Golden Age of Radio

SANTOS ORTEGA—whom you have heard variously as Charlie Chan , Nero Wolfe , Perry Mason , Bulldog Drummond , Inspector Queen and commissioner Weston, has now added Roger Kilgore. Public Defender, to his gallery of criminologists and is heard on MBS’s program of that name. Tuesday nights at 10:30, EDT. New York-born Ortega had to fake a Latin accent to get his first radio role, twelve years ago. 

GOOSE pimples are guaranteed by the “ Lights Out ” successor, “ Dark Fantasy ,” heard late Friday night over NBC from WKY, Oklahoma City. Above, l. to r ., are actors Minnie Jo Curtis, Ben Morris, Eleanor Caughron and director John Prosser. The face in the foreground is unidentified!

  Say Hello To- VERNA FELTON—whose specialty on the air is playing mothers. You’ve heard her as Dennis Day ’s mother on the JackBenny program and as the mother of practically every famous personality dramatized by Hedda Hopper . Verna’s own mother, Clara Allen, was a noted actress, and Verna herself began acting when she was six. In 1923 she married Lee Millar, stage and radio star in his own right, and now they are one of Hollywood ’s ideally happy couples. They own right, and now they are one of Hollywood ’s ideally happy couples. They own a home with a garden composed entirely of old-fashioned flowers, where Verna spends most of her time when she’s not on the air, and they have one son, Lee, Jr., whose nickname is Spuddy . PLENTY PROUD is the mother of tenor Dennis Day , singing star of the Jack Benny program. Dennis Keeps busy while Benny’s show vacations for the summer months, makes an appearance Sunday on “Pause That Refreshes”

Boys, Girls--- * * * Here Is Sad News * * * The Lone Ranger Is Dead! FARMINGTON, Mich. –Earl Grasser, 32, the “ lone ranger ” of the radio series, was killed Tuesday in an automobile accident near his home. Grasser’s car struck the rear of a parked truck. Sheriff’s officers believed he may have fallen asleep while driving home. Officials of radio station WXYZ in Detroit, where the Lone Ranger series originates, said Brace Beemer, the original “ranger” and present narrator of the stories, would take Grasser’s place. The Lone Ranger has been running for nine years, and Grasser held the title role for eight. He was married and the father of a one-year-old girl.

The Milwaukee Journal – Dec 13, 1942   Browse this newspaper>>           Browse all newspapers >> Now Here Is Story of a Famous Team BEFORE this winter is past, “ Amos ‘ n’Andy ,” the well loved Harlem pair, will have been rolling along for 15 years. Theirs is one of the longest team associations in radio, and its beginnings go back to the earliest days. Listeners and their following, if not as large as it used to be, is still one of the most devoted have come to think of Amos ‘n’ Andy in black face, much as Charlie McCarthy ’s fans think of the splinter as being flesh and blood. Who are the real Amos ‘n’ Andy ? One boy (Andy) hails from Peoria, Ill. His name is Charles Correll and he was a newsboy, clerk, bricklayer and technician in an arsenal before he found his real love-show business. Starting as a piano player in a picture house, he went on to producing amateur shows. The other boy...

The Milwaukee Journal – Jul 19, 1942      Browse this newspaper>> Browse all papers>> The D. A.’s a Stickler for Accuracy Eye for the Little Things Keeps Ed Byron’s Show Well Up in Surveys NEW YORK , N. Y. –If somebody must get shot on NBC’s “ Mr. District Attorney ” program, the guy with the shooting irons must tell Director Eddie Byron where he intends to plug the victim. The victim may even select the spot—through the chest, for example, or deep in the tummy. But once he has made up his mind how he wants to get shot, he has to act the part. “If you’re going to get shot through the chest, then you’ve got to talk with a sort of whistle,” Byron explains to the victim. “If you want it in the stomach, you better throw in that death rattle. Where a person is shot affects his manner of speech.” Byron is the same way about a member of the cast who must go crazy. The unfortunate player can choose his favorite form of insanity but hi...

The Milwaukee Journal –Feb 7, 1943 Who is Dis Guy Archie, Anyway? Ed Gardner of ‘ Duffy ’s’ Went From WPA to Radio Heights; You’d Enjoy Meeting Him By Paul McMahon Of The Journal’s N. Y. Bureau ED GARDNER is Archie. And Archie is Gardner. They have been one and the same since Gardner played piano at the age of 14 in a saloon in his home town of Astoria, N. Y. It wasn’t until late years that Gardner got around to creating the Archie role for the entertainment of radio fans who now hear the naive, wise guy counterman in “ Duffy ’s” over the Blue network at 7:30 Tuesday nights. “ Dere’s always been somethin ’ of Archie in me,” Gardner confessed one day. “ Ya know de old sayin ’, ‘As de twing is bent.’” The character of Archie first came to life in 1939 in a program entitled “This Is New York,” to which Gardner had been assigned as director and producer. Gardner went through misery trying to find someone to fit his conception of Archie. In despair one...

Sunday, February 22, 1942       THE MILWAUKEE JOURNAL—SCREEN and RADIO                   11 Now Here’s Inside of ‘Info’ By Franklin P. Adams ON A sunny afternoon in April, 1938, a solitary bus rider might have been seen wending his way northward. Our hero—for it was indeed i — debussed at 57th st. and proceeded to the office of Mr. John Moses, a radio agent. For about six months, off and on, in the order named, I had been writing pieces and making auditions for the Columbia Broadcasting System with conspicuous un-success. And one day my none too altruistic wife, having heard that Miss Dorothy Thompson had an agent who had got her engagements which it was reputed brought her income into the six figure or nonhay bracket, said, “I wish you’d meet this wonderful agent.” A domestic pacifist, I am wax in the hands of the Little Woman’s wish. So I went to Miss Thompson’s for luncheon to meet the fabulou...