The small town of Tyrone, Pennsylvania added Fredrick Malcolm Waring to its population on this date in 1909—of course, Fredrick would shorten his name to the friendlier “Fred,” and during his teenage ...
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 ...
Happy Birthday, Basil Rathbone!(Post)Basil Rathbone was born on this date in 1892—and I’ll come clean right from the get-go: I am a tremendous fan of the actor’s work. Basil possessed a suavity and menace that made him one of the ci ...
Radio’s laugh novelty(Post)Writer Goodman Ace made a solid living in the early 1930s reviewing plays and movies for The Kansas City Post for a $75-a-week salary. To supplement this income, Goody hosted a radio show on Kansas ...
Happy Birthday, Shirley Mitchell!(Post)With the celebration of her ninety-fourth birthday today (she was born in 1919), actress Shirley Mitchell is the last surviving recurring cast member of I Love Lucy. Couch potatoes remember Shirl ...
Happy Birthday, Alan Ladd!(Post)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, Hanley Stafford!(Post)The actor who achieved his greatest fame on radio as the best foil Fanny Brice’s Baby Snooks could ever wish for was born on this date in 1899 as Alfred John Austin. His birthplace of Hanley in St ...
Happy Birthday, Howard McNear!(Post)In the fictional town of Mayberry, North Carolina—as seen on the popular situation comedy The Andy Griffith Show—the locus of the town’s goings-on was usually the humble barber shop run by garrulo ...
Happy Birthday, Jack Moyles!(Post)While attending high school in his native San Francisco, actor Jack Moyles–born on this date in 1913–was quite the athlete, excelling at baseball, football, and tennis. But when he learned that a p ...
Happy Birthday, Willard Waterman!(Post)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 ...
Happy Birthday, Paul Dubov!(Post)The 1968 feature film comedy With Six You Get Eggroll served as actress-singer Doris Day’s cinematic swan song. Dodo would turn her attention to television after Eggroll’s release, with a success ...
Tony Martin (1913-2012)(Post)Singer-actor Tony Martin, who starred in such films as Ziegfeld Girl and Casbah, left this world for a better one on Friday, July 27 at the age of 98…his career is examined in nice detail in this onl ...