Golden Age of Radio

Say Hello To- WALTER GROSS—the very busy conductor of a CBS band which provides the music for many of the network’s sustaining features. The piano is Walter’s own instrument, and on it he can perform the classics, popular dance music, hot jazz and boogie-woogie with uniform ease. He first joined CBS eight years ago, playing in a band which included Raymond Scott, Benny Goodman , Artie Shaw, Will Bradley, Bunny Berigan, and Jerry Colonna (who played trombone). That was an all-star group, although no one knew it at the time, and Walter thinks the same is probably true of his present band. When his radio schedule permits it, Walter likes to spend weekends with his wife at their new country home.

SAY HELLO TO- KEN GRIFFIN—the actor you’ve all been wanting to hear about, judging from your letters. Ken plays Larry Noble in Backstage Wife and Dr. Jim Brent in Road of life —two of radio’s drama’s fattest roles. He landed in Chicago a few years ago without any previous dramatic experience and with only one dollar in his pocket, and secured a $15-a-week job as an actor at the Chicago Fair. Later he took an audition that started him on his radio career. Ken’s on extravagance, now that he’s a success, is his sloop, Revenge , one of the finest racing boats on the great Lakes. He’s 29 years old, weighs 180 pounds and is six feet tall.

ON THE AIR TONIGHT: Helen Hayes , starring in a different half-hour play each week, on CBS at 8:00, E.S.T., rebroadcast to the West Coast at 7:30, P.S.T, and sponsored by Lipton’s Tea. Unless you’re a fanatical devotee of Charlie McCarthy (or unless you live in the Pacific Time Zone, where Helen and Charlie aren’t on at the same time), you couldn’t do better than to tune Helen Hayes in tonight. Most radio acting is good, but hers is magnificent. You’d never guess than Helen was one of America’s greatest actresses if you watched her rehearsing her radio shows. She loves radio, but is quite willing to admit that other people know more about it than she does. No displays of temperament ever go on at a Hayes rehearsal, and afterwards, when the script has to be cut so it won’t run overtime (it always does have to be cut, too), Helen goes home and lets other people wield the blue pencils. “ I’d only get in their hair,” she explains. Besides acting on the air, Helen is starring

Bernard Herrmann __brilliant young symphonic conductor who returned from a recent tour of England to CBS’s Invitation To Music, heard Wednesday nights at 11:30 EST. part of composer-conductor Herrmann’s time in England was spent in the Bronte country, where he made notes for his forthcoming opera based on Emily Bronte’s masterpiece, “Wuthering Heights”.

Hedda Hopper __ wearing the creation by Hattie Carnegie which was inspired by the March of Dimes . But it really all began when a little Quaker girl (Hedda) saw a great Barrymore (Ethel) play in Captain Jinks. For Hedda decided then and there to become an actress. She ran away from hom, went from acting to reporting for CBS. The Quaker bonnet evolved into a series of the gayest, maddest hats in Hollywood.

Say Hello To – BURL IVES —who is heard with his “gittar” frequently over CBS, and regularly Saturday mornings on his own Coffee Club program. He comes to radio after years of touring the United States on foot or by any other handy means of transportation, collecting American folk-songs. He’s been a rover ever since, two months before finishing college, he decided he didn’t want to graduate and be a football coach. Although he loved football he loved singing and wandering around more. So he left, taking all the money he had—fifteen dollars—his guitar, and an extra pair of slacks. Singing in hotels or taverns, he made enough to live on, and that was all he wanted. He has settled down in New York now, but maybe not for long.

Ginger Jones __trained in dramatics at the Goodman Theater, Chicago, and was very active in radio until, in 1944, she gave it up to work for the Stage Door Canteen and to supervise and m.c. variety shows for the American Theater Wing. Now, returned to the air, she is Jane Browning on NBC’s Right to Happiness, 3:45 P.M., weekdays. She’s married to radio actor Les Damon and they have bought a New Jersey Farm.