Today’s birthday celebrant was once dubbed “the Canadian Orson Welles”…and after leaving The Great White North in 1946, Fletcher Markle—born on this date in Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1921—would not on ...
Happy Birthday, Tom Conway!(Post)Thomas Charles Sanders was born on this date in 1904 to English parents in St. Petersburg, Russia. Old-time radio fans, of course, know him as Tom Conway, and know that he played two famous detec ...
Happy Birthday, Chester Morris!(Post)Chester Morris starred in several Boston Blackie movies during the 1940s (Alias Boston Blackie, Boston Blackie and the Law, etc.). In a number of these films, Morris allowed his character Horatio ...
Happy Birthday, Olan Soule!(Post)In 1947, when the dramatic anthology The First Nighter Program moved from its long-time Chicago home to Hollywood, leading man Olan Soule—born in La Harpe, Illinois on this date in 1909—relocated ...
Review: One Mysterious Night (1944)(Post)It costs only a dollar—1/100th of a C-note—to gaze at a display of precious gems at the Carleton Plaza Hotel, an event that’s fundraising for the war effort…and that features the Blue Star of the ...
Happy Birthday, Glenn Langan!(Post)The actor born Thomas Glenn Langan in Denver, Colorado on this date in 1917 spent a large portion of his life in “The Mile High City.” He was educated there and received his theatrical training wo ...
Review: Entertaining the Troops(Post)In June of this year, MVD Visual released to DVD a wonderful 1994 documentary entitled Entertaining the Troops—a ninety-minute special originally shown on PBS stations during their fundraising dri ...
Happy Birthday, House Jameson!(Post)When radio’s popular family sitcom The Aldrich Family came to television in the fall of 1949, it soon established a reputation as being a sort of “revolving door” as far as acting talent went. Du ...
“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 ...
“Oh…the big red letters stand for the Jell-O family…”(Post)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 ...
Happy Birthday, Richard Kollmar!(Post)From 1941 to 1949, Columbia Pictures entertained devoted moviegoers with a series of films based on a character created by author Jack Boyle in 1914. The Boston Blackie franchise was comprised of ...
Happy Birthday, Paul McGrath!(Post)On May 29, 1945, radio’s popular Inner Sanctum Mysteries welcomed inside “the creaking door” a new host to replace the departing Raymond Edward Johnson. The new master of ceremonies who welcomed ...