I’m certainly not the first person to observe that the best directors—whether they work in film, television, theater, or elsewhere—are often those with an extensive background in acting…and today’ ...
Happy Birthday, Fran Carlon!(Post)Actress Fran Carlon—born in Indianapolis, Indiana on this date in 1913—was married to actor-announcer Casey Allen for many years. The couple even occasionally worked together on radio programs lik ...
Happy Birthday, Antony Ellis!(Post)The last time we got together here on the blog we celebrated Sheldon Leonard’s birthday…and I described his career as a “hyphenate”: actor, producer, director (and even writer on shows like the An ...
The Mark of the Whistler (1944)/The Thirteenth Hour (1947): “…of which they dare not speak…”(Post)Two of the entries in Columbia’s Whistler franchise (based on the popular CBS Radio West Coast mystery program) rarely turn up in the rotation when the film series is shown on Turner Classic Movie ...
Happy Birthday, David Kogan!(Post)Columbia University student David A. Kogan (born in New York City on this date in 1916) met Robert Jay Arthur, Jr. in his radio writing class. The pair would go on to form one of the most fruitful ...
“The Green Hornet strikes again!”(Post)Though most people remember veteran newsman Mike Wallace from his long-running stint on the television investigative news program 60 Minutes (from 1968 to 2008), old-time radio fans know that Wall ...
Happy Birthday, Alfred Hitchcock!(Post)It was a story that he frequently told in interviews: when Sir Alfred Hitchcock was only five years old, his father (who referred to his son as a “little lamb without a spot”) sent him to the loca ...
Happy Birthday, Reed Hadley!(Post)The man born Reed Herring on this date in Petrolia, Texas in 1911 had one of the most instantly recognizable voices in show business. Actor Reed Hadley was the go-to man for narrating film noirs; y ...
Happy Birthday, Parker Fennelly!(Post)It would become one of radio’s most beloved weekly rituals in the late 1940s: comedian Fred Allen would venture into “Allen’s Alley” to ask its inhabitants a topical question about a recent event ...
Happy Birthday, Irene Tedrow!(Post)I’d never be able to prove it in a court of law…but I’d be willing to gamble that when the need arose for an actress to play the part of a spinster or neighborhood busybody, Irene Tedrow was on ev ...
Happy Birthday, Everett Sloane!(Post)In the 1941 movie classic Citizen Kane, Kane’s business manager Mr. Bernstein makes an observation that remains in the memories of movie fans long after Kane’s final reel has unspooled: “One day, ...
“Out of the fog…out of the night…”(Post)It was on this date in 1941 that Captain Hugh “Bulldog” Drummond began what the announcer referred to as “his American adventures” on Mutual Radio. The need to stress “American adventures” stems f ...
Happy Birthday, Tony Barrett!(Post)An item in a November 1945 edition of Radio Mirror will give you an idea of just how busy the actor born Martin Lefkowitz on this date in New York City in 1916 was in the aural medium. As Tony Bar ...
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, Brian Donlevy!(Post)With the competition from that problem child called television and the government-enforced breakup of their production and distribution monopolies, the motion picture industry started to take a fi ...
Happy Birthday, Bob Bailey!(Post)Robert Bainter Bailey was born in Toledo, OH on this date in 1913. Though some would argue he never fulfilled his ambition to become a motion picture star, old-time radio fans will trump that card ...