Know Old Time Radio

Dudley Manlove (1914-96)

2010-10-01T16:08:00.003+07:00

Dudley Devere Manlove (yes, it was his real name!) was born June 11, 1914, in Oakland, California, into a family that worked part of the year in vaudeville. Not a very wealthy family, but hard working, he was able to get singing, dancing, and piano lessons from colleagues of his parents. He worked on the vaudeville circuit himself through his mid 20s, when he got a position of staff announcer at radio station KPO in San Francisco.

Most OTR aficionados remember Dudley Manlove as the announcer on the NBC West Coast detective series, Candy Matson.

After Candy Matson went off the air, Manlove moved to Los Angeles to try his hand at motion pictures. Through his association with Monty Masters of the Candy Matson show, he befriended Jack Webb, who used Manlove for several of his radio shows and for the Dragnet TV show, as well as other work in television. He was also famous for his Lux soap commercials.

He also met Edward D. Wood, Jr., said to be the worst Hollywood film director/producer/writer of all time. Manlove did four of Wood's projects, including Plan IX from Outer Space (where the picture attached to this entry came from), in which he played the alien Eros.

Manlove was a staff announcer at the old NBC Radio City at Sunset and Vine in Hollywood. He retired before that building was razed in the mid 1960s. He died on April 17, 1996, at the age of 81, in San Bernardino, ironically, the city that was attacked in Plan IX from Outer Space.

Duncan Hines (1880-1959)

2010-08-13T09:21:00.004+07:00

Duncan Hines was born March 26, 1880, in Bowling Green, Kentucky. As a young man he traveled around the country as a traveling salesman. Not being able to cook meant that he had to eat in restaurants (I know the feeling). In 1935, with his wife, Clara, he wrote a book called Adventures in Good Eating. He then wrote sever

al other books about traveling. He was the guest on many radio shows, however, none of these exist anymore.

During the 1930s and 1940s, Hines went around the country rating the food in restaurants.

In 1949, his wife died and he started a food company with Roy Park, Hines-Park Foods. Its most popular line was ice cream. Park took it over completely in 1953. It was sold to Procter and Gamble in 1957. P&G sold it to Aurora Foods in 1998. Aurora sold it to Pinnacle Foods in 2004. The brand lives on. When P&G took the company, it concentrated on cake mixes, frosting mixes, and other home baked goods.

Duncan Hines died a few days before his 79th birthday on March 15, 1959. Sadly, since all of his radio appearances have been lost, the only recorded broadcast of Mr. Hines is an episode of the TV game show, To Tell the Truth, in 1957. Duncan Hines is buried in Fairview Cemetery in Bowling Green. A three mile stretch of US 31-W north of the city is named for him.

George Fenneman (1919-97)

2010-06-20T16:00:00.000+07:00

George Watt Fenneman was born November 10, 1919, in Beijing, China. (It was known as Peking in those days.) His father was an international banker. Before he could start school, his family moved to San Francisco, California, where he grew up. He graduated from San Francisco State College (now University) and went to work for the Blue Network as a war correspondent during World War II.

He married British character actress Peggy Ann Clifford on May 29, 1943. They would have three children. She died in 1984.

Returning to California and moving to Hollywood, George's first radio show was a comedy show starring Bob Sweeney and Hal March. The Sweeney and March Show would only be heard for one season.

Next, they said it was an experiment, but it ended up being the program which most people think of when they think of George Fenneman, You Bet Your Life, "the comedy quiz show from Hollywood." Groucho Marx was the moderator who basically just talked to guests as if they were visiting him at his house. George would have announced a "secret word" and if anyone said that word, they won a heap of money. Although the show was scripted, Groucho never let that bother him. A thirty minute show could take two hours to record. The tough part was getting the best thirty minutes to go on the air. George was the perfect straight man. You Bet Your Life aired on ABC first, then moved to CBS, for a couple of years, then to NBC, where it was also seen on television. The show lasted on radio until 1954. Many of the TV episodes would be broadcast on radio. The last TV episode aired in 1961.

Other shows George announced were Abbott and Costello, Pat Novak for Hire, I Fly Anything, and Gunsmoke.

Two more big jobs he had were Dragnet and the Martin and Lewis Show, both for Chesterfield cigarettes.

On Dragnet, he was first heard in the beginning of 1951. Two announcers were used: George was one and the other was Hal Gibney. George would do the same on television... in the 1950s with Hal and in the 1960s with John Stephenson (1923- ), best known as the voice of Mr. Slate on the Flintstones cartoon series.

On Martin and Lewis, he introduced Dean Martin and read lots of commercials. Occasionally, he did introduce Jerry Lewis.

George appeared in one movie in 1951, The Thing from Another World, in which he played the part of Dr. Redding, a scientist. The part was offered to him as its director, Christopher Nyby, was his next door neighbor. He also appeared in a serial on the Mickey Mouse Club, but aside from that he was only seen as himself, the genial announcer.

He hosted two game shows, Anybody Can Play (1958, CBS) and Your Surprise Package (1961, syndicated). Incidentally, the latter featured Carol Merrill, the lovely model who would later gain notoriety on Let's Make a Deal, hosted by Monty Hall.

After the death of veteran radio announcer, Harry Von Zell (1906-81), George took his place as the commercial spokesman for Home Savings and Loan. (The picture at the left is the old Sunset and Vine branch of that bank in Hollywood. It was the former site of NBC's Hollywood studio which was razed in the mid 1960s.)

George Fenneman died on May 29, 1997, after a long bout with emphysema at his home in Los Angeles. He was 77 years old.

Herbert Morrison (1905-89)

2010-05-05T13:50:00.008+07:00

"It's crashing. It's crashing terrible. Oh, my...get out of the way, please. It's bursting into flames! And it's falling on the mooring mast. All the folks agree this is terrible, one of the worst catastrophes on the world. Oh, the flames, four or five hundred feet in the sky! It's a terrific crash, ladies and gentlemen. The smoke and the flames now and the frame is crashing to the ground, not quite to the mooring mast. Oh, the humanity and all the passengers..."

Herbert Morrison was born May 14, 1905, in Scottdale, Pennsylvania, 49 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. He was a career broadcaster.

At WLS in Chicago, Herb was a music announcer, a job that was later called a disc jockey. He was also the man who announced yacht races on Lake Michigan (once or twice), dished out the celebrity gossip (unwillingly), and did all the mundane duties that no one else wanted to do. And they were going to resume airship traffic between Germany and the United States the first week in May. Guess who was chosen to cover it?

This job in New Jersey given to Herb was a dream assignment. All he would have to do is describe what he saw. The German Consulate-General of Chicago gave him a brochure that had explained everything. And he carefully memorized the parts of the airship. He learned the difference between a blimp and a dirigible. A blimp does not have a frame. A dirigible has one. This was Herb's first air flight--he flew from Chicago (Midway) directly to Lakehurst on American Airlines special flights for Hindenburg passengers), then stayed at a hotel in Toms River, New Jersey.

His companion for the trip was sound engineer Charles Nehlson. Their luggage was one simple overnight bag for each of the men, who didn't share a room, and a complicated transcription disc recorder. This rather complicated contraption made almost instantaneous 16-2/3 RPM records. These could be played over the air immediately. The plan was to record the landing and give the record to a man from the NBC network in New York, who would be waiting after the pomp and ceremony were all over.

Although Herb was away from his beloved wife Mary Jane, he was happy to have an easy job for a change. He didn't like the takeoff from Midway Field and had told Nehlson he was thinking about taking the train back to Chicago. After all, it was Thursday and they didn't have to be back work until Saturday (it was a two day trip, and the train would get in Friday afternoon). Nehlson, whom Herb always called Charley, was a friendly professional who understood what Herb felt. Neither one of them really wanted to go up in the sky again after they saw what happened to the Hindenburg.

At the time of the explosion, the word about it did not go out immediately. It was actually a phone call from the man that Herb and Charley met from NBC who called station WEAF that let the folks know in New York that something was wrong. News crews from New York did their best to get to the Lakehurst Naval Air Station (an interesting fact is that both the German and U.S. terminals of the route of the Hindenburg were naval bases). The word went out to WOR, WJZ (which, even though located in the same building, had a different news crew), WABC, WINS, WNEW, WHN, and WMCA (maybe others). They used their own personal vehicles to get to the base. Troopers from the New Jersey State Police had a 10 mile perimeter around Lakehurst sealed off limits from the public. Sabotage was suspected.

As soon as Morrison and Nehlson had what they needed for the report, they tried to look for the man from WEAF to give him the record. They called a taxi to take them back to Philadelphia, put their bags into the trunk, then realized they were being followed by two SS agents. This thwarted their plans of taking the train back to Chicago. They took the first airplane out and arrived home that evening.

They had made two recordings, one for NBC and a second which would air on Saturday afternoon. The SS agents were after whatever they had. They would take great pleasure in destroying their transcription disc recorder!

Anyway, they arrived home safe and sound. Even after they took the disc to the station the next day, the paranoia didn't leave them for weeks.

Herbert Morrison left WLS in 1939 to take a news position with the Mutual network at radio station WOR in New York. During World War II he served in the Army Air Forces. He was the first news director at WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh after having a similar position at radio station KQV in the same city.

Charley Nehlson retired from WLS in the early 1960s. Both he and Herb received gold watches for their work they did with the Hindenburg report shortly after it aired.

Retiring near Morgantown, West Virginia, Herb often gave lectures and speeches to school and news organizations. Herbert Morrison died at a convalescent home in Morgantown at the age of 83. He was survived by his wife Mary Jane. Herb is buried in the Scottdale Cemetery.

Axel Stordahl (1913-63)

2010-05-03T08:45:00.000+07:00

Odd Axel Stordahl was born August 8, 1913, in Staten Island, New York, to immigrants from Norway. He learned to play the trumpet in public school and became an ace arranger. Most people in school and professional life called him by his middle name, Axel. However, as an arranger, Odd became more than a name; it became his trademark.

He played trumpet for many name bands in New York in the 1920s and '30s. Tommy Dorsey hired him away from his main job in the 1930s of arranging music for Bert Block. At the same time Dorsey hired another trumpeter, Joe Bauer, and vocalist Jack Leonard. The trio became the Three Esquires. While with Dorsey, he worked with Paul Weston as co-arrangers. They hired singer Jo Stafford who later became Mrs. Paul Weston.

Tommy Dorsey and Frank Sinatra had a short working relationship which was passed on to Axel Stordahl in the early 1940s. Stordahl was the bandleader on the radio series Your Hit Parade, which also often featured Sinatra. Because this show was sponsored by a tobacco program, it's interesting to point out that Stordahl was often photographed leading his groups while smoking a pipe. In the 1945 movie musical Anchors Aweigh (which starred Sinatra and Gene Kelly), Stordahl wrote the orchestrations. He worked with Sinatra (at Columbia Records) from 1942 to 1951, when Sinatra signed up with Capitol Records.

Stordahl married June Hutton, who was a singer with the Pied Pipers in 1951. During the 1950s, he worked with many of the popular singers of the time (Dean Martin, Peggy Lee, Dinah Shore, Doris Day, Eddie Fisher, and Bing Crosby). He did some work on television on the show, Startime.

In the early 1960s, he worked on Sinatra's two last albums for Capitol Records. Diagnosed with cancer, he stayed at home for his remaining months of life and composed the theme music for the situation comedy, McHale's Navy. He died on August 30, 1963, at age 50, in his home in the Encino district of Los Angeles, California. He was buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California. His wife died in 1973 at the age of 52. She is buried next to him.

Stoopnagle and Budd

2010-04-25T12:15:00.002+07:00

The biggest stars of Old Time Radio sometimes had very short careers. Take one team, Stoopnagle and Budd. They were a household word in the mid 1930s, yet, when the decade was out, it was all over... for the team.

F. Chase Taylor (1897-1950)

Frederick Chase Taylor was born October 4, 1897, in Buffalo, New York. His father, Luther Chase, ran a lumber business. He attended the University of Rochester, his father's alma mater, but quit to enlist in the U.S. Navy during World War I. It was in the Navy that Chase became interested in radio.

Upon completion of naval service, he returned to Buffalo and worked as a salesman for the family firm. He married Lois DeRidder. They soon had a son, F. Chase Taylor Jr. (1921-2007), their only child. In 1927, his mother, Sara Chase Taylor died. Chase left the wood company and went to work as a stock broker. Two years later the great Stock Market Crash took place and he began writing for radio programs at radio station WGR. He also worked at WMAK.

In 1930, Chase began working on the air with a man named Wilbur Budd Hulick, who hailed from New Jersey. They had 15 minutes each week they could do anything. Chase started calling himself Colonel Lemuel Q. Stoopnagle and was a master of spoonerisms. (A spoonerism is a phrase in which certain elements are twisted around.) The program, now on station WKBR, soon became known as the Ask for Mail Show.

Five months later, it was known as the Gloom Chasers and was intensely popular. It aired Monday through Thursday from 8:45 to 9:00 P.M., originating from WABC in New York City and heard over the Columbia Broadcasting System.

They were in movies: International House (1933), Stoopnocracy (1933), and The Inventors (1934). Chase was divorced from his wife in 1936 and things started falling apart for Stoopnagle and Budd.

In 1937, the two men broke up. No explanation was ever given, though Budd probably got tired of just agreeing with the Colonel. Chase would continue as Colonel Stoopnagle for the rest of his life.

He died May 29, 1950, of heart disease, at the age of 52, in Boston, Massachusetts. His friend, the news commentator, Lowell Thomas, gave his eulogy.

Wilbur Budd Hulick (1905-61)

Wilbur Budd Hulick (it was his real name) was born November 14, 1905, in Asbury Park, New Jersey. He worked as a musician until fate brought him together with F. Chase Taylor in 1930. They worked as Stoopnagle and Budd for six years. After their breakup in 1936, Budd became a general announcer in New York City. For the last decade of his life, he was a disc jockey in Florida. He was married three times (to Helen Welch, Ruth Wanda Hart, and Elizabeth V. Sahner).

Budd died March 22, 1961, in Riviera Beach, Florida, at the age of 55.

Gene Autry (1907-98)

2010-04-25T07:30:00.001+07:00

Orvon Gene Autry was born September 29, 1907, in Tioga, Texas. As a child, he moved to Ravia, Oklahoma. After finishing high school in Ravia, Gene worked as a telegraph operator for the St. Louis-San Francisco Railroad (Frisco).

In 1928, Gene entered an amateur music contest on a local radio station. He got the opportunity to meet Will Rogers. Later that year, he was given the nickname, "Oklahoma's Singing Cowboy." The following year, 1929, he got a recording contract with Columbia Records and moved to Chicago where he performed on a number of shows over station WLS. These included the National Barn Dance.

In 1932, he began recording some records which would be forever remembered: "That Silver Haired Daddy of Mine" (with fellow former Frisco railroadman Jimmy Long), "Back in the Saddle Again" (it was first a hit record for Ray Whiteley), and many others.

He began making motion picures in 1934. Toward the end of the decade, he did more work on radio, mostly for the Columbia Broadcasting System.

He enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1942, staying in until 1946. Gene was a flight instructor for the U.S. Army Air Force.

Upon his honorable discharge, Gene made a few movies and returned to radio. Gene retired from entertainment and concentrated on investing his money in real estate, broadcasting (Golden West Broadcasters, which included KTLA, channel 5, and KMPC, AM radio 710, both located on the former site of the Warner Brothers Hollywood studios), and the California Angels.

Married twice, to Ina Mae Spivy (niece of Jimmy Long) in 1930 (who died in 1980) and to banker Jacqueline Ellam in 1981, he had no children from either marriage. Gene died October 2, 1998, in the Studio City neighborhood of Los Angeles from lymphoma.

Tony Hancock (1924-68)

2010-04-24T11:30:00.004+07:00

Anthony John Hancock was born May 12, 1924, in Birmingham, England. He grew up in Bournemouth, where his father, John Hancock, ran the Railway Hotel and provided entertainment to guests as a comedian. After John died in 1934 Tony's mother and step-father took their sons to move to Durlston, Swanage, where they also lived in a hotel. Tony attended Durlston Park Preparatory School, a boarding school. He attended high school at Bradfield College in Reading, Berkshire, but quit at the age of 15.

During World War II, Tony served with the RAF Regiment as a member of the ground crew on the homefront. He tried out for the Entertainments National Service Association but failed at the audition. He ended up as resident comedian at the Windmill Theatre in London and performed on such radio series as Workers' Playtime and Variety Bandbox.

In 1954, he was given his own program, Hancock's Half-Hour. That was on until 1960 and was later a television series. Tony appeared in movies.

The Tony Hancock on Hancock's Half-Hour was a totally different person than the real Tony Hancock. Tony made that character likable. The radio character's name was Anthony Aloysius St. John Hancock. He didn't drink very much. He was cocky. He was very proud. The real Tony Hancock was lonely and shy. He used alcohol to "lubricate" both work and personal relationships. And he could get outright mean and nasty.

He had a tremendous ego and was very difficult to work with, said colleagues Spike Mulligan and others. He was often drunk and abusive. When things got really bad in the U.K., he headed south to Australia where he had started a television series, Hancock Down Under. Only six episodes were filmed before he committed suicide of a sleeping pill overdose (with a vodka chaser) on June 25, 1968, in Sydney, New South Wales. He was 44. His body was cremated and his ashes were returned to the U.K. by the multi-talented Willie Rushton (1937-96). He flew first class for the first time in his life. His ashes are interred with his mother's grave, who died a year later, at St. Dunstan Church in Cranford near London.

He was married twice. His first wife was the model Cicely J.E. Romanis (d. 1969). They divorced in 1965. He married his pubicist Freddie Ross (1930- ), but they divorced, too. Upon his divorce from Freddie, Tony struck up a relationship with Joan Le Mesurier, who was the wife of John Le Mesurier (1912-83) of the radio series Dad's Army. Tony and Joan's affair began after the first six months of her marriage to John. One year after Tony's suicide, his first wife died from a fall.

Jimmy Clitheroe (1921-73)

2010-04-24T10:45:00.001+07:00

James Robinson Clitheroe was born December 24, 1921, in Clitheroe, Lancashire, England. His parents were James Robert Clitheroe and the former Emma Pye. He was named after his mother's brother, James Robinson Pye.

Jimmy never grew past 4'9" (130 cm) tall. He could easily pass as an 11 year old boy. As a young adult, with a dry wit, he was a star in Variety, as a boy in an all-girl stage troupe. He later worked with such comics as George Formby Jnr (1904-61), Jimmy Jewel (1909-95), Ben Warriss (1909-93), and Frank Randle (1901-57) in several movies in the 1940s.

Also an excellent pantomimist (like the late Marcel Marceau), he worked in this field from 1938 through 1971.

Although he worked in movies and television, his biggest appeal came in radio. His first performance on radio (BBC Home Service) was on Jimmy James' (real name James Casey, 1892-1965) program, The Mayor's Parlour. Soon after this he had his own show (variety), Call Boy.

His best known series was The Clitheroe Kid, which ran from 1957 through 1973. It aired on the BBC Light Programme and BBC Radio 2. With over 300 episodes, it was the longest running radio series in British radio.

There were TV shows in the 1960s (That's My Boy and Just Jimmy) as well as his best remembered movie, Rocket to the Moon (1967), an American film. Jimmy played the part of General Tom Thumb, P.T. Barnum's featured attraction (Barnum was played by Burl Ives).

When Jimmy's mother died in 1973, he was inconsolable. His doctor had prescribed a sleeping medication. He accidentally took an overdose and died during his mother's funeral on June 6, 1973, at the age of 51. He was cremated at the Carleton Crematorium located partly in Blackpool. Jimmy's ashes are under Memorial Tree Number 3, which also bears a memorial plaque (and a hastily painted numeral 3).

Mike Wallace (1918- )

2010-04-23T15:45:00.006+07:00

Myron Leon Wallace was born May 9, 1918, in Brookline, Massachusetts. His father, Friedan Wallick, was born with the last name, Wallechinsky. As a traveling salesman, he changed his name legally to Frank Wallace. Myron graduated from Brookline High School in 1935. He attended the University of Michigan and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English in 1939. At Michigan he was a reporter for the daily school newspaper (Michigan Daily) and active in the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity.

Myron's first broadcast performance was as a panelist (player) on the Information Please on February 7, 1939, three months before his graduation from the university. After graduation, he was an announcer at radio station WOOD in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Two years later he was at WXYZ in Detroit, home of the Lone Ranger, the Challenge of the Yukon, and the Green Hornet. Some people say they remember hearing him on the Lone Ranger, but he says he was never on that show. He does claim to working on Ned Jordan, Sky King, and the Green Hornet.

Two years later, he went to Chicago as a freelance announcer. This was quite successful. He joined the United States Navy in 1943 and was stationed in Alaska, Australia, and the Philippines (Subic Bay), but saw no action. Discharged in 1946, he returned to Chicago. His "bread and butter" was announcing wrestling matches in Chicago (for Tavern Pale Beer.)

He joined CBS as a staff announcer in the late 1940s. In that he moved to Los Angeles. He worked on Groucho Marx's You Bet Your Life quiz show as the voice over for Gruen watches. When the show moved to NBC, Myron, who soon became known as Mike, would have his own game shows on CBS. And, on CBS television, he was the voice of Golden Fluffo shortening (as well as other Procter and Gamble products.) He also announce Spike Jones' radio show in 1949.

Game shows he did at CBS included The Big Surprise, Who's the Boss?, Who Pays?, and a pilot called Nothing But the Truth. That show would change names to To Tell the Truth and forever linked with Bud Collyer.

In the mid 1950s he began doing news and documentary features for the Dumont and ABC television networks. The Mike Wallace Interview was very popular.

His older son was killed falling from a mountain in Greece in 1961 he decided to concentrate on news and public affairs programs for CBS. 60 Minutes was his main program and he remained on that show until his retirement in 2007. He is now the Correspondent Emeritus.

Family: Mike has been married four times and had four children (and a step-son). His first wife was Norma Kaphan. They had two sons, Peter, who was killed in Greece, and Chris, who became a reporter in his own right. (Mike and Norma were married in 1940, divorced in 1948.) Second wife was actress Patrizia "Buff" Cobb. The two had a radio talk show in Chicago and a TV talk show in New York (Mike and Buff.) The show on CBS could not be viewed on black and white TV. It had to use a special set that the network was experimenting with. They divorced in 1954. The following year, Mike married Lorraine Perigord, which lasted until 1986. His present wife is Mary Yates, whom he married shortly after his divorce from his third wife.

Cliffie Stone (1917-98)

2010-04-11T19:45:00.001+07:00

Clifford Gilpin Snyder was born March 1, 1917, in Stockton, California (according to his widow), and grew up in Burbank (most sources state that he was born in Burbank). At the age of 16, he became the bass player for Stuart Hamblen (1908-89), a country musician who wrote a number of songs usually sung in Evangelical church services today.

Cliffie grew up in a musical family. His father, Clifford Herman Snyder (d. 1963), went by the stage name of Herman the Hermit, renowned banjo playing comedian. Cliffie originally called himself Cliffie Stonehead, which was later shortened to Stone. This was so he could become a musician on his own merit and not riding on his dad's coattails.

After playing with Stuart Hamblen, Cliffie played with some of the first big bands (swing style) in the early 1930s, namely Anson Weeks (1896-1969), and Freddie Slack (1910-65). Cliffie was a disc jockey on a couple of Los Angeles area stations. He began working in radio hosting a show called Dinner Bell Roundup and heard on KPAS in Pasadena in 1945. That radio station became KXLA a couple of years later. In the late 1950s it became KRLA.

In 1946, in addition to working on the radio, he became the A&R (artists and repertoire) man at Capitol Records in Hollywood. Some of the people he signed up included Tennessee Ernie Ford, Merle Travis, Molly Bee, Hank Thompson, Les Paul, and Stan Freberg. He would later become Tennessee Ernie's manager.

Dinner Bell Roundup was heard between 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. for many years before it moved to Saturday night and became Hometown Jamboree. That moved to KLAC-TV (today KCOP) on TV. Later it moved to KTLA.

Cliffie was also a songwriter. He wrote books about songwriting. The man, whom some people who watched him and wondered how come he didn't do anything except announce, was one of the most truly talented men in entertainment.

He married his first wife, Dorothy Darling, in 1939. They were married for 50 years until her death in 1989. They had four children: Stephen, Linda, Curtis and Jonathan. Shortly after this, Cliffie married Joan Carol, an accomplished songwriter in her own right.

Cliffie Stone died January 16, 1998, at his home in Santa Clarita, California, of a heart attack. He is buried at the Eternal Valley Memorial Park in the Newhall section of Santa Clarita. According to his tombstone, he was always Cliffie Snyder, not Cliffie Stone. He never legally changed his name.

In 1999 he was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame. He also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

In the picture below, Cliffie is the next to the last person in Stuart Hamblen's band. He is listed as Cliffie Stonehead.

Unshackled!

2010-03-08T16:00:00.005+07:00

Unshackled! actually began in the 1940s as an inspirational sermon show given by rescue mission superintendent Rev. Harry Saulnier (1902-90), an electrical engineer from New York City who went to Chicago to work for the Consolidated Edison power company in 1923. He became active with the downtown rescue mission, the Pacific Garden Mission, so named by evangelist Dwight L. Moody for a bar called the Pacific Beer Garden. The Pacific Garden Mission used the Pacific Beer Garden's second building at 386 South Clark Street for its original location. Moody's idea was to let the drunks know that they were in the right place.

Pacific Garden Mission's first superintendent was Colonel George Clarke. He married his wife Sarah in 1873 and they started their rescue mission in 1877. It wasn't one of the first rescue missions but it is one of the oldest missions today. The original location was what is now 67 East Van Buren Street and had a capacity of 40 people. The bar became available in 1880 and it was at this time that Pacific Garden Mission was born.

Other superintendents included Harry Monroe, a mission convert, who took over when Col. Clarke died in 1892. Sarah Clarke continued working at the mission until her death. Monroe had come from Detroit after serving a prison term for counterfeiting. Mel Trotter converted to Christianity under Harry Monroe's leadership. Trotter was an infamous hopeless drunk on Michigan Avenue who later became a Presbyterian minister in 1905. He helped to start over 65 rescue missions around the country. When Harry Monroe died in 1912, Mel Trotter took over as superintendent, where he served until 1918.

In 1886, baseball player Billy Sunday (1862-1935) became a Christian at the mission. He was a popular outfielder for the Chicago White Stockings (today the Cubs). After an illustrious baseball career, he volunteered at the mission until his death. He was widely known as an evangelist in revival meetings.

Walter and Ethelwyn Taylor, known as "Ma" and "Pa," came to the mission in 1918. Ma was known as the hymnist who wrote "Calvary Covers It All."

The mission moved to its famous location at 646 South State Street, where it remained until 2007. This was never considered a prime location. The building was a brothel, the White House. After moving in, the stretch of State was known as "Murderers Row." After the Taylors retired in 1936, T. Donald Gately became the superintendent.

Harry Saulnier became the superintendent in 1940. He had a radio program in 1945 called Doorway to Heaven over station WAIT. WMBI (the radio station of the Moody Bible Institute) got interested in airing some kind of radio dramatic series in 1950. John Gillies (of the Institute) wrote a pilot script and WGN, a Chicago 50,000 watt powerhouse agreed to air the show. But a title was missing. A sailor at the mission, who had been in the U.S. Navy for many years, suggested the title Unshackled! It stuck.

The first show was a biography of Billy Sunday and was written by John Gillies. Later scripts were written by Eugenia Price (1916-96), a novelist who also wrote radio scripts in a previous life (as well as books about Christian subjects), wrote the first scripts. She was a new Christian herself (1949).

In time, Unshackled! received its "voice" in the person of Jack Odell (1915-91). A veteran radio actor in Chicago, his lifestyle had ruined his life until he gave his life to Jesus in the early 1950s. Jack and Unshackled! were linked together until his death.

The program became extremely famous over the years. Its phone number in Chicago (until 2007), in Jack's words, "Area 3-1-2, 9-2-2, 1-4-6-2," was politely made fun of by both Christians and nonbelievers alike. The original phone number was WAbash 2-1463. It didn't have quite the rhythmic bounce of the second number [(312) 922-1462], so it was the Mission that called the phone company to change the last digit of the phone number to a 2. They granted the request. The present phone number, (312) 492-4910, also isn't as nice sounding, but this is an era of computers and cell phones. No one cares what a phone number sounds like.

Most of the programs on Unshackled! have been true biographies. For holidays, "special" programs are often written.

Harry Saulnier worked at the mission until his son David (b. 1940) took over as superintendent. Today, David McCarrell is superintendent. And after a few years of being the host of Unshackled!, Russ Reed, an OTR veteran in Chicago, retired and now these responsibilities are shared by guests and mission personnel.

Unshackled! is the longest running radio program in history. The Guiding Light moved to television in the 1950s and it didn't air on the radio consistently. The same could be said about other shows. While it was probably more popular in previous years, the show will not leave the air...

The Cinnamon Bear - - Part II

2009-12-14T15:00:00.015+07:00

I noticed some of you all were looking for pictures of some of the actors on the Bear. Unfortunately, I can't get any that were taken during production. And some of the folks, well, it's difficult to find pictures of them. Here are the ones I could find:

Elvia Allman

Penelope the Penguin

Verna Felton

Mother

Gale Gordon

Weary Willie

Oliver Ostrich

Joe Kearns

Crazy Quilt Dragon

Cy Kendall

Captain Taffy

Indian Chief

Elliott Lewis

Mr. Presto

Howard McNear

Samuel the Seal

Slim the Cowboy

Frank Nelson

Captain Tintop

Ted Osborne

King Blotto

Professor Whiz

Hanley Stafford (with Fanny Brice as Baby Snooks)

Snapper Snick Crocodile

Walter Tetley

Jimmy

Bill Thompson

Snowman

Martha Wentworth

Wintergreen Witch

Barbara Jean Wong

Judy

Remember that the Bear was done purposely anonymously. Someone way back in 1937 knew that some armchair historians (like this tuba playing English teacher living in Mindanao) would be trying to figure out who all the cast was. These might all be wrong.

The Cinnamon Bear [Orinially heard November through December 1937]

2009-12-12T18:00:00.003+07:00

The Cinnamon Bear was a popular show for kids that played every night between the Sunday after Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve. It was the imaginary adventures of twins Judy and Jimmy Barton. Many children and adults have listened to this program through the years. I played the show here in the Philippines for some of my adult students and they love it.

Here are some details about the performers:

Paddy O'Cinnamon (Cinnamon Bear)--Bud Duncan (1883-1960)
He was a popular actor in silent films and was heard on many radio shows in the 1930s. He retired in 1943.
Mother--Verna Felton (1890-1966)
A native Californian, she was famous on radio for portraying the mothers of Dennis Day, Harriet Nelson, and Red Skelton. She was heard in almost every major Disney animated feature between Dumbo and The Jungle Book. Years after she died, her picture was used for the portrayal of the wife of Colonel Sherman T. Potter on the TV series, M*A*S*H.
Judy--Barbara Jean Wong (1924-99)
Her biography is mentioned elsewhere here. This was one of her first programs. Famous for portraying children of all races and ages, she was 13 here.
Jimmy--Unknown
For as big a part as this young actor had, no one remembers who he was. Some people believe that Jimmy was played by Walter Tetley (1915-75), who was 22 years old when the Bear was recorded in early November 1937. Walter had some condition (only he and his girlfriends knew exactly what it was) in which his body development and voice remained pre-pubescent. He always played children on the radio. On the Bullwinkle show in the 1960s (a cartoon series on TV), he was the voice of Mr. Peabody's boy, Sherman.

Crazy Quilt Dragon--Joe Kearns (1907-62)
Mentioned here. This was one of his first radio acting gigs. He was 30.
Snapper Snick Crocodile--Hanley Stafford (1899-1968)
Born Alfred Austin, he is mentioned here. He was one of the busiest radio actors of all time.
Samuel the Seal/Slim the Cowboy--Howard McNear (1905-69)
Native Angeleno McNear was best known on TV as Floyd the Barber on the Andy Griffith Show and on radio as Doc Adams on Gunsmoke. He was another active radio performer.
Penelope the Penguin--Elvia Allman--(1904-92)
Busy with radio, movies and TV, she first made her mark in Hollywood as the voice of Clarbelle the Cow in 1933 for Walt Disney.
Mr. Presto--Elliott Lewis (1917-90)
This was one of Elliott's first radio acting gigs. The recordings for the shows were done in early November. His twentieth birthday wasn't until November 28.
Santa Claus--Lou Merrill (1912-1963)
This Canadian actor was a master of various accents. He was on many shows. Died one week after his 51st birthday.
Captain Tintop--Frank Nelson (1911-86)
Very distinctive voice ("Yay-yuss!") Lifelong friend of Hanley Stafford. When Hanley died, his widow married Frank. Hanley's mother, Hanley, Frank, and Veola Vonn, the wife, are all interred together in the same mausoleum crypt at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California.
Captain Taffy/Indian Chief--Cy Kendall (1898-1953)
Heavyset actor known for chomping a cigar and acting very nervous (and nasty) in movies. The parts he played on the Bear were a change of pace.
Weary Willie/Oliver Ostrich--Gale Gordon (1906-95)
Charles T. Aldrich, Jr., is written about here. This man was on the radio almost every night of the week at this time.

King Blotto/Professor Whiz--Ted Osborne (1905-87)
Ted was also a very prolific radio performer. He was on mostly horror and science fiction shows. In 1939, he was Dr. Fu Manchu.
Fe Fo--Joe Duval (1906-66)
Joe only did radio until the 1950s, when radio died. He was seen in a handful of movies.
Wintergreen Witch--Martha Wentworth (1889-1974)
Known as the Woman of a Thousand Voices. She could do any character, any age.
Fraidy Cat--Dorothy Scott
She was a voice actress for Disney. Her last film was My Bodyguard (1980).
Assistant Blotto Executioner/Mudley--Ed Max (1909-80)
Edwin Max originally acted under the stage name of Ed Miller (in the movies). He always used his real name for radio.
Narrator--John Hiestand (1907-87)
Often listed as "Bud." He announced many radio shows in Hollywood (1930s-1950s) and later on TV.
Snowman--Bill Thompson (1913-71)
Defined by two characters--Wallace Wimple (on Fibber McGee and Molly) and Droopy the Dog (in MGM cartoons).

Background:
Script: Glanville Heisch (d. 1989) [a manager at station KFI in Los Angeles] and Elizabeth Heisch (1908-2003) [his wife--uncredited]
Director: Lindsay MacHarrie [was a voice actor in his own right]
Composer: Don Honrath [Broadway stage performer in the 1930s]
Orchestra Conductor: Felix Mills (1901-87) [Worked for many years at CBS in Hollywood]

You can download the entire show and other fun stuff at the official Cinnamon Bear website.

Manila Broadcasting Company

2009-08-28T14:00:00.004+07:00

Hello. It's been a while. Last week I got the flu. It wasn't the flu that everyone has been so afraid of lately... in fact it was worse! Which is why they didn't quarantine the hotel where I stay... Hmmm!

I listened to a little bit of local radio last week. In the Philippines there are very few truly local radio stations. (On TV the local stations would be called LPTV in the United States.) Anyway, I was tuning the FM band. Everything is the same Top-40. I used to wonder why Top-40 was dropped as a radio genre in America. Living here, I now know. It gets old listening to the same songs over and over and over and over and over again. Ugh!

So I went to the AM band. There isn't much music there, mostly talk (and mostly in a Pilipino language, which I still don't understand). I found a great station at DXKH (972 kHz) here in Cagayan de Oro (CDO).

It sounded like a television program. My radio picks up TV signals (something you can't do in the United States in most locations, since the advent of Digital TV) so I thought maybe my radio was set to the wrong band. But no, it was honest to goodness radio comedy. After that, there was a romantic soap opera followed by a 19th century superhero adventure, much in the spirit of Zorro. At the hour and half-hour it gave station IDs from both DZRH (the mother station in Manila, which just happens to be the oldest radio station in the Philippines, having gone on the air June 15, 1939, as KZRH, as the Philippines was a US commonwealth then, the Ks would be dropped ten years later and substituted with Ds, thus the Philppines is one of the few countries in the world that identifies radio stations by call letters) and DXKH in CDO.

It's just too bad I don't speak Tagalog. There was enough English and Spanish (Spanish in the adventure program) that I could follow the stories. It is nice to know that radio variety is alive and well in the Philippines. Now my job is to learn Tagalog! (Even though I live in a place where most people speak Cebuano/Bisayan.)

Abe Lincoln (1907-2000)

2008-11-02T20:10:00.003+07:00

Abram Lincoln was born March 29, 1907, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He began studying cornet with his father at the age of five. His dad never let him go to bed at night until he played all major and minor scales. Eventually, Abe settled on the trombone as his instrument. In 1921, he became the solo trombonist with his dad's band, the Bud Lincoln Orchestra, which was also known as the Brunswick Orchestra.

In time, Abe became friends with many of the great hot jazz musicians of the time, including the Dorsey Brothers. After Tommy Dorsey joined the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, Abe took his place with the California Ramblers.

In time, Abe was a member of several of the best known bands of the 1920s and 1930s.

He joined the Ozzie Nelson Orchestra in 1934. If a listener pays attention on Ripley's Believe It or Not, one can hear some of the most unusual trombone playing. He became notorious for making animal sounds with his trombone.

Abe was heard on many of the best know and loved radio programs of the Golden Years of Radio. Although his real love was jazz, he was one of the most innovative trombonists of all time. When Universal Pictures created Woody Woodpecker cartoons, his trombone was often the sound of the little red bird.

He was married in 1921 and had a son, Abe Lincoln, Jr.

Abe Lincoln died June 8, 2000, at the age of 93 in Los Angeles.

____________________________________________________________________

Speaking of Lincolns, Robert Todd Lincoln (1843-1926) was the only one of President Abraham Lincoln's four sons who lived past puberty. By the time his father was inaugurated President, the eldest son was already out of the house (as a student at Harvard University). In 1865 he left school to join the Union Army. He rose to the rank of captain and was present at Appomattox when General Robert E. Lee surrendered.

He had a distant relationship with his father. He was present at Ford's Theater when actor John Wilkes Booth shot his father and was one of the few who stayed around to see him die. He openly wept.

After the Civil War was over he enrolled at the University of Chicago (not the same as the present University of Chicago) and finished his studies in law. He was admitted to the Illinois Bar in 1867. The following year, he married Mary Eunice Harlan (1846-1937). They had two daughters and a son (the son, Abraham Lincoln, II, called "Jack," died of blood poisoning at the age of 16 in London, England).

One of the terrible trivial tidbits about Robert Todd Lincoln was that whenever there was a Presidential assassination he was there.
-Abraham Lincoln (Ford's Theater, Washington, DC)
-James Abram Garfield (Sixth Street Train Station, Washington, DC)
-William McKinley (Pan American Exposition, Buffalo, NY)

After a political/service career, Robert Todd Lincoln took over for George Pullman in 1898 when he died, Lincoln served as president of the Pullman Company until 1911, after which time he served as Chairman of the Board.

Robert Todd Lincoln died July 26, 1926, in Manchester, Vermont, at the age of 83.

Danny Kaye (1913-87)

2008-11-01T21:00:00.005+07:00

David Daniel Kaminski was born January 18, 1913, in Brooklyn, New York. He was the son of Jacob Kaminsky (yes, the spelling was different) and his wife, the former Clara Nemerov. With their sons, Mack and Larry, they emigrated from the Ukraine to the United States in 1910. For school, he attended P.S. 149 in Brooklyn before going on to Thomas Jefferson High School also in Brooklyn, but he never even finished the first year, leaving at the age of 13.

At that time, Danny became a tummler, which is Yiddish for master of ceremonies at Jewish resorts in the Katskill Mountains of Pennsylvania. Danny would do many other things and, as it can be seen from the program on the right, he experimented with different names. He did many other jobs that had nothing to do with entertainment.

In 1935 he acted in some shorts for Educational Films, usually as a Russian musician acting with future stars June Allyson and Imogene Coca (his contract actually began in 1936). Sadly that division of 20th Century-Fox shut down in 1938 which meant the end of Danny's film career, at least for six years.

Danny premiered on Broadway in 1941 in a show called, Lady in the Dark. He stopped the show with a tongue twisting song called Tchaikovsky. It was written by Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin.

He began doing some experimental radio programs in 1940. He starred in his own program beginning in 1945, about a year after his "big break" in motion pictures. Also in 1940, he married a young pianist by the name of Sylvia Fine (1913-91). They remained married until his death in 1987. They had a daughter, named Dena who was born in 1946.

Danny is best known for his movie career which included such films at The Court Jester, The Inspector General, and started out with Up in Arms.

In the 1950s, he wrote for Mad Magazine. In the 1960s he had his own variety show. Toward the end of his life, he appeared in a number of comedy shows and was lauded for a dramatic film called Skokie.
He was a life long Democrat and active with UNICEF and also owned a baseball team in Seattle.

Danny Kaye died March 3, 1987, at the age of 74 in Los Angeles of hepatitis.

Lorne Greene (1915-87)

2008-10-03T01:44:00.005+07:00

Lyon Chaim Green was born February 12, 1915, in Ottawa, Ontario. His parents were Russian Jewish immigrants to Canada, Daniel and Dora Green. He attended Lisgar Collegiate Institute (a public high school), where he earned his diploma in 1932. He then attended Queens University in Kingston, where he majored in chemical engineering. He was also involved drama and worked at the school radio station, CFRC. An excellent student, his professors had the idea that the young man was going to be a wonderful chemical engineer. But he changed majors in the middle of his college career and took a degree in languages so he could spend more time with drama activities.

When he graduated from Queens in 1937, rather than go into engineering, he went in for broadcasting, he spent some time in New York City to get some honest to goodness
drama training. Unfortunately, being at the deepest depths of the Depression, there were no jobs and he was not a US citizen. So he went back to Canada.

He walked into the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company) studios in Ottawa and was hired on the spot, thanks to his, low booming voice, even as a young adult.

In 1938 he married Rita Hands; they would have two children, twins born in 1945 named Susan and Charles.

In 1939, he became the principal newsreader for CBC's national evening news broadcasts. It was also this time he became known as Lorne Greene, which was based on his birth name. Having an unusual deep, rich voice, when they heard his voice, they said they had to have him. The Canadian Broadcasting Company billed him as the Voice of Canada. To most Canadians listening to the radio in 1939-42, he became known as the Voice of Doom, because when they heard his voice, it was normally tragic news about the war in Europe.He also narrated a number of documentary films for schools.

From late 1942 to early 1945 Lorne served as a flying officer in the Royal Canadian Air Force.When he returned from military service he went in more for acting. He began acting on the radio and worked in television as soon as it became available. Lorne helped establish the Academy of Radio Arts (founded as the Lorne Greene School of Broadcasting) and the Jupiter Theatre (1951).

In 1953, he made the move to California to try his luck at Hollywood acting. He got a lot of acting work on television and his booming voice also helped him to get work as narrator for more of those school documentary films,when times were lean.

The biggest break in his life was when he was cast as Ben Cartwright in the dramatic western series, Bonanza. Debuting in 1959 on NBC, it would be the defining role of his life. Lorne would go on to do animal shows and dog food commercials, but he would always be Ben Cartwright, the owner of the Ponderosa Ranch for those of us who watched him every week through September 1973. This was one of the greatest family television shows of all time.

Lorne Greene died September 11, 1987, following heart surgery in Santa Monica, California. He was 72 years old. Married twice, first to Rita Hands (1938-60) and then to Nancy Deale (1961-87), he was the father of three children. Green is buried at Hillside Memorial Park in Culver City, California.

Liberace (1919-87)

2008-10-02T13:58:00.009+07:00

Wladziu Valentino Liberace was born May 16, 1919, in West Aldis, Wisconsin. His family was quite musical. His father, Salvatore Liberace (1885-1977) played the (French) horn with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. His mother, Frances Zuchowsky (1891-1990), was a pianist. By the time young "Walter" was four, he could play anything on the piano by ear. He learned both from listening to his mother and from experimentation. Because of his parents' connections, he was able to earn money as a piano player when he was in his early teens. But his father did not want his children involved in music.

Walter had three siblings, brothers George (1911-83) and Rudolph (1931-67), and a sister, Angelina (1914-96). They were all musicians.

Walter made his big time piano debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the age of 14. He didn't just play the classics. He had a dance combo ("The Mixers") at the same time and later played piano in nightclubs as a student at the University of Wisconsin. He used the pseudonym Walter Busterkeys for those gigs.

After graduating from college, he moved to California to try his hand at some kind of stardom. He was not against doing any kind of work. The first movie that he was in where he could be seen (even though unbilled) was Best Foot Forward (1943), in which he appeared as a piano player (what else?)

It was after this time that Liberace began his radio career. (Don't blink too fast or you might miss it!) He wasn't only a piano soloist at this time, so he played in the orchestra for a number of radio programs that aired between 1941 and 1950, originating from Los Angeles. As a soloist, he played for the Texaco Star Theater (starring James Melton) and a number of Armed Forces Radio Service shows.

After 1950, he began working in television. His local TV show on channel 13 in Los Angeles was often poked fun at in Warner Brothers cartoons.

Now something should be said about his music. He was what most people would call a classical musician. He played Chopin, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, and all those other guys. But he liked everything. He was Elvis Presley's friend. He had friends who worked in country and western music.

Probably the most controversial aspect of Liberace's life was his sexuality. His homosexuality was rumored as early as 1945, when he began to make a name for himself in radio. Fortunately, the world was a much more innocent place during the time between the 1930s and the 1960s. Liberace's sexuality was something most people really didn't care about. He was a heck of a piano player. He had a nice personality. He was respectful.

But there was a homosexual episode that happened in England that got coverage in several magazines. Because it was a defamation to his character (and, while what he did was probably immoral, but it wasn't illegal) he successfully sued a British publication for the equivalent of $110,000 in 1957. That was the setting for his one joke, "I cried all the way to the bank." With his settlement money, he was able to make some shrewd investments. From that he had a second joke: "You know the bank where I went crying to? I bought it!"

His career took a nosedive in the early 1960s as the world was going through some changes which made us all a little less innocent. Paul Harvey would tell of the story how Liberace had a performance one November and he couldn't get one of his suits cleaned. So he had some chemicals in his hotel room and cleaned the clothes in his room of the hotel where he was staying. But the room wasn't well ventilated and he breathed in too much of the noxious chemicals. He tried to yell for help, but the dry cleaning chemicals made it so he couldmake no sounds and he began to pass out.

The radio was on. The President of the United States was spending the day in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. And suddenly there was a commotion. Liberace almost completely passed out. But he listened intently to the radio. He prayed, not for himself, but for the country. He was scared of what might happen. And Liberace clung to his life as he worried about the President's life.

A maintenance man was doing some work in the all of the hotel. He lingered near Liberace's room and listened to the radio. It concerned him, too. He knocked on the door to ask if the radio could be turned up. Liberace tried to say something, but nothing came from his mouth. The maintenance man heard this and opened the door with his master key. Seeing Liberace lying on the floor, he called an ambulance. As the medical personnel came to pick him up, it was announced on the radio that President John F. Kennedy was pronounced dead.

But after this, his career really took off. He had been working in the motion picture industry for some time since 1950. But by the mid 1960s he was doing everything. He was even a guest villain on the Batman series!

That lasted into the 1970s. Then he began making public appearances. Most of his fans were middle aged women. Most of them were married. They didn't care about the gossip about his sexuality. Liberace was an A1 entertainer and he was a gentleman. And such a great pianist!

Liberace died on February 4, 1987, in Palm Springs, California. Because so many aspects about his life were kept secret, there were thousands of reporters at the Riverside County Administration Center in Riverside (Palm Springs is in Riverside County). When the Riverside coroner announced that he died from AIDS, itwas big news. He is buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery, Hollywood Hills, in Los Angeles, in a large white crypt with his mother and older brother.

Milton Cross (1897-1975)

2008-09-30T14:35:00.012+07:00

Milton John Cross was born March 16, 1897, in New York, New York. In 1910, at the age of 13, he saw his first performance of the Metropolitan Opera in New York. He was a trained serious singer, a tenor. For about five years, he had a distinguished singing career. In 1923, he became the pioneer announcer of radio station WJZ in Newark, New Jersey, during the days of radio's infancy. He also announced part of the inauguration of President Herbert Hoover in 1929. WJZ eventually moved to New York City, where it became the flagship station of the Blue Network of NBC, sharing facilities with WEAF. WJZ is known as WABC today. WEAF became WNBC and is known as WFAN today. WJZ moved from 30 Rockefeller Plaza in 1946 when the Blue Network, which had already broken from NBC in 1942, became known as ABC.

On December 24, 1931, NBC began to broadcast the concerts of the Metropolitan Opera and Milton Cross became the Voice of the Metropolitan. Since opera broadcasts don't happen every day, Mr. Cross announced other programs on NBC. He announced game shows, gothic dramas, and mostly musical shows. OTR fans know him best as the narrator for This is Your FBI. He narrated the program and helped sell some darned good life insurance. It's difficult for most fans of Old Time Radio hear his voice and not think of him saying, "... the Equitable Life Assurance Society."

He continued broadcasting the Metropolitan Opera for exactly 43 years. He only missed two broadcasts for all those years. The first time was in 1933, when his eight year old daughter, Lillian Gale died. The second time was 40 years later in 1973 when his wife, also named Lillian, died. Incidentally, the tombstone for Lillian Gale originally intended for her alone. But it ended up also marking the grave of her parents, who are buried on top of her.

His movie career only consists of four pictures: Historic Greece (a 1941 school documentary); Gaslight Follies (a documentary from 1945 in four parts about entertainment of the past--he narrates the first part; the other narrators are Ben Grauer, John B. Kennedy, and Ethel Owen); Fifty Years Before Your Eyes (a 1950 documentary about the twentieth century); and Grounds for Marriage (a 1951 comedy, in which Mr. Cross narrates a dream scene from George Bizet's opera Carmen).

Old Time Radio fans remember Milton Cross as the narrator of This is Your FBI, as stated previously. But he only narrated 18 episodes of that series. He did much more work on Information Please, the Chamber Society of Lower Basin Street, and the soap opera Betty and Bob.

Book lovers know Milton Cross from the musical reference books he authored, edited, or co-authored. While, because of their popular appeal, they have never been widely accepted as textbooks for serious musical study, because of their simplicity, many postgraduate students of music have relied on his material to help them study for their final written comprehensive examinations (including your loyal 'Blogger!) These books are written in the form of novels. They lack cross referencing, which is what college textbooks should have.

Here are some of the books Milton Cross authored, edited or co-wrote:

Complete Stories of the Great Operas
More Stories of the Great Operas
Encyclopedia of the Great Composers and Their Music [two volumes] (with David Ewen)
Milton Cross' Favorite Arias from the Great Operas
From the Beauty of Embers: A Musical Aftermath (with Gordon M. Eby)

Cross never retired. He died suddenly at the age of 77, of a heart attack, at his home in New York City on January 2, 1975. He was getting ready for his next broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera.

____________________________________________________________________

Texaco (later Chevron/Texaco) was the sole sponsor of the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts 1940-2004. Originally, the Met was sponsored by a pool of advertisers, as most commercial broadcasts are sponsored today. These sponsors included Lucky Strike cigarettes, Listerine toothpaste and mouthwash, and RCA electronics. Today the sponsor is Toll Brothers house contractors.

Raymond Knight (1899-1953)

2008-09-30T09:21:00.005+07:00

Raymond Knight was born February 12, 1899, in Salem, Massachusetts. A scholar, Ray graduated from Boston University with undergraduate and law degrees and passed the Massachusetts Bar examination. But rather than go into law, he went in for more education and attended Harvard University's 47 Workshop, where he studied drama and writing. Ray then began studying drama at Yale University.

In 1927, he made his debut on Broadway in the musical revue, The Manhatters, which ran from August through October of that year.

Ray earned most of his living from writing. He was a very versatile performer who was witty, charming, and mostly satirical. In 1929 Bertha "Betty" Brainard (1890-1956), who was the programmer for NBC in New York, told Ray, who was writing several shows and commercials at the time, to come up with something cuckoo for the Blue Network.

What he came up with was the most popular radio comedy program of the 1930s: The KUKU Hour. This show was the forerunner to most of what America thought was funny afterwards. Ray, unlike most of the other radio personalities at the time, didn't have a background in vaudeville. He did all of his work within a short distance from home. Consequently, Ray had a good grasp on what people did when they were at home. Nothing was safe from Ray Knight's sarcasm. It wasn't meant to be rude or upsetting. But the KUKU Hour was so different from anything that was going on at the time. He would bounce back and forth between networks. The show started on NBC and was there for a few years before moving to Mutual.

The KUKU Hour did not always have the same characters but it would have the same elements in each show. One of these was a segment called the "Firing Squad." In this, Ray would make comments about a person, a group, or an idea, and then have everyone in the studio shoot at it with toy guns (paper cap guns were provided for members of the studio audience and even the technical people got involved in this!)

Ray also worked on the children's series Wheatenaville Sketches, in which he played Billy Batchelor, the publisher of the town newspaper.

Ladies Love Hats was Ray's one motion picture appearance. This 18 minute film premiered at movie theaters on November 1, 1935.

In 1938, Ray wrote a comedy play for Broadway, Run Sheep Run. It started on November 3 and ran for 12 days, closing on November 15. Two of the cast members were William Bendix and Dick Van Patten (who was quite young at the time)

Ray created a soap opera called A House in the Country. It was the story of Joan and Bruce and their trials and tribulations. Ray played the part of shopkeeper on the show, which aired from October 1941 to October 1942.

During World War II, after ABC (the Blue Network) broke off from NBC, Ray was the network's national program manager (roughly the same job that Betty Brainard had at NBC).

He wrote articles of all kinds for many magazines.

Ray's last job was writing for the radio comedy team of Bob and Ray (Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding) on CBS from about 1949.

Ray Knight died on his 54th birthday, February 12, 1953, in New York City. His widow, Lee, married Bob Elliott in 1954.

Did Anyone Say Cereal?

2008-09-24T17:00:00.013+07:00

Kellogg's Pep - - Kellogg's introduced this cereal in 1923, it was whole wheat flakes. Radio programs sponsored by Pep included Superman, Breakfast in Hollywood, and Tom Corbett - - Space Cadet. It wasn't the first cereal to have mail-in offers for boxtops, but it was one of the first to put the things other cereal companies required boxtops for. Pep had such premiums as badges, balsa wood airplanes, trading cards, and cars.

Pep cereal ceased production in 1979.

Quaker Puffed Wheat (Sparkies) and Quaker Puffed Rice (Sparkies) - - Quaker Puffed Wheat and Quaker Puffed Rice were the first cold cereals made by Quaker Oats. The slogan that these are shot from guns was not just hype.Early in the twentieth century, the company devised a machine that takes kernels of wheat and rice and expands them eight times their original size. It's a long tube that actually shoots them into a large container.The Dick Tracy program in the 1930s often had recorded sounds of this machine in action.

Radio programs which were sponsored by Quaker Puffed Wheat and Quaker Puffed Rice included Babe Ruth (1935), Dick Tracy, Little Orphan Annie, Roy Rogers, and Gene Autry.

The name of the cereal was changed to Sparkies in 1939 as the company thought the names "Puffed Wheat" and "Puffed Rice" sounded too generic as other companies were making the same cereals. They went back to their original name in 1950.

Although they aren't listed on the Quaker Oats website, these cereals are still being produced.


Post Huskies - - Lou Gehrig said it was the only cereal he would eat... "...and I've eaten them all!" Huskies was a whole wheat flake. In fact, this was the original wheat flake, whose history went back to 1912, 11 years before Kellogg's Pep, and 13 years before Wheaties.

In the 1930s, Huskies was the sponsor of many of the most popular shows including Ripley's Believe It or Not, Joe Penner,  Young Dr. Malone, and many athletic contests.

Huskies went out of production prior to World War II.

Shredded Ralston - - This was the cold cereal that Tom Mix ate (there were two Tom Mixes). However this isn't the one that can be purchased now. That is the hot cereal. The cold version was introduced in the 1920s. It was similar to shredded wheat, only coarser and harder. Even though it wasn't the same cereal, when Ralston-Purina introduced Wheat Chex, Shredded Ralston was discontinued. This was about the same time the Tom Mix radio program finally went off the air (ten years after the real Tom Mix was killed in a car accident in Arizona.)

Shredded Ralston had its own jingle:

Shredded Ralston for your breakfast
Starts the day off shining bright;
Gives you lots of cowboy energy
With a flavor that's just right!
It's delicious and nutritious,
Bite sized, and ready to eat
Take a tip from Tom:
Go and tell your mom:
"Shredded Ralston can't be beat!"

Shredded Ralston was manufactured by the Ralston-Purina Company at Checkerboard Square in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1998, the cereal division of that company was sold to General Mills, except for the pet food and private label cereal divisions. The pet food division was sold to Nestle. The company that was left became Ralcorp. In August 2008, the Post division of Kraft Foods (formerly of General Foods)was sold to Ralcorp.

Wheaties - - Wheaties was said to have been created by accident in 1922 when some batter for a cooking experiment was dropped on a hot stove at the Washburn Crosby Company in Minneapolis, Minnesota. After going through several tests, it was sold as a cold cereal in 1924. Washburn Crosby became General Mills (with the acquisition of 27 grain mills) in 1928.

The slogan for the cereal, Breakfast of Champions, was coined in 1926. This was the same year the jingle was written...

Have you tried Wheaties? 
They're whole wheat with all of the bran. 
Won't you try Wheaties? 
For wheat is the best food for man.

Written to the tune of a popular song at the time, Jazz Baby, the commercial jingle first aired on December 24, 1926.

The first person who had his picture on a box of Wheaties was Lou Gehrig in 1934. He was a spokesman for Post Huskies, an almost identical product. Babe Ruth also appeared on the Wheaties box and he had a contract with Quaker Oats at the time. Until 1958, all the athletes pictures were on the back of the box. Gehrig and Ruth had pictures which could be clipped as trading cards.

On Old Time Radio, Wheaties first sponsored baseball and football games. It then became the sole sponsor for Jack Armstrong, the All American Boy. The jingle was expanded to include something about Jack Armstrong eating them. The 15 minute daily soap opera was actually, more or less, a long commercial for Wheaties. The story seemed to take second place. However,the program was so popular. Jim Ameche (1915-83), who played Jack said that grocery stores were often out of Wheaties for weeks.The company had to work extra hard to put out more and more cereal, especially if there was a special mail in offer for a toy or a piece of athletic equipment. Wheaties also sponsored the Lone Ranger, Night Beat, and Tales of the Texas Rangers.

The first man who had his picture on the front of a box of Wheaties was the Rev. Bob Richards (b. 1926), USA Olympic champion of the 1956 games at Melbourne, Australia, who had also competed in the games at London (1948) and Helsinki (1952). He was the main spokesman for the cereal for the next ten years.

Wheaties now come in different flavors.

Graham McNamee (1888-1942)

2008-09-21T06:30:00.005+07:00

Graham McNamee was born July 10, 1888, in Washington, DC. He grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota. After completing his postsecondary studies, in 1912 he moved to New York where he became a serious singer (some people would say "opera singer".) He had a very active career in his area, singing in choirs and small groups, as well as solo work. He was a baritone.

One afternoon in 1923, after serving jury duty, he wandered into the AT&T Building to the studios of station WEAF. He asked the staff how he could get a job as an announcer. They auditioned him and he was hired then.

Within days, he became the first baseball announcer in history, as he broadcast a preseason game between the New York Giants and the New York Yankees at the Polo Grounds. The folks in Chicago heard about this and WMAQ became the second station to broadcast Major League baseball games.

Graham McNamee became the voice of everything... from horse racing to boxing to football to the National Marble Championships. He was the announcer for the 1924 Republican National Convention (in Cleveland, Ohio), the first political rally EVER broadcast. He was the announcer for the first coast to coast broadcast of the Rose Bowl football game (the University of Alabama tied Leland Stanford, Jr., University 7-7) in Pasadena, California. He was on hand when Charles A. Lindbergh returned to America from his transatlantic flight. McNamee was ringside on September 22, 1927, in a fight known as the Battle of the Long Count, between Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney (won by Tunney). And he announced everything that could be announced concerning baseball at the time.

OTR aficionados know him best as being Ed Wynn's straight man. He could be also heard on Rudy Vallee's program and many other shows originating from New York.

His voice was also familiar to moviehouse attenders in the late 1930s as he was the voice that announced the Universal Pictures Newsreel every week. Although he was connected with NBC, he did make the report about the infamous Marian broadcast on Orson Welles' Mercury Theater on October 30, 1938. The newsreel was out the second week in November.

Graham McNamee died May 9, 1942, in New York City. He was survived by his wife, Josephine Garrett, a fellow serious singer who continued her career during their marriage. McNamee was 53 years old. He is buried at Mount Calvary Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio.

Mc Namee had such a friendly way of ending his broadcasts: "This is Graham McNamee speaking, good night, all."

Jack Latham (1914-87)

2008-09-20T00:31:00.007+07:00

John Jackson Latham was born December 27, 1914, in Washington State. After graduation from high school, partly because of the Depression, he moved to Los Angeles to be a movie star. For his first six years in Hollywood he received nothing but bit parts and background ("extras.") But he found work as a radio announcer for Earle C. Anthony, who owned radio stations KFI and KECA.

Jack's voice was very authoratative. He also had looks that were stern and impressive. That didn't matter much for radio, except that it got the studio audience quiet. Eventually JackLatham would be heard on a number of programs on all the networks: NBC, ABC, CBS, and Mutual. He never mentioned his name. The sternness of his demeanor were actually not true. Jack was a very humble man who was happy with every job he ever had. In 1949, he began a 20 year relationship with the NBC owned and operated television station. At the same time, he became the announcer for The Man Called X (starring Herbert Marshall).

The station now known as KNBC-TV has its humble beginnings in the back room of Radio City West, at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street. The television station almost didn't happen. As KNBH (the "H" stood for Hollywood) it was the second NBC affiliate in Los Angeles. It began on January 16, 1949. Earle C. Anthony, owner of the NBC radio station, KFI (KECA was acquired by ABC in 1945), started KFI-TV (now KCAL-TV) in August 1948. It broadcast kinescopes of NBC network programs made in New York, as well as programs produced at Radio City West. When KNBH went on the air, many of KFI-TV's staff went there to stay with the NBC network. Channel 4 was the next to the last VHF station to go on the air.

Jack Latham broadcast the news twice a night, at 7:30 and 11:00. Each of these broadcasts was only 15 minutes long. This was as long as any other station in the Los Angeles area at that time.

Here is a list of the stations that existed in 1949 and what happened with them...

Note: Los Angeles did not have one Dumont network station. All of the independent stations broadcast one or a few Dumont shows during the lifetime of that network (1947-55).

2 KTSL (Independent) 1947-1951 Owned by Don Lee Broadcasting

KTSL (Independent) 1951 Owned by RKO-General (very briefly)

KNXT (CBS) 1951-1984 Owned by CBS

KCBS-TV (CBS) 1984-present Owned by CBS

4 KNBH (NBC) 1949-1954 Owned by NBC

KRCA-TV (NBC) 1954-1962 Owned by NBC

KNBC(-TV) (NBC) 1962-present Owned by NBC

5 KTLA (Independent) 1947-1964 Owned by Paramount Pictures

KTLA (Independent) 1964-1982 Owned by Gene Autry

KTLA (Independent) 1982-1985 Owned by "Sun Television"

KTLA (Independent) 1985-1995 Owned by the Chicago Tribune

KTLA (WB/CW) 1985-1995 Owned by the Chicago Tribune

7 KECA-TV (ABC) 1949-1954 Owned by ABC

KABC-TV (ABC) 1954-present Owned by ABC (many owners)

9 KFI-TV (NBC) 1948-1949 Owned by Earle C. Anthony

KFI-TV (Independent) 1949-1951 Owned by Earle C. Anthony

KHJ-TV (Independent) 1951-1989 Owned by RKO-General

KCAL-TV (Independent) 1989-1996 Owned by the Walt Disney Company

KCAL-TV (Independent) 1996-2002 Owned by Young Broadcasting

KCAL-TV (Independent) 2002-present Owned by CBS

11 KTTV (CBS) 1949-1951 Owned by the Los Angeles Times

KTTV (Independent) 1951-1963 Owned by the Los Angeles Times

KTTV (Independent) 1963-1986 Owned by Metromedia

KTTV (Fox) 1986-present Owned by News Corporation

13 KMTR-TV (Independent) 1948 (one day) Owned by the New York Daily News

KLAC-TV (Independent) 1948-1954 Owned by the New York Daily News

KCOP (Independent) 1954-1960 Owned by the San Diego Union and Evening Tribune

KCOP (Independent) 1960-1995 Owned by Chris Craft Industries

KCOP (UPN) 1995-2001 Owned by Chris Craft Industries

KCOP (UPN/MyTV) 2001-present Owned by News Corporation

Jack appeared in several movies after his retirement from NBC. He moved to Palm Springs and read the news for station KMIR-TV, channel 36, there. He died in Palm Springs on January 1, 1987, at the age of 72.

Tommy Walker (1922-86)

2008-09-17T21:30:00.001+07:00

Thomas Luttgen Walker was born November 8, 1922, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His father was band director Vesey Walker (1893-1977), who became the leader of the Disneyland Band at Disneyland in Anaheim, California. His father, also a musician (cornet player), was born in England and came to America in 1913 "because of all the wonderful bands." He would become the instrumental music supervisor of the public schools in Milwaukee and helped organize 30 high school bands. In 1930, he was the band director at Marquette University. This is all very important because his son Tommy was a part of all of that. On the weekends, Tommy played trumpet with the American Legion band that his father led in 1936. Vesey Walker moved to Los Angeles shortly after this and helped organize several bands in Southern California, including the Topper Band, originally made up of members of the Elks Lodge of Whittier. The Topper Band was a regular part of the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California for over 30 years.

Tommy graduated from high school in 1940 and enrolled at the University of Southern California as a music major. He had been a drum major in high school. But he was also the place kicker for the varsity football team. The band plays a very important role in the game of American football: It might be on the field two or three times in a game. At first, for the pregame. Just before the game starts, the band gets into a formation on the field and plays the Star Spangled Banner. The band might also play some kind of music to show homage to the school. The second time is the band's show in the middle of the game, called a half time show. This is where, in this 'blogger's mind, American football has soccer beat. If the game is boring, the band's perfomance makes up for all the bad stuff. Some people actually go home after half time, figuring that's all with the band. But some band's give a third perfomance on the field after the game.

In his freshman year at Southern Cal, Tommy did play trumpet in the marching band, as he did the following year. But in 1942, Tommy had gone away to be in the Navy overseas. He returned in the fall of 1946. This time, he wasn't content to just be in the band. He became the band's drum major and student director. And he went to varsity football coach Jeff Cravath (1903-53) to tell him he wanted to be the place kicker for the team AND be the band's drum major. How could he do that?

Tommy was the absolute master showman. He would sit on the bench during the game wearing a helmet (they didn't have face guards then) with no pads underneath (this was legal for kickers at that time; today NCAA rules mandate protection for all players). Just before half time, unless he had to kick the ball, he would slowly move toward the band and make a big production, changing from a football uniform to a band uniform.

One of Tommy's most notable achievements, and this is the reason why his biography appears on an OldTimeRadio website, was a six note composition that takes a little more than three second to perform--CHARGE! It was first heard in 1946 and most people heard it on the radio.

After graduating from USC in 1948, the Washington Redskins wanted to draft him as their place kicker, but he chose, instead, to become the marching band director at his alma mater. He stayed there until 1955, when he went to work at Disneyland, when it opened (father and son both went to work at the park at the same time.) As previously stated, Tommy was the master showman. He created a wonderful show for the opening of Disneyland on July 17, 1955. For the next eleven years, if something at Disneyland was showy, it was a Tommy Walker production! He left in 1966 to start his own production company. But, in 1960, just prior to the 17th Summer Olympic Games in Rome, Italy, he composed a military march in honor of the games entitled, the March of the Olympians. It was definitely more complicated than Charge!

Every New Year's Day, Tommy was the drum major for the Toppers Band in the Rose Parade. During its last few years of existence, the band was made up of members from Local 47 of the American Federation of Musicians in Hollywood. (Tommy was a member of Local 7 in Santa Ana.)

Tommy's production company created extravaganzas for five World's Fairs, two Presidential inaugurations, various football games, and more. He was in charge of the fireworks for the centennial celebration of the Statue of Liberty and the 350th anniversary of Harvard University. At the time of his death, he was executive producer of special events at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.

Undergoing his third series of open heart operations, Tommy Walker died October 20, 1986, during surgery at the Carraway Methodist Medical Center in Birmingham, Alabama. He was survived by his wife Lucille and three daughters (Debbie, Diana, and Patty). Tommy was 63 years old. He is buried at the Pacific View Memorial Park in Newport Beach, California.

Bill Cullen (1920-90)

2008-09-13T21:47:00.016+07:00

William Lawrence Francis Cullen was born February 18, 1920, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Bill was an only child. At the age of 18 months, he contracted polio. He wore a brace on one leg until he was ten.

Bill attended South High School in Pittsburgh. A good student, he was considered somewhat of a clown. He organized pep rallies and assemblies at South High. And he was the comic relief at spelling bees. He organized fund raising projects and published his own school paper when he disagreed with the official one.

During his Junior Year of high school he was involved in a terrible automobile accident that put him in the hospital for nine months. (Most websites combine the childhood polio and the car wreck, stating that he contracted polio at the age of 18. Or they state that he was involved in a car wreck that left him with a limp.) So his school that year was provided by a private tutor in the hospital.

Even though he was nearly killed in that car wreck, Bill acquired a new hobby during his senior year of high school, midget racing (uses miniature versions of Indianapolis-style racing cars.) He was so involved in it that at one point, he dropped out of school and raced professionally. After talking with his parents, he went back to school and graduated with his class in 1938.

Between 1938 and 1943, Bill was a student at the University of Pittsburgh. He was a pre-med student, hoping to become a physician. To pay for his studies, Bill worked at his father's garage. Some of the clients at the garage were well known radio personalities. He got a chance to be in the audience of the 1500 Club on station WWSW in Pittsburgh. Eventually, he performed on the show. He worked at the station for free first, then they began paying him minimum wage. One of his jobs on that station was to help veteran sportscaster Joe Tucker give color to University of Pittsburgh football games. He had a whimsical sense of humor that was appreciated by most listeners.

In 1943, Bill earned a Bachelor of Arts in Theater Arts from the University of Pittsburgh (he didn't drop out; again some of the researchers combine their facts to make Bill's biography shorter. It should also be pointed out that pre-med is NOT a major but a group of classes future medical students take as prerequisites for medical school.) No longer interested in becoming a doctor, after working at WWSW for a couple of years, he moved on to station KDKA, the pioneer station of Pittsburgh. A 50,000 watt station, owned by Westinghouse, and affiliated with NBC, Bill's voice was now be heard by a great portion of the United States.

It was also this time that Bill married a local Pittsburgh girl. The marriage didn't even last two years.

In 1944, Bill was hired as a staff announcer for CBS in New York. He also wrote some of the copy for Easy Aces (Goodman Ace and Jane Sherwood Ace.) In getting this job Bill said with all the major announcers out because of military service (this was World War II), they had to hire him. He was also heard as an actor on some of the programs on station WOR (and, consequently, some of the Mutual network programs.) The loyal Blogger can point this out on the hour long end of the year program on WOR in 1944. Bill was one of the servicemen who was a prisoner of war in Bataan in that program.

Two years later, Bill got his big break and hosted the radio quiz show, Winner Take All. That program would be his destiny. But the show that was paying the bills at home was a 15 minute daily soap opera called This is Nora Drake. Eventually he did many of the shows on CBS, including Casey, Crime Photographer, Beat the Clock, Give and Take, Dan Dodge, Catch Me If You Can, Strike It Rich, and many others.

On February 20, 1949, Bill hosted his first television game show, Act It Out, on WNBT (now WNBC-TV) in New York City. Rather than give a narrative of all the TV game shows on which Bill appeared (he was a panelist on To Tell the Truth, though he often subbed for the regular host), here is a numbered list (these are only the game shows):

Act It Out (AKA Say It with Acting) [WNBT] (1949)
Meet Your Match [WOR-TV] (1949--two weeks in October)
Winner Take All [NBC] (1952)
Give and Take [CBS] (1952)
Matinee in New York [NBC] (1952)
I've Got a Secret [CBS] (1952-67)
Name's the Same [ABC] (1952-53)
Who's There? [CBS] (1952)
Professor Yes 'n' No [Syndicated] (1953-but possibly filmed as early as 1950)
Where Was I? [Dumont] (1952-53)
Why? [ABC] (1952-53)
Place the Face [CBS/NBC] (1954)
Name that Tune [CBS] (1954-55)
Bank on the Stars [NBC](1954)
Place the Face [NBC] (1955)
The Price is Right (daytime) [NBC/ABC] (1956-65)
Down You Go [NBC] (1956)
The Price is Right (evening) [NBC/ABC] (1957-64)
Eye Guess [NBC] (1966-69)
You're Putting Me On [NBC] (1969)
To Tell the Truth [Syndicated] (1969-74-Bill was a regular panelist, who often subbed for host Garry Moore frequently)
Three on a Match [NBC] (1971-74)
Winning Streak [NBC] (1974)
$25,000 Pyramid [Syndicated] (1974-79)
Blankety Blanks [ABC] (1975)
I've Got a Secret [CBS] (1976-four weeks in summer)
How Do You Like Your Eggs? [QuBE-Warner Cable] (1977-two shows)
Pass the Buck [CBS] (1978)
The Love Experts [Syndicated] (1978-79)
Chain Reaction [NBC] (1980)
Blockbusters [NBC] (1980-82)
Child's Play [CBS] (1982-83)
Hot Potato [NBC] (1984)
The Joker's Wild [Syndicated (1984-86-took over, sharing duties with Jim Peck, after the death of Jack Barry, the show's creator and original host)

The Internet Movie Database states that Bill Cullen hosted 23 game shows. Wikipedia states this number is 24. Your loyal Blogger listed all the game shows that Bill hosted (including the one in which he served as panelist and substitute host), allowing the reader to make his or her own conclusion.

In 1953, he hosted a 30 minute variety show (no guests, ever) that only lasted 13 weeks, The Bill Cullen Show. Two partial episodes are available on DVD, believe it or not! Bill hosted. Milton DeLugg's trio played the music. And Betty Brewer sang. There was no script. The sponsor was Mogen David Wine! (Remember that Bill's background was Irish Catholic!)

Inside NBC was a local news/public affairs program on WRCA (now WNBC-TV) in New York City 1955-56.

He hosted the Tonight Show a few times in 1956.

Sports Cavalcade was a documentary sports series that was syndicated in 1963.

The NFL Special was a syndicated program that aired during the 1966 football season in which Bill interviewed professional coaches and players.

NBC Sports in Action was NBC's attempt at their own version of ABC's Wide World of Sports. Bill hosted it for the first half of 1966. And then it went off the air on June 5.

Bill continued to be active in radio all during this time. He hosted a number of game shows in the 1950s including Quick as a Flash (ABC). He had a variety show called Pulse (AKA The Bill Cullen Show) on WNBC (now WFAN) from 1955 to 1961, which, unlike the TV version of the Bill Cullen Show, was immensely popular. During the 1956 football season, he was a commentator for Army Football Games (US Military Academy, West Point, NY.) From 1960 to 1975, he hosted a series called Emphasis on NBC, these were short documentaries that aired five times a weeks. He was one of the hosts on NBC Monitor (1971-72).

His last work in broadcasting was a group of radio documentary series produced by David J. Clark, which aired between 1981 and 1988. These included: People Who are Different (1981), Goose Who's Coming to Dinner (1982), Fuji Facts (1987?), and The Parents' Notebook (1985-88.)

On July 30, 1949, he married singer Carol Ames. They divorced in 1955. She was a regular cast member of Arthur Godfrey's radio program until about 1971.

Bill's third wife was model/dancer Ann Roemheld Macomber, the daughter of Heinz Roemheld, a composer of music for the movies. Bill met her in the 1950s when he would host one game show in Los Angeles (Place the Face) and fly back home to New York. They married December 24, 1955. He finally moved out to California in the late 1970s. Ann's sister, Mary Lou Roemheld, was married to another game show host, Jack Narz (1922- ) in the 1950s and 1960s until they divorced. He then married a TWA "stewardess" named Dolores ("Dodo"), who began working for the airline in the 1950s and was still working as a flight attendant when the airline was sold to American Airlines in 2001.

A lifelong smoker, Bill started getting sick in 1987. He died at his home in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles on July 7, 1990. Bill was 70 years old.

Bill Stulla (1911-2008)

2008-09-12T08:55:00.010+07:00

William Stulla was born May 24, 1911, in New York City. He only lived in New York for a year before his father, a printer, moved the family to Erie, Pennsylvania, Buffalo, New York, and Cleveland, Ohio, before settling in Denver, Colorado, where Bill graduated from high school. Even before graduating from high school, Bill was already a journeyman printer. One afternoon in 1929, he was riding on a street car, riding home in Denver. He saw a billboard at the University of Denver advertising courses in radio. So he enrolled in it. He only stayed in it for six months until he was offered a job at station KFEL, a 5,000 watt outlet.

In time (1934), he moved on to KOA, then an NBC outlet, which had 50,000 watts and was heard in over half the country at the time. At KOA he was a staff announcer and script writer. Five years later, in 1939, he moved to Los Angeles and worked at KFI.

At KFI he hosted a musical program and he was the announcer for the Rudy Vallee Show, which was heard over the entire NBC network.

He then enlisted in the U.S. Army in the Signal Corps, stationed in the China-Burma-India theater. Bill's job was helping to set up 15 American Forces Radio Service (AFRS) stations. As the war was also raging at this time, he was awarded a Bronze Star for bravery while engaging Japanese forces.

Returning to civilian life in Los Angeles, Bill went back to work at KFI. He had a program called Ladies' Day, a talk show for women. He was at KFI until 1950, when he moved on to the NBC television network and hosted that show, now known as Parlor Party. The show soon moved to KHJ-TV (local now, not national).

In 1952, KTTV in Los Angeles began a long running kids' show, Lunch Brigade. It was a program with a live host, dressed as a law enforcement officer, Sheriff John (played by John Rovick, a staff announcer at channel 11.) Channel 9 (KHJ-TV) wanted a similar program and Bill auditioned for the part. The KHJ idea was a character named Ranger Ed, another law enforcement officer, but Ed was really just a lousy phony version of Sheriff John.

Bill's idea was for something totally different. He became a train engineer (in British English, the term is "train driver".) He wore traditional engineer's clothing... engineer's cap, pinstriped overalls, and a bandana around his neck. There were other traditional railroad symbols in the studio. So he was Engineer Bill. And the TV show was Cartoon Express. It was most famous for the Red Light/Green Light milk drinking game, an ingenious version of "Simon Says" created by Bill's wife, Ruth (whom he married in 1947), which she based on activities their daughter, Kathy, was doing in her nursery school. When it first aired, it came on at 6:30 in the evening. Bill didn't talk down to children. That meant that adults enjoyed the show too.

Cartoon Express aired from 1954 to 1966. After that, Bill retired from broadcasting, moved to Ventura County, and became a stock broker. He lived a very quiet life in the community of Westlake Village. His wife Ruth died in 1999.

Bill Stulla died August 12, 2008, at his Westwood Village home. He was 97 years old. His daughter, Kathryn Stulla Mackenson, was his sole survivor.

Steve Allen (1921-2000)

2008-09-10T11:00:00.007+07:00

Stephen Valentine Patrick William Allen was born December 26, 1921, in New York City. Despite having five names, he grew up in poverty. He was the son of Carroll Allen (real name Carroll Andrew August Abler/1888-1923), who went by the stage name Billy Allen as a vaudeville comedian, and Isobelle Donohue (1886-1964) who went by the name of Belle Montrose as a vaudeville comedienne. Together they performed as the team of Montrose and Allen. Milton Berle said Belle Montrose was the funniest woman he ever saw. Steve's dad died when he was a year and a half. His mother took him to Chicago, where she grew up.

For a single parent/single child childhood, with hardly any money, he was very active in school. He taught himself to play the piano but never learned how to read music. Later he joined the school band and took up the trumpet and then the band director had him play the tuba, since he was such a tall boy. Steve always played by ear, whatever he played. To reiterate, he never learned to read music.

After graduating from high school, he went to Arizona State Teachers' College (now Arizona State University) in Tempe. Steve dropped out of college after two years and went to work as a staff announcer at Phoenix radio station KOY and then he married Dorothy Goodman. Eventually he enlisted in the United States Army and was trained as an infantryman. After basic training at Fort Ord, his assignment for the rest of his military career was just down the road at Camp Roberts. He never left the country. Or California for that matter.

Upon his honorable discharge from the Army, Steve returned to Phoenix for a short while before deciding to go back to California, to Los Angeles. He worked as an announcer for KFAC. Then he got a job on a comedy show on the Mutual Broadcasting System, Smile Time, featuring Wendell Noble. He moved on to a bigger station, KNX, as a staff announcer. While that seems like a demotion, in terms of pay it was a huge promotion. Steve knew how to work. In time, he had a daytime talk show in which he would play the piano and create songs on the air. And he could also be so funny. He proved himself to be a great entertainer. The audiences to see his show were huge and many people, if not most, couldn't get into see him. (The tickets were free.) And when Doris Day couldn't show up for an interview on one episode, Steve improvised a comedy routine that the listeners say was unforgetable.

In 1950, the situation comedy Our Miss Brooks, went off the air for summer. So he had a nationwide program that lasted 13 weeks. He then moved back to his native New York City to work at TV station WCBS-TV. This involved other work at CBS in New York. When Arthur Godfrey couldn't host his show Talent Scouts because he couldn't get out of Miami, Steve filled in for him and ad libbed all the commercials. For one, he told how wonderful Lipton's soup and Lipton Tea was. And he took the soup and the tea and poured them into Arthur Godfrey's ukelele. He divorced his wife Dorothy at this time.

He next went to WNBT (now WNBC-TV) and NBC where he was the first host of the Tonight Show. He married actress Jayne Meadows during this time. He went back to Los Angeles in 1959 and continued working on TV, writing songs, and acting in movies. Jayne would give him a fourth son.

Steve had one last radio gig: He had a radio program on WNEW in New York City in 1985. He actually did the show from his office in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles but the show played well in New York. His program came on just after Soupy Sales' show.

What more could we say about Steve? Well, first, the writer of this 'blog knew Steve as a personal friend. Steve knew of the 'blogger's devotion to his faith. Steve always called himself an "involved Presbyterian." But in actuality, even though he had a strong upbringing in the Roman Catholic faith, Steve didn't think much of churches or religion or anything like that.

He wrote several books and more than 7,000 songs.

On October 30, 2000, Steve was involved in a minor traffic accident near his son's home. The drivers got out of their cars, exchanged insurance information, looked at the damage to the cars, and both said, "Aw, forget it. I don't see much damage done here." Steve went his son's house. When he got in the house, he told her he didn't feel well, so he went to sleep that evening. He had a massive heart attack and never awoke. Steve was 78 years old. After his autopsy, they said the minor accident actually caused several ribs to break and a major artery broke.

Hugh Brundage (1909-72)

2008-09-09T18:00:00.007+07:00

Hugh Brundage is probably one of the least remembered personalities on Old Time Radio. He was a California native, born in 1909, who spent his entire broadcasting career in Los Angeles.

After graduating from the University of Southern California in 1931, tried to embark on a career in business, first dealing with the Signal Petroleum Company of Long Beach. At the time that oil company was toying around with the idea for a radio program based upon the Tarzan series of books by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Burroughs happened to be in the corporate office when Hugh was applying for the job. The personnel manager said that positions that he was qualified for were already filled, in fact, they were actually laying off some of the junior executives and asking the senior ones to retire early.

But Burroughs heard Hugh speak. "You know, son, you have a good speaking voice. How would you like a job in radio? We'll be working in L.A. starting in a couple of days. You don't even need to audition. I'll use the paperwork here to get you onto the station." So Burroughs gave Hugh the information of where to go.

When Hugh returned to his parents he told them that he got a job. They were surprised that he got a job offer at the first interview.

"No, Ma," he explained, "I didn't interview. They just took me."

"How much are you getting, Hugh?" his father asked.

"Dunno."

"When do you start?"

"Monday in the late afternoon."

"That's a funny time to start work in the oil business, even for an executive."

"I'm not going to be an executive."

"Oh? Then what will you be doing? Drilling? Refurbishing? Bringing glasses of iced tea to the hard working men?"

"I won't even be working near an oilfield. I'll be close to here."

"Signal only has gas stations in this neck of the woods. You're going to be a service attendant pumping gas and checking oil? You were never very mechanical."

"No. I won't be working at a gas station. I'll be working on the radio."

His parents couldn't believe their ears. Their son was going to be a famous radio star. Hugh didn' have the guts to tell them that he didn't know what he was going to be doing himself. They didn't give him any scripts or anything. Not even a pass to let him in the studio.

The radio station was KHJ. It was located next door to a Cadillac dealership owned by Don Lee, who was the Cadillac dealer for the entire West Coast. Hugh wore his best suit. It was the man he was going to interview at the Signal office in Long Beach who let him into the studio.

After they got in, he told him what was happening.

"OK, Hugh... Here's the story... You are the announcer on a program about Tarzan, the character that Edgar Rice Burroughs writes about in novels. Do you remember him?"

"Certainly."

"He's in the audience. He asked for you to be the announcer. You might be a young man but your voice sounds so mature. You'll be the first person that anyone hears. Even before Tarzan lets out his yell, they'll hear you."

He continued: "Now, just so you know, Hugh. Let me explain how radio works. I am the sponsor. I am actually in charge of the program. My company, Signal Petroleum, owns the Tarzan program. It's only 15 minutes and it will be playing only in states where they have Signal service stations. As far as oil companies go, we're pretty small. They own the radio program so they can get more customers. KNX and Don Lee, along with CBS, only give us a place to put the show on. And, if someone goofs, they punish us. So we have to do a good show."

"OK. My parents are listening this afternoon."

"Where do they live, Hugh?"

"Not far from here. I just told them the name of the station I was going to be working at and they'll keep the wireless going on until they hear me."

"That's good. We'll all be proud of you."

"Thanks."

Hugh was scared when he read the script. They let him go over it alone for about 45 minutes. Then they went on.

There would be many more programs for Hugh, although he would rarely use his name while announcing. He did so well for Tarzan at KHJ, they hired him for work at KNX, and KFI/KECA (the two NBC stations were both owned by Earle C. Anthony.) Occasionally, he would give his name, but that was so rare.

His voice became the voice of Oscar as he was the announcer for the Academy Awards, no matter where they were held, and no matter if they were a banquet or a formal awards ceremony.

That let to him being the announcer for an anthology series in 1946 called Academy Award. Heard over CBS on varying nights of the weeks the mission of the show was to bring "Hollywood's finest, the great picture plays, the great actors and actresses, techniques and skills, chosen from the honor roll of those who have won or been nominated for the famous golden Oscar of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences." It was a very expensive program. The show itself cost $4,000 a week, plus another $1,600 had to be paid to the Academy for the use of the name. And his own name was heard at the beginning and the end of every program.

The sponsor of the program was the Squibb company and the featured product was Squibb Dental Cream. This toothpaste hasn't been available since 1956 but in the 1940s, it was one of the biggest selling brands. Squibb got out of the toothpaste business but continued making Broxodent toothbrushes for many years after that.

After Academy Award, Hugh continued as a staff announcer at KNX and for many CBS shows produced at Columbia Square.

In 1957, he became the sole newsperson at radio station KDAY in Santa Monica. This was one of the newer stations that wasn't playing any radio dramas or variety programs it was a Top 40 station that played the hits of the day with news for five minutes on the hour and on the half hour. Well, that only lasted a year. He went back to his postion as staff announcer at CBS in Hollywood for many more years.

In 1965, Gene Autry had purchased radio station KMPC and TV station KTLA. He chose Hugh to be both stations' news director. He was heard on KMPC during weekday afternoons and seen on KTLA at night.

Hugh Brundage died in 1972 at the age of 63.

John J. Anthony (1902-70)

2008-09-01T10:00:00.004+07:00

Lester Kroll was born September 1, 1902, in New York, New York. From 1920 to 1925, Lester was a New York taxi driver. In 1926, one of Lester's passengers told him about a radio station he was starting up in Queens. The radio station was WMRJ. It was located in the Merrick Radio Store at12 New York Boulevard in Jamaica, Long Island. Lester had just married Stella, a former Earl Carroll's girl in 1925 and she would bear him two sons. At first, Lester worked under his own name. He was mainly a disc jockey but he was also a general announcer. A prankster at heart, one of his pranks didn't take too well for wife Stella and she divorced him in 1929, moving to California with the boys. Vengefully, Lester refused to pay alimony and child support. This got Lester in trouble with the law. He spent three months in the New York City Jail for not making those payments. Eventually he would mend his ways. He sought professional help and began his own radio series where listeners would call in with their problems in 1930. Radio historians consider this the first instance of talkradio.

Using the names of his two sons, John (who was called "Jack") and Anthony, he came with John J. Anthony. Ask Mr. Anthony was a program dedicated to helping the sufferers from an antiquated and outmoded domestic relations code. WMRJ moved its location in 1930 and again in 1931 before it went off the air in 1932, a victim of a challenge of another station on the same frequency 100 miles away. When WMRJ went off the air, its radiated power peaked to 100 watts full power.

Once Lester matured, he proved he could counsel anyone, despite being a high school dropout. Having a stage name, he was never challenged. He came up with a clever scheme, which also was not challenged: As John J. Anthony, he claimed he did all the study of a fully licensed psychiatrist at the "world famous" Institute of Marital Relations on the campus of Vassar College, then an-all women's university. He was heard on several stations after WMRJ went off the air and married Ettile Sorella in 1934. It was said that "Mr. Anthony" had marriage counseling clients who could not afford his costly $25 an hour fee (in 1935 that would be something in the neighborhood of $200 an hour in 2008), could be heard on his radio program: "No names, please!"

The Goodwill Hour (taking its name from the "kind" gesture Mr. Anthony was doing to give them free counseling sessions) began broadcasting on WMCA in New York in 1937 and was eventually heard on the Mutual network (via New York's WOR). The name of the program was changed to the John J. Anthony Program in 1945. The sponsor was Carter's Products, manufacturers of Carter's Little Liver Pills and Arrid antiperspirant-deodorant.

There were lots of jokes about John J. Anthony and, in fact, Mr. Anthony was often a guest star on many of the situation comedies of the day. From a psychotherapists point of view, the programs were very well done. The program went off the air in 1953. Lester Kroll moved to the West Coast, eventually settling in San Francisco. The Goodwill Hour was briefly on the air again in 1957 on the Mutual network. In the 1965 film Divorce American Style, he made an appearance as the divorce court judge. John J. Anthony died in San Francisco, California, on July 17, 1970, at the age of 67. His son, John "Jack" Kroll became a popular columnist for Newsweek magazine in 1965. Jack died in 2000.

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As a sidenote, Carter's Little Liver Pills soon came to be known as Carter's Little Pills (by which they are still called in Canada) and now they are Carter's Laxative in the United States. Now you know why that man in the first picture of this thread is smiling now, hmmmm? The company that makes them is Church and Dwight, whose first claim to fame was making Arm and Hammer Baking Soda. Now they make Arrid deodorant, Brillo soap pads, Pepsodent toothpaste, and many other products that used to be made by another company.

Billy Idelson (1919-2007)

2008-08-21T14:30:00.005+07:00

William Idelson was born August 21, 1919, in Forest Park, Illinois. Billy was the son of Russian Jewish immigrants. He began working in radio at the age of 12 on Vic and Sade. He was also heard on a number of other Chicago radio programs in the 1930s. He remained on Vic and Sade until he was called to serve in the Navy during World War II. He returned to the program in 1945. He sporadically continued working in radio but his real job for most of that time was in real estate. In 1950 he married Seemah Wilder. They would have four children, including daughter Ellen Idelson (1961-2003), who also acted and wrote TV shows like her father.

In 1959, not understanding what he was doing, he wrote a script for a TV show. He sent it to the producers of the Twilight Zone and they bought it. He called the script, "Direct Line," but it was changed to "Long Distance Call." He was the only person from the original Twilight Zone series who both wrote and acted on the program. He also acted in many other programs. In time, he wrote for many television shows and gave classes of how to do it. He wrote a number of books about writing for television and about old time radio.

Bill is probably best known for his work on the Odd Couple, which starred Tony Randall and Oscar Klugman. This was one of the most popular shows of the 1970s.

He also became well known at OTR (old time radio) conventions. His stories about the people involved in the Vic and Sade program were interesting.

Bill Idelson died on December 31, 2007, after a fall at his home in Los Angeles. He was 88 years old.

Bea Benaderet (1906-68)

2008-08-11T23:45:00.003+07:00

Beatrice Benaderet was born April 4, 1906, in New York City. Her father was Samuel Benaderet, an immigrant from Turkey. Her mother was Margaret O'Keefe. Bea moved to San Francisco with her family when she was little and was first heard on radio there at the age of 12. Bea attended the Reginald Travis School for Acting in San Francisco. During her time there she worked in stock companies and found work in radio. She became an active voice actress in the Bay Area in the 1930s and moved to Los Angeles in 1936 where she became one of the most active radio actresses of her day. She married actor Jim Bannon (1911-84) in 1938 and they had a son, Jack Bannon (1940- ), who also became an actor.

Bea was on hundreds of radio programs throughout the 1940s and into the 1950s. Although she wasn't the most beautiful woman on the radio she could make her voice sound like it. Bea could be anyone. She could be old. She could be sexy. She could be a doting wife.

And once she was naked. Dead, but naked. It was on the program The Whistler. The date was August 21, 1946. The episode was called "The Broken Chain." In it, Elliott Lewis played a business owner who wanted to run away with his pretty, young secretary. Bea was a seemingly devoted housewife who would do anything for the love of her husband. But usually she never got out of bed in the morning until hours after her husband went to work. So the husband had a plan... He asked his wife to cook breakfast for him. She went to bed that night spending hours talking about what she was going to cook for him. In the morning, the wife had gotten up long before the husband. She had something cooking in the stove and had gone to take a bath. The husband had worked it so that a chain that was used to pull themselves out of the tub would break and cause an accident. So the husband left home when he heard the chain break and took breakfast at the coffee shop near his office. That afternoon, he received a phone call from his "wife" that she was playing cards with a neighbor and wouldn't be home until late in the afternoon.

Now how could that happen? The loyal Blogger won't spoil this excitement. Readers, you can find that radio program here. You will find out that the husband wasn't the only guilty party!

She was a regular on Fibber McGee and Molly, My Favorite Husband, Burns and Allen, Jack Benny, and many other shows and was heard on almost every situation comedy originating from Los Angeles.

And, beginning in 1940, she was in a lot of movies. But she had the parts that you could hear but couldn't see. She began doing voicework in 1947 for Warner Brothers in their Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes cartoons. Her first role was that of Granny, the owner of Tweety Pie.

Beginning with one movie in 1949, Bea began to show her face to the camera, although she was seen on a TV show produced and written by radio impresario Arch Oboler before that. Now her parts on television were different than what she did on radio. She always played the same people on the sitcoms she appeared on.

I Love Lucy - - Miss Lewis
Jack Benny - - Gertrude Gearshift (operator/she also did this part on radio)
Burns and Allen - - Blanche Morton
Bob Cummings - - Blanche Morton
Flintstones - - Betty Rubble
Beverly Hillbillies - - Pearl (earlier shows)
Beverly Hillbillies - - Kate Bradley (later shows)
Petticoat Junction - - Kate Bradley
Green Acres - - Kate Bradley

In 1960, she was called on to do the part of Betty Rubble in the "adult" cartoon series, the Flintstones. The original four actors to portray the four main characters were all Old Time Radio veterans: Alan Reed (AKA Teddy Bergman), Mel Blanc, Jean Vander Pyl, and Bea Benaderet. She stayed on the program until Filmways producer Paul Henning asked her to do the part of Kate Bradley on Petticoat Junction. She did both that show and the Flintstones until her body couldn't take it anymore.

Bea and Jim Bannon were divorced in 1950. Besides their son Jack, they also had a daughter. In 1957, she married actor and sound technician Gene Twombly (1908-68).

She became very ill beginning in 1967 and had to stop all of her work. It was lung cancer (she was a smoker). Bea Benaderet died October 13, 1968, at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles. She is buried at the Valhalla Memorial Park in the North Hollywood district of Los Angeles. Four days after she died, and two days after the funeral, her husband Gene died, and is buried next to her.

Bernardine Flynn (1904-77)

2008-08-05T23:35:00.001+07:00

Bernardine Flynn was born January 2, 1904, in Madison, Wisconsin. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1926 and married Dr. C.C. Doherty, a prominent physician, in 1929. Ever since arriving in Chicago in 1927, she had been involved as a radio actress and announcer. She was one of the few women whom the station managers thought could announce without getting too emotional. It was for this reason that Bernardine was selected by Paul Rhymer to be Sade Gook on the comedy-soap opera, Vic and Sade.

Sade Gook was a devoted wife to husband Vic Gook, an accountant for the Consolidated Kitchenware Company. They had an adopted son named Rush who was quite bright. Sade had absolutely no sense of humor. When Paul Rhymer selected her, he knew that if something were to make everyone laugh, Sade would not laugh or even crack a smile.

The program aired 15 minutes a day, five days a week from 1932 to 1945. It returned to the air during the middle of 1946 for a weekly one hour show. And there were some television episodes in 1949 and 1957. It was originally heard nationwide over the NBC Blue Network. At the height of its popularity, the show was heard six times a day on all the networks. It was one of the first radio programs to be recorded.

Bernardine and the doctor had two sons, Bill and Roger. The doctor served overseas during the Second World War. During that time, Bernardine had time while the boys were in school so she was a reporter for a daily afternoon news program sponsored by Crisco shortening.

She retired from broadcasting in 1957 and moved to Clay City, Illinois, her mother's home town. Bernardine died there on March 10, 1977, at the age of 73.

Smoke 'Em (if you got 'em)

2008-08-05T19:59:00.014+07:00

Tobacco advertising was a normal part of radio through 1971. After that, smoking became stigmatized. But your loyal Blogger here can remember a time when it would be assumed that any adult smokes. Cigarette cartons, which held 20 packages of 20 cigarettes, were a welcome gift for birthdays and Christmas.

On radio it was actually the most affluent of radio shows that were sponsored by cigarettes. Let's look at some of the brands commonly advertised on Old Time Radio.

And here's the important disclaimer: Your loyal Blogger (the LoyalTubist) is a militant nonsmoker himself. He doesn't condone smoking in any manner, nor the use of any product containing nicotine, except maybe as an insecticide.

AVALON - - Avalon cigarettes were introduced by the Brown and Williamson Tobacco Company in 1933. They originally cost ten cents a package. Avalon's "secret ingredient" was Latakia, a Turkish tobacco grown in Syria and cured by the burning of camel dung. Avalon's advertising featured beautiful women. The first major natinal radio show to be sponsored by Avalon cigarettes was hosted by Red Foley and Red Skelton and made its debut in 1939. It went off the air after only one season. Soon after that, the production of Avalon cigarettes also ceased. "Don't forget your change, sir!"

FATIMA - - Fatima was the flagship brand of the Liggett and Myers Tobacco Company through the 1940s. Introduced in the 1870s, it was one of the first brands to be made on a cigarette machine. For many years, it was the most popular cigarette brand. The picture on the yellow package featured a veiled Turkish woman. In the 1940s, with the introduction of newer flagship brand Chesterfield, Fatima became a king size brand; the cigarettes were 10 millimeters longer. Fatima sponsored Dragnet and Tales of Fatima. By 1952, the shows formerly sponsored by Fatima were sponsored by Chesterfield. Fatima cigarettes left the market in 1980. Their replacement, L&M cigarettes, first appeared in 1955.

KOOL - - Kool cigarettes were first made by the Brown and Williamson Tobacco Company in 1933. The target smokers were successful men. It was originally a regular cigarette without a filter but the tobacco had the addition of menthol to make the smoke "kool." The mascot for Kool cigarettes was a penguin named Willie. The Brown and Williamson folks thought so much of making youngsters smoke cigarettes when they became older that they actually made coloring books and comic books featuring Willie the penguin. Joe Camel never had anything like that! Kools are still being made, though now with a filter tip. Kool first sponsored the Jack Pearl program in 1935. (Kools are now made by R.J. Reynolds.)

CAMEL - - Camels were first made in 1913 by the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. They became extremely popular during the First World War. Military personnel from the United States were the first to nickname the mascot on the package "Old Joe." In 1985, R.J. Reynolds came up with their own cartoon mascot, Joe Camel, who was really the same animal. Camels became the most popular American cigarette brand, whose smokers included President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Edward R. Murrow. On radio, Camels sponsored many programs including those of Benny Goodman, Blondie and Dagwood, Abbott and Costello, Richard Diamond, Jimmy Durante, and many others. The Camel brand is still very popular among tobacco users. "I'd walk a mile for a Camel." In the late 1940s, many advertisements included the claim: MORE DOCTORS SMOKE CAMEL THAN ANY OTHER CIGARETTE.

LUCKY STRIKE - - The brand was first seen on packages of chewing tobacco in 1871. It was made by R.A. Patterson of Richmond, Virginia, which was acquired by the American Tobacco Company in 1905. The slogans "It's Toasted" (meaning its tobacco is dried in a smokehouse) and "L.S.M.F.T." (Lucky Strike means fine tobacco) were first used in magazines (and on packages) in 1917. In 1935, Lucky Strike began to sponsor the Hit Parade. The original color of the package was green. In 1942, because of rumors that what went into making green ink was needed for the war effort, the package was changed from green to white. Marketers realized that by changing the package from green to white that more women liked to smoke Luckies. So the packages were never changed back to green. For its last 12 years on the air, the Jack Benny program was sponsored by Lucky Strike. "Be happy. Go Lucky."

RALEIGH - - Raleigh was the flagship brand of the Brown and Williamson Tobacco Company. It sponsored the Jack Pearl, Tommy Dorsey, and Red Skelton radio shows. In the 1950s, along with its menthol counterpart, Belair, Raleigh began putting coupons on its packages which could be redeemed to buy almost anything. If smoking is stigmatized in the early twentieth century, in the 1950s the coupons on Raleigh cigarettes helped many folks to smoke them. The coupons were often collected by churches and schools to purchase equipment they needed. By the way, this Raleigh advertisement shows Babe Ruth, the baseball player. Smoking was one of the factors that led to his death by cancer at the tender age of 54. Doctors have known that cancer and smoking were linked as early as 1912. These findings were reported to the public in 1952, 40 years later. Health warnings on cigarette packages would first appear twenty years after this. Reading some of the other life stories on this 'blog, one can see that smoking helped shorten the lives of several performers.

CHESTERFIELD - - Named after Chesterfield County, Virginia, this brand, made by Liggett and Myers, first appeared in 1913. On radio, the most popular gimmick Chesterfield did was use the initials, ABC, for "Always Buy Chesterfield." This would also be used for something else about the programs advertised, such as, "Arthur Godfrey, Bob Hope, and Bing Crosby." For the last ten years of the Old Time Radio era, Chesterfield's most noted spokesman was George Fenneman. He could be heard on Dragnet and the Martin and Lewis shows. Chesterfield was one of the last brands to add a filter to its cigarettes. In fact there was an advertisement in the late 1960s which declared that "Chesterfield people don't need filters because the cigarettes are so mild." Chesterfield was the brand of choice of the LoyalTubist's father.

OLD GOLD - - Introduced in the 1920s, Old Gold sponsored Harold Lloyd's program in the 1940s. Actress Mary Tyler Moore made her television debut as a dancing cigarette package on the Richard Diamond TV show. Dick Powell, who played Richard Diamond on both radio and television, would die from smoking cigarettes at the same age as your loyal Blogger is while he is writing this 'Blog. The radio show was sponsored by Camel. Old Gold's most infamous slogan was, "Not a cough in the carton" (referring to a carton of cigarette packages). Old Gold would become a filter only cigarette by the late 1960s. This was one of the brands which was offered to military personnel in C-Rations and K-Rations during World War II.

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The Zippo lighter was invented in 1932 by George Blaisdell in Bradford, Pennsylvania. During World War II, they were only available to military personnel.

PHILIP MORRIS - - Philip Morris is one of the oldest brands in tobacco. In 1847, Philip Morris began selling ready made cigarettes at his shop in London, England. In 1881, Philip Morris & Co. Ltd. was established in England. Another Philip Morris company was set up in New York in 1902. Eventually, the English company was acquired by the American company. In radio, Philip Morris sponsored many radio programs. Its spokesman was Johnny Roventini (1910-98), a 4 foot tall (122 cm) bellboy from New York City who would shout out, "Call for Philip Morris!" The corporate theme music was the "On the Trail" movement from the Grand Canyon Suite by Ferde Grofe (1892-1972), who was best known as the man who orchestrated George Gershwin's (1898-1936) Rhapsody in Blue. (Philip Morris cigarettes were renamed "Commander" cigarettes in 1989.) Philip Morris had advertising in the late 1950s and early 1940s admonishing smokers to "believe in yourself." Philip Morris was the sponsor of I Love Lucy on both television and radio (the radio version is believed to be just a pilot, although the loyal Blogger has actually heard from people who said they heard the show on the radio).

Laurel & Hardy

2008-08-03T17:59:00.016+07:00

We normally don't think of them as radio performers and they only did one radio show with their names on it--The Laurel and Hardy Show, March 6, 1944. It was a pilot that shouldn't have gotten any further than the parking lot at Radio City West at the corner of Vine Street and Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood.

But the guys also did one very impressive skit on Mail Call, a show on the Armed Forces Radio Service, on November 24, 1943. This Blogger can recall listening to other fine shows heard on old time radio. They were all around, multitalented performers who belong on this list as much as anyone else included.

After the death of Oliver Hardy in 1957, Stan Laurel went into seclusion (he actually had a nervous breakdown). He came out a few times to do some fantastic radio interviews, which often appear as downloads on the Internet.

Stan Laurel (1890-1965) Arthur Stanley Jefferson was born June 16, 1890, in Ulverston, Cumbria, England. His father was Arthur J. "A.J." Jefferson, an actor and theater manager. Stan (who was always called "Stan," because his father's name was also Arthur) made his acting debut in Glasgow, Scotland, at the age of 16. He then joined a troupe of comedic actors led by impressario Fred Karno (born Frederick John Westcott, 1880-1941) who often toured around the world. He arrived in Hollywood in 1917 (in his first movie, he was listed as Stan Jefferson). Motion picture actor Charle Chaplin (1889-1977) also went to America on the same trip. In 1918 he began shacking up with actress Mae Dahlberg (1888-1969), who was married to another actor. Both Stan and Mae changed their names to Laurel. They broke up in 1925. He then married actress Lois Nielsen (1895-1990).

Stan was not only a brilliant actor but also a director. He had been working as a stage actor, film actor, and director in the early 1920s. In 1927, he teamed with Oliver Hardy for some short films that Stan was directing for the Hal Roach Studios. They worked under contract with Hal Roach (1892-1992) until personal problems, including drunk driving. In1930 his second child, a son, died at the age of nine days. Stan's first child, Lois Laurel, later an actress, was born in 1928. After the contract with Hal Roach was finished, Stan also divorced Lois Nielsen and married Virginia Ruth Rogers (d. 1976--she was called Ruth), who had been in the motion picture Sons of the Desert (1933) with him. They divorced in 1938, when he marriedRussian opera star Vera Ivanova "Illiana" (or "Illeana") Shuvalova. Vera had a fiery temper and the marriage lasted only 16-1/2 months.

After the contract with Hal Roach was over, they signed with 2oth Century-Fox in 1939. They would do one movie for Fox, then Stan discovered his health was failing (from diabetes) and decided to take some time off to recuperate. He had begun his own motion picture company, Stan Laurel Productions. It specialized in westerns, starring Fred Scott (1902-91), who had been the baritone soloist of the San Francisco Opera. Fred's horse was named White King, which was the brand name of a popular laundry detergent in Los Angeles through the 1980s. These films were done on a low budget but with a lot of attention to detail Stan loved westerns and strove to do a good job. They were distributed by a company called Spectrum Films. After making westerns for about six years, Stan's accountants showed that the films were losing money and he reluctantly pulled the plug on his pet project.

Laurel and Hardy did some 80 contractual films for 20th Century-Fox. After that, they did one more film, Atoll K (1951), in France, which is said to be one of the worst movies ever made. Stan had a stroke in 1955 and was in retirement status after that. In June 1957, Ralph Edwards featured Laurel and Hardy for his This is Your Life television show (which was heard on radio in parts of the United States that didn't have TV yet). Oliver Hardy died a few months after this and Stan had a nervous breakdown. He was not able to go to the funeral.

After recovery, Stan vowed never to perform comedy again. He became a great influence to several popular comedy performers of the time, including Jerry Lewis and Dick Van Dyke. Jerry Lewis wanted to hire Stan as a creative consultant for some of his movies, but he refused. Stan did keep contact with these men and his ideas were incorporated into much of their work. Jerry often went to visit him at home and got ideas for The Bellboy (1960), a movie he was making at the time.

In 1961 he won an Oscar, the Lifetime Achievement Award. It was one of the few public appearances he made. But he was a very public person. Stan lived in a modest apartment in Santa Monica with his wife. He answered every piece of fan mail he received PERSONALLY. And he kept his phone number (including his address) listed in the directory.

Stan Laurel died February 23, 1965, in Santa Monica, California, at his apartment. He was 74 years old. At his funeral, Dick Van Dyke gave his eulogy. Stan is buried at the Forest Lawn Cemetery, Hollywood Hills, in Los Angeles.

Some things about Stan Laurel: After settling down in his fifth marriage, he finally decided to settle down with his life. He had already become a United States citizen. He had been in the country for thirty years by that time. Stan loved America and he loved being an American.

Oliver Hardy (1892-1957) Norvell Hardy was born January 18, 1892, in Harlem, Georgia (USA), which is near Augusta. His father, Oliver Hardy, a prominent lawyer and a Civil War veteran for the Confederacy, died when Norvell was 10 months old. His mother, Emily Norvell, ran a successful hotel in Harlem after her husband's death. As a youngster, Norvell showed great promise as a singer. His mother sent him to a boarding school near Atlanta where he also received singing lessons. Norvell would run away from there so he could sing "professionally" at the Alcazar Theater (it showed movies) for $3.50 a week. Eventually, he would be sent off to military school, which also didn't work out. It was his mother's dream for Norvell to be a lawyer, just as his father was. But that wasn't Norvell's idea.

Now, it should be pointed out that his nickname, throughout his life, was Babe. He got this from his boyish looks, even though he was huge, even as a baby. Girls fell in love with him on sight.

In 1910, Babe ran a movie theater in Milledgeville, Georgia. Actually he was the projectionist, ticket taker, and manager. He did this so he could attend law school during the day. In 1913 he got a chance to act in the movies at the Lubin Studios in Jacksonville, Florida. At night he performed in cabaret and vaudeville. It was there he met and married his first wife, Madelyn Saloshin, a concert pianist.

In 1914 he made his first movie, Outwitting Dad. He used the name O.N. Hardy, as he had taken his father's name to preserve his memory. He made many more movies for the Lubin Studios. After that film he went by the name Babe Hardy in the credits. Eventually, Babe moved to New York to make several movies for the Pathe, Edison, and Casino studios in New Jersey. Then he went back to Jacksonville, where he worked for the Vim and King Bee studios. Since he weighed over 300 pounds, he usually played menacing characters. He moved to Los Angeles in 1917.

He worked for the Vitagraph Studios between 1917 and 1920, making more than 40 movies for director Larry Semon (1889-1928). Larry was also an actor. He went golfing with Babe, which became Babe's biggest addiction. It was with Larry Semon that Babe worked with Stan Laurel for the first time, in the picture The Lucky Dog (1921).

Babe and his wife separated in 1919, leading to a divorce in 1920. He married actress Myrtle Lee Reeves (1897-1993), which was a very unpleasant experience and Myrtle became an alcoholic. They would finally divorce in 1937.

In 1924, Babe came under contract to the Hal Roach Studio. He began working with Stan Laurel in films, though not as a team. In Yes, Yes, Nannette (1925), Stan was the director. In 1926, a hot leg of lamb changed both the men's lives as the leg of lamb, which was quite real (and quite hot) caused Babe to get injured. Stan, who was writing now for Hal Roach, was called in to fill in Babe's scenes. The two men were also in 45 Minutes from Hollywood, although they weren't in any scenes together.

The Laurel and Hardy team actually started in 1927. There were well over 250 movies together. To be honest though, their relationship was only a working relationship. They had very little to do with each other outside the studio. Stan liked to go camping and hunt while Babe could play a whole day of golf and not get tired from it. Good friends, no. But they had a lot of personal respect and admiration for each other. Babe acted more like what people expected a Hollywood actor to be. Stan was the quiet neighbor next door who was always there when you needed him.

In 1940, Babe married actress Virginia Lucille Jones. This was a happy marriage that lasted until Babe's death. Babe never had any children.

There were three movies that Babe did without Stan during the years of their partnership: Zenobia (1939) in which he played a country doctor who was called on to cure a sick circus elephant, The Fighting Kentuckian (1949) in which he played John Wayne's parter, and Riding High (1950) which starred his close friend, Bing Crosby (he was also a close friend of John Wayne). In 1948, Stan was found to be diabetic and Babe had to keep working. During the time Babe was making the last two movies here, Stan was in the hospital.

The two returned to the screen in 1951's Atoll K. Not the greatest movie, simply because it was filmed in France with a film crew that included French, Italians, Germans, British, Americans, and others, the scriptwriter, Leo Joannon, didn't know how to write comedy for Laurel and Hardy, so Stan often stayed up for hours rewriting their scenes.

They also appeared on an episode of This is Your Life on December 4, 1954, which was also heard on NBC radio. Much of the writing for this article came from watching that program.

Despite what some people thought (and still think), Babe was actually the more healthy of the two men. Stan was now diabetic and, in 1955, suffered a stroke but recovered. But later on that year, Babe had a heart attack. He took it upon himself to make his life healthier. He never stopped smoking. But he thought it was his obesity that was making him sick. So he took stern measures to lose weight.

In ten months, he went from being over 300 pounds to a more respectable 150 pounds. Unfortunately, his body couldn't take it. He suffered a massive stroke on September 14, 1956. He became aphasiac, losing the power of speech. His wife, Virginia, took care of him and stayed constantly at his bedside. Babe had several more strokes before he died after being in a coma for weeks. He died on August 7, 1957, of cerebral thrombosis, at his mother in law's home in the North Hollywood district of Los Angeles, where he lived for the last few years of his life. Babe was 65 years old. He is buried in the Masonic section of the Valhalla Memorial Park in North Hollywood.

______________________________________________________

Long after both men died Laurel and Hardy continue to delight the world.

And now, a word from our sponsor...

2008-07-26T07:00:00.008+07:00

Sponsors on radio did more than just promote their products so the programs could be produced. They actually owned the shows. The sponsors, not the networks, usually had more to say about the content of the program or the content of it. Many programs on OTR (Old Time Radio) often gave up sponsorship because of the way the performers acted in public.

That isn't to say the networks had nothing to say take Ex-Lax. How did such a product as a laxative get promoted when such words as toilet, bowel movement, poo, or stronger words that aren't used in this 'blog couldn't be heard on the radio?

The sponsor had to figure how to get prospective customers to use the product with a direct message without offending anyone. So they'd used expressions like, regular, meaning one has at least two bowel movements a day, or irregular, meaning that one has one bowel movement a week and it comes out like concrete. Everyone was happy and Ex-Lax sold as well as Hershey bars.

Speaking of Hershey bars, did you know that this was one product which was never promoted on radio? The original great American chocolate bar, as it came to be known in its first commercials (on television) in 1982! To some people this is absolutely shocking. In the movie that won the first Oscar for Best Picture, Wings (1927), Gary Cooper, in his screen debut offered the hero of the story, Buddy Rogers, a Hershey bar before going off into battle. Rogers survived. Cooper didn't. And it was a pretty good picture of the bar, too. It was a lot like the picture here. Today, I'm sure with product placement (something that didn't exist until the 1980s), the Hershey Food Corporation would get several thousand dollars for that promotion. Yup, that's how they see it now. The candy bar gets more money than the background actors.

Another product that wasn't promoted on radio was Levi's jeans. This is interesting because EVERYONE wore them. Now there are some interesting facts about Levi's:

Until the 1960s, Levi's only made jeans and jean jackets.
All the jeans the company made through 1965 were Lot 501, Shrink-to-Fit. There was a complicated way to know one's size, since there was substantial shrinkage from the marked size. (501s are still very popular today.)
The company made bib overalls from the 1870s through the beginning of World War II.
The first "non-jeans" product the company made was colored jeans.
The first non-shrink product the company made was children's jeans.
Women's clothing were not made until the late 1960s.
Until the late 1970s, all the products sold with the Levi Strauss label were manufactured in the United States.
The first dress slacks made by Levi Strauss were called Nuvo (Nouveau). The material used to make them was similar to burlap. They were introduced in 1967. (Bill's Note: They itched, but they looked good, so we never complained!)
Levi's were banned schoolwear (along with plain white T-shirts) until the late 1960s. Girls were not allowed to wear pants/trousers (slacks) to school until the 1969-70 school year.

Some products were advertised on radio that were never advertised anywhere else. One such product was Horlick's Malted Milk. The product is quite popular in the United Kingdom to this day but it never got a lot of exposure in the United States. Horlick's is still made today (as Horlicks) in England. But in 1935, Lum 'n' Abner found itself suddenly without a sponsor. Ford sponsored the show. When that contract ran out, Quaker Oats took over. For a few weeks, the program was sustaining, meaning it didn't have a sponsor.

William Horlick, the founder and CEO of J. & W. Horlick of Racine, Wisconsin, wrote to NBC in Chicago and expressed interest in sponsoring Lum 'n' Abner. He explained how much he loved the program and that he would like to have his company's product linked with it. Chet Lauck and Tuffy Goff said, "I guess, they think we really are a bunch of hillbillies here. Who uses this stuff?"

Previously, Horlick's put his name on a band that was on the show, the A & P Gypsies in the early days of NBC. It wasn't a true radio sponsorship, but it was heard on radio. When Horlick's sponsored Lum 'n' Abner, many stations on the network quit airing the show. In fact they all did, except WCCO in Minneapolis! In time, the program got a new sponsor, Alka-Seltzer. All the stations were back playing the program. William Horlick died in 1936 at the age of 90. Younger brother James's sons ended up going back to England where the business thrives.

One program which united the idea of the product and the program was Death Valley Days (aired on radio 1930-44 and on TV 1952-75). The radio program was sponsored by the Pacific Coast Borax Company. Borax was gathered from Badwater, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere, located at Death Valley, California, and taken by wagons pulled by 20 mule teams. Actually, these teams consisted of 18 mules (a mule has a donkey father and a horse mother) and two horses. The wagons went from Death Valley to Mojave, California, not far from the towns of Palmdale and Lancaster. Pacific Borax had a company town nearby called Boron (which is one of the components of borax). The refined product which is still found in many American homes is 20 Mule Team Borax. One thing noticed in listening to older radio programs is how the pronunciation of borax has changed over the past 78 years. It has changed for BOH-rucks to BORE-ax. In 1957 the U.S. Potash Corporation merged with the Pacific Coast Borax Company to create the U.S. Borax Corporation. U.S. Borax was acquired by the British-Australian-American mining conglomerate Rio Tinto in 1988. The products Boraxo, Borateem, and20 Mule Team Borax are manufactured by the Dial Corporation.

The first program to make commercials an integral part of the show was Fibber McGee and Molly. When it debuted over the NBC Blue Network in 1935, the sponsor was S.C. Johnson and Sons. The show's announcer was Harlow Wilcox (1900-60). He was the announcer for many shows and many other sponsors. On the McGee show, Fibber would call Harlow, "Waxy." Well, that was when the sponsor was Johnson's Wax. The show would have two other regular sponsors before it became the property of the network in 1954, when the show went from a weekly 30 minute show with one sponsor to a daily 15 minute show with several sponsors. That version was actually recorded in the home of Jim and Marion Jordan in the Los Angeles/San Fernando Valley neighborhood of Encino, as Marion was deathly ill. The commercials were no longer an integral part of the show and were recorded at an advertising agency, either in Hollywood or New York.

The second sponsor was Pet Milk. Harlow then became "Milky." Besides selling evaporated milk, sometimes the shows would offer tips by Mary Lee Taylor, who had a weekly Saturday morning cooking show. The original Mary Lee Taylor, Erma Perham Proetz (1891-1944) had been dead for four years when these programs aired, so the Mary Lee Taylor heard was played by another woman.

The third sponsor was Reynolds Aluminum. Of course, today the Reynolds Metal Company is known as one of the greatest manufacturers of aluminum foil in the world (for those who live outside the United States, that's aluminium foil). Now here is some trivia about aluminum foil. Reynolds was the first aluminum foil. The company that made it was the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. The original purpose of aluminum foil was to line cigarette packages!

Harlow Wilcox was best known, outside of Fibber McGee and Molly as the spokesman for Auto-Lite. The company still exists today as Autolite. That was on Suspense. On Amos 'n' Andy, Harlow was the spokesman for Rinso. For many years, Rinso was the main laundry detergent of Lever Brothers (now Unilever). Developed by the Hudson Soap Company (of England), that company was bought by Lever Brothers (also in England) in 1908. Ten years later, Lever Brothers (in the United States) began marketing Rinso as its premier laundry product. It was replaced by Surf in the 1980s, even though that brand was introduced in 1953.

If one listens to a lot of OTR (old time radio), it's possible to hear Harlow Wilcox selling almost everything. He was especially talented at handling public service announcements.

Feen-a-mint was the sponsor of Double or Nothing (starring John Reed King). Very rarely seen anymore, this was a chewing gum with some laxative thrown in. The announcers, like Ex-Lax, were always very careful to use euphemistic terms as not to offend anyone.

Archie Andrews was a very popular Saturday morning radio show. Based upon Bob Montana's comic book characters, it premiered in 1944 on NBC and had several casts, but the best known group had Bob Hastings in the title role. For most of the time Archie was on the radio, it was sustained, meaning that it had no sponsor. However, when Bob Sherry was the announcer, he pitched Swift's Premium Franks. There was a little jingle that went with the Swift hot dog ads:

Tender beef!
Juicy pork!
Known from the West Coast
To New York!
Swift's Premium Franks!
Swift's Premium Franks!

Now, it should be worth noting that the music for all of the Archie Andrews shows was done on a Wurlitzer theater organ, played by Felix McGuire. It's the typical hoky-ish stuff that we all love to hate!

The Gene Autry program and Yours Truly Johnny Dollar (in 1949-50) were sponsored by Wrigley's Gum. Those commercials made chewing gum sound like a health aid. The announcer pointed out all the healthful benefits of gum, although they are careful not to say chewing gum is nutritious!

The J.L. Kraft Company of Chicago, Illinois, sponsored many radio programs from the Kraft Music Hall to the Great Gildersleeve. Listening to Gildy, one would have heard many products which are still in production today: Kraft Dinner (now called Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, except in Canada, where it's still called by its former name), Velveeta, and Parkay margarine (now made by ConAgra Foods). Parkay was one of the first margarine products which actually claimed NOT to be margarine, although it was labeled as such through the 1980s. (Bill's Note: Checking a Parkay package, it doesn't say margarine anywhere.)

In the 1950s, programs began being sold by the advertisers to the networks. Originally, network owned shows were sustaining, without a sponsor. But this changed and the network shows would get a pool of sponsors. Have Gun Will Travel would have all these sponsors in one episode:

Rambler (cars--American Motors)
Pepsi-Cola
Crusade for Freedom (charity, but they were paying commercials)
Kellogg's All-Bran (reliable, effective)
Winston (cigarettes--Winston tastes good, like a cigarette

These ads are great, aren't they? Those Ramblers were great. Pepsi has had more reformulations than Coke ever thought of (Bill is a Coca-Cola drinker!) The man in the Crusade for Freedom picture is Tom Dewey, former New York City District Attorney, former New York State Governor, and former Republican candidate for U.S. President who lost to Harry S Truman (unless H.V. Kaltenborn's report after the 1948 election was true!) Bill would love to get one of those four way spoons! And, even though the resident blogger is a militant nonsmoker, the Winston advertisements sure bring back the memories.

If you collect old-time radio programs, make sure you can get as many commercials as you can. They are almost as much fun as the shows themselves. Sometimes more fun.

See you all on the radio!

Damon Runyon (1884-1946)

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Alfred Damon Runyan was born October 4, 1884, in Manhattan, Kansas. He grew up in Pueblo, Colorado, and later moved to Denver. His family was good friends with William Barclay "Bat" Masterson, who found him work as a sportswriter (which Masterson also did) in New York. He tried to start a minor baseball league in Colorado but when that didn't work out, he moved to New York, with the help of Bat Masterson.

He became the reporter for the New York Giants. When a proofreader incorrectly edited the spelling of his name, so Runyan became Runyon. The editor also left off his first name Alfred.

In 1911, he began courting Ellen Egan. Runyon was a hard drinker and a heavy smoker. The drinking almost lost him the love of his life. He quit the drinking and he got to keep the girl. Runyon remained a heavy smoker.

Runyon was the leg man for both Ed Sullivan and Walter Winchell when they started their careers as gossip reporters. He developed friendships with many of the notorious New York City gangsters of the era. He took notes and wrote stories about everything.

With Ellen, he had two children, Mary and Damon, Jr. Their marriage was broken up in 1928 when he began seeing a woman from Mexico he met several years earlier when he was reporting on raids by Pancho Villa. Mary died of cirrhosis in 1932 and Runyon married that woman, Patrice Amati del Grande. Just before Runyon died, Patrice left him for a younger man.

Runyon wrote many short stories for several periodicals involving gangsters, whose names he changed. They were immensely popular. Some of the stories were, The Lemon Drop Kid, Little Miss Marker, Guys and Dolls, The Palm Beach Santa Claus, Lady for a Day, and there were many, many more. In the stories, mobsters are not seen as being bad, just naive. There's very little in the way of any violence. Many of these stories were heard on radio programs in the 1930s and 1940s.

As he was a heavy smoker, Damon Runyon died of cancer in New York City on December 10, 1946. A friend to many celebrities, his will stipulated what to do with his body when he died. It said that Eddie Rickenbacker fly first over Broadway and scatter his ashes on the street. Then he was to go to Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx and fly close to his first wife's grave. He did it.

Walter Winchell set up the Damon Runyon Cancer Fund which has been one of the most successful charities in history. After Winchell succumbed to cancer himself, the name was changed to the Damon Runyon-Walter Winchell Cancer Fund.

In January 1949, Alan Ladd's Mayfair Syndication Company began producing a radio comedy series based upon the stories of Damon Runyon. The Damon Runyon Theater aired for about a year.

Alan Ladd (1913-64)

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Alan Walbridge Ladd, Jr., was born September 3, 1913, at Hot Springs, Arkansas. His parents were Alan Walbridge Ladd, Sr., and Ina Raleigh. When he was four, his father died. His mother moved the family to Oklahoma City, where his mother married Jim Beavers, a housepainter. (Consequently, the Jr. part of his name was dropped.) The family moved again to the Los Angeles neighborhood of North Hollywood, known as NoHo by the locals..

A small man, only 5'5" (168 cm), he hated his nickname, "Tiny," and tried to do everything to prove that he was a big man. He was a champion swimmer and diver at North Hollywood High School. He got involved in school dramatics. And he opened his own hamburger stand, which he called "Tiny's Patio," to prove to those who knew him that he could take it. He also began working at Universal Studios as a carpenter, which was the same job his stepfather did. He was in dozens of movies in the 1930s in uncredited bit parts.

He married Marjorie Jane (Midge) Harrold in 1937. They had a son whom they named Alan Ladd, Jr., who was born in late 1937 (remember that Alan had dropped the Jr. from his name when his father died.) Alan and Midge divorced in 1941.

His dream was acting. From living where he did, he was able to get work as a radio actor. But he wanted to do movies. Universal said he was too short. But he didn't let that stop them. Working on radio was fine. He began working on the children's soap opera, Jerry at Fair Oaks, in 1937. He became part of the regular fill-in cast on the Lux Radio Theater. In 1940, he began getting parts with his name attached to them. But it is worth noting that his last bit part was that of a pipe smoking reporter in the final scenes of Citizen Kane (1942).

Alan's mother, who suffered terribly from clinical depression committed suicide. From what was said about her, he knew that he also had the same problem. He had a terrible drinking problem and there was also some drug abuse.

In 1942 he married Sue Carol (born Evelyn Lederer/1906-82), his manager, who was also an actress at one time. They would have a son and a daughter: David (born in 1947) and Alana (born in 1943). Although beset with problems of drugs, alcohol, and depression, the couple did the best to stay together. After all, she did help him to get the roles which would make his name a household word.

The first big movie he did as a star was This Gun for Hire (1942). It was an instant sensation. This was the first film in which he worked opposite Veronica Lake (1919-73), who would be considered his best co-star. Alan liked her because she was only 5'2" (157 cm) and he didn't have to stand on a box when they got close, even if she was wearing three inch high heels. The studios liked that, too.

In 1948, he started his own production company, Mayfair Productions. Mayfair created programs for radio, including Box 13 (in which Alan was the star) and the Damon Runyon Theater (which didn't have Alan in it at all). The company also created several movies, including a movie based on Box 13, which was never released and possibly never finished.

The most successful movie produced by Mayfair was Shane (1953). This western, which also starred Jean Arthur, was the story of how a gunslinger got involved in the disputes of homesteaders versus cattlemen.

In 1958, Alan and Sue Ladd moved to Palm Springs. When trying to fix their house as they moved in, they went to the only hardware store in town. He was happy with their selection but not so much with their service. When he asked the manager if they could deliver some supplies, the manager said, "No, and we're the only hardware store in town." Alan quipped, "Maybe today, but tomorrow there will be two." And he opened his own hardware store after that.

Ladd Hardware (later Ladd Hardware and Gifts) became so successful the other store went out of business. It became so successful that the motto of the store was, "Palm Springs wouldn't be Palm Springs without us!"

Alan had several episodes of depression. In 1962 he shot himself in the leg, which caused him to limp for the rest of his life. He had several ways of explaining how this happened. He remained busy but he also became depressed.

Death came to Alan at the age of 50. It was the result of a deadly combination of alcohol and sleeping pills. Some biographers think he was trying to commit suicide. Those who understand depression think it was another episode of a bad choice. Whatever happened, he died on January 23, 1964, at his home in Palm Springs, California. His body is entombed in a mausoleum at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California. His wife would join him 19 years later.

In 1969, Sue Ladd threw herself into the hardware store business. She made it into a store, not just for the locals to get paint and wallpaper, but also for tourists to get souvenirs. Sue stayed busy with it until the end. She died of a heart attack in Los Angeles on February 4, 1982.

Jimmy Dean (1928- )

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Jimmy Ray Dean was born August 10, 1928, in Plainview, Texas. He loved to sing as a child and was active in music ministries at the Seth Ward Baptist Church in Plainview. As a visiting amateur singer, he was heard on the Hollywood Barn Dance and the All-Star Western Theater in the mid 1940s, when he was stationed in Southern California during his military career in the U.S. Army Air Forces/U.S. Air Force (the Air Force broke away from the Army before his discharge). When he was discharged from the Air Force in the late 1940s, he was in the Washington, DC, area. His prior work in Los Angeles helped him get work as a TV host on Washington television.

He had a very popular show, Town and Country Time, which was where singers Roy Clark (1933-) and Patsy Cline (1932-63) got their starts as professional entertainers. Roy Clark was fired for his constant tardiness and was replaced by Billy Grammer. He had one hit song at this time, "Bummin' Around." His time he spent in California in the 1940s helped him to have a liking for burritos.

Trying to improve his musical career, he moved to New York in the late 1950s. He got a recording contract with Columbia Records. This also helped him to have a morning radio program that aired on CBS before Captain Kangaroo on weekday mornings in 1958. There were many other shows. His program on ABC in the mid 1960s was the nation's introduction to Jim Henson's Muppets. (Both Jim Henson and Jimmy Dean got their starts in the Washington, DC, television market.) In 1961, he sang (actually SPOKE) his first hit song, Big Bad John.

In 1969, with brother Don and James M. Dean (a relative with connections to the Dean Milk Company, now known as Dean Foods), he began the Jimmy Dean Sausage Company.

Jimmy remained busy in the music industry through the mid 1970s. In 1971, he had an important acting role in the James Bond 007 film, Diamonds are Forever, as Willard Whyte, who was based on Howard Hughes.

In 1976, he devoted all of his time to the manufacture of his sausage. He was in charge of every aspect of creating the sausage and it became the best selling sausage in America. He also appeared in every television commercial for many years. Jimmy would later say that this was the biggest headache in his life and it caused a lot of distress and depression.

He sold the company in 1984 to Consolidated Foods (today known as Sara Lee). Jimmy would continue being the spokesman for the company in TV ads. In 2004, his contract was not renewed and he now has no connection with the company except that he started it. After this, he wrote his autobiography, 30 Years of Sausage, 50 years of Ham.

Today he lives in Richmond, Virginia, with his second wife Donna Meade. His three children came from his first marriage to Sue Wittauer.

Will Rogers (1879-1935)

2008-07-21T21:00:00.007+07:00

William Penn Adair Rogers was born November 4, 1879, in Oologah, Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), into a prominent Oklahoma family, on the Dog Iron Ranch. Both of his parents were of Cherokee heritage. Clement Vann Rogers (1839-1911) was a politician, attorney, and judge. His mother, Mary America Schrimsher Rogers (1838-90), died when Will was 11 years old. Clement would marry within two years.

Will was the youngest of eight children. Only four of the children survived into adulthood: Sallie Clementine, Maude Ethel, May (Mary), and Will. The children all attended the Willow Hassel School in Neosho, Missouri. Will began high school at the Kemper Military Academy in Boonville, Missouri, but quit after the tenth grade. He said he was more interested in cowboys and horses. After quitting school, he went to work at the Dog Iron Ranch.

Now the story starts getting interesting: In 1901, Will went to Argentina to work as a gaucho with a buddy. Unfortunately, the two young men lost all their money trying to live. Embarrassed to send home for more money, Will headed to South Africa where he got a job getting horses prepared for the Boer War with the British Army. But the war was over. So Will joined Texas Jack's Wild West Circus as a trick roper(this was in South Africa). Texas Jack was an experienced showman and Will liked him a lot. However, Will was interested in scoping out new territory. He moved to Australia. He got a letter of reference from Texas Jack and joined the Wirth Brothers Circus which went all over Australia and New Zealand.

Returning to the United States in 1904, Will entered vaudeville. He became one of the best known entertainers throughout the country. At New York City's Madison Square Bowl, when he was trying to rope a steer, the animal broke loose and started climbing up the viewing stands. Will was able to rope the steer and pull it down. There were no other incidents. Will was written up in several newspapers and was declared a hero. When Oklahoma became a state in 1907 he helped make sure that the shows would go to Oklahoma and the folks there were some of the best audiences.

Will married Betty Blake (1879-44) in 1908. They lived in New York but spent summers in Oklahoma. Eventually, they would move to California. The couple had four children. The first was William Vann Rogers (1911-93). He was known as "Bill." After Bill finished his B.A. at Stanford University, he became the publisher of the Beverly Hills Citizen. He was elected as a Democratic congressman from California, but his political career was interrupted by military service. He enlisted as a private but was soon an officer in the U.S. Army Field Artillery. Wounded in action while fighting in Europe, he received a Bronze Star and was honorably discharged in 1946. He remained in politics and continued as newspaper publisher until 1953. He portrayed his father in two movies under the stage name, Will Rogers, Jr. Mary Amelia Rogers (1913-89) was a Broadway actress in the 1930s. As Mary Rogers, she starred in two Broadway comedies. She became an actress completely without her father's help. Before and after leaving Broadway, she acted in about 30 small roles under the names Mary Howard, Mary Thompson, and Mary Rogers. She married three times before marrying Walter Booth Brooks, III, in Las Vegas, Nevada, in 1950 at the age of 37. It was a short, rocky marriage, but she would never marry again. For the rest of her life, she was known as Mary Amelia Rogers Brooks. By many popular historians, Mary Rogers is considered the Paris Hilton of the 1930s. James Blake Rogers (1915-2000) was known as Jim. He worked with his brother Bill on the newspaper. He also acted in a few movies. In the waning years of World War II, he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps. Fred Stone Rogers (1918-20) died of diphtheria at the age of two. In 1911 Will bought a ranch near Claremore, Oklahoma, for $500 an acre. This became the family's summer home.

In 1915, Will joined Zigfeld's Follies. His act was very simple: He started talking to the audience, as talking to friends. He'd be spinning a rope, a lariat, a lasso. Every once in a while, he'd do a few rope tricks. Some were great. This simple presentation became the hit of the whole show.

This launched Will into the motion picture industry. At this time in history, many of the movie studios were still in New Jersey. He got a contract with the Samuel Goldwyn Studios. His first film was Laughing Bill Hyde (1918). He remained with the Zigeld Follies until 1925.

In 1919, Will moved permanently to California. The family moved into a mansion in Pacific Palisades, a neighborhood in the city limits of Los Angeles.

Will's life was getting exciting. He was doing live shows in New York City, acting in Hollywood movies, and touring the world. He had such an easy going personality that no one could hate him.

In 1932 he added a new medium to his repertoire: radio. He was first heard on the radio version of Zigfeld's Follies. As this was performed in front of a live studio audience, he did his famous rope tricks while he was talking. The audience would often make sounds, oohs, ahhs, and so forth when the listener had no idea what was happening.

Eventually, Will had his own radio series, the Good Gulf Radio Program, which was heard on the NBC Blue Network. When it moved to CBS in 1935, it was known as the Gulf Headliners. On the Gulf show, Will didn't do the roping anymore, he just talked. Some people who hear him today consider him to be sort of a Rush Limbaugh with a heart. Actually, that's not true. Will didn't only condemn Democratic politicians. Well, that should be rephrased. He didn't condemn anyone. He only condemned their actions. Will Rogers found something wrong with all politicians. He was never arrogant or pretentious. He merely reported on what people said or what they did and asked questions. And it was entertaining.

According to Will Rogers, the greatest thing in the world was flying. He became friends with an aviator from Oklahoma named Wiley Post (1898-1935). When he was off one summer Wiley took Will with him on a flight which was going to take him around the world. Unfortunately, after experiencing some problems at Point Barrow, Alaska, the airplane (which was laden too heavily) crashed on takeoff. Wiley and Will slammed into a nearby lagoon and the men died on impact. It was August 15, 1935. Will was 55 and Wiley was 36. At the time Will died, he was the number two ranked Hollywood film star after number one Shirley Temple.

Will was buried first at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California. However, when his widow Betty died in 1944, he was exhumed and moved to the ranch in Claremore, Oklahoma, which is now the site of the Will Rogers Museum. The cemetery there includes sons Fred and Jim, as well as daughter Mary. Son Bill is buried in Tubac, Arizona.

Charlie Ruggles (1886-1970)

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Charles Sherman Ruggles was born February 8, 1886, in Los Angeles, California. His parents were Charles Herman Ruggles, a pharmaceutical salesman, and the former Maria Theresa Heinsch. They had two sons. After his mother was killed in a robbery attempt, his father left with his two sons from L.A. and they grew up in San Francisco. Charlie began acting in stage plays in 1903, at the age of 17, in community projects.

The 1906 San Francisco earthquake was the biggest event in his life. One evening, while the family was eating outside on the sidewalk (their house wasn't destroyed, but they were afraid of aftershocks), a police officer approached Charlie and asked if he knew how to use a firearm. He said he did and the officer gave him a loaded revolver. "Be careful, son."

In 1913 he had a major role in L. Frank Baum's The Tick Tok Man of Oz, at the Majestic Theater in Los Angeles. He moved on to Broadway plays one year later. And he became active as a motion picture actor one year after that. At this time, he married silent movie actress, Adele Rowland (1883-1971). Charlie divorced Adele in 1921.

He had a brother, Wesley H. Ruggles (1889-1972), who had been acting in some popular comedy films around 1915 when he shifted his interest to directing movies. After immense success as a silent film director in the 1920s, when movies had sound, Wes had some minor success directing minor comedies. After World War II, the J. Arthur Rank Organsation of the United Kingdom put him on a contract to create musicals for British audiences. The first such movie was London Town (1946) and featured Petula Clark. It was the first high budget British film made in Technicolor. It was also the biggest financial flop in British motion picture history. After it premiered and played to booing crowds in England, Wes proverbially tucked his head between his legs and never made another movie. He reedited that movie and released it in the United States as My Heart Goes Crazy in 1953.

But Charlie was successful. He was willing to portray almost any character. Appearing in more than 100 films, he developed into a mature, yet naive, character who could be drunk, rich, poor, or scatterbrained. His trademark line became, "Oh, my, my, my!"

During this time, Charlie worked in his best known movie, Ruggles of Red Gap (1935). Despite sounding to the contrary, the title role of was played by Charles Laughton. Charlie's role was Egbert Floud.

In 1941, being confident in his abilities as a comedian, he hosted his own radio comedy series, Barrel of Fun. It was heard over the Mutual Broadcasting System and the shows were produced at radio station KHJ on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood.

In 1942 Charlie married Marion La Barba, the ex-wife of featherweight boxer Fidel La Barba. Marion was a small, beautiful woman. Past her childbearing years, the Ruggles turned their Hollywood home into a literal zoo, having some 94 animals.

When television became popular, Charlie had a popular situation comedy in the early 1950s, The Ruggles (1949-1953). In it, he was married with four children. His wife was Margaret, played by Irene Tedrow (1907-95) in the first year, then Erin O'Brien-Moore (1902-79) subsequently. Their children were Sharon (a student at UCLA), Tom (a high school student), and nine year old twins Donald and Donna. One of the few programs of its type that had a planned ending, daughter Sharon got married in the final episode. In 1957, ABC (the American Broadcasting Company) had a couple of episodes of a radio series with the same premise made as pilots. The part of Margaret was played by Lurene Tuttle (1907-86).

Proving he didn't just act in movies and television, in 1958 he won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor for his part of Mackenzie Savage in the Broadway comedy, The Pleasure of His Company.

The following year, he was honored by being the guest of honor on Ralph Edwards's This is Your Life. When, on the series, he realized that he was the guest for the evening, his reaction was, "Oh, my, my, my!"

During the 1960s, Charlie gave Aesop his voice on the Bullwinkle Show. He was also Milburn Drysdale's widowered father in law on the Beverly Hillbillies. He was also on many other TV series.

Knowing that his career was winding down (as well as his life), he donated several personal artifacts to UCLA in 1965. As most everything he attempted in his life was seemingly successful, he was interviewed by a reporter. When asked what his next big project was going to be he calmly replied, "Forest Lawn. After you've played everything I've done, there ain't no more."

Suffering from terminal cancer in 1970, he regretfully divorced his wife so he could live his last days alone. He was admitted to St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica on September 30, 1970. He died there on December 23. (Most Internet sources state that he died at his Hollywood home; however, the death certificate states that he died in the hospital). With no children and no wife, he was utterly alone. His wife still loved him. She bought the tombstone, which had the wrong year put on it. He's buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California.

Ben Alexander (1911-69)

2008-07-12T17:00:00.008+07:00

Nicholas Benton Alexander, IV, was born May 26, 1911, in Goldfield, Nevada. Bennie's family moved to Los Angeles in 1915. Involved in the entertainment industry, Bennie was acting in films of D.W. Griffith as soon as he got there, at the age of three. Actually, his real career started a little later, when he was 15. His best known film of his youth is All Quiet on the Western Front (1930).

Despite working in movies, Ben went to regular classes at Hollywood High School. He wasn't one of the best students at Hollywood High but he did graduate. Ben was well liked by everyone and the girls thought he was good looking.
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In this page from the 1928 edition of the Hollywood High School yearbook, Ben Alexander is seen in the second row, second person. It's easy to see that, reading his comments about himself, he never took himself seriously.

Ben worked steadily in the movie industry until about 1943, when he began working as a writer for radio programs. He would also appear as a support cast member.

When television broke out in Los Angeles (1947), Ben was working as a host and interviewer in several shows. He was part of the cast of the Martin and Lewis Show from 1949 to 1953. During this time, Barton Yarborough, who played the part of Ben Romero on Dragnet, who died in December 1951. Barney Phillips played the first of Joe Friday's relief partners, Ed Jacobs. His second partner was Frank Smith. Frank was originally played by Herb Ellis. But after a few months, it was decided to have Ben Alexander to do the part. One of the reasons for this was that Ben was a capable writer and would be able to write scripts for both the radio and the television versions of the program. Also, Ben was already under contract to the Marin and Lewis Show, which had the same sponsor as Dragnet.

This might seem a bit strange today, but sponsors actually used to be sponsors. When a company sponsored a radio or TV show, it owned it and, usually, all the members of the cast, as well. The sponsor of Dragnet was Liggett and Myers, the company that made Chesterfield and Fatima cigarettes, as well as L & M cigarettes.

When Ben would look back at the six years he spent on Dragnet (on both radio and TV) he often mentioned it was the best time he ever had in show business.

However, when Dragnet returned to the air in 1967, Ben had an obligation as he was already working in a police show, Felony Squad, on ABC. That would be Ben's last work as an actor.

Ben died at the age of 58 in Los Angeles.

One of the things about Ben that most people didn't know about was that he liked to stay busy. In 1953, Ben bought a car dealership. Until 1969, Ben Alexander Ford was one of the highest grossing Ford dealerships in America. It's one reason why, on all of the Dragnet shows (even the ones in the 1960s) the police cars were all Fords.

Robert L. Ripley (1890-1949)

2008-07-12T12:01:00.017+07:00

Leroy Ripley was born Christmas Day, December 25, 1890, in Santa Rosa, California. His parents were Isaac Ripley and the former Lillie Belle Yocka. The oldest of three children, his father died in 1905 and Leroy dropped out of Santa Rosa High School. Leroy played for a semi-pro baseball team in his native Santa Rosa before moving to the big city to play for the San Francisco Seals of the Pacific Coast League in 1906. He also began selling his first cartoon work at this time for money. Leroy was given a job as cartoonist for the San Francisco Bulletin (later for the San Francisco Chronicle. He quit baseball briefly in 1908 to draw cartoons for Life magazine and to stay in Santa Rosa to care for his mother and young brother, Doug.

In 1912, he left San Francisco to move to New York to work for the New York Globe (where he had was also a sports writer) and to try out for the New York Giants, but he injured himself during the tryouts in early 1913. He took his first trip to Europe in 1914. He married his wife, Beatrice Roberts, in 1919 (they were divorced in 1926 and had no children). Later that year, on December 19, his first regular cartoon strip, Chumps and Champs, first appeared in the Globe, which became very famous throughout the country.

He hired an agent who said that his given name, Leroy, sounded too feminine, so he added the first name Robert. In most public venues, he was called Bob, but in private and among his closest friends, he was Rip.

Rip traveled all over the world to find information on weird sports for his cartoon column. In 1929, William Randolph Hearst commissioned him to create a new column, Ripley's Believe It or Not. This opened a whole new empire.

In his November 3, 1929, column, Rip wrote that the United States had no national anthem. He liked the idea of having John Philip Sousa's stirring march, The Stars and Stripes Forever, serve in that capacity. However, President Herbert Hoover, who was a regular Believe It or Not reader, suggested that The Star Spangled Banner (by Francis Scott Key) be used, with the tune of an old English drinking song. Of course, when Congress approved Hoover's wishes in 1930, the fact that the American national anthem was an old English drinking song was also mentioned in Rip's column.

Later in 1930, he began his radio show, which was nothing like the later television shows. It was more of a variety show which featured lots of music (either B.A. Rolfe or Ozzie Nelson leading the orchestra) with songs sung by a pretty girl (either "lovely" Linda Lee or Ozzie's girlfriend, and later wife, Harriet Hilliard). But it did give lots of information about strange facts, complete with sounds, remote broadcasts, and interviews. The program began on CBS in 1930. There are only about 50 episodes left of the series, which lasted until Rip's death. It had a variety of sponsors: Post Huskies (similar to Wheaties, endorsed by Lou Gehrig, a frequent guest of the show); the Bakers' Union; Royal Crown Cola (interesting in that while the drink was only sold in the South at that time, the show was performed in New York City... the bottles of RC which were used for the show were hauled in from Maryland); Fleischmann's Yeast; Post 40% Bran Flakes; Pall Mall cigarettes; Philco Electronics; and many were sustaining.

After taking a trip to Asia in 1932, Rip opened his first "odditorium" in Chicago at the Century of Progress International Exhibition (Chicago World's Fair). This was his first of many which would be seen around the world. Unlike most museums, the odditoriums were a display of ideas, not actual exhibits, although, most of the things shown in Chicago were real.

In 1932, he published the first cartoons of a little boy from his home town of Santa Rosa, California, about a beagle dog. That boy was Charles M. Schulz (1920-2000), best known for his strip, Peanuts.

Rip was seen in a number of motion pictures produced by Warner Brothers/Vitaphone in the early 1930s.

A collector of all kinds of "junk," including a Chinese junk, it was said by his ex-wife, "either the junk goes or I go." She went.

In 1949, Rip began a syndicated television series, which was filmed at his mansion on Long Island. While he was working on his thirteenth episode, he succumbed to a heart attack. He was reporting on the history of "Taps," the bugle call used at military funerals. It was May 29, 1949. Rip had been lying about his age all those years, telling people he was born in 1893. So when his death announcement came out in newspapers the following day, his age was listed as 55. He was 59.

Death has not diminished Rip's popularity. Rip's personal files of odd trivia have not yet been exhausted, although new information is being gathered by the organization that still puts out his comic strip every day in newspapers all over the world.

There have been other TV series, the latest from a few years ago with actor Dean Cain as host.

Gale Gordon (1906-95)

2008-07-04T22:05:00.008+07:00

Charles Thomas Aldrich, Jr., was born February 20, 1906 in New York City. An only child, his parents were British actress Gloria Gordon and Charles T. "Chuck" Aldrich, a vaudeville comedian. When he was very young, the family moved from America to England to seek employment in entertainment. Gale was born with a cleft palate and he received surgery to fix this when the family was in England. In 1915, the family went back to New York City. At age 17, Gale went back to England to attend the Woodbridge School in Suffolk, England.

Returning to North America, Gale became a movie extra in Canada. His picture was The Dancers (1923). He also worked on the stage in Toronto. Knowing he was a good actor, he never realized that he had such a strong voice, having been born with a cleft palate. He said his discovery of his strong voice came about when he was playing around on the stage. In 1926, when radio was still in its infancy, Gale made his radio debut playing the ukelele and singing popular songs of the time. At this time, he was in Hollywood doing various odd jobs at movie lots and in radio stations. He was not afraid of hard work and developed a great repuations for being one of the most honest, ambitious men in Hollywood. There was lots of uncredited radio work and Gale considered this to be paying his dues.

By 1933, Gale Gordon was the highest paid radio performer in Hollywood. Some of the programs on which he was heard were Calling All Cars (on which he was the relief dispatcher when Los Angeles Police Sergeant Jesse Rosenquist had to work), Flash Gordon (he was Flash Gordon), Lux Radio Theater (many parts), and Sherlock Holmes (he was Dr. Watson, playing agains Nigel Bruce).

Gale met radio actress Virginia Curley in 1937. After a whirlwind courtship, they married. They were married for 67 years until her death in 1995. They had no children. Now, it should be pointed out that Gale Gordon NEVER legally changed his name. He was Charles T. Aldrich, Jr., until the day he died.

In 1939, Gale began a long working relationship with Lucille Ball on Jack Haley's Wonder Bread Show. This was also the year that Fibber McGee and Molly (he would not appear until after Marian Jordan successfully left an alcoholic detox program in Illinois) was moved from Chicago to Los Angeles. Many who do not know Gale's colorful radio past often write on their webpages that the part which made him famous was the part of Mayor La Trivia (a play on New York City Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia). The first part he played on the Fibber McGee show was Molly's former suitor, Otis T. Cadwallader. Actually, it was the part of La Trivia which was the first representing his trademark slow burn anger, which would be present in every comedic role he ever did after that time.

But he did do drama. On Dr. Christian - - The Country Doctor, he played the part of Roy Davis, the pharmacist. More can be read about that show in the story about Jean Hersholt. (Also click on the picture at the left to view more information.) Gale was on that show from 1939 to 1942.

In 1942, Gale joined the United States Coast Guard. He joined willingly; he wasn't drafted. He enlisted and rose to the rank of Petty Officer First Class in the three years he was in the Guard. Going on US Navy vessels his military service took him all around the most dangerous parts of the world at that time... mostly to Asia (he was stationed at the Coast Guard station at San Clemente, California, just north of Oceanside.) When on leave to visit his wife in Hollywood, he appeared on Fibber McGee and Molly in his Coast Guard uniform. For those who are proud American citizens, this program evokes a great deal of patriotism when listening to it, even though Gale, in his role as Petty Officer La Trivia, was in his normal slow burn to anger he made famous.

Returning to civilian life, Gale was heard on Fibber McGee and Molly as Mayor La Trivia. He was also Foggy the weatherman on later episodes of that show. He was also Rumson Bullard, another weatherman on The Great Gildersleeve. There were many other radio shows. On Our Miss Brooks he was Osgood Conklin, the principal of Madison High School. On My Favorite Husband, he was Rudolph Attebery, the bank president. This was the first program in which he would have verbal fights with Lucille Ball. That would be the character Gale would be remembered for until the end of his life. 1n 1950, he played the part of John Granby in Granby's Green Acres. Granby was a New York City banker who got the idea of moving to the country to have his own farm. It also had Bea Benaderet as his wife and Louise Erickson as his daughter. 15 years later that TV show was transferred to television with most of the same characters (with different names), although that couple didn't have a daughter living with them.

There were also some radio programs on which Gale intended to be on but it didn't work out so well. He played the part of university president William Todhunter Hall on the pilot for The Halls of Ivy. The actual program was done with Ronald Colman as the president and Colman's wife, Benita Hume, as Mrs. Victoria Hall. Dr. Hall was referred on the program as being all-American. And Vicky was his English wife. However, in real life, Mr. and Mrs. Hall were English. To some purists that didn't seem right. But it was a very popular radio program. Three years later, with almost all the same actors, the program was seen on TV. It wasn't quite as successful.

Gale was expected to have the part of Fred Mertz on I Love Lucy on TV, with Bea Benaderet as his wife, Ethel. But those parts went to William Frawley and Vivian Vance (a very unlikely couple, especially for the early 1950s). Later, he would have important parts on all of Lucille Ball's subsequent television series, with the exception of the last one, Life with Lucy (he only appeared on the first episode.)

His first television series was Our Miss Brooks. Except for missing Jeff Chandler (as Phil Boynton - - he was replaced by Robert Rockwell) both the TV series and the movie based on it had the original cast. There would be many other television shows.

In 1949, Gale bought a 150 acre ranch in Borrego Springs, California. On the ranch, he grew carob trees. He became one of the few successful carob farmers in the United States. His commute from Borrego Springs, located in the Anza-Borrego Desert of eastern San Diego County, was a four hour drive away from Hollywood back in those days, with the only freeway the Hollywood Freeway between downtown Los Angeles and Sunset Boulevard.

There were a few movies, including Speedway (1968), starring Elvis Presley.

He had a hobby of painting pictures and his work often hung in some of the best art galleries on the West Coast. He wrote two children's books: Nursery Rhymes for Hollywood Babies and Leaves from the Story Trees.

Gale and his wife Virginia spent the last few years of their lives at the Redwood Terrace Health Center in Escondido, California (next to San Diego). Virginia died on May 3, 1995, of a heart attack. Gale died June 30, 1995, after a long struggle with lung cancer.

Jesse Rosenquist (1899-1966)

2008-07-04T22:00:00.007+07:00

Jesse Rosenquist joined the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) in 1923. In 1931, the LAPD became one of the first law enforcement agencies in the world to begin dispatching officers by means of radio. Sergeant Rosenquist became one of the first officers to be a radio dispatcher. His calls were said to be an example to other dispatchers. He spoke slowly and clearly, ending each transmission by saying his name, "ROSE-n-quist."

Now a word has to be said about how this was all done in the early days. The frequencies used for police calls were just past the normal AM/Medium Wave band. The procedure for a law enforcement agency to get a broadcast license was no different than for any other individual or group to get a broadcast license. First the Department of Commerce Radio Bureau, later called the Federal Radio Commission (FRC, today known as the Federal Communications Commission or FCC). had to be petitioned for application. Once approved, there were weeks of test broadcasts. And then the law enforcement agency was given a call sign, whose letters could be chosen by the petitioner. The LAPD was given KGPL at the frequency of 1712 kilocycles (they weren't called kilohertz for another 40 years) on May 1, 1931.

Los Angeles did not have the first radio dispatched police department. Berkeley(KSW) got its radio license in 1928. Tulare (WPDA) got theirs around Christmas 1930. Neighboring Pasadena (KGJX) got one in September 1930, which would receive the first two-way motorcycle officer dispatch system in November 1947.

At first, all talking was done by the dispatcher only. It worked like this: A citizen would call MIchigan 6111 to LAPD headquarters at Los Angeles City Hall. Then the civilian (not a police officer) dispatcher would telephone the police dispatcher situated at the transmitter site at Elysian Park, in the hills at FAber 6111. The broadcasts would be heard but there could be no verbal response. That wouldn't happen until the cars got microphones (with separate transmitting units) in August 1931.

Because there was less electronic activity in the sky in the 1930s, at night, when almost everything stopped, police calls from Los Angeles could be heard as far as the East Coast or Hawaii. Sergeant Rosenquist's broadcasts were heard widely. He was heard all over Southern California, Southern Nevada and Western Arizona.

This didn't go unnoticed by those in the entertainment business. CBS Radio writer William N. Robson (1906-95) was new in Hollywood at that time, working at KHJ. He had the idea of making a radio program out of Sergeant Rosenquist's broadcasts. The program was Calling All Cars. The program began with Rosenquist's original broadcast, supposedly the way he originally said it, calling officers to the scene of an infamous crime. Then the story was presented, with Rosenquist filling in a few spots. It ended with Rosenquist announcing the criminals were caught and to cancel any help that could have been used. (It was a very definite formula show.)

The Rio Grande division of Sinclair Oil was the sponsor of Calling All Cars. Rio Grande gasoline was only sold in three states, California, Nevada, and Arizona (roughly the area that Sergeant Rosenquist's broadcasts could be heard in the late afternoon). So Calling All Cars was only sent to radio stations in those three states. As an advertising endorsement, it was so stated that Rio Grande Cracked Gasoline was used by most law enforcement agencies in the broadcast area, including the Los Angeles Police Department, the National City Police Department, and the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, or any other agency's name they chose to drop at the time.

The show started November 29, 1933, over the CBS Don Lee Network (selected stations). When CBS bought radio station KNX in 1937, KHJ, which had broadcast the show from the beginning, became a Mutual network station, and the show was broadcast from KNX. The last broadcast was heard over select stations (which included the states of Washington and Oregon) on CBS on September 8, 1939.

Since Sergeant Rosenquist was still a sworn officer of the Los Angeles Police Department, he often had to work at the time Calling All Cars aired. Usually the actor who took his place was Gale Gordon (1906-95). His transmissions were ended, "Gordon."

When the law enforcement agency in the episode was other than the Los Angeles Police Department or the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (the LAPD and other neighboring agencies handled their calls until 1938), Rosenquist never mentioned his name. Rather he would say, "That is all." It was thought that, when NBC News correspondent W.W. Chaplin ended his war broadcasts the same way some ten years later, it was thought he got that from Rosenquist.

By the mid 1930s, Rosenquist was so popular that all public service announcements were called Rosenquists at that time. Also, his voice was used in several Hollywood motion pictures at that time, including the 1936 films, Tough Guy and Absolute Quiet.

In 1949 the LAPD call sign was changed to KMA367. The frequency changed from an AM location to a higher frequency in the 1950s. It recently went to a digital frequency, much higher.

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Did you know: From 1933 until the 1950s, the police emergency phone number in Los Angeles was 116? Children in public schools had a little song they would say, "When in a fix, dial 1-1-6!" All emergency telephone numbers ended with 116 for many years.

William Bendix (1906-64)

2008-07-01T22:24:00.005+07:00

William Bendix was born in New York City (Manhattan, not Brooklyn, as was his character on the Life of Riley) on January 14, 1906. He was related to the German composer, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-47) and was the son of Oscar Bendix, also a musician. After dropping out of high school, he was a batboy for the New York Yankees. He then worked as a grocery story manager. In 1927, he married Theresa Stefanotti. Through her father, he got what was supposed to be a job at a wonderful grocery store in New Jersey. When that didn't work out, he joined the Federal Theater Project, which led him to work on the dramatic stage. He joined the Theater Guild in New York.

When acting in The Time of Your Life, Hollywood producer Hal Roach was in the office and Bill's performance impressed him enough to have him go to Hollywood. Within one year he was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in Wake Island (1942), but he didn't win. Although known as a comic actor, he often provided comic relief in serious, heavy dramas.

On radio, Bill had done his first work in the medium back when he was in New York. Once in Los Angeles, he was the star of a situation comedy which began in 1944 called The Life of Riley. Riley was Chester Alan Riley, Sr., who worked at an airplane factory. His wife was Margaret "Peg," played by Paula Winslowe. They had two children, Barbara "Babs" and Chester A. Riley, Jr. Along with such shows as The Aldrich Family, it was one of the first situation comedies which showed life in a more realistic vein.

The program would later move to television with Jackie Gleason in the starring role. He would later leave to do other projects he was doing. By that time, the radio series was cancelled and Bill took over the role in the television series.

Bill continued to work in movies and on television. He always insisted that the stage was his greatest love but received very few offers to act in live stage productions and never did it after arriving in Hollywood.

He often bragged that, as a batboy for the New York Yankees, he got to see Babe Ruth his 100 home runs. In 1948, months before the Babe's death, Bill portrayed his hero in The Babe Ruth Story. Highly fictionalized, it left out things, such as his first marriage, his womanizing, and his drinking. Some events, such as hitting the ball for the sick boy, Johnny Sylvester (which happened in 1926) and the time he pointed to the fence to hit a home run ball, were combined. And the ending was very strange. The whole idea of making this movie was for the Babe to see it while he was alive. Something that is rush released like that is bound to have problems.

A devout Roman Catholic, he was always considered one of the Hollywood "in crowd" when it came to work but spent most of his time away from work with his family. With his wife Theresa, they had a son and a daughter.

And the role of Chester A. Riley, Sr., was his until the series was finally cancelled in 1958.

Bill Bendix died at his home in Los Angeles after suffering from lobar pneumonia on December 14, 1964, at the age of 58. He is buried at the San Fernando Mission Cemetery in the Mission Hills district of L.A.

Knox Manning (1904-1980)

2008-06-30T21:00:00.005+07:00

Charles Knox Manning was born January 17, 1904, in Worcester, Massachusetts. Knox was one of the few actors whose acting career followed another career.

His acting career began in 1939. He was 35 years old. His first job was on NBC Radio (Red Network) as the announcer for the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which starred Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. Knox read the commercials for Bromo Quinine cold tablets.

Bromo Quinine was actually an old fashioned Southern folk remedy concocted into a tablet by Edwin Wiley Grove (1850-27), a physician from Bolivar, Tennessee, who started the Paris Medicine Company in Paris, Tennessee, in 1886. The company moved to St. Louis, Missouri, three years later to give the company more credibility. He set up a second company, the Tasteless Quinine Company in Asheville, North Carolina. The Paris Medicine Company became Grove Laboratories in 1935. The Grove family assets were acquired by Bristol Myers in 1942.

Out of the more than 100 movies Knox was in, he actually only acted in ONE of them... Cheers for Miss Bishop (1941), in which he played Anton Radcheck (this is the picture above). In all the other movies he was either the unseen narrator or, in costume, as an announcer of some kind. It was what he did, anyway. He made his last movie, Crashing the Water Barrier, in 1956.

After his amazingly short but successful career in motion pictures (17 years), he worked at radio station KDAY in Santa Monica, as announcer and news anchor until his retirement in 1961.

He died of a heart attack at Motion Picture Country Home in the Woodland Hills district of Los Angeles on August 26, 1980. He was 76 years old. With his wife, they had two sons who worked in Top 40 radio in the 1960s.

Harry Bartell (1913-2004)

2008-06-29T09:01:00.005+07:00

Harry Bartell was born November 28, 1913, in New Orleans, Louisiana. He grew up in Houston, Texas. After finishing high school, he attended Rice University and graduated in 1933. Harry's first perfomances on radio were short audio versions of popular movies that were in the theaters at that time. He would get two 25 cent theater tickets for each performance. This was at radio station KRPC in Houston. He then moved on to the Harvard Business School, then moved out to Los Angeles to work in retail work. After this, he tried his hand at acting on radio... He worked at radio station KFWB, which was located in the Warner Brothers Studios in Hollywood (now the site of KTLA, channel 5). He was a disc jockey for the station and was also studying at the Pasadena Playhouse.

He married his wife Beverly in the late 1930s and they had a daughter named Judie.

Soon after he married, he began working in radio drama. His first role had him speaking with a Hindi accent on a show called Raffles. Eventually, he did almost every program that originated out of Hollywood. No list would be fair to show everything he did, although the best shows he did were: The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (where he was the announcer and commercial pitchman for Petri wines--with his pleasant inflection and the way the commercials were written, he could make Petri Apple Cider Vinegar sound like the best companion for your Sunday chicken dinner!), Dragnet (he'd be a drunk, he'd be another cop, he'd be a Mexican priest, he could be anybody!), Fort Laramie (he had a regular part here as a cavalry officer), Gunsmoke (he was everyone again), and many other shows.

There were programs on which he could be rarely heard. He wasn't on The Whistler. He said he just wasn't the type of actor they wanted.

He worked in many films, usually uncredited, beginning with Destination Tokyo (1943). After appearing in that film, he was drafted into the Navy.

Harry was the fifth person who portrayed Archie Goodwin on The New Adventures of Nero Wolfe.

After radio, and movies, and TV shows, Harry retired and moved to Oregon in 1975.

He died of natural causes at his home in Ashland, Oregon, on February 26, 2004. He was 90 years old. Harry is buried in the Riverside National Cemetery in Riverside, California.

Dixie Lee (1911-52)

2008-06-22T02:30:00.001+07:00

Wilma Winifred Hyatt was born November 4, 1911, in Harriman, Tennessee. She was very talented as a teenager and won a talent contest which offered her a trip to Chicago and a part in a Broadway play in New York. Taking the name, Dixie Lee (but legally keeping her own name), she was well known as a singer, dancer, and actress.

In 1928, Dixie met Bing Crosby. He had a group called the Rhythm Boys and sang with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra. Bing was a star. But Dixie was an even bigger star. That was to change. When they met in that November, Bing said it was love at first sight. They would meet again in early 1929. They married at the Church of the Blessed Sacrament in Hollywood on September 29, 1930. (Note by Bill: One thing that should be noticed here is Dixie's youth... When Bing first met her she was all of 16 years old. Today this would be grounds for statutory rape! Bing was reportedly either 24 or 25, depending on whose biography you're reading.)

Dixie continued in show business until her pregnancy with first child Gary began to show in November 1932. She continued in radio until 1935 (mostly on the Shell Chateau), except when the whole family would gather together for their annual Christmas show on whatever radio program Bing was doing at the time.

Here is a list of Dixie's four sons:

Gary Evan Crosby (1933-1995) [Died of lung cancer.]
Phillip Lang Crosby (1934-2004) [Died of a heart attack.]
Dennis Michael Crosby (1934-1991) [Died of suicide by gunshot.]
Lindsay Harry Crosby (1938-1991) [Died of suicide by gunshot.]

Bing had a reputation of being a happy go lucky man in entertainment circles, but in his business and private life he was an absolute tyrant. More is said about that in Bing's biography. However, his attitude at home was overly strict to the point of being insensitive. Dixie often complained that it was Bing that took her away from show business, which she loved so much. After the first three sons started school, Dixie, who was already an alcoholic, began binge drinking during the day. She had actually began drinking because of Bing's own drinking problem. With a record of drunk driving and other embarrassing problems with the police, she worked hard to get her husband sobered up. Unfortunately, the drinking problem was traded to Dixie. When she became diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer in 1948, her liver was also damaged. It was said, even in the 1940s, that if she had not been such a hard drinker, she could have survived (after a radical hysterectomy) and lived to a ripe, old age. Since she did have a bad liver, she probably would have died soon after this from cirrhosis.

Dixie Lee died on November 1, 1952, at home in the Holmby Holmes section of Los Angeles. It was two days before her 41st birthday.

A couple of Bing's best known recordings include Dixie singing a duet with him. Sadly, she is not usually credited on these songs. They include "The Way You Look Tonight" and "A Fine Romance" from 1936.

Dixie is buried in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California, along with Bing, his parents, and two of their four sons. Interestingly, the whole family has almost identical tombstones, all set in a row.

Bobby Driscoll (1937-68)

2008-06-08T14:29:00.005+07:00

Robert Cletus Driscoll was born March 3, 1937, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. His parents were Cletus Driscoll, an insulation installer, and the former Isabelle Kratz, who had been a schoolteacher. Shortly after his birth, the Driscolls moved to Des Moines. In 1943, while taking a routine medical exam, Cletus was found to have a lot of asbestos in his lungs. The doctor suggested the dry warmth of Southern California and the family moved to Altadena.

One Saturday afternoon, Cletus and his son, Bobby, were getting their hair cut at a barber shop in nearby Pasadena. Bobby, being a normal active boy, was doing an entertaining routine. The barber, whose own son was an occasional child actor, suggested that Bobby try his luck in the motion picture business. Bobby auditioned for Metro Goldwyn Mayer and got a tiny role in the 1943 film, The Lost Angel, starring Margaret O'Brien. Actually, he got the part in the movie because, during the audition he was playing on a make believe ship on a sound stage. The casting director was so impressed with Bobby's curiosity and ambition, he hired him. After this 20th Century Fox cast him as Al Sullivan, the youngest of the Sullivan Boys (five brothers who joined the US Navy together in World War II) in The Fighting Sullivans. Bobby did several other motion pictures for other studios and became known as the Wonder Boy.

Walt Disney took notice of Bobby Driscoll. In 1946, he made his first live action film since the 1920s, Disney was making movies depicting real people (he had done a series of live action/animated short subjects called Alice in Wonderland starring Lois Hardwick). Bobby starred in Song of the South (1946) and So Dear to My Heart (1948). His co-star was Luana Patten (1938-96).

After these movies, Bobby did a few "B" movies for RKO, which handled the distribution for Walt Disney until 1953, when Walt and Roy Disney decided to distribute the studio's productions through a company called Buena Vista Pictures (this was also the same year RKO began selling off its property in Hollywood.) Bobby won an Oscar for his performance in The Window (1949). This was for the Best Juvenile Performance, a category which was awarded 1934, 1938, 1939, 1944 through 1946, 1948, 1949, 1954, and 1961. Had they decided to give this award for 1947, both Bobby and co-star Luana Patten would have won, according to Academy sources.

Bobby was working with Disney again as Jim Hawkins in Treasure Island (1950). This was filmed in England. Since the Driscoll family's time was limited there, many of Bobby's scenes were performed by a double. He was the voice of Goofy, Jr., in theater cartoon shorts. Then he did Peter Pan (1953). For this, he was the voice of the character, plus he was the model for the close up shots for Peter Pan.

And then, he turned 16, the world changed. His face became loaded with zits. Walt Disney canceled his contract with him. His mother took him out of the Hollywood Professional School and enrolled him in University High School, located near the campus of UCLA. Bobby didn't belong there. He was an actor. He needed to be with other actors. He was still working in TV and managed to do a couple of terrible movies. And, in 1955, he actually graduated from University High School.

As a student at University High, he got in with the wrong crowd. He started experimenting with mind altering drugs. Beginning as a minor thing, it lapsed into a full addiction and it would lead him down the road to destruction. By 1956, he had several brushes with the law. He went from being the Golden Boy to being the Bad Boy in just a few years.

Bobby married Marilyn Jeanne Rush on December 3, 1956. Because he was underage and didn't have her parents' permission, the marriage was annulled. When he turned 20 in 1957, they remarried. They had three children. They divorced in 1960.

By 1958, Bobby was nothing. He had no work. He was a drug addict. He would do anything he could to get drugs. Marilyn was supporting the family, even during pregnancy.

In 1961, he was sentenced to the Narcotics Section of the California Institution for Men in Chino. (There is a newspaper clipping above explaining the whole thing.) He was released in 1962, having only spent six months in prison. But he was now free from drugs. No one wanted him anymore. In Bobby's words, "I have found that memories are not useful. I was carried on a silver platter and dumped in the garbage can."

Andy Warhol invited Bobby to work with him on his 1965 film Dirt. Not having the resources to go anywhere else, Bobby became a homeless person on the streets of Manhattan. He quit the drugs but he continued on his addiction as an alcoholic and would often be seen sleeping in the gutter.

On March 30, 1968, two children were playing in an abandoned apartment building when they found whom they thought was an unknown, forgotten homeless man. The authorities did an autopsy on him and had him buried in an unmarked grave at Potters Field on Hart Island in the Bronx. After the results of the autopsy returned, they realized that they had buried Bobby Driscoll but didn't know where they had buried him. His parents, now living in Oceanside, California, near San Diego, made a grave for him, even though he could never be in it. Actually, it's impossible to know when Bobby died exactly, but it is certain he lived past his 31st birthday on March 3.

With regards to this site, Bobby made several momentous radio appearances. The first was an interview show in which he and Luana Patten were talking about Song of the South. He was frequently heard on several episodes of Lux Radio Theater, Family Theater, and Dragnet. On Dragnet, he was usually unbilled. He appeared on other shows as well, also not usually mentioned by name.

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An interesting note is that Luana Patten was also out of the motion picture industry after she became a teenager. She went back to her native Long Beach, California, and attended Woodrow Wilson High School. In 1957, she was working as a cashier in the box office of a movie theater in Long Beach when she was held up. The show playing was Song of the South.