Best known as Glinda, the good witch in The Wizard of Oz (and as the wife of Ziegfeld), Billie Burke had a rosy, upbeat series promoting herself as that bright morning star. She portrayed a woman of u...
By 1943 more than 1,500 clues had been broadcast, sometimes as many as six per show. The tally that year was 286 armed and extremely dangerous men who had been brought to justice by Gang Busters.
Cantor was born to a family of Russian immigrants, Jan. 31, 1892, in New York’s Lower East Side. His mother died soon after his birth; his father died of pneumonia a year later. His given name was eit...
Commercial firms turned out Claghorn shirts and compasses (the needles always pointed south, son); Delmar cut two Claghorn records, I Love You, That Is and That’s a Joke, Son, and Warner Brothers pira...
Destination Freedom, though it never appeared on a national network, was one of the most powerful and important shows of its day. It was a striking achievement, a voice whose passion and courage overc...
Donald Shepherd and Robert F. Slatzer wrote a tough biography, The Hollow Man, which depicted Crosby as a cold, calculating dictator who abandoned his first family to start a new one, who turned his b...
Double or Nothing endured because of the nimble ad-libbing of its hosts and because, over the years, the show gained a reputation for double entendres and unexpected embarrassment. By far the most sen...
Eyes Aloft was the result of an appeal by the Army to help bolster the Aircraft Warning System on the West Coast, where fear of a Japanese attack was widespread in the months following Pearl Harbor. B...
FORT LARAMIE, western drama. BROADCAST HISTORY: Jan. 22–Oct. 28, 1956, CBS. 30m, Sundays at 5:30. CAST: Raymond Burr as Lee Quince, captain of cavalry at Fort Laramie, on the Wyoming frontier. Vic Per...
Family Theater was created by Father Patrick Peyton of the Holy Cross Fathers in an effort to promote family unity and prayer. Initially it was seen as a forum to broadcast the Rosary: when the networ...
First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was heard often on radio beginning soon after her husband’s inauguration in 1932. To stem inevitable criticism, all fees from her commercial broadcasts were donated to cha...
Frank Hummert was a Chicago copywriter in the ’20s. In 1930 he met Anne Ashenhurst, a former newspaperwoman who became his assistant and, five years later, his wife. The Hummerts had a formula that wa...
From that moment, The Amateur Hour belonged to Bowes. He was launched, a national figure overnight, and the flood of humanity began. It was a tide to rival the great migration of workers from Oklahoma...
Goff knew the salesman for Quaker Oats. It happened that Quaker was then sponsoring Gene and Glenn, a series going off for the summer, and the company was looking for a replacement. Lauck and Goff wer...
HOSTS: Raymond Edward Johnson until May 22, 1945; Paul McGrath beginning Sept. 28, 1945. Also: House Jameson. CAST: Film stars known for the macabre—Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, etc.—in lead roles, ca....
Hilliard Marks, Mary’s brother and longtime Benny producer, then got his script and began lining up supporting talent, which might include Mel Blanc, Frank Nelson, Artie Auerbach, Veola Vonn, Sheldon...
His Plot to Overthrow Christmas was pure delight: first heard Dec. 25, 1938, on Words Without Music, it told of a scheme by the demons of Hell to assassinate Santa Claus. Did you hear about the plot t...
His reputation rests on his standing as the wit of his day, though his shows are seldom cited as the funniest in radio. His humor has paled, and today he plays to a tougher audience than he ever faced...
His shows on tape do not wear well. Topical humor can be hilarious at the time, but it seldom holds up. The moment is lost, the immediacy gone, and a modern listener is left, perhaps, with a sense of...
Hollywood Hotel was the first major network show to broadcast from the West Coast. The film capital was rich in nationally known talent untapped by radio. It had remained untapped because of a telepho...
Showing 241 to 260 of 397 results