Durham produced his plays as a freelancer; he was never part of the WMAQ staff during his show’s run. I had spent a lot of time studying Dickens, he said in a 1983 interview, a few years before he die...
Flash Gordon, though made famous in comics and in the film serials of Larry (Buster) Crabbe, had a limited run on radio. The weekly Hearst serial ended after 26 weeks with Flash and his companions cra...
For anyone with busfare and a harmonica, The Original Amateur Hour was a grab at the brass ring. Some came without busfare, hitching rides across the country. Poor blacks came up from the South; cowbo...
For the record, Welles was contrite. Forty years later—removed from the threat of mob assault—he confessed only to amusement, and amazement that people could be so gullible. For three full days the fa...
George Herman Babe Ruth was an awkward radio novice who croaked his lines and had almost no sense of timing. But he was the biggest sports hero of his day. His radio shows consisted of chatter, interv...
Hap Hazard spent most of his time on this series rescuing guests from the hazards of the hotel. Its floors creaked, the doors wouldn’t shut, the water taps dripped, and when the president of the chain...
Harry Tugend had abandoned radio to write films; Allen’s writers were now Arnold Auerbach and Herman Wouk (later famous as the author of The Caine Mutiny and other bestselling novels). Wouk and Auerba...
He helped start the March of Dimes, did numerous benefits, worked for Jewish refugees in World War II, and established a $5,000 college scholarship fund for young essayists and orators. The fund, begu...
He was hired at WOR in March 1925 and a few months later was asked to fill in for Bernarr MacFadden, who had a calisthentics program. Gambling’s smooth baritone voice contrasted well with MacFadden’s...
His book has an index of closet jokes: how many were done, who opened the closet door (Fibber did, 83 of 128 times), and what he was seeking there (everything from Mayor LaTrivia’s hat on the show of...
His first New Year’s broadcast aired on WBBM, Chicago, in 1927. His theme song, Auld Lang Syne, was already a traditional year-ender, and soon Lombardo became known as the man who invented New Year’s...
His first play, Burial Services, concerned the burial of a paralyzed girl who was still alive. It caused such a furor (more than 50,000 letters were written to NBC) that Oboler would never again write...
His son Keenan made that point years later in a taped interview. Wynn was a clown, a vastly different breed of entertainer. A comedian made you laugh: a clown could make you cry. In a way, Keenan Wynn...
JOHNNY FLETCHER, comedy-detective drama. BROADCAST HISTORY: May 30–Nov. 27, 1948, ABC. 30m, Sundays at 7:30 until mid-Sept., then Saturdays at 8. CAST: Bill Goodwin as Johnny Fletcher, the opposite of...
Koch visited his family on Monday, his day off. Driving back through New Jersey, he picked up a road map at a gas station. In his New York apartment, he opened the map, closed his eyes, and dropped hi...
Later, Col. H. Norman Schwarzkopf (whose son would become a hero half a century later in the Persian Gulf War) was brought in as interviewer. Schwarzkopf had been superintendent of the New Jersey Stat...
Many of her sponsors were rich foods, which she loved—and she had the ample frame to prove it. Often she could be heard enjoying a pudding or a frosted cake on the air. Her network career ended in 195...
McGARRY AND HIS MOUSE, comedy detective drama. BROADCAST HISTORY: June 26–Sept. 25, 1946, NBC. 30m, Wednesdays at 9. Summer substitute for Eddie Cantor. Jan. 6–March 31, 1947, Mutual. 30m, Mondays at...
Only on Inner Sanctum could a man be haunted for 40 years by the wailing of his dead wife, then learn that the sound was the wind rushing through a hole in the wall where he had sealed her body. Only...
So Bowes had a bodyguard, a good strongarm, he told the New Yorker, who hustles them up to the microphone and down again. I always signal him before letting the bell go, and he is always ready to grab...
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