Actors Andy Devine and Broderick Crawford enthusiastically participated in their own stunts during the filming the 1940 Western When the Daltons Rode. One particular stunt almost sent Crawford to ...
Ann Rutherford (1917-2012)(Post)It was her recurring role in M-G-M’s series of Andy Hardy films that firmly cemented Ann Rutherford’s onscreen “girl next door” persona. In many of the movies, typical teenager Andy Hardy (played by ...
Happy Birthday, Robert Readick!(Post)Actor Frank Readick’s voice is a familiar one to those fans who remember old-time radio--he was one of the busiest thesps in the aural medium, starring on such programs as Smilin’ Jack and Meet Mr ...
Happy Birthday, Gertrude Warner!(Post)In his invaluable reference book The Great Radio Soap Operas, author Jim Cox opines that Gertrude “Trudy” Warner—born in Hartford, Connecticut on this day in 1917—“may have played the leads or fem ...
Happy Birthday, Grace Matthews!(Post)Grace Matthews was a drama queen. Okay, that sounds a bit churlish, in light of what that bit of slang means nowadays—what I should emphasize is that the actress born in Toronto, Canada on this d ...
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 ...
“…the official broadcast from the files of the Federal Bureau of Investigation…”(Post)Author Frederick Lewis Collins’ book The FBI in Peace and War became such a huge best seller in 1943 that a radio adaptation premiered the following fall. The series was created by Louis Pelletier ...
Happy Birthday, Bernard Lenrow!(Post)When the popular radio crime anthology known as The Mollé Mystery Theatre premiered over NBC in the fall of 1943, the host of that series—”annotator” Geoffrey Barnes—was portrayed by an actor name ...
Happy Birthday, Charles Boyer!(Post)Any self-respecting impressionist attempting to imitate actor Charles Boyer—born in Figeac, Lot, France on this date in 1899—had only to utter this phrase: “Come wiz me to the Cazbah…” It’s a ref ...
Happy Birthday, Sheldon Leonard!(Post)Nowadays, the concept of the “hyphenate” is fairly common in Hollywood—the word is used to describe anyone in show business who wears various hats: actor, writer, producer, director, etc. The most ...
Happy Birthday, Judy Garland!(Post)For generations both old and new, Judy Garland—born Frances Ethel Gumm in Grand Rapids, Minnesota on this date in 1922—will be forever known as Dorothy Gale, the young Kansas girl who gets an oppo ...
Happy Birthday, Elliott Lewis!(Post)“Elliott Lewis was the greatest actor of them all,” declared veteran radio scribe E. Jack Neuman in an interview with Leonard Maltin. “He could break your heart with a word; his timing was impecca ...
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 ...
“…true crime stories from the records and newspapers of every land from every time…”(Post)Even as he continued to convulse audiences weekly in the 1950s as Frankie Remley, sidekick to the male half of The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show, actor Elliott Lewis was anxious to branch out into t ...
Happy Birthday, Louise Erickson!(Post)Actress Louise Erickson—born in Oakland, California on this date in 1928—becomes a nonagenarian today…and we at Radio Spirits couldn’t be more excited about celebrating the occasion. In the 1940s ...
Happy Birthday, Walter O’Keefe!(Post)If the man born Walter Michael O’Keefe in Hartford, Connecticut on this date in 1900 had pursued his ambition to join the priesthood…well, the Church’s gain would surely have been our loss. We wou ...