Golden Age of Radio

LEAH RAY As She Appears Under the MIKErocscope By Lee Mortimer LEAH RAY is next Baby Rose Marie, one of the radio ’s young stars. She was born nineteen years ago in Norfolk, Virginia, and has a cute Southern accent to substantiate the fact. Ambition as a kid led her to be a literary critic. She was most enthused about Dickens and Thackeray. But now she’s glad she didn’t pursue the pen, because she makes as much on one radio broadcast as most literary critics make in a year. When seventeen years old she was taken by her mother to Los Angeles, where she was to finish school. She was all prepared to enroll in the Hollywood High School on a Monday, when in the previous Friday her uncle, who is in the music business, introduced her to Phil Harris . This was when Harris played at the Cocoanut Grove . Phil needed a girl singer. Lead used to sing in parties, so she asked for an audition. After hearing her voice Phil hired her. Her first salary was $ 50 a week. So it transpi

The Pittsburgh Press- Jul 19, 1942 Inner Sanctum Host Isn’t a Bad Guy If You Look at Him Out of Character He’s been a caddy, a soda jerk, a bus boy, an insurance salesman, a bank teller and a tennis pro. His favorite composer is Sibelius, he is a profound a thinker as a college professor but he usually dresses in casual tweeds and sport jackets. His friends sum him up simply as “a heck of a swell guy.” That’s Raymond Edward Johnson, much-heard NBC actor. Currently Ray is heard in “The Story of Bess Johnson” as Clyde. Bess’ outspoken but sincere’ friend. That’s pretty close to real life, too. The real Bess Johnson (no relation) gave Ray his first radio job some years back. He also is “The Host” on the Blue Network’s “ Inner Sanctum ” and his fan mail brings carloads of oil cans for the famous squeaking door that opens the program *         *        * The first radio job Ray landed was in “Today’s Children ,” which ran for more than five years. He then played a le