Old-time radio fans remember actor Victor Herbert Perrin—born in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin on this date in 1916—as a member-in-good-standing of the informal “stock company” of performers frequent ...
Happy Birthday, Ona Munson!(Post)The effort to cast the motion picture adaptation of Margaret Mitchell’s classic novel Gone with the Wind is almost as epic as the content itself. For the role of madam Belle Watling, producer Dav ...
Happy Birthday, Norris Goff!(Post)One-half of the comedy team that served as my introduction to old-time radio was born one hundred and ten years ago on this date. With his lifelong partner Chester Lauck, Norris “Tuffy” Goff comp ...
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 ...
“More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of…”(Post)The man officially known as The Reverend Father Patrick Peyton, C.S.C. was chaplain of the Holy Cross Brothers of the Vincentian Institute in Albany, New York during World War II. Father Peyton es ...
Happy Birthday, Danny Thomas!(Post)Danny Thomas was an entertainer struggling to make it big in show business. He often had difficulty securing gigs, and the news that there was a baby on the way in the Thomas household didn’t make ...
Happy Birthday, Lou Krugman!(Post)It seems odd that an actor who claimed to have emoted on over 10,000 radio broadcasts and provided voiceovers for 700 commercials doesn’t even rate an entry at Wikipedia…it’s a crime against the a ...
Happy Birthday, Ray Bolger!(Post)Of the artist born Raymond Wallace Bolger on this date in 1904 in Dorchester, Massachusetts, authors Ephraim Katz and Ronald Dean Nolen note in The Film Encyclopedia: “Bolger’s acting, dancing, and ...
The Honeymoon’s Not Over(Post)For a show that had a relatively short life on radio and television, The Bickersons has maintained a dominating presence in American pop culture. We use the term “Ozzie & Harriet” to describe a w ...
“Good night, folks…”(Post)In his essential reference encyclopedia of old-time radio, On the Air, author John Dunning notes that actor William Gargan’s presence on the detective drama Barrie Craig, Confidential Investigator ...
Happy Birthday, Jerry Lewis!(Post)August 20, 2017 was for many fans of comedy a day to weep…not laugh. The man born Joseph Levitch (though other sources report his name as Jerome) in Newark, NJ on this date in 1926 had left this ...
Happy Birthday, Dick Haymes!(Post)The man born Richard Benjamin Haymes in Buenos Aires, Argentina on this date in 1918 was at one time a serious rival to Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra in the pop music arena of the 1940s. Ironicall ...
“…who teaches English at Madison High School…”(Post)When Paramount Pictures brought the hit Broadway musical Grease to the big screen in 1978, some of the film’s casting decisions tickled the fancies of both old-time radio devotees and classic TV f ...
Happy Birthday, Paul Frees!(Post)“Paul Frees is EVERYWHERE!” A cartoonist of my acquaintance adopted that statement as both a personal mantra and a tribute to the man born Solomon Hersh Frees in Chicago on this date in 1920. Fo ...
Happy Birthday, Marvin Miller!(Post)Though his show business career of nearly half-a-century extended to radio, TV, and motion pictures, the actor-announcer born Marvin Elliott Mueller in St. Louis, Missouri on this date in 1913 is ...
Happy Birthday, Peter Lorre!(Post)On this date in 1904, a son was born to Alajos Löwenstein and Elvira Freischberger in an Austria-Hungarian village that is now located in present-day Slovakia. His name was László Löwenstein…but we ...