George Fenneman (1919-97)

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)

"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)

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

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)

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.