Author Gore Vidal once remarked of Orson Welles: “For the television generation he is remembered as an enormously fat and garrulous man with a booming voice, seen most often on talk shows and in c ...
Happy Birthday, Morton Fine!(Post)Before embarking on a rewarding career as a radio, television and movie writer, Morton S. Fine—born a Christmas Eve baby in Baltimore, MD on this date in 1916—was a “jack-of-all-trades.” He worked ...
“Under the cold, glaring lights pass the innocent…the vagrant…the thief…the murderer…”(Post)The introduction of Jack Webb’s Dragnet to NBC Radio’s schedule in June of 1949 would soon inspire several imitators focused on the meticulous details of police procedure. There was Broadway’s M ...
Review: Partners in Time (1946)(Post)In 1937, Chester Lauck and Norris Goff began to express interest in bringing the characters from their popular radio show, Lum and Abner, to the big screen. Talent agent Jack William Votion, a Ho ...
Happy Birthday, Barney Phillips!(Post)Although there was certainly a note of melancholy involved, replacing the departed Barton Yarborough as Jack Webb’s new partner on Dragnet (as Sgt. Ed Jacobs) must have been a dream assignment for ...
Review: The Lineup (1958)(Post)As San Francisco antiquities dealer Philip Dressler (Raymond Bailey) disembarks from a cruise ship, a porter snatches one of his valises and tosses it into a waiting cab. The driver speeds off…dire ...
Happy Birthday, George Fenneman!(Post)Despite his incredible career as a radio/TV announcer and emcee, George Watt Fenneman—born in Peking (now Beijing), China on this date in 1919—was never hesitant about crediting the job that secur ...
Happy Birthday, Paul Dubov!(Post)The 1968 feature film comedy With Six You Get Eggroll served as actress-singer Doris Day’s cinematic swan song. Dodo would turn her attention to television after Eggroll’s release, with a success ...
Everybody Loves Raymond(Post)The actor who would be celebrating his ninety-sixth birthday today is indisputably best remembered for two iconic television series—Perry Mason (1957-66) and Ironside (1967-75). But old-time radi ...
The Men From Laramie(Post)Before actor Raymond Burr stepped into his first courtroom in the fall of 1957 as TV’s Perry Mason, he was known primarily as a movie heavy (if you’ll pardon the obvious pun). He practiced villai ...
“…that footloose and fancy-free young gentleman…”(Post)In hindsight, the low ebb that marked Frank Sinatra’s show business career in the early 1950s should have been interpreted as a mere blip for the entertainer affectionately known as The Chairman o ...
Happy Birthday, Larry Thor!(Post)Arnleifur Lawrence Thorsteinson was born on this date in 1916…in an Icelandic village in Lundar, Manitoba, Canada. Fortunately for the radio stations and national networks that would eventually h ...
“…who teaches English at Madison High School…”(Post)When Paramount Pictures brought the hit Broadway musical Grease to the big screen in 1978, some of the film’s casting decisions tickled the fancies of both old-time radio devotees and classic TV f ...
Happy Birthday, Eve Arden!(Post)At the height of her fame as the tart-tongued schoolmarm of radio and TV’s Our Miss Brooks, Eve Arden—born in Mill Valley, CA on this date in 1908—got more than a few offers from school boards acr ...
The Happy Anniversary Matter(Post)Who would have guessed that on this date in 1949, the premiere of a half-hour program about an independent investigator who specialized in following up on insurance claims would wind up as one of ...
Happy Birthday, Lou Krugman!(Post)It seems odd that an actor who claimed to have emoted on over 10,000 radio broadcasts and provided voiceovers for 700 commercials doesn’t even rate an entry at Wikipedia…it’s a crime against the a ...