Old-time radio legend Frank Nelson (The Jack Benny Program) shared the following anecdote in Leonard Maltin’s The Great American Broadcast: “I had a friend who did just bits with me in radio shows ...
Happy Birthday, Amzie Strickland!(Post)One of radio’s most prolific character actresses was born in Oklahoma City on this date in 1919: Amzie Strickland. That first name is pronounced AIM-zee, by the way, and during her lengthy show b ...
“…the Texas plainsman who wandered through the western territories, leaving behind a trail of still-remembered legends…”(Post)In Leonard Maltin’s anecdotal old-time radio page-turner The Great American Broadcast, there’s a photograph of Parley Baer chatting with Academy Award-winning actor James Stewart—and in the captio ...
Happy Birthday, Harry Bartell!(Post)On the radio western Fort Laramie, actor Harry Bartell—born in New Orleans, LA on this date in 1913—played the part of Lieutenant Richard Sieberts, a greenhorn junior officer stationed at the outp ...
Happy Birthday, Claire Trevor!(Post)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 ...
Happy Birthday, Francis “Dink” Trout!(Post)In the Golden Age of Radio, actors were often called upon to play “meek” individuals—or whatever nickname you prefer: wimp, nebbish, milquetoast, etc. The gold standard for these portrayals might ...
Happy Birthday, William N. Robson!(Post)Though September 30, 1962 is often acknowledged as the date when The Golden Age of Radio ended, director-producer-writer William N. Robson had a decidedly different take in an interview with Dick ...
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 ...
Happy Birthday, Art Van Harvey!(Post)The actor born Arthur Harvey Van Berschot in Chicago, Illinois on this date in 1883 had much in common with the fictional Victor Rodney Gook, the laid-back patriarch Art played for so many years o ...
Happy Birthday, Conrad Binyon!(Post)“Why are you so extra nice to me?” asked sixteen-year-old Conrad Binyon of his mother in 1947. Ma Binyon wouldn’t admit it…but she was still trembling from her son’s recent experience involving a ...
Happy Birthday, Gale Storm!(Post)Although Gale Storm had been appearing in motion pictures since 1940, the perky, bubbly thespian would not achieve true show business fame until June 16, 1952—the date that the situation comedy My ...
Review: Partners in Time (1946)(Post)In 1937, Chester Lauck and Norris Goff began to express interest in bringing the characters from their popular radio show, Lum and Abner, to the big screen. Talent agent Jack William Votion, a Ho ...
Happy Birthday, Earle Ross!(Post)As a boy, actor Earle Ross had been gifted with a beautiful soprano voice—one that he put to good use singing in the boys’ choir at his local church. (His parents wanted him to become a minister.) ...
Andy Griffith (1926-2012)(Post)In 1979, veteran radio producers Fletcher Markle and Elliott Lewis attempted to resurrect the lost art of radio drama with The Sears Radio Theater, a program that followed in the footsteps of such ...
The Return of the Whistler (1948): “Yes, I know the nameless terrors…”(Post)On a night that’s raining felines and canines, Theodore “Ted” Nichols (Michael Duane) and his French fiancée Alice Dupres Barkley (Lenore Aubert) reach the home of the justice of the peace who’s g ...
Happy Birthday, Arthur Conan Doyle!(Post)As a medical student at the University of Edinburgh from 1876 through 1881, Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle—born in Edinburgh on this date in 1859—found himself fascinated by an instructor at that sch ...