Golden Age of Radio

  William Spier Director of CBS ’s Philip MorrisPlayhouse and Sam Spade . A bearded veteran of twenty years in radio, William Spier, director of the Philip Morris Playhouse , heard Fridays at 10 P.M. EDT over CBS , is generally rated radio’s top-notch creator of suspense-type dramas. Born in New York City, October 16, 1906, he began doing things upon graduation from Evander Childs Highs School . When nineteen, following a series of small jobs, Spier went to work for the Musical America magazine. Deems Taylor was then editor of the magazine and it was under his watchful eye that Spier rose to the position of chief critic during the five years he remained with the magazine. Spier’s next important assignment was that off producer-director for the Batten, Barton, Durstine and Osborn Agency in New York City. During his years with BBD & O, leaving there in 1941 to join CBS on the West Coast, Spier produced such radio programs as the Atwater Kent Radio Hour, G...

William Spier Director of CBS’s Radio Shows: Philip Morris Playhouse and Sam Spade A beard veteran of twenty years in radio William Spier, director of the  Philip Morris Playhouse , heard Fridays at 10 P.M. EDT over CBS, is generally rated radio’s top-notch creator of suspense-type dramas. Born in New York City, October 16, 1906, he began doing things upon graduation from Evander Childs High School. When nineteen, following a series of small jobs, Spier went to work for the Musical America magazine. Deems Taylor was then editor of the magazine and it was under his watchful eye that Spier rose to the position of chief critic during the five years he remained with the magazine. Spier’s next important assignment was that of producer-director for the Batten, Barton. Durstine and Osborn Agency in New York City. During his years with BBD & O, leaving there in 1941 to join CBS on the West Coast, Spier produced such radio programs as the Atwater Kent Radio Hour, General...

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 ...