Golden Age of Radio

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