Before radio audiences eagerly anticipated each week the memorably unsettling sound of a creaking door (on Inner Sanctum Mysteries) or an ominous gong signaling that they should dim the lights (Li ...
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 ...
“…the bulkiest, balkiest, smartest, most unpredictable detective in the world…”(Post)On this date in 1943, the first of several attempts to introduce radio to one of the most memorable of literary sleuths got underway. Nero Wolfe, the well-upholstered creation of author Rex Stout, ...
Happy Birthday, David Kogan!(Post)Columbia University student David A. Kogan (born in New York City on this date in 1916) met Robert Jay Arthur, Jr. in his radio writing class. The pair would go on to form one of the most fruitful ...
Celeste Holm (1917-2012)(Post)A surviving excerpt of radio’s The Fitch Bandwagon from April 23, 1944 features Broadway sensation Celeste Holm singing (complete with Brooklyn accent) the song written by Duffy’s Tavern’s Ed Gar ...
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 ...
Happy Birthday, Virginia Gregg!(Post)In our natal anniversary spotlight today is one of old-time radio’s indisputable veterans. She would get a special nod for proficiency alone, but Virginia Gregg—born in Harrisburg, Illinois on this ...
Happy Birthday, Mercedes McCambridge!(Post)On this date in 1916, the performer that would win a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her very first feature film was born. As Sadie Burke, the tough female assistant to ambitious politician Wil ...
Happy Birthday, Helen Mack!(Post)In 1949, RKO re-released She (1935)—a motion picture based on the series of H. Rider Haggard novels and starring Randolph Scott and Helen Gahagan (as the title character). She, a science fiction-t ...
Happy Birthday, Jack Carson!(Post)If you’re familiar with the career of the comic actor born John Elmer Carson on this date in 1910, you’ve no doubt heard Jack Carson constantly joke about the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Jack ev ...
“…true crime stories from the records and newspapers of every land from every time…”(Post)Even as he continued to convulse audiences weekly in the 1950s as Frankie Remley, sidekick to the male half of The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show, actor Elliott Lewis was anxious to branch out into t ...
”Adventures in time and space…told in future tense!”(Post)The premiere of NBC Radio’s Dimension X on this date in 1950 was inspired by the phenomenal box office success of Universal-International’s Destination Moon, produced by the legendary George Pal ...
Happy Birthday, Bret Morrison!(Post)Although it was often difficult to tell on radio, actor Bret Morrison—born in Chicago on this date in 1912—was considered quite the practitioner of sartorial splendor. (That’s just my fancy way of ...
“…there you will find…The Man Called X!”(Post)Before his long, distinguished career as a stage and motion picture actor, Herbert Marshall embarked on a variety of jobs (including accounting) that led up to his enlisting in the first World War ...
“Good night, folks…”(Post)In his essential reference encyclopedia of old-time radio, On the Air, author John Dunning notes that actor William Gargan’s presence on the detective drama Barrie Craig, Confidential Investigator ...
Happy Birthday, Vic Perrin!(Post)Old-time radio fans remember actor Victor Herbert Perrin—born in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin on this date in 1916—as a member-in-good-standing of the informal “stock company” of performers frequent ...