Golden Age of Radio

WBBM is inciting free-lance script writers to submit material for a new half-hour mystery show which will replace The Whistler when Whistler moves to New York . . . Campus Cavalcade is a new series of weekly news round-ups about colleges in Ohio which will begin airing Saturdays, February 1 over WOSU, Ohio State University station.

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 Miami News – Feb 4, 1947 On The Wing With GRACE WING ARCHIE: It was a far cry from Duffy’s Tavern to the palatial yachts over which I climbed to find Ed (Archie) Gardner yesterday afternoon. But Archie himself turned out to be the dyed-in-the-wool image of just what you hear on the radio. Reason is that Gardner doesn’t tailor his personality to fit the role of Archie the Malaprop. The part was written for him in the first place. His good-natured, slightly bewildered drawl sounds just the same whether he’s stewing over a telephone call from Duffy or regaling luncheon guests with spicy stories as he was doing yesterday. “How’d you get to be Archie?” I asked him. He told me he used to be a radio producer and writer, and that he dreamed up a serial about New York as seen through the eyes of a rich man and a bum. “Respective eyes, I mean—there were two characters,” he chuckled. “We auditioned a lot of guys for the part of the rich man and I always read the ...

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...

The Milwaukee Journal – Feb 16, 1941 A Howling Success That’s Dolores Gillen, Who Fills Crying Need THERE are many kinds of crying. For example, there are those moans and laments which emanate from frustrated horse and poker player. And there are those from girls whose daddy-kins forget to bring new mink coats and wives whose husbands come home late. All these are unprofitable, except possibly the girl-daddykins combination. But for real, shining success in the field the award goes to Dolores Gillen, a kewpielike creature without the usual rotund frontal construction, who for a handsome sum, cries each day in the year. Miss Gillen recently told the New York World Telegram how she has filled a crying need in the radio world by having on tap everything from the low, chuckling, happy murmur of a baby to a raucous, heart howl. “The directors seem to like most the fact I can get sex into a baby’s cry,” she said triumphantly. “ Not real sex,” she added hastily. “I ...

The Evening Independent –Feb 2, 1948 Batter Bill Bendix , who will play Babe Ruth on the screen, is might happy over Bob Considine’s script. As a locker boy at Yankee Stadium, Bill used to go out and het hot dogs for Ruth. Later he graduated to bat boy. Bob wove their meetings into his script. In the picture, another actor will play Bendix, the licker boy. . . Bob also included the part Jimmy Walker tossed for New York sports writers when they had a mad on at the Babe. Jimmy made quite a speech asking the boys to forget their grudge and remember that Ruth was the idol of American youth. . . In 1921, at the age of 16, Bendix did his first acting at the Henry Street Settlement. He comes from a musical family. His uncle Max was a Metropolitan conductor, and Uncle Theodore had a quartet which toured America.

The Milwaukee Journal-Nov 16, 1947 A Stroll Down Allen’s Alley                  By ROBERT FLEMING MEET THE CHARATERS WHO TICKLE  YOUR FUNNYBONE ON SUNDAY NIGHTS EACH Sunday night, in millions of American homes, a nasal voice suggests, “Now let’s be off to Allen’s Alley .” And during 15 seconds of music, bridge games are halted, children are hushed, papers are laid aside, and people all over the nation chuckle in anticipation. Fred Allen is off to another gay adventure in neighborliness. “Allen’s Alley” users about five minutes of each Fred Allen show. Since his program currently tops the listener surveys and has been near top for season after season, it’s almost unnecessary for him to say he’s about to visit Senator Claghorn, Titus Moody, Mrs. Nussbaum and Ajax Cassidy. Regular listeners know the four. But before the conversational Mr. Allen comes into the “alley” again, let’s visit the place, look around, ...

Bill Stern —Teller of Tall Tales SOME radio performers have a way of bringing violent reactions from their listeners. An outstanding example is Bill Stern , the sports commentator. At almost regular intervals someone trots into this department screaming, “Did you hear Bill Stern last night?” Anonymous voices appear on the telephone, reporting Bill Stern ’s latest. What precipitates all this furor is Stern’s penchant for exaggeration. Stern comes on the air at 9:30 p.m. Fridays with dramatizations of what are known as feature stories in newspaper parlance. There is a little song on the show, sort of a singing commercial, and one of the lines is: “ Bill Stern has lots to say.” Stern certainly has. Not satisfied with a good feature story. Stern tries to make it better. He broadcast a story about a Wisconsin boy, who was learning to swim without hands or feet, only Stern made it “without arms or legs,” and made the boy out to be a good swimmer, which he wasn’t. Stern stra...

Introducing JOHN TILLMAN AT FRANK DAILEY’S Meadowbrook last summer, a young ex-GI named John Tillman earned himself the moniker of “Dream Scream,” delightedly bestowed on him by the bobbysoxers who found his looks and his emceeing irresistible. In a way, Tillman found this very satisfying, certainly a change from having “Sergeant!” screamed at him for three years. Matinee at Meadowbrook is still on the air, beamed for GI’s still overseas. We ordinary citizens hear John as m.c. of Danny O’Neil’s Singing in the Morning (daily 9:15 A.M., EST, CBS) and as the smooth-voiced announcer of The Stradivari Orchestra (Sundays, CBS, 2:30 P.M., EST). John was born in Clio, Alabama, during the first World War. He became a professional performer while he was still attending Barbour County High School. At the age of sixteen, he became a staff announcer and singer on Station WAFG in Dothan, Alabama. His mother accompanied him on the organ for his singing program. After he was graduated fro...

Elliott Lewis Among some actors—always the less successful ones—to regards directors as frustrated performers who, because they, themselves, have no talent, take delight in lousing up the performances of those more gifted. Not even the most disgruntled thespian in Hollywood , however, would think of muttering such a charge against Elliot Lewis, the new producer-direcer of Auto-Lite’s award-winning “ Suspense ” series, heard Thursday evening on CBS . Lewis can play the leading role, write the script or handle the direction with facility—and if an engineer or sound effects man were turn up missing, he could handle their jobs, too. The 34-year-old producer-actor-writer is unquestionably the most formidable triple-threat man to emerge in radio since Orson Welles —and he has the same zeal, imagination, and boundless energy. As an actor, his range is staggering. This is the Elliot Lewis who won a following of sophisticates throughout the nation with his smooth, romantic narrati...

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...

Say Hello To- GWEN WILLIAMS—songbird on The Song of Your Life, tonight on NBC . Gwen decided to be a professional singer when she was 13 years old and won an amateur contest conducted by a radio station in her home state, Florida. In the University of Miami she majored in music, and after getting her degree came to New York , where she sang in night club before Harry Salter, Song of Your Life orchestra leader, heard her and hired her for his show. He says she has a brilliant singing future ahead. Gwen is married to Norman Foley, an executive in music publishing firm, and insists that marriage can go with a career.

Introducing KEN ROBERTS Wall, Street or radio? Ken made the lucky choice KEN ROBERTS enjoys his job as quizmaster on Quick as a Flash, heard Sundays at 5:30 PM, EST over the Mutual network. But the part of the program that really delights him more than anything else is the spot where he stops mc-ing long enough to say, “And now, announcer Cy Harris has a few words to say . . .” For to Ken, that moment is a complete switch in what has almost always been the Roberts routine. As the announcer on Take It or Leave It , Correction Please, Battle of the Sexes and some other shows, someone else was always saying, “And now Ken Roberts with a few words–” “And now ken Roberts with a few words –” Ken Roberts was born on Washington’s Birthday, 1910, in New York City. He attended DeWitt Clinton High School where, incidentally, one of his closest schoolmates was New Calmer, now one of CBS’s top newscasters. Early 1929 saw Ken in dire straits and badly in need of a job. He had heard th...

John Stanley Sherlock Holmes : Sundays, 7 P.M. EST, MBS stations. When you hear the clipped, British accent of John Stanley as Sherlock Holmes (Mutual, Sundays, 7 PM, EST) you can almost see the fog swirling and eerie as it blanket Baker Street. It’s a cinch for actor Stanley to sound as though he was born in London, because he was born in London. Not only that, but during his early childhood, John lived only a half-mile from the famed Baker Street, hangout of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s celebrated sleuth. Although Stanley was born in England, he was an American the moment he came into the world. John’s father was Professor Henry W. S. Stanley and John was born while his parent was teaching diction at St. Mark’s College, London. The wife of Professor Stanley was also an American and all of their four children were raised in England. John graduated from Malvern College. “When I was twenty-one years old,” he explains, “the urge to come to my own country suddenly ...

Introducing HENRY MORGAN He auctioned off a network—vice-president by vice-president! WHAT is this Henry Morgan —the brash young man who has injected the first real touch of originality into radio comedy with his wit, sharp satire? The only way to find out—because interviewing him won’t tell you—is to listen to his program on ABC , Wednesdays at 10:40 PM, EST. A good looking, blue-eyed, brown-haired chap, neatly dressed, Morgan might be mistaken for what he likes to call “the average man.” That is, until he opens his mouth. According to Morgan, he was born if mixed parentage—man and woman—on the day before April Fools Day, 1915 . A native New York er, he started poking fun at radio years ago when, at the age of 17, he went to work as a page boy’s opinions concerning programs, announcer or talent were not only not solicited, they were not welcome. In spite of a bit of discomfort here and there on the staff, however, Morgan did work himself up to an announcer’s job at W...

KENNETH ROBERTS . . . a real New Yorker – born there and always lived there. He’s two inches over six feet, weighs 175 pounds and has black curly hair and brown eyes. Through only 23 years old, he’s married (love will find a way). Frequently poses before wooden mikes, just for atmosphere. Columbia has him. You hear him announcing lots of dance bands.

HOLLYWOOD. GARRY MOORE is a calm, pleasant, normal acting young man who does the weirdest things. He plays golf in his bare feet because “it’s more comfortable that way.” He has surrounded himself with several hundred dollars’ worth of tropical fish because they’re “fascinating, dreamlike, and soothing.” He also owns two parakeets and two lovebirds which he can’t bear to cage and which are liable to make dive bombing attacks on visitors from the curtain rod. Garry also earns a handsome living—more than $100,000 a year—by working just an hour and a half once a week, on Sunday evening. He’s the new emcee of the quiz show “Take It or Leave It.” Garry confesses, “I feel a little guilty, having such an easy life, and may take on a daily show too.” He’s known as “The Haircut” because he wears his unruly dark thatch in a brushlike stubble—it’s either that or plaster it down with goo. I found Garry in the green walled study of his Brentwood home, where he lives with his wife a...

Say Hello To- ANN THOMAS—a sweet-faced young miss of 23 who is radio’s expert in tough-gal roles. You hear her tonight as the thick-witted maid, Lily, in Meet Mr. Meek over CBS —and other days when you tune in a particularly tough feminine voice, the chances are that’s Ann too. She’s a veteran of same 35 productions on Broadway , and long since lost count of all her microphone characterizations. Her big-guest thrill recently came when Minerva Pious, Fred Allen ’s dependable comedy actress, had to go to Hollywood for two weeks and Ann was chosen to handle her roles on the Allen program. She’s blonde, New York born, and single.

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 “T...