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 ...
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 ...
Happy Birthday, Harold Peary!(Post)Fans of old-time radio might get a kick out of watching an old Perry Mason rerun, “The Case of the Lover’s Gamble,” which turns up on Me-TV every now and then. At the risk of spoiling the ending, t ...
Happy Birthday, Herb Vigran!(Post)The man born Herbert (some sources spell it “Herburt”) Vigran in Cincinnati, Ohio on this date in 1910 would become one of show business’ most distinctive character actors. His easily recognize ...
Happy Birthday, Eleanor Audley!(Post)The epitaph on the headstone adorning the final resting place of actress Eleanor Audley reads: “A Kind Friend to All.” And while it’s undeniably true that Audley—born Eleanor Zellman on this date ...
Happy Birthday, Florence Halop!(Post)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 ...
Happy Birthday, Frank Readick!(Post)The actor born Frank Winfield Russell Marion Derwent Readick, Jr. (that’s what he called himself in a 1932 issue of Radio Guide) on this date in Seattle, Washington in 1896 was already a performin ...
Happy Birthday, Blake Edwards!(Post)If I enlisted you into playing a word association game and started the ball rolling by uttering “Blake Edwards”—chances are that you would respond with “Pink Panther”…for it was indeed Edwards who ...
Happy Birthday, Elvia Allman!(Post)“Speed it up a little!” That unforgettable line of dialogue from the classic I Love Lucy episode “Job Switching”—the one where Lucy and Ethel are working a conveyor belt at a candy factory, and re ...
Happy Birthday, Dale Evans!(Post)On January 14, 1953, TV’s This is Your Life paid tribute to “The King of the Cowboys”—none other than Roy Rogers himself. Host Ralph Edwards presided over some predictably teary-eyed moments duri ...
Review – The Jack Benny Program: The Lost Episodes(Post)The media company known emphatically as Shout! Factory pre-released one of the most highly anticipated DVD sets for old-time radio fans on June 18th of this year—a three-disc collection entitled T ...
“Get this and get it straight…”(Post)In 1932, having been dismissed from his position as a vice-president with the Dabney Oil Syndicate, Raymond Chandler decided to take up writing detective fiction to make a living. Chandler had pr ...
Happy Birthday, Betty Lou Gerson!(Post)George Allen took over as director of the West Coast radio mystery anthology The Whistler beginning in the mid-40s, and one of the hallmarks of his tenure with the program was building a stock com ...
“This case has more angles than a six-pointed star…”(Post)As the 1944-45 season of radio’s The Fitch Bandwagon came to its conclusion, star Dick Powell made an unusual request of the sponsor, shampoo magnate F.W. Fitch. Powell asked Fitch if he could t ...
Happy Birthday, Dorothy Lamour!(Post)The woman born on this date in 1914 is best remembered by moviegoers as someone who made something as simple as a sarong look mighty good…while traipsing down various roads alongside crooner Bing ...
“If trouble is around, yours truly will most likely get a chunk of it.”(Post)On this date in 1949, actor Dick Powell whistled his very first rendition of “Leave it to Love” on NBC’s Richard Diamond, Private Detective—a light-hearted radio crime drama that successfully blend ...