Diane Parrish (Harriet Hilliard) has commissioned art dealer Eric Allison (Walter Soderling) to sell a valuable statue at an auction…but has no inkling that Allison and two of his confederates (Ra ...
“Look out, Jerry—he’s got a gun!”(Post)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 ...
“Somewhere along the line a murderer makes a mistake—it’s my job to find that mistake.”(Post)“Philo Vance/Needs a kick in the pance” Ogden Nash once rhymed in a memorable couplet. Nash’s editorial comment was addressing the one-time popularity of author S.S. Van Dine’s famed sleuth. Afte ...
Happy Birthday, Mary Lansing!(Post)“The Big Easy” (New Orleans, Louisiana) welcomed actress Mary Lansing on this date in 1911. From 1933 until 1970, Lansing was the wife of fellow thespian Frank Nelson, whom she met while the two o ...
Happy Birthday, Jack Webb!(Post)The infamous poaching of radio stars from NBC—known to old-time radio fans as the “talent raids”—was perpetrated by rival CBS. They seduced big names like Jack Benny, Red Skelton, and Amos & An ...
Happy Birthday, Lauren Bacall!(Post)The woman born Betty Joan Perske in New York City on this date in 1924 had a burning ambition to become an actress. After all, she took lessons at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (before th ...
Review: Meet Boston Blackie (1941)(Post)Radio Spirits has just released a brand-new CD collection of broadcasts featuring Boston Blackie, a lighthearted detective drama based on the famed reformed safecracker-jewel thief introduced by a ...
The Robin Hood of Modern Crime(Post)His creator described him as “a buccaneer in the suits of Savile Row, amused, cool, debonair, with hell-for-leather blue eyes and a saintly smile.” That creator was author Leslie Charteris, and t ...
Happy Birthday, Tom Collins!(Post)When actor Walter Paterson committed suicide in 1942, One Man’s Family creator Carlton E. Morse made the decision to eliminate Patterson’s character of “Nicholas Lacey” (the husband of Claudia Ba ...
“The secret word is anniversary…”(Post)On this date in 1947, the program that finally found a way to make good use of the one-of-a-kind comic talent of Julius “Groucho” Marx premiered: You Bet Your Life. A “quiz show” that really serv ...
Happy Birthday, Mary Lee Robb!(Post)Actress Mary Lee Robb’s first professional radio job in 1947 was a small one. She was hired to play Pearl, the daughter of Abner Peabody (Norris “Tuffy” Goff) on the long-running comedy serial Lu ...
Leave Us Not Forget This Anniversary(Post)On this date in 1941, radio audiences made their first visit to a dingy, dank East Side watering hole affectionately known as Duffy’s Tavern. The half-hour sitcom, created by and starring Ed Gardn ...