Golden Age of Radio

The Milwaukee Journal – Oct 4, 1942 She’s Really Anything but a Dope By Carlton Cheney DOWN through the ages countless millions of words have been uttered or written about the manifold advantages of being smart. But one may look in vain to the advice of sages and pundits for single observation , a friendly tip extolling the manifold virtues of being dumb. This, it appears, is a gross and deplorable omission which we right here and now set about to correct, being moved to the effort by a visit we paid the other day to the home of Gracie Allen , that darling dunce of the air waves , on the eve of her return to radio with husband-partner George Burns . Gracie and George , as you no doubt know, have been taking a summer vacation, but they will be back on the ether Tuesday night, again supported by Paul Whiteman and his orchestra; Jimmy Cash, the Arkansas Singer; Bill Goodwin, announcer and stooge, and Clarence Nash as Herman the Duck. White the show this season w...

The Miami News – Feb 4, 1947 On The Wing With GRACE WING ARCHIE: It was a far cry from Duffy’s Tavern to the palatial yachts over which I climbed to find Ed (Archie) Gardner yesterday afternoon. But Archie himself turned out to be the dyed-in-the-wool image of just what you hear on the radio. Reason is that Gardner doesn’t tailor his personality to fit the role of Archie the Malaprop. The part was written for him in the first place. His good-natured, slightly bewildered drawl sounds just the same whether he’s stewing over a telephone call from Duffy or regaling luncheon guests with spicy stories as he was doing yesterday. “How’d you get to be Archie?” I asked him. He told me he used to be a radio producer and writer, and that he dreamed up a serial about New York as seen through the eyes of a rich man and a bum. “Respective eyes, I mean—there were two characters,” he chuckled. “We auditioned a lot of guys for the part of the rich man and I always read the ...