Golden Age of Radio

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...

Sunday, February 22, 1942       THE MILWAUKEE JOURNAL—SCREEN and RADIO                   11 Now Here’s Inside of ‘Info’ By Franklin P. Adams ON A sunny afternoon in April, 1938, a solitary bus rider might have been seen wending his way northward. Our hero—for it was indeed i — debussed at 57th st. and proceeded to the office of Mr. John Moses, a radio agent. For about six months, off and on, in the order named, I had been writing pieces and making auditions for the Columbia Broadcasting System with conspicuous un-success. And one day my none too altruistic wife, having heard that Miss Dorothy Thompson had an agent who had got her engagements which it was reputed brought her income into the six figure or nonhay bracket, said, “I wish you’d meet this wonderful agent.” A domestic pacifist, I am wax in the hands of the Little Woman’s wish. So I went to Miss Thompson’s for luncheon to meet the fabulou...

The Milwaukee Journal- May 2, 1943      Browse this newspaper>>           Browse all newspapers>> Is Sinatra the Next Bing Crosby ? Ladies Swoon in Squads When They Hear Frank’s Dulcet Baritone Voice By Willa gray Martin NEW YORK N . Y . -(AP ) - If there’s a radio or teen age girl in your home you’ve heard of him. If there’s an Andy Hardy around, as well as a junior miss, you have more than heard of him. Undoubtedly a few impassioned arguments about him have burst about your innocent head. For Frank Sinatra , lanky 25 year old Hoboken (N. J.) boy , son of a city fireman, suddenly has become the singing idol of a large part of young America. Recently Frank finished an eight week run at the Paramount theater in New York City, the first time any one performer had stayed so long since Rudy Vallee was the nation’s vagabond lover, and that was ‘way back in ’29. Before this engag...

  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...

The Milwaukee Journal – May 18, 1941 Fred Allen —Pickle Puss With Nerves By Gladwin Hill NEW YORK, N. Y.—(AP)—If, walking down Broadway, you chanced to encounter a haggard, dejected man who looked as though he had lost his last friend, funds and scratch sheet pencil, the probabilities are the individual would be a happy, prosperous professional comedian. If, in addition to being haggard and dejected, the man looked as though he had recently been sentenced to the electric chair, but planned to beat the rap by hanging himself with his necktie, the chances are his brief case would disclose a partly consumed package of chewing tobacco and the tell tale gold lettering “F. Allen.” Fred Allen , who has been arousing mirth from coast to coast for 25 years in vaudeville, movies and radio, is probably the most morose looking person at large today. This is not a pose. Allen is just one of those people born to worry, fret, stew and suffer about their work, and the fact th...

The Milwaukee Journal – Jun 20, 1943   A Star Who Mows His Own Lawn! By J. D. Spiro IT IS plainly written in the established Hollywood tradition that an actor cannot be a genuine 19 carat star unless he can list among his assets—or perhaps it’s his liabilities—at least one swimming pool and a butler who answer to the name of Jeeves. By these standards it would appear that Jack Carson , who still calls Milwaukee home, is unable to qualify, for Jack is not only without the pool and Jeeves but he actually admits, even boasts, that he mows his own lawn and gets the baby’s breakfast. Nonetheless, in the heartbreak town of Hollywood , where hundreds fail for every one who succeeds, this former Milwaukee boy, whose parents, Mr. and Mrs. E. L. Carson, live at 2009 N. Prospect av., Milwaukee, has at last definitely arrived at stardom both on the air and on the screen. Almost at the same moment several weeks ago, when he got his biggest break in radio as the top...