Comedy was king during the Golden Age of Radio; funsters like Jack Benny, Bob Hope, Edgar Bergen (and Charlie McCarthy), and Fibber McGee & Molly (Jim and Marian Jordan) frequently saw their progr ...
“…I take this same train every week at this time…”(Post)On this date in 1943, one of the Mutual Broadcasting System’s longest-lasting and most popular programs premiered in the form of The Mysterious Traveler. It was created and written by the team o ...
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 ...
“Saints preserve us, Mr. Keen! He’s got a gun!”(Post)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 ...
Happy Birthday, Sir John Gielgud!(Post)Sir John Gielgud made his cinematic debut in a 1924 silent film, Who is the Man? Yet the celebrated actor, born in South Kensington, London on this date in 1904, really didn’t commit to a movie c ...
Review: Boston Blackie’s Rendezvous (1945)(Post)As he and his sidekick The Runt (George E. Stone) settle in for the night, Horatio “Boston Blackie” Black (Chester Morris) gets an unexpected visit from his wealthy friend Arthur Manleder (Harry H ...
Review: Gildersleeve’s Ghost (1944)(Post)One thing you can say about Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve (Harold Peary): his political ambitions are boundless, and in the 1944 film comedy Gildersleeve’s Ghost he’s determined to advance from his ...
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 ...
Happy Birthday, Alonzo Deen Cole!(Post)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 ...
Happy Birthday, Phillips H. Lord!(Post)Triskaidekaphobia. I didn’t make this word up; it’s the technical term for fear of the number “13.” The man born Phillips Haynes Lord in Hartford, Vermont on this date in 1902, however, pooh-poohe ...
Happy Birthday, Alice Frost!(Post)At the turn of the twentieth century, a career as an actor or actress was frowned upon in “proper” society.” Aspirations to trod amongst the footlights were held in low regard, particularly among ...
Happy Birthday, Brian Donlevy!(Post)With the competition from that problem child called television and the government-enforced breakup of their production and distribution monopolies, the motion picture industry started to take a fi ...