Tony Randall (1920-2004)

Arthur Leonard Rosenburg was born February 26, 1920, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His parents, Mogscha and Julia were antique dealers. Known as Leonard, he had a sister named Edna. Later, when he played Felix Unger on the TV series, the Odd Couple, his character had two children, a son named Leonard and a daughter named Edna.

Leonard attended Tulsa Central High School (class of 1938). He had an English teacher named Isabelle E. Ronan. A humble, unpretentious woman who taught at Central High from the early 1920s through the 1950s, she had two other famous students. One was Paul Aurant, who was a prankster. Paul and Leonard never saw much of each other in school, even though Paul was just one year ahead of him in school (class of 1937). Paul was not serious enough for Leonard. Some things would happen to change all of that in time. After graduation from Central, Leonard went to Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where he only stayed one year. After that, he transferred to the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theater in New York City. It was at this time he began using the stage name, Anthony Randall.

But then he was drafted by the U.S. Army. He went to Officer Candidate School (OCS) and became an officer in the Signal Corps. His job was connected with his work in that he helped to create training films. Later to become a proficient television director, Tony often said he cherished the time he spent in the Army. He learned what worked in the movies and what didn't. Training films he helped to create included everything from Insomnia to How to Urinate.

Tony was discharged in 1946. He immediately went back to New York City and went back into acting. One year later, he started his career in radio on the Adventures of Frank Merriwell. Later, he became Reggie York on the soap opera, I Love a Mystery.

Television came next. He played the part of high school gym teacher Harvey Weskit on Mr. Peepers. It was television that would keep him busy for the rest of his life.

Tony never hid his past as being a kid from Tulsa, Oklahoma, a secret from anyone. However, he never had the typical Oklahoma accent (not even when he was young) and he always had a big city attitude about life.

His motion picture career started in 1957 with Oh Men! Oh Women!

Most of what there was to know about Tony Randall could be gathered from watching old reruns of the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. It was here that one discovers what a good story teller he was. He had a very interesting life.

Now, Tony did a lot of television in the 1950s and 1960s. But the one TV show that he would be remembered for was the Odd Couple. He played the part of Felix Unger, a photographer. Recently divorced, he shared an apartment with Oscar Madison, a sports reporter, also divorced. Felix was neat and Oscar was a slob. It wasn't a bad show.

After that show went off, he'd be in Love, Sydney, about a butler who was rumored to be homosexual.

In Tony's personal life, he married Florence Gibbs in 1938 and it was only her death in 1992 that split them. In 1995, he married Heather Harlan, a Broadway actress who was 50 years younger than he. They had two children, a daughter named Julia and a son named Joseph. Tony died peacefully in his sleep at home from pneumonia which he contracted after double bypass heart surgery in December 2003. He had been sick with that case of pneumonia until it killed him on May 17, 2004.

Bill Henry (1890-1970)

William Mellers Henry was born August 21, 1890, in San Francisco, California. As a boy, his family moved from San Francisco to Pasadena, where he became very attracted to the Tournament of Roses Parade. After graduating from Pasadena High School, he attended Occidental College and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism. As soon as he graduated from Oxy, he was given a position with the Los Angeles Times as a sportswriter. By 1917, he became an editor. He had a daily column, "By the Way," and also covered covered movies, autos, and aeronautics. In 1922, he began on radio, eventually working to broadcast the Rose Bowl game in his home town of Pasadena.

Bill became known as a sportscaster with a friendly voice. He first worked at KHJ in Hollywood and then began sending his broadcasts to other stations. While this was going on, he never lost his affiliation with the Los Angeles Times.

He began covering the Olympics, beginning with the Los Angeles games in 1932. For that, he wrote solely for the Los Angeles Times and gave short reports on KHJ. KHJ was owned by the Don Lee Network, which was affiliated with CBS until 1937, when CBS bought KNX in Hollywood (the same time that Columbia Square was built). Because of this association with CBS, when the Los Angeles Times sent him to cover the Berlin Olympic Games in 1936, Bill was commissioned by CBS to present a thirty minute report of the games for each day they were held. Very few recordings of these broadcasts still exist.

In World War II, Bill was sent to France and then to the South Pacific by the Los Angeles Times. For his time in the South Pacific, he became CBS Chief Correspondent there. NBC began to notice Bill's talents and hired him as a news analyst.

Bill continued all of his work with the Los Angeles Times and NBC until he died on April 4, 1970, at his home in Pasadena at the age of 79. The man never retired.

Bud Collyer (1908-69)

Clayton Johnson Heermance, Jr., was born June 18, 1908, in New York City into a show business family, well, the family would become a show business family. However, he didn't get involved in acting until he was a law student at Fordham University (his father was a lawyer). For acting, he decided to use the nickname his family always called him, Bud, plus his mother's maiden name, Collyer. His sister, June Collyer (born Dorothea June Heermance), did the same thing when she went into acting. His brother, Richard (Richard V. Heermance), used his original birthname.

In the mid 1930s, he was out of law school and working as a law clerk. Still working in radio, he earned as much in one month on radio has his earned in a year as a clerk. In 1940, he went into acting full time.

Bud became Superman in the early part of that year. The original idea of Superman was very different than what he became. Originally, he couldn't fly. He could leap (jump) tall buildings. He hadn't been adopted by the Kents but, when his flying saucer from Krypton landed on earth, a rich man saw the baby in the road and sent him to an orphanage in Metropolis.

Some of Superman's vulnerabilities happened on account of radio. When Bud Collyer decided to take a couple of weeks off to take a vacation with his family, it was explained that Superman had been exposed to kryptonite and it would take some time to recover. They never recorded shows and did reruns back in those days.

Superman and Clark Kent had two different voices. Superman had a deep voice while the mild mannered newspaper reporter, Kent, has a high squeeky voice. Bud pulled this off exceptionally well.

It should also be pointed out that the producers of Superman didn't want anyone to know who the actor was who was playing him. The broadcasts were open to the public, so Bud wore a mask. Sometimes, the cast went to various grocery stores and other venues. Bud had to wear a mask when he went.

Besides performing on the radio program, he also acted in the Superman cartoon series, produced by Paramount Pictures in Hollywood. Bud would move to Los Angeles for that part of his life. When the cartoons were finished (mid 1940s), he returned to New York.

After radio, Bud Collyer was a TV game show host. His most popular shows included Beat the Clock, To Tell the Truth, Break the Bank, and Winner Take All. He continued working in television, which included a new Superman cartoon series for Saturday morning TV, until his death on September 8, 1969, at the age of 61. He died of blood circulation problems at his home in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Bud Collyer was married twice. First, to Heloise Law Green from 1936 to 1951. They had a son. The second, to actress Marion Shockley, had two daughers and a son. Bud was a Sunday school superintendent and recorded the audio version of Good News for Modern Man, the New Testament in Today's English Version, for the American Bible Society in 1968. Those recordings are still available from the American Bible Society.

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The original sponsor of Superman was Kellogg's. The usual featured cereal was Kellogg's Pep. Corn Flakes, Rice Krispies, and other products manufactured by the Battle Creek, Michigan, cereal company were often mentioned on the show.

Scrappy Lambert (1901-87)

Harold R. Lambert was born May 12, 1901, in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He stayed in New Brunswick for a great portion of his life. He went to Rutgers University, where he was a cheerleader. One of his fellow cheerleaders was Billy Hilpot (1904-85). After they graduated from the university, they got jobs at radio station WEAF in New York. They did a comedy show, sponsored by Smith Brothers Cough Drops. They were known as Trade and Mark (the words written immediately under the pictures on the cough drop box).

Scrappy also sang with many of the name bands at the time. He didn't sing for any one group; he was one of the first freelance singers. He did sing for a period with Ben Bernie, along with his buddy Billy Hilpot. That lasted from 1926 to 1928. It wasn't an exclusive contract and Scrappy sang with many other bands. He worked cheap but he worked so much he was one of the richest singers of his day. He used other names besides his own: Burt Lorin, Glen Burt, Buddy Blue, William Brown, Harold Clarke, and many, many others.

Later, Billy Hilpot and Scrappy did the Smith Brothers Cough Drop Program on the NBC network (yes, I know this is a bottle of cough syrup, but it's got the same picture). Scrappy was also heard on the Maxwell House Show Boat. Other shows include Bob Hope and Lum 'n' Abner.

In 1943, MCA offered Scrappy an office job managing various artists and productions for radio. That was the end of his career as an artist. Some of the programs he worked with included Father Knows Best and Queen for a Day. He stayed at MCA until 1948.

In 1948, he became a talent agent on his own. One of his clients was Robert Young. Scrappy and he had a close relationship until Young was working on the TV series, Marcus Welby, M.D., some 20 years later. Besides working as a talent agent, he also worked in oil and real estate. After leaving that business, he retired back to his home town, New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Scrappy was married several times. He once married one of the Radio City Rockettes. He died at his home in New Brunswick on November 30, 1987, at the age of 86.

Country Washburn (1904-74)

Joseph Washburn was born December 28, 1974, in Houston, Texas. Joe was an "only child" in Port Arthur, Texas, where his father was the postmaster. He learned to play the tuba in his school band and also learned how to play the double bass. He also enjoyed singing. From his high school band director, he learned how to arrange music for any combination of instruments.

After graduating from high school, Joe ventured off to New York to seek work as a musician. A stylish guy, he didn't look the way he talked, with his slow Texas drawl. He looked like everyone else. He was given the nickname "Country." He played in several bands.

Eventually, he joined up with the Ted Weems Orchestra. The Weems orchestra would gain notoriety for being the band that backed up Elmo Tanner when he was whistling the song "Heartaches." Country was arranger, tuba player, bass player, singer, and announcer for the band (people accepted his Texas drawl). Country had his own theme song with the band, "Good Morning, Good Evening, Good Night!"

In 1940, the Ted Weems Orchestra was on a radio quiz show, Beat the Band. Contestants would hear song titles, then try to guess how the tune went. Johnny Carson would do the same thing many years later on the Tonight Show on NBC-TV. Country Washburn sometimes had a segment on the show in which he told the audience a song title and then played it on his double bass. Beat the Band was sponsored by Kix cereal.

In 1942, Spike Jones, who was the drummer for the John Scott Trotter Orchestra (Bing Crosby's group), had a wild idea for starting a new band. It would use the instrumentation from twenty years earlier, which would mean that a tuba was used for the bass instrument, instead of the string bass. Spike had gotten to know Country well in New York. He invited him to be his tuba player and do his arrangements. Country said he'd do it but he would just be the tuba player when he played with the band and would not draw attention to himself. Spike called that a deal. The later tuba players with the group were a little more outlandish, compared to Country's conservatism.


The group became known as the City Slickers. The musicians were all the best Spike could get. Spike, himself, was an excellent drummer. More will be said about him in the page about Spike Jones. However, it should be noted that the group was so popular, they were even featured in the Dick Tracy comic strip. In the one seen here, "Joe, the bass horn player" refers to Country Washburn. The City Slickers were very popular on radio, TV, and even in the funnies.

Country "retired" from the City Slickers in 1949. Actually, CBS Radio in Hollywood hired him as a staff conductor. On most of the shows he worked on from that point, his name wasn't mentioned. However, there was a daily afternoon musical show, Alka Seltzer Time (starring Martha Tilton and Curt Massey) in which he was the bandleader. When the show moved to Mutual (at KHJ in Hollywood), Country went with it. When the show went off the air, he came back to CBS (at KNX), where he retired in 1959.

Country eventually moved to a retirement community in Orange County, California (Rossmoor Leisure World), with his wife. He died on January 21, 1974, at the age of 69 of a heart attack in Santa Ana, California.

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For those who don't know, the first Friday in May is International Tuba Day. If you haven't already wished the tubists in your life Happy Tuba Day, then do it now, even if it's days, weeks, or months late. They will appreciate your effort.