266 results for 'jack benny'

Back in the 1970s, when I first immersed myself in the wonderful world of old-time radio, my enthusiasm for “The Hobby” was such that I beseeched both my mother and father for stories about their ...

The only scriptwriter to receive sole credit on two of the Marx Brothers’ classic feature film comedies was Irving Brecher, born in the Bronx on this date in 1914. An impressive achievement, to b ...

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 ...

If we were to truly recognize the birthday of author Brett Halliday, we’d have to settle in for a series of blog posts. “Brett Halliday,” the author who brought the adventures of detective Micha ...

Playwright George S. Kaufman once observed: “Satire is what closes on Saturday night.” Perhaps this famous quote might be able to explain the dismal box-office take of So This is New York (1948), ...

A September 1935 edition of Radio Mirror spotlights child stars on the radio in one of its articles, mentioning such talents as Walter Tetley and Billy Halop. Billy wasn’t the only member of the Ha ...

Shamus devotees would no doubt have an engaging discussion as to whether Samuel Spade was the greatest private detective of them all, but old-time radio fans could probably come to a consensus tha ...

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 ...

He became famous for creating Nero Wolfe—a character memorably described by an author at The Thrilling Detective Website as a “{m}assively overweight, a cranky, agoraphobic and sedentary gourmet ...

Robert Bainter Bailey was born in Toledo, OH on this date in 1913. Though some would argue he never fulfilled his ambition to become a motion picture star, old-time radio fans will trump that card ...

The Golden Age of Radio—and this may be a good or bad thing, depending upon your opinion of the Fourth Estate—was a regular breeding ground for newspaper folk. Superheroes like The Green Hornet a ...

No one could have possibly seen it coming. On the night of April 8, 1975, as the live telecast of the 47th Academy Awards was calling it a wrap for the evening, the Best Actor Oscar was handed ou ...

August 20, 2017 was for many fans of comedy a day to weep…not laugh. The man born Joseph Levitch (though other sources report his name as Jerome) in Newark, NJ on this date in 1926 had left this ...

After a lengthy career that encompassed radio, motion pictures, and many, many million-selling records as one of the 20th century’s most popular vocalists, the woman born Doris Mary Anne Kappelhoff ...

Have you ever wondered why a lot of the announcers from the AFRS versions of your radio favorites sound like Howard Duff? The answer to this is devastatingly simple: it is Howard Duff! The actor ...

If you were to ask character actor Edward James Begley—born in Hartford, Connecticut on this date in 1901—about the highlight of his professional career, he would probably have responded that it c ...