The omnipresent narrator (Otto Forrest) known as The Whistler introduces us to a “strange man” (Richard Dix) identified as “William Everest” as the third film in Columbia’s Whistler series unspool ...
Happy Birthday, Lionel Stander!(Post)Lionel Stander, the character actor best remembered by fans as chief-cook-and-bottle-washer Max on the TV detective drama Hart to Hart, also had a lengthy radio career—notably playing “stooge” to ...
Happy Birthday, Paula Winslowe!(Post)The untimely death of “platinum blonde” Jean Harlow at the age of 26 was devastating news to moviegoers…but since the motion picture business is a business, MGM (Harlow’s employer) soldiered on by ...
Happy Birthday, Jean Vander Pyl!(Post)Universal Pictures brought a live-action version of the classic TV cartoon series The Flintstones to the big screen in 1994 and had the novel idea of casting Jean Vander Pyl (the actress who voice ...
Happy Birthday, Alan Reed!(Post)Whether you know him as Teddy Bergman (his birth name) or Alan Reed—an identity he adopted to separate his comedic roles from the dramatic ones (as well as downplay his Jewish heritage)—you certai ...
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, Hans Conried!(Post)The man born Hans Georg Conried, Jr. on this date in 1917 in Baltimore, Maryland is described by author Leonard Maltin in his book The Great American Broadcast as “one of the most prolific perform ...
Happy Birthday, Claire Trevor!(Post)On March 24, 1949, actress Claire Trevor—born in Brooklyn, NY on this date in 1910—received one of the highest honors a performer can obtain from their peers in the motion picture industry: an Aca ...
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, Charles Russell!(Post)Fans of Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar are generally in agreement that it was actor Bob Bailey who made “America’s fabulous freelance investigator” the old-time radio icon he is today. (I apologize ...
The Whistler (1944): “I…am the Whistler…”(Post)It would be no small exaggeration to suggest that more old-time radio fans listen to The Whistler today than did audiences during the series’ original CBS network radio run from May 16, 1942 to S ...
Happy Birthday, Sir Ralph Richardson!(Post)There’s a hilarious story (possibly apocryphal, so we make no claims as to its accuracy) concerning Sir Ralph Richardson, who was born in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England on this date in 1902.