Golden Age of Radio

The Milwaukee Journal – May 18, 1941 Fred Allen —Pickle Puss With Nerves By Gladwin Hill NEW YORK, N. Y.—(AP)—If, walking down Broadway, you chanced to encounter a haggard, dejected man who looked as though he had lost his last friend, funds and scratch sheet pencil, the probabilities are the individual would be a happy, prosperous professional comedian. If, in addition to being haggard and dejected, the man looked as though he had recently been sentenced to the electric chair, but planned to beat the rap by hanging himself with his necktie, the chances are his brief case would disclose a partly consumed package of chewing tobacco and the tell tale gold lettering “F. Allen.” Fred Allen , who has been arousing mirth from coast to coast for 25 years in vaudeville, movies and radio, is probably the most morose looking person at large today. This is not a pose. Allen is just one of those people born to worry, fret, stew and suffer about their work, and the fact th...

The Milwaukee Journal – Jun 20, 1943   A Star Who Mows His Own Lawn! By J. D. Spiro IT IS plainly written in the established Hollywood tradition that an actor cannot be a genuine 19 carat star unless he can list among his assets—or perhaps it’s his liabilities—at least one swimming pool and a butler who answer to the name of Jeeves. By these standards it would appear that Jack Carson , who still calls Milwaukee home, is unable to qualify, for Jack is not only without the pool and Jeeves but he actually admits, even boasts, that he mows his own lawn and gets the baby’s breakfast. Nonetheless, in the heartbreak town of Hollywood , where hundreds fail for every one who succeeds, this former Milwaukee boy, whose parents, Mr. and Mrs. E. L. Carson, live at 2009 N. Prospect av., Milwaukee, has at last definitely arrived at stardom both on the air and on the screen. Almost at the same moment several weeks ago, when he got his biggest break in radio as the top...