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. 

The Milwaukee Journal – Oct 20, 1940 The Gooks—Vic, Sade and Rush NINE years ago last June, Paul Rhymer was dozing comfortably in NBC continuity office in Chicago. Everyone had gone and, in the quiet of the Saturday afternoon, he was enjoying his spring fever in an orgy of laziness. Into this placid scene strode C. L Menser, looking for a continuity writer to dish up a script for three actors he wanted to audition the unluckiest guy in the world, simply because he hadn’t gone home, but he pounded out a script and turned it in. The three actors never were hired, but Rhymer’s script was it was “ Vic and Sade ”-now the most popular serial story on the air. Just recently, the women’s national radio committee announced its last survey showed that the whimsical story of the “Gook family, halfway up in the next block,” appeals to women in every block and every farm because it’s “complete in each broadcast” and because it’s “about people like ourselves.” “ Vic and Sade...

CHARLES LYON . . .  was born in Detroit in 1905. He’s from NBC, played in movies, was an ordinary seaman on an ocean freighter, juggled dishes at night for a N. Y. café. ‘Tis said he lost 9 pounds announcing the first days of the Democratic Convention last summer. Won fame when he flew to Edmonton, Canada, to announce the arrival of Mattern, who didn’t arrive, and Post, who did.

Marilyn Maxwell __the willowy blonde singer who is teamed with Abbott and Costello on their Thursday night program over NBC. She was once a singer with Ted Weems and wrote songs with him before she was spotted by Hollywood while singing at a bond rally in Cleveland. Her first camera work was with Robert Taylor in “Stand By For Action”—and her first name is “Marvel”!

Replacements Set For Eddie Cantor, ‘ Bandwagon ’ Shows NEW YORK, April 26 – Summer replacements were set this week for the Eddie Cantor program and Band wagen, both heard over National Broadcasting Company ( NBC ). Holding down the comic’s 10-30 Thursday slot will be Bisie Ribbon Music Time, featuring composer- conductor David Rose and warbiar Georgia Gibbs. Opus, sponsored by Pabst Beer via Warwick & Legier, will be aired from June 26 until Cantor’s return September 25. Charles Herbert will direct and Jimmy Wallington will announce. Rogue’s Gallery will be replacement for Bandwagon for the third straight your under auspices of F. W . Fitch Company. Agency is L. W. Ramsey. Title role, formerly played by Dick Powell , will be thesped by BarrySullivan . Series will begin June 8, with Bandwagon returning to its 7:30 Sunday spot October 5. Charles Vanda will produce, Max Steinert will direct music and Jim Doyle will announce.

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!

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 – Nov 8, 1942      Radio Stock Troupe Does Well SEVEN actors, an actress and a director are today earning a place in dramatic history. They are radio’s first and only stock company, heard on the Cavalcade of America ” and known as the Cavalcade Players. Since that day in the dim past when men first entertained their fellows with ballads and play, actors have banded together to form “stock companies” that left their mark on theatrical history. From Euripides of Greece to America’s famous chautauquas, groups of actors have traveled together, worked together and suffered together. Today the Cavalcade Players form another noteworthy of radio. The hardships of travel, the tribulations of the road, the grease paint and footlights, the irregular work are replaced by an NBC microphone and a luxurious, air conditioned studio. Aside from somewhat unusual working hours, the players live normal lives—more like businessmen then the ba...

February 16, 1951 Pitts-Post Radio and Television in Review:  Intelligence, Wit and Charm By JOHN CROSBY “Young people are children callously pulling the wings off butterflies. The chief purpose of education is to impart an understanding of the butterfly’s viewpoint ,” observed Dr. William Todhunter Hall, president of Ivy College. <John Crosby> That fairly well sums up the point of view of “ Halls of Ivy ” a surprisingly sophisticated one, on which RonaldColman impersonates Dr. Hall, and Mr. Colman’s real wife, Benita, engagingly plays his liberal and humanitarian philosophy expressed in “ Halls of Ivy ,” ( NBC -KDKA, 8 p. m. Wednesday) is not anything that would provoke controversy even in the bar of the Union League Club. Just the same, it is a rare and wonderful thing to find such mature and worthy sentiments expressed so repeatedly and so wittly on a radio program. *   *    * “ Halls of Ivy ” has been on the a...

Man & Moppet The rogue most beloved in the U. S. is a precocious, conceited, impertinent, fast-cracking ventriloquist’s dummy named Charlie McCarthy . On Sunday nights from eight till nine EST, when the U. S. radio audience reaches its peak for the week, almost a third of the nation tunes in on the Chase and Sanborn Hour to hear Charlie make rude and clever remarks to important people. < McCARTHY & BERGEN  A wood-carving barkeep was important> Last week the Chase and Sanborn troupe broadcast from Manhattan’s Radio City—the first time the program had originated from anywhere but Hollywood in nearly two years on the air. When the plan to do this was announced to the press, 60,000 Charlie McCarthy fans besieged NBC and the agency producing the show for admission to Radio City’s I , 3I8-seat Studio 8-H. A crowd of 5,000 was at the station when the troupe arrived, but Charlie was nowhere to be seen. Photographers grouped Master of Ceremonies Don Ameche...

  The True Story of— GOSSIPS LINK PHIL HARRIS WITH DOZENS OF HOLLYWOOD GLAMOR GIRLS. BUT JUST ONE GIRL REALLY COUNTS! HE TAKES the romantic “rap” from Master Kidder Jack Benny on his fictitious “dates” with tawny-haired GingerRogers and wisecracking Carole Lombard , when a Hollywood blonde with a husky voice is the one who really makes his heart turn somersaults. And he’s never met her! That’s the “true story” of curly-haired Phil Harris ’ big “dates” . . . that is, it’s almost the story. The other half has to do with a five-foot, four-inch brunet. A gal who swims and dances and sings and handles the piano ivories in a way that should put her in her husband’s band. You’re right. She’s Mrs. Phil Harris . And has been for nine years. It takes the romantic starch out of the Sunday night kidding that Swingmaster Harris, with the broad, beaming smile, is subjected to. But there’s more to this romance-and-rhythm story than that. when I saw her.” Good sport ...

The Milwaukee Journal – May 21, 1942 Riding the Airwaves With BCL Yes, People Really ARE Funny BEFORE “ People Are Funny ” became a national network feature Friday nights ( NBC -WTMJ, 9 p. m.), it was a west coast feature for four years and in that time turned up some pretty funny answers. On one aircast, Art Baker , who shares emcee duties with Art Linkletter , asked a contestant: “In what sport is ‘squeeze play’ used?” Art was referring to baseball. The contestant’s answer, however, was “post office.” Another time Baker queried, “What would you call your wide who has stood by your side all these years faithfully? Old what . . .?” Instead of “Old Faithfull,” the answer was “Old Ironsides.” Again a woman was asked, “What fish would you be reminded of if your husband came home with a saber in one hand and a daggar in the other?” Her answer, instead of swordfish, was “pickled herring.” “ People Are Funny ” introduced a psychology section in whi...

Featured vocal group on the FibberMcGee and Molly program, the King’s Men —Bud Linn, Jon Dodson, Rad Robinson, Ken Darby—star as the show’s summer replacement (Tues., 9:30, NBC).

Sunday, December 27, 1942       THE MILWAUKEE JOURNAL—SCREEN and RADIO Building a Bob Hope Radio Show Comedy half hour is put together piece by piece, rough edges trimmed By Kate Holliday “THAT was a boff . Leave it in!” Such a cry might barrel through the NBC control room in Hollywood at a preview of Bob Hope’s radio show . A boff, for your information, is a joke so funny it brings a belly laugh. What is a radio show preview? Just that: A show before a show—to which the public is invited and at which Hope and company test the merit of gags they have concocted. It explains, to a large degree, Hope’s continued success. A comedian’s life is usually not a happy one, evidence to the contrary. A guy like Hope, say, doesn’t just amble toward a microphone come Tuesday night and be funny. Instead, he builds his show gag by gag . It all begins on the Thursday or Friday of the week preceding the program. At that point Hope and his seven wri...