Golden Age of Radio

Judy Canova Refuses to Play Second Fiddle To Dummy, So She Breaks With Edgar Bergen ‘ Charlie McCarthy ’ Gets Blame for Ending Engagement, By The United Press HOLLYWOOD , Sept. 1— Judy Canova , film and radio comedienne, broke her engagement to Edgar Bergen today because, she said, she does not want to play second fiddle to dummy.” The other side of the “triangle” s “ Charlie McCarthy ,” the famous wooden dummy Bergen uses in his radio and screen acts. “We had a quarrel Sunday and now it’s all over,” she said. “I’ve heard nothing but Charlie this and Charlie that. The dummy has become an obsession with Eddie.” Bergen for years has worked with “ CharlieMcCarthy .” His fame spread nationally, however, only recently, when Rudy Vallee put Bergen and “Charlie” on a radio broadcast. Later, the dummy became a favorite in a radio feud with W. C. Fields . Miss Canova’s hill-billy roles won her radio fame and landed her in pictures. Though they had kept company for...

The Milwaukee Journal –Feb 7, 1943 Who is Dis Guy Archie, Anyway? Ed Gardner of ‘ Duffy ’s’ Went From WPA to Radio Heights; You’d Enjoy Meeting Him By Paul McMahon Of The Journal’s N. Y. Bureau ED GARDNER is Archie. And Archie is Gardner. They have been one and the same since Gardner played piano at the age of 14 in a saloon in his home town of Astoria, N. Y. It wasn’t until late years that Gardner got around to creating the Archie role for the entertainment of radio fans who now hear the naive, wise guy counterman in “ Duffy ’s” over the Blue network at 7:30 Tuesday nights. “ Dere’s always been somethin ’ of Archie in me,” Gardner confessed one day. “ Ya know de old sayin ’, ‘As de twing is bent.’” The character of Archie first came to life in 1939 in a program entitled “This Is New York,” to which Gardner had been assigned as director and producer. Gardner went through misery trying to find someone to fit his conception of Archie. In despair one...

The Milwaukee Journal – Mar 16, 1941 Alice Faye Still Going By Carlton Cheney JUST take a glimpse at Alice Faye if you want to realize how swiftly eight years can spin by. To most of you—and us, too—Alice seems like a mere youngster, who has come along pretty rapidly in the last two or three years. But now let’s look at the record: Back in 1933—a good eight years— Rudy Vallee publicly asserted: “No, I am not going to marry Alice Faye , that beautiful blond singer in my band.” And Rudy kept his word, too. He never married Alice. Jump ahead to 1937 and let’s hear a pronunciamento of Miss Faye herself: “I will never marry Tony Martin . I don’t like young actors. They’re too selfish.” Three days later she eloped with the 22 year old singing actor, Tony Martin. She explained a few days after the ceremony: “I guess it was because of a quarrel or something. Tony insisted that I marry him or else. I’m still up the air. Marriage is a kind of letdown to romance. I...

DAVID ROSS . . . tried his hand as newsboy, reporter, actor and teacher before he took up radio . Writes poetry . Born in New York in 1895. Struggled against poverty; worked his way through college. He’s 5 feet 5 inches tall. DAVID ROSS ANNOUNCER AND POETRY – LOVER IT should take a casr-iron set of vocal chords to withstand the strain of the different assignments and excitements in an announcer’s life. Yet the silver-bell tones of David Ross sound as mellifluous as ever, after more than fifteen years spent on the air. His mellow voice is still heard caressing the air waves as announcer for such shows as the Andre Kostelanetz program on CBS every Sunday afternoon at 4:30 E.W.T. The long-lasting melody in David’s voice may seem from the fact that he has a poet’s soul. It was his habit of carrying around a collection of poetry that got him his start in radio . The very first program he’d ever seen was the one on which he made his debut. Instead of watching t...

There have been a handful of reasons why some films are successful in the box-office and some are not. Some films make a lot of money in movie theaters because either they get big stars, or they get rave reviews from the film critics, or even both. But there have been many films which, despite getting praises from critics, failed miserably in the box office race. Take So This is New York , for example, which was released in 1948. Despite the rave reviews it got from many critics, it was not able to pull off a successful run in movie theaters. The highly satirical movie was based on the novel by Ring Lardner, The Big Town . The assemblage of some of the film industry's finest talents did not help the film make an impression from the movie-going public. The film was written by Carl Foreman who went on to write the screenplays for The Men , High Noon , and Champion . Richard Fleischer (who also directed other famous films such as Fantastic Voyage and 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea...

The Milwaukee Journal – Jun 10, 1938 Erno Rapee Believes Radio Creates Music Lovers THE United States, claims Erno Rapee, director of the Radio City Music Hall symphony orchestra, is fast becoming a nation of highly discriminating music lovers, a country in many ways more hospitable to even the most revolutionary in modern music than any to be found in present day Europe. A few years ago in America, Rapee says, to the average man Tschaikowsky was merely an unpronounceable Russian name; Debussy, a radical French composer whom none but a few of the musically elect were supposed to be able to fathom, and Georges Enesco, modern Rumanian master, an artist in composition as well as in concert completely unknown. But now the tide has turned. The voice of a people, long frowned on by “friends of music” on the cultured continent, the accredited home of great art, is being culticated, Rapee believes. And more and more America calls for the masterpieces, both contemporary and cla...