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FORT LARAMIE, western drama. BROADCAST HISTORY: Jan. 22-Oct. 28, 1956, CBS. 30m, Sundays at 5:30. CAST: Raymond Burr as Lee Quince, captain of cavalry at Fort Laramie, on the Wyoming frontier. Vic Perrin as Sgt. Gorce. Harry Bartell as Lt. Seiberts. Jack Moyles as Maj. Daggett.
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John Dunning |
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With the exception of The Bob Hope Show, Fibber McGee and Molly was the most patriotic show on the air. Whole runs of shows illustrated homefront themes. Fibber bought black market beef, which of course was spoiled. At the end, he and Molly signed off with personal messages and pleas for war bonds, volunteers, and scrap drives.
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John Dunning |
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This best-remembered of all police shows was produced "in cooperation with police and federal law enforcement departments throughout the United States." It was billed as "the only national program that brings you authentic police case histories"
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John Dunning |
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A few hallmarks of the later Benny era began to emerge with the 1933-34 season. Benny argued with his cast: on Nov. 5, 1933, he and announcer Alois Havrilla squabbled about Havrilla's introduction;
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John Dunning |
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Producer Norman Macdonnell saw Fort Laramie as "a monument to ordinary men who lived in extraordinary times": their enemies were "the rugged, uncharted country, the heat, the cold, disease, boredom, and, perhaps last of all, hostile Indians." Men died at Fort Laramie: some died of drowning, some of freezing, some of typhoid and smallpox. "But it's a matter of record," Macdonnell said on the opening, "that in all the years the cavalry was st..
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John Dunning |
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The show always began with a burst of laughter. "Eleven seconds before air time, Pittman points a finger at Bill Thompson," wrote Yoder. "Thompson hands Fibber a glass of water ... Fibber takes a lunge at the clock, gulps the water, and then, in apparent nervousness, tosses the glass over his shoulder. Instead of breaking, it bounces--it's plastic. And on a roar from the audience, they take to the air."
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John Dunning |
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The Four-Star Playhouse was developed for NBC, partly to help counter the CBS talent raid that had lured Jack Benny, Amos 'n' Andy, and Edgar Bergen away from the older network. The NBC response was predictable: a barrage of new shows with big-name Hollywood talent. It didn't work: by then there were so many similar shows on the air that the public didn't care, and most of the new NBC shows soon vanished.
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John Dunning |
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He began doing trick voices: he would knock on his chair and call from "outside," sending his parents to the door when no one was there. When the noted ventriloquist Harry Lester played Chicago, Bergen went to see him. Lester was impressed with Bergen's ability and gave him some tips, free of charge. Bergen decided to create a dummy to complete his act. The face would be modeled after a neighborhood kid named Charlie who sold newspapers."
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John Dunning |
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The vagabond period lasted 19 weeks: then the McGees arrived in a little town called Wistful Vista, somewhere in America. Fibber bought a raffle ticket and won the prize, a house, whose address at 79 Wistful Vista was soon to become the best-known habitat on the air. The McGees moved in Sept. 2, 1935.
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John Dunning |
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He was the first of the top stars of vaudeville and burlesque to also reach the top in radio. Almost a full year ahead of Al Jolson, Ed Wynn, Fred Allen, and Jack Benny, three years ahead of Bing Crosby, seven years before Bob Hope: Eddie Cantor trailed only Rudy Vallee, but Vallee was cut from a different log.
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John Dunning |
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Marian also gave life to a fully realized Teeny, the little girl who lived across the road with her aunt. Teeny would drop in from time to time to pester Luke and ask for goods that weren't in stock. If Teeny wanted a baseball, Luke was smack out of baseballs. By 1932 Smackout had taken on characteristics of a serial. One storyline, that summer, took up more than three months. In a 22-chapter story, culminating just before Christmas 1932, T..
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John Dunning |
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They reworked their fibber-man, Uncle Luke, named him Uncle Luke Gray, and moved him into a store that would be called Smackout, at the junction known as The Crossroads of the Air. The series opened under that title March 2, 1931. Broadcast from WMAQ to a national CBS audience, Smackout was the direct forerunner of Fibber McGee and Molly: many of the characterizations were developed in its four-year run. The show moved to NBC with the sale ..
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John Dunning |
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Fred Allen was perhaps the most admired of radio comics. His fans included the president of the United States, critically acclaimed writers, and the intelligentsia of his peers. William Faulkner was said to have liked Allen's work; John Steinbeck, who became his friend and later wrote the foreword for Allen's autobiography, called him "unquestionably the best humorist of our time." As early as 1933, when he had been on the air less than six..
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John Dunning |
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He was still too well known as Freddy James, second-rater, to command more than a second-rate salary, so yet another name change was in order. It came about by mistake: through a mixup with an old agent named Edgar Allen, he arrived for a booking to learn that he had been inserted in the program as Fred Allen.
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John Dunning |
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Cantor's 60-minute C&S shows were largely carried by himself, Wallington, and violinist Dave Rubinoff, with occasional guests. Rubinoff supposedly led the orchestra. It was typical early '30s variety: Cantor singing and mugging, situation skits, orchestra numbers, violin solos. Rubinoff's segments were billed as "Rubinoff and His Violin," and his radio-fed fame in those days was greater than that of most noted concert violinists. He "was a ..
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John Dunning |
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automaker's admen to persuade J. Edgar Hoover, director of the Division of Investigation (soon to be FBI), to cooperate. Hoover was less than thrilled, but his reluctance was countered by the approval of the attorney general. Hoover stipulated that only closed cases could be used, and Lord wrote his opening show in a small office on the fifth floor of the Department of Justice Building in Washington.
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John Dunning |
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Cantor began a practice, long associated with Vallee, of introducing new talent via radio. Gracie Allen made her first radio appearance with Cantor: Burns and Allen would occasionally be mentioned, only half-jokingly, as a Cantor "discovery," but George Burns had his own grim version of that affair (see BURNS AND ALLEN). A more legitimate discovery was Harry Einstein. Cantor was in Boston in 1934 when he happened to hear, on a local radio s..
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John Dunning |
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Cantor was born to a family of Russian immigrants, Jan. 31, 1892, in New York's Lower East Side. His mother died soon after his birth; his father died of pneumonia a year later. His given name was either Isadore Itzkowitz or Edward Israel Iskowitz (he claimed both during his life). He was raised by a grandmother who was 60 when he was born. In his autobiography he describes a childhood filled with tenement-life hardship, "poverty, misery, a..
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John Dunning |
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Flash Gordon, though made famous in comics and in the film serials of Larry (Buster) Crabbe, had a limited run on radio. The weekly Hearst serial ended after 26 weeks with Flash and his companions crashing in the jungle and getting rescued by Jungle Jim. Thus Jungle Jim became the new Hearst serial; it continued for years.
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John Dunning |
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In a speech at the 1939 New York World's Fair, he attacked by name some of the nation's most prominent advocates of right-wing politics. He was most vocal about Father Charles Coughlin, the "radio priest" whose pulpit of the air was seen by some as a major dispenser of racial disharmony and anti-Semitism. Cantor also denounced George Sylvester Viereck, a German-American poet, frequent contributor to Coughlin's Social Justice magazine, and a..
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John Dunning |
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He helped start the March of Dimes, did numerous benefits, worked for Jewish refugees in World War II, and established a $5,000 college scholarship fund for young essayists and orators. The fund, begun during the Texaco shows of the 1930s, was tainted when the first winner was discovered to have plagiarized his piece word for word. But Cantor stayed with it for a decade, putting a dozen youths through school. Cantor died Oct. 10, 1964.
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John Dunning |
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They would do a show from home, talking about life in New York, their neighbors, the mail, the newspapers: just about anything that might come up over breakfast. Neither Fitzgerald nor WOR could work up much enthusiasm: only after Pegeen became ill and was forced to broadcast from home did the idea take root. The fan mail was good enough that WOR reconsidered. Breakfast with the Fitzgeralds opened in 1940, later becoming simply The Fitzgera..
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John Dunning |
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All the principals are dead now. Arthur Q. Bryan died Nov. 30, 1959. Harlow Wilcox died Sept. 24, 1960. Marian Jordan died April 7, 1961. Bill Thompson died July 15, 1971. Billy Mills died Oct. 20, 1971. Don Quinn died Jan. 11, 1973. Harold Peary died March 30, 1985. Jim Jordan married Gretchen Stewart after Marian's death and lived in semi-retirement for almost 30 years. He died April 1, 1988, at 91. After Jordan's death, his widow and chi..
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John Dunning |
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In the late '40s, the listener was tantalized by three questions: "Worried about the United Nations? ... Anxious about those bills piling up? ... Want to get away from it all? We offer you ... ESCAPE!"
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John Dunning |
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Among the best shows were these, some of which have attained cult followings: The Most Dangerous Game (Oct. 1, 1947), a showcase for two actors, Paul Frees and Hans Conried, as hunted and hunter on a remote island; Evening Primrose (Nov. 5, 1947), John Collier's too-chilling-to-be-humorous account of a misfit who finds sanctuary (and something else that he hadn't counted on) when he decides to live in a giant department store after hours; C..
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John Dunning |
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A company of solid Chicago regulars was established in support: Isabel Randolph, Bill Thompson, and Harold Peary. Jordan would need all this support and more: the show was still building in 1937, when Marian suddenly dropped out of it. She was gone for 18 months, from Nov. 15, 1937, until April 18, 1939. Her absence was explained to the press as fatigue. In some quarters it was believed that she had suffered a nervous breakdown. In fact, sh..
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John Dunning |
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So important did the sound effects become that Ken Darby immortalized the craft in a musical selection, The Sound Effects Man, which was heard periodically.
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John Dunning |
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Favorite Story was a nationally syndicated outgrowth of a local dramatic offering, developed and continued on KFI, Los Angeles. The fare was classic literature, both the novel and short story, with such evergreens as Vanity Fair, Pride and Prejudice, The Three Musketeers, and The Moonstone filling the bill. In 1947 writers Lawrence and Lee approached frequent star Ronald Colman and asked him to host it. The format--that of having the "favor..
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John Dunning |
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Each episode was billed as "another great story based on Frederick L. Collins's copyrighted book, The FBI in Peace and War--Drama! Thrills! Action!" Peace and War was not blessed with Bureau approval: Jerry Devine of This Is Your FBI, on the other hand, was sanctioned. Both FBI shows remained popular, with the unauthorized version, Peace and War, usually a few ratings points ahead. The Bureau was never presented in anything but the most fav..
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John Dunning |
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Quinn wrote a script. He took the character Luke Gray out of the store and, in an inspired moment, renamed him Fibber McGee. He called his script Fibber McGee and Molly, but for some reason the agency people handling the Johnson account didn't like it. They wanted to call it Free Air. It was, after all, about a middle-aged pair of married vagabonds who travel down America's highways, stopping occasionally for gasoline and some engaging talk..
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John Dunning |
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He could be heard pounding his pulpit in anger, denouncing the "black bread" of Roosevelt's programs. His magazine, Social Justice, amplified his political views, and by 1939 he was buying his time in 60-minute blocks. Coughlin's attacks now included Jews; he came to be seen as one of the most virulent promoters of anti-Semitism in his time. He was seen by prominent Jews as a hate-monger, and by 1940 his influence had begun to decline. In 1..
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John Dunning |
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His book has an index of closet jokes: how many were done, who opened the closet door (Fibber did, 83 of 128 times), and what he was seeking there (everything from Mayor LaTrivia's hat on the show of Jan. 20, 1946, back to the first time the gag was used, March 5, 1940, when Molly went looking in the closet for a dictionary).
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John Dunning |
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Self-issued in a severely limited edition (100 copies), his Fibber McGee's Closet is a 1,193 page
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John Dunning |
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You're a haaaard man, McGee" was Harold Peary's inevitable retort as Gildersleeve. McGee and Gildersleeve lambasted each other throughout Marian's long absence, the Gildersleeve character coming to full prominence during that time. They snarled and bickered, borrowed tools and forgot who owned them, fought it out with hoses while watering their lawns. In August 1941 The Great Gildersleeve became the first major series to spin out of another..
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John Dunning |
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The listener was absorbed by the sounds of Broadway: the car horns, police whistles, the people milling about. Up Broadway to 42nd Street, where an attendant shouted, "Have your tickets ready, please! have your tickets ready, please! ... Good evening, Mr. First Nighter, the usher will show you to your box." Then, in the "fourth-row center" seats, the First Nighter gave a quick reading of the program--title, cast, author--and the "famous Fir..
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John Dunning |
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The final format, with Phil Harris and Alice Faye, was virtually identical to and is covered under THE PHIL HARRIS/ALICE FAYE SHOW. The theme throughout the various format changes was zestily sung to the melody Smile for Me: Laugh a-while, Let a song be your style, Use Fitch Sham-poo! Don't despair, Use your head, save your hair, Use Fitch Sham-poo!
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John Dunning |
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Jim Jordan as Fibber McGee of 79 Wistful Vista, teller of tall tales, incurable windbag. Marian Jordan as Molly McGee, his long-suffering wife. Marian Jordan as Teeny, the little girl who dropped in frequently to pester McGee. Isabel Randolph in miscellaneous "snooty" parts, beginning Jan. 13, 1936, and culminating in her long-running role as the highbrow Mrs. Abigail Uppington. Bill Thompson as Greek restaurateur Nick Depopoulous, first he..
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John Dunning |
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He fretted over a cigarette case he had bought his brother-in-law for Christmas, then exchanged it, and learned that his brother-in-law had quit smoking.
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John Dunning |
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The story of Jim and Marian Jordan has probably been told and retold more than any other tale of the microphone: how two ordinary people from the heartland, through tenacity and hard work, climbed to the heights and showed the Hollywood insiders how radio should be done.
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John Dunning |
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Sanborn customers threatened to boycott the product. The Chicago Tribune pronounced the show "vomitous," and of course congressmen hemmed and hawed. The result, according to Time, was that a "thoroughly alarmed" NBC and J. Walter Thompson apologized publicly and "announced that they would never do it again." Mae West became an instant persona non grata in radio: at NBC it was forbidden to utter her name on the air, an unwritten ban that was..
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John Dunning |
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It should have run that summer of 1947 and disappeared, if the track records of other such programs are indicative. It came late in radio's history, a fact that may have contributed in a strange way to its artistic success. The people who remained in Hollywood radio were its most serious and talented artists, and in Escape they saw something special.
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John Dunning |
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Escape had opened with dramatized short story classics: Kipling's The Man Who Would Be King, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Diamond as Big as the Ritz, and Joseph Conrad's Typhoon. These tales were naturally compatible with radio. They gave the series a fresh appeal at a time when the air was full of Hollywood film adaptions, repeated in endless monotony.
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John Dunning |
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you" the listener into the shoes of some embattled hero. You are alone and unarmed in the green hell of the Caribbean jungle, you are being trailed by a pack of fiercely hungry dogs and a mad hunter armed for the kill.... "Escape with us now to ancient Egypt," the announcer would invite: escape to a raft, and a group of men marooned in the vast South Pacific; escape with us now to occupied France. You are alone: this was a recurring Escape ..
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John Dunning |
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The show was one of radio's most consistent until 1950, when Harold Peary announced that he was quitting his starring role. Rumor had it that Peary had held out for more money. His series was still carrying a rating in the midteens--certainly no disgrace at any time, and highly respectable in radio's final years, when the once-lofty Hope, Bergen, Benny, and Fibber powerhouses were doing little better themselves. Peary admitted he was bored:..
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John Dunning |