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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| a198c7a | 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.. | John Dunning | ||
| f7a7423 | 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.. | John Dunning | ||
| b8de223 | 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. | John Dunning | ||
| 3e5e3c4 | 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.. | John Dunning | ||
| ade0fb2 | 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. | John Dunning | ||
| e5d8c11 | 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.. | John Dunning | ||
| 5971a24 | Tant qu'une opinion est implantee sur les sentiments, elle defie les arguments les plus decisifs ; elle en tire de la force au lieu d'en etre affaiblie : si elle n'etait que le resultat du raisonnement, le raisonnement une bonne fois refute, les fondements de la conviction seraient ebranles ; mais, quand une opinion n'a d'autre base que le sentiment, plus elle sort maltraitee d'un debat, plus les hommes qui l'adoptent sont persuades que leu.. | John Stuart Mill | ||
| b3ebb7e | 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.. | John Dunning | ||
| cf5debb | 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!" | John Dunning | ||
| bf4767f | 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.. | John Dunning | ||
| f73d3aa | Rainbow trout live in the fastest currents, cutthroat trout in quiet eddies behind snags, brook trout in the pools at the inner bends of streams. | Yvon Chouinard | ||
| 7da97d6 | 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.. | John Dunning | ||
| b89017b | 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. | John Dunning | ||
| e8fb19c | 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.. | John Dunning | ||
| 341f8d1 | 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.. | John Dunning | ||
| 531d347 | 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.. | John Dunning | ||
| 13a817a | 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.. | John Dunning | ||
| a572399 | It's always that way when you're looking at books. An hour goes by in a minute: you don't know where the hell the time went. --John Dunning | Ellery Adams | ||
| d9860e3 | 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). | John Dunning | ||
| a8892e7 | Self-issued in a severely limited edition (100 copies), his Fibber McGee's Closet is a 1,193 page | John Dunning | ||
| 873b3f0 | 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.. | John Dunning | ||
| d0d2a4d | 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.. | John Dunning | ||
| a94703e | 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! | John Dunning | ||
| c989144 | For a dark stream bottom, use a dark fly; for a light stream bottom, use a light fly. | Yvon Chouinard | ||
| 956dbfd | 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.. | John Dunning | ||
| bb3e3fd | 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. | John Dunning | ||
| 87cab63 | 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. | John Dunning | ||
| 49c7854 | 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.. | John Dunning | ||
| 5ececb0 | 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. | John Dunning | ||
| 608d99f | 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. | John Dunning | ||
| 4b643a5 | 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 .. | John Dunning | ||
| 76262de | In our experience, no modern country is more repressive of human rights than the USA. | Anti-Americanism | ||
| 3000130 | Tothom acaba marxant, vaig pensar. [...] Res no es etern, ni tan sols la Terra. Segons el que haviem apres, el Buda deia que el patiment era consequencia del desig, i que la desaparicio del desig implicava la desaparicio del patiment. Si deixes de desitjar que les coses no es morin, deixaras de patir per si es moren. Algun dia ningu no es recordara de la seva existencia, vaig escriure a la meva llibreta. Ni de la meva. Perque els records ta.. | John Green | ||
| 67353b7 | 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:.. | John Dunning | ||
| 5796f52 | In the fall of 1950, Waterman became the new Gildersleeve. Peary, meanwhile, jumped to CBS with a new sitcom, Honest Harold. In a dual review (Gildy vs. Gildy, Sept. 29, 1950), Radio Life summed up the general reaction. Waterman was a "splendid" replacement in a tough situation "about which actors have nightmares. The Gildy chortle and other mannerisms closely associated with the role were left out, and Waterman was to build his own interpr.. | John Dunning | ||
| 5fb777a | On his opener, he won over the studio audience almost to the point of receiving an ovation at the broadcast's close. Cast members rooted for him wholeheartedly, Frank Pittman gave deftness to direction, and Waterman's own intrinsic thespian integrity contributed to an initial performance that was greeted with enthusiasm." The same review panned Honest Harold as derivative, unexciting, and, in the end, "just another show." It would fail in i.. | John Dunning | ||
| 2cc3def | Peary played the role in its best years, he and Waterman shared about equally in real time as Gildy at the NBC microphone. After Gildersleeve, Peary shaved his mustache, lost 50 pounds, and, in 1954, turned up as a disc jockey on KABC. He died March 30, 1985; Waterman died Feb. 1, 1995. | John Dunning | ||
| 8f244e1 | Gale Gordon as Rumson Bullard, the rich, obnoxious neighbor who lived across the street from Gildersleeve. Jim Backus as Bullard, ca. 1952. | John Dunning | ||
| b392a66 | On radio, the character's name was Michael Waring. Each show began with a telephone ringing. It was always a woman calling. Waring, whose smooth voice was laced with a hint of the British, usually addressed her as "angel," or some other endearment; inevitably he had to beg out of a date, using such excuses as "I've got to teach some gangsters that you can't get away with murder, especially since the murder they want to get away with is mine.. | John Dunning | ||
| 318e25b | BROADCAST HISTORY: 1935-36, WMCA, New York (premiere date March 31, 1935). Sept. 20-Dec. 20, 1936, NBC. 60m, Sundays at 8. Chase and Sanborn. HOST: A. L. Alexander. Goodwill Court offered legal help to the poor, long before such terms as "legal aid" became common. The subjects were simply required to come before an NBC microphone and tell their stories to the nation. Their identities were protected, and they were ever under the eye of media.. | John Dunning | ||
| ef46b13 | The show had an equally brilliant success on the network, rocketing into the top ten almost immediately. But its sudden national prominence brought it under fire from the legal establishment. The New York County Lawyers' Association rose up against it, and less than three months after its national premiere, Goodwill Court was squashed. The New York Supreme Court barred judges and lawyers from appearing, Chase and Sanborn dropped it, and the.. | John Dunning | ||
| fde8673 | He could hear Will Rogers talk political humor and D. W. Griffith tell about making epic films. He could hear grand opera and Shakespeare, jazz and minstrels, poetry, adventure, and George Gershwin himself at the piano. | John Dunning | ||
| 82dec40 | After the plays, servicemen in far-flung theaters of war would be connected, via shortwave, with wives and family. The sponsor, Autolite, would be seen as a friend of the "boys" overseas. A good idea, if only it had worked." | John Dunning | ||
| cea787f | From the beginning, hostilities between Colman and Oboler created an atmosphere of anger, which finally became untenable. The press knew little of this: even a Radio Life reporter, who attended a rehearsal in March, mistook a sharp Oboler dig ("What's the matter, Ronnie, is it too early in the morning to turn on your charm?") for good-natured camaraderie. It was suggested that the series was a partnership, growing out of a mutual admiration.. | John Dunning |