459 results for 'Jack Benny: All's Welles'

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 ...

For Nick and Nora Charles, the famed imbibing couple created by Dashiell Hammett in the 1934 novel The Thin Man, sleuthing was a walk in the park; Nick was a retired gumshoe and knew a little bit ...

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.

Radio producer Dan Golenpaul had a bone to pick with the individuals—masters of ceremonies, if you will—who hosted the popular radio quiz shows of the day. He cringed whenever these MC’s would give ...

Any self-respecting impressionist attempting to imitate actor Charles Boyer—born in Figeac, Lot, France on this date in 1899—had only to utter this phrase: “Come wiz me to the Cazbah…” It’s a ref ...

This Saturday, August 31, will mark the 72nd anniversary of one of radio’s most popular and successful sitcoms, The Great Gildersleeve—a program that any old time radio fan worth their salt will t ...

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 ...

The Detroit, Michigan station known as WXYZ—“the last word in radio”—was already responsible for introducing two dramatic programs over the airwaves that became firm favorites with radio listeners ...

A 1946 issue of Radio Mirror noted that “practically everyone connected with the Boston Blackie show is a former athlete.” Radio Mirror was not publishing “fake news”: the show’s star, Richard Ko ...

Radio historian and Radio Spirits contributor Jim Widner once asked humorously of today’s birthday celebrant “Any detective he didn’t play?” in a 2013 article of the Radio Recall newsletter. Jim i ...

The origin story of Chandu the Magician is as follows: Frank Chandler, a student of the occult, has spent much of his time residing in the Orient. Chandler’s environs have produced the benefit of ...

If I stated up front that the man who’s in our birthday spotlight today transcended his meager beginnings as a mere thespian and eventually became the governor of a state…well, you’d probably assu ...

At the time I borrowed Joseph Julian’s This Was Radio from my hometown public library as a kid, I wasn’t all that familiar with the distinguished actor born Joseph Shapiro in St. Marys, Pennsylvan ...

If you were given a name like “Ira Grossel” at birth…chances are you’d have a long career as a certified public accountant or a dentist waiting in the wings once you reached adulthood. But one par ...

“If you think you want to be a radio actor, go to a small station.” That’s the advice that John William Larkin, born in Oakland, California on this date in 1912, gave in a 1952 article of Radio-TV ...

The Ravenna, Ohio native born on this date in 1912 had no way of knowing he would take on two acting jobs that would make him a hero to millions of kids glued to both radio and early TV screens.