Golden Age of Radio

JANE FROMAN . . . an alluring, blue-eyed brunette, started out to be a newspaper reporter at the University of Missouri School of Journalism located in her home town of Columbia where her father was mayor and her mother a music teacher in a college. She studied first from her mother; then at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music where Powell Crosley, Jr., president of WLW, heard her sing at a party and signed her up. Later NBC and then CBS got her. Despite the fact that she stutters, Jane now sing’s on more commercial programs than any other girl soprano. And she’s making movie-shorts, too. Husband Don Ross, baritone, sings over CBS. 

Say Hello To- WALTER GROSS—the very busy conductor of a CBS band which provides the music for many of the network’s sustaining features. The piano is Walter’s own instrument, and on it he can perform the classics, popular dance music, hot jazz and boogie-woogie with uniform ease. He first joined CBS eight years ago, playing in a band which included Raymond Scott, Benny Goodman , Artie Shaw, Will Bradley, Bunny Berigan, and Jerry Colonna (who played trombone). That was an all-star group, although no one knew it at the time, and Walter thinks the same is probably true of his present band. When his radio schedule permits it, Walter likes to spend weekends with his wife at their new country home.

Hedda Hopper __ wearing the creation by Hattie Carnegie which was inspired by the March of Dimes . But it really all began when a little Quaker girl (Hedda) saw a great Barrymore (Ethel) play in Captain Jinks. For Hedda decided then and there to become an actress. She ran away from hom, went from acting to reporting for CBS. The Quaker bonnet evolved into a series of the gayest, maddest hats in Hollywood.

Say Hello To – BURL IVES —who is heard with his “gittar” frequently over CBS, and regularly Saturday mornings on his own Coffee Club program. He comes to radio after years of touring the United States on foot or by any other handy means of transportation, collecting American folk-songs. He’s been a rover ever since, two months before finishing college, he decided he didn’t want to graduate and be a football coach. Although he loved football he loved singing and wandering around more. So he left, taking all the money he had—fifteen dollars—his guitar, and an extra pair of slacks. Singing in hotels or taverns, he made enough to live on, and that was all he wanted. He has settled down in New York now, but maybe not for long.

MARCH 19, 1955               THE BILLBOARD                 TV FILM          5 THE WHISTLER Hits the right note every time! Overnight, the eerie note of The Whistler ’s signal has struck a responsive chord with viewers and sponsors alike. WITH VIEWERS: In Spokane, The Whistler hit a 30.5 rating the first month…27.8 in Salt Lake City. In Cincinnati it soared to 30.4 (up 39%) in two months. Audiences are big everywhere, and 4 out of 5 viewers are adults. ”So the show’s a natural… WITH SPONSORS: Signal Oil and Thomas J. Lipton, Inc. picked it up right from that start, regionally. Among others: Block Drug, Hamm’s Beer, Household Finance, Necchi Sewing Machines, Safeway Stores. Call us today for a private screening and details on this 39-week series: its big-name stars, an...

CBS Program Splash Debs 7 Between July 1-6 NEW YORK, June 29— CBS starts its first big summer splurge of programming the first week in July, seven programs being set to debut between July 1 and 6. From now on as spots open, programing chief Dave Taylor threw in Sustainers from a numerous backlog built up in the past months, and indications are that New York and Hollywood won’t be the only origination points. Taylor has already stated his desire to develop the web programing on a national basis, and view of it is interesting to note that one of the newcomers is an opus titled Oklahoma Round-Up, a hillbilly piece of business set to bow Saturday (6) in the 10:15-45 slot. Origination for this program, which replaces the canceled Continental Celebrity Club , will be Oklahoma City, KNOX (Los Angeles) originates three of the newcomers. These are the revived Jack Kirkwood Show, set in a bow in the 9:30-10 p. m. slot Monday (1); Sweeney and March, comedy replacement for Kate Smi...

Household May Drop ‘ Whistler ’ NEW YORK, Aug. 7—Household Finance, which sponsors The Whistler over the Columbia Broadcasting System(CBS) , this week reportedly decided to drop the mystery airer when the current period runs out September 15. The program is on Wednesdays at 10 p.m. Sponsor is undecided about the future radio plans, but may take a flier on another show,  possibly on a different web, later in the fall. La Vally, Inc., is the agency.

  William Spier Director of CBS ’s Philip MorrisPlayhouse and Sam Spade . A bearded veteran of twenty years in radio, William Spier, director of the Philip Morris Playhouse , heard Fridays at 10 P.M. EDT over CBS , is generally rated radio’s top-notch creator of suspense-type dramas. Born in New York City, October 16, 1906, he began doing things upon graduation from Evander Childs Highs School . When nineteen, following a series of small jobs, Spier went to work for the Musical America magazine. Deems Taylor was then editor of the magazine and it was under his watchful eye that Spier rose to the position of chief critic during the five years he remained with the magazine. Spier’s next important assignment was that off producer-director for the Batten, Barton, Durstine and Osborn Agency in New York City. During his years with BBD & O, leaving there in 1941 to join CBS on the West Coast, Spier produced such radio programs as the Atwater Kent Radio Hour, G...

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...

    Steve Allen , himself Radio TV Mirror Headliner “I’M THE happy victim of a series of lucky circumstances.” That’s Steve Allen talking, explaining how he happened to get where he is. “Nothing I ever did was the result of any special planning ahead, but each thing led to something better. Even the jobs I was fired from, the shows I wanted but didn’t get, the zany stunts I took a chance on doing. I’ve seemed to stumble onto my successes, and luck has had a lot to do with it.” It started when Steve quit Arizona State Teachers’ College to take a job as a radio announcer for KOY in Phoenix. He hadn’t any idea that he was picking up so much all-round knowledge of show business, including those little trick things that keep an audience interested. Practically everything he does now he began to learn then . When, some years ago, he got a six-night-a-week midnight show over radio station KNX in Hollywood , that was another piece of luck. Steve’s was the o...

C. B. Pills the Strings— Here’s How Lux Radio Theater Maintains Top Rating Year After Year LUCK and long shots play no part in the year-after-year success of “ Lux Radio Theater .” The consistently high quality of its productions is due in great measure to C . B. DeMille, wizard producer, with his million-dollar-star contacts in Hollywood and his uncanny ability to choose plays that are adaptable to the medium of radio entertainment. Furthermore, C. B. knows how to pick assistants—men like Charlie Forsyth, who handles all the sound-effects  heard on the show; George Wells, radio playwriter who does  the scripts. For every play from stage and screen must be “tailored” to fit radio technique. And Wells has been doing the job ever since the first airing nine years ago. Typical of the all-star casts Mr. DeMille picks for the show is the trio shown on these pages. Flawless performances given mean not only vision on the part of the producer and his helper...

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 MILWAUKEE JOURNAL—SCREEN and RADIO          Sunday, April 4, 1943 In a Forthcoming movie, radio’s Dinah Shore will not only sing, she will dance and she will act. Dinah’s a favorite with the soldiers Oh, Dinah—Is There Anyone Finer? By Janice Gaines KNARAVELLA is Dinah Shore ’s cool. She receives a salary of $28 a week. She gets all day Sunday off, half day Wednesday, half day Friday and occasionally when she wants to do some shopping she gets a few hours here and there. “But Knaravella is worth that to me,” says Dinah Shore , the singing radio beauty, “because I’m strictly a home girl and she’s a good cook, and any sort of cook is hard to get these days.” Knaravella has had two raises in three months. She started at $21, mentioned defense work a month later, was raised to $25, was caught looking through the Lockheed want ads, she was jumped to $28. She does not know it set (and you must not send her this column), but Dinah wou...

VERSATILE ART, DIALECT EXPERT, CAN BE CHARACTER ACTOR OR MIMIC ONE OF A KIND ART CARNEY IS THE ONLY NETWORK STAFF ACTOR ART CARNEY is a young man with a job that many a free-lance actor would give his eyeteeth and ten years of his life to have. It is the only position of its kind existing in any of the four large networks. Art is the only actor who is a regular salaried staff member of the Columbia Broadcasting System . As anyone who has gone through the exhausting throes of becoming a radio artist can tell you, the hardest part of attaining prominence  is getting established with the network producers. It is a long tale of auditioning, getting interviews with producers and directors, and beating out a shoe leather symphony between advertising agencies and network offices. After some small encouragement, you spend all your time and ingenuity reminding the producers that you exist and are available for a little work. When you are in demand there is a...

Ready Eagle – May 3, 1954 ‘ Night Watch ,’ Radio Show, Real Thing in Police Work By NON THOMAS Hollywood , May 3 (AP) – The new “ Night Watch ” radio show tops “ Dragnet ” for realism in the cops-and-criminal department. It’s the genuine thing. Listeners to “ Night Watch ” on CBS Monday nights will hear the actual nabbing of a criminal. The recording was made during an arrest by Culver City, Calif., police. Columbia ’s answer to Jack Webb is an enterprising young man named Donn Reed. A radio veteran, he dreamed up “ Night Watch ” in an effort to find something new in radio. “I remember one day I came out of a radio conference feeling very depressed,” he told me. “I said to another fellow that I was tired of rehashing the same old things in radio. If only there was something new. “That day I went over to the place where I play handball. Another person who plays there is Ron Perkins who plays there is Ron Perkins, a sergeant with the Culver City police. H...