Golden Age of Radio

Lurene Tuttle Sam Spade ’s (and William Spider’s) indispensable lady. 1941 Producer William Spider would feel lost without petite, titian-haired Lurene Tuttle, who plays Effie Perrine on The Adventures of SamSpade (CBS, Sundays, 8 P.M., EDT). It isn’t just that Effie as played by Miss Tuttle, is a special kind of Girl Friday- it’s Lurene’s ability to play almost any kind of feminine role. When every the script calls for a gun moll, a slinky confidence woman, a grandmother, an adventuress, a Main Line debutante, it’s Lurene’s name that Bill Spier pencils in for the part. Actually, Lurene’s favorite part on the show is not that of Effie, but Spade’s talkative landlady. There’s scarcely a radio program on which Lurene hasn’t been heard, but she’s no radio Cinderella. She came to radio as a stage actress seasoned by seven years of trouping in stock. She played her first part-at seventeen- in a Burbank, California, garage. And for a considerable period, she was a pillar of ...