “rock’n’roller Eddie Miller“, and at least one wrote that he had recorded Sugar Doll. However in August Bob Magoon was talking to the Honolulu press about an upcoming release of Sugar Doll by Eddie.

If a single ever was released, evidence of it is oddly absent from the archives. There are no notices, reviews or ads in the music press or other publications, no listings in any of the vast discographic resources now available online.

Eddie Miller worked mainly in the musical theatre and I suspect his career as a “rock’n’roller” was short-lived. By 1962 he was styled in the press as a youthful dance director.

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Co-writer Eaton H. H. “Bob” Magoon Jr (1922-2018) was a Honolulu realtor and a prolific composer who had written the Broadway musical 13 Daughters (staged March 1961). He co-wrote Numbah One Day of Christmas  (Ed Kenney, 1959, also as a picture book), now regarded as a Hawaiian Christmas classic. In 1974, Magoon and his friend and business partner Jack Law established Honolulu’s legendary gay venue Hula’s Bar and Lei Stand in Waikiki.

Eddie Miller worked in musical theatre as a dancer, choreographer and director. He was Bob Magoon’s assistant director on 13 Daughters in New York in March 1961, and in 1962 he directed and choreographed a production of 13 Daughters himself in Honolulu. The Edward Miller entry at Ovrtr is probably about him.

There have been numerous Eddie/Eddy/Edward/Ed Millers in sports and music over the years (this notable songwriter Eddie Miller, for example, is somebody else).

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Further reading:
1. “Bob Magoon, 96, businessman who opened Wave Waikiki and Hula’s, dies”, Star-Advertiser (Honolulu), 19 Sept 2018.
2. “Magoon has written shows-and about 300 songs”, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 1 August 1967
3. Eddie Miller: “Youthful Dance Directors Will Return To Broadway”, Honolulu Star-Bulletin 24 August 1962.