Was Nathan B. Stubblefield the Father of Broadcasting?

Patriotic Kentuckians have sent us a state magazine with an interesting account of the scarcely recognized work of Nathan B. Stubblefield, who, it is claimed, is the real father of broadcasting.

Stubblefield died a lonely hermit in a desolate hut near Murray, Kentucky, two years ago. A memorial was recently dedicated to him there with the inscription, "the first man in history to transmit and receive the human voice without the use of intervening wires." Professor L. J. Horton of Kentucky State Teachers College personally remembers a demonstration by Stubblefield before a thousand local citizens on January 1, 1902. Another demonstration before a thousand local citizens took place on March 30, 1902, from the steamer Bartholdi on the Potomac River.

R. P. Clarkson, in the New York Sun, does not take this claim seriously. He says there had been a number of occasions previous when the voice was transmitted through space and cites one as that of A. F. Collins, now living a little way up the Hudson, who successfully transmitted the voice before 1900.

A Chicago newspaper recently reprinted an article it had published in the 1860s wherein it was stated that the time was not too far distant when people on the mountains of the Pacific coast would be able to talk through space to the people on the mountains of the Atlantic coast.

All of this is of interest because it shows that radio of today was born not by accident nor by the thought of one mind, but by independent thought of many minds in all the civilized world. Every little improvement has come as the result of distilled thought from many minds. Probably the greatest improvement of all will be the perfected Radio-Vision, the focus point of the greatest amount of scientific research along radio lines today.

From Radio Digest, June 1930

Old Time Radio · History · Kentucky · Inventors · Nathan B Stubblefield ·

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Sheldon Keck the Art Detective

Several hundred years ago, a French painter, who was unsuccessful in selling his own works, hit upon the idea of imitating one of the masters, forging his name, and disposing it as an original. Since then, countless copyists have produced works of art ostensibly by Gainesborough, Van Dyck, da Vinci, Titian, Corot, Rubens, and Rembrandt, to name a few of the greatest. Private collectors and museums, for years, fell prey to these canvas counterfeiters until science stepped in.

Today, thanks to streamlined methods and equipment, we have the art detective. His tools are his vast expert knowledge of painting, ultraviolet, infrared, and X-rays, chemicals and the microscope. Yet, despite his keen observation and analysis, skepticism sometimes persists.

For instance, when a painter was recently accused of having forged a Picasso in Paris, police were reluctant to make the arrest even after the buyer had hired a gumshoe from the gallery of the Louvre. It was only when Picasso himself identified it as a fake that the hoax was exposed, and the painter-perpetrator arrested.

Perhaps the most notorious pigment forget was Hans van Meegeren, a Dutch magazine illustrator, who imitated the masters so successfully that he amassed a $5 million fortune. Most likely, he would still be engaged in a brisk trade if he hadn't been arrested and tried, a few years ago, for Nazi collaboration during the war.

To deny the charge, van Meegeren insisted that a Pieter de Hooches landscape he had sold to Herman Goering for a quarter million dollars was a fake. Judge and jury delayed the verdict until the canvas was examined in the courtroom. Even when it was pronounced a fraud by experts, the jury debated, until the judge instructed them to bring in a verdict of not guilty.

How do these art detectives operate? The Brooklyn Museum not so long ago submitted an alleged landscape by the 17th century Dutch artist Hobbema to Sheldon Keck, one of the country's foremost authorities. After close scrutiny, Keck kicked. The wormholes in the frame were as phony as the painting, whose blue paint, microchemical study revealed, contained Prussian blue. Keck knew that Prussian blue was not used until many years after the artist's death. Moreover, crackles allegedly caused by age were actually painted.

From Gang Busters 34, June-July 1953

Old Time Radio · Gang Busters · Crime · Art · Forgery · Hans Van Meegeren · Sheldon Keck ·

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Escape With Us Now -- To the Bookstore

In the seven years that Escape was on the air, over 200 broadcasts were made. If, in retrospect, the years 1947 through 1954 were some of radio's best years, this body of Escape programs is one very good reason why.

I think that one of Escape's strengths was in the careful selection of material on which writers based their scripts. Many of the shows, especially in the '40s, were adapted from outstanding works by American and British authors. Great stories, put into radio play form by talented writers, proved to be an unbeatable formula. No show, not even Suspense, was as consistently exciting and entertaining as Escape.

I thought it would be interesting to dig through the fiction in my basement and see how many of the progenitors of the old Escape shows I could find. I followed this up with a trip to the Waldenbooks and B. Dalton bookstores in the Aurora Mall, and can now recommend several books one might turn to to find some of the tales of adventure immortalized on Escape. The advantage in doing so is the inevitable discovery of stories which were not turned into radio dramas, but nevertheless provide top-notch plots and exciting locales to which the old time radio buff can once more Escape.

In 12 Stories They Wouldn't Let Me Do on TV, Alfred Hitchcock supplies us with "How Love Came to Professor Guildea" by Robert S. Hichens, and "Casting the Runes" by Montague R. James. Both are entertaining stories of the supernatural, and in the '50s the latter was made into an engrossing movie, whose title I now forget, starring Cornell Wilde. Another Hitchcock collection, 13 More Stories They Wouldn't Let Me Do on TV, contains "The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell. This unusual story of hunter and hunted had already been made into a movie in 1932 (being shot at the same time as King Kong, on the same set, and with some of the same actors), and adapted for radio by Arch Oboler during the war years before ever coming to Escape. The movie was remade in 1946 as Game of Death, and in 1956 as Run for the Sun. It is obviously a worthy piece of fiction. The anthology Masterpieces of Adventure, edited by Louis Morris, also contains the story, plus another selection which inspired one of the most famous of all Escape shows, "Leinengen Versus the Ants" by Carl Stephenson.

"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," which translated into an exceptional drama, even for Escape, can be found in Ghost and Horror Stories of Ambrose Bierce, published by Dover, and I also found it in another collection of Bierce's stories in a Waldenbooks store. She, by H. Rider Haggard, was the author's second, and perhaps most outstanding novel, but many of its fascinating details and plot devices were left out of the 30-minute radio version. The book is readily available in a Ballantine paperback, and I highly recommend it. This story also appeared on the silver screen, twice.

"The Open Boat" by Stephen Crane is included in a Signet Classic The Red Badge of Courage and Other Stories, and the highly enjoyable "A Diamond as Big as the Ritz" is in Babylon Revisited and Other Stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I also found "Typhoon" in Great Short Works of Joseph Conrad, a Perennial Classic. "The Fall of the House of Usher" is often included in collections of Edgar Allen Poe's stories, and there are many of these. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells is likewise easy to come by.

All of the above stories were done on Escape at least once, and all books listed are paperbacks still available through the publishers, if not directly off the bookstore shelves. I've recently purchased two hardbacks from B. Dalton which contain reprints of stories from London magazine of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, including all the original illustrations. At $6 apiece, I considered them to be a rather good buy.

The first of the two, Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, edited by Alan K. Russell, should not be confused with a paperback by the same title edited by Hugh Greene. The Russell book contains a completely different collection of stories, including "The Story of the Lost Special" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself. Sherlock Holmes does not appear in the story, nor in any of the other three Conan Doyle stories included in this collection. Still, having read "The Lost Special," I cannot help but feel that the services of London's greatest detective were sorely missed by Scotland Yard.

The Collector's Book of Science Fiction by H.G. Wells is a bonanza, containing "The Country of the Blind," which was done three times on Escape, and "The Man Who Could Work Miracles," which was done twice. Also included is a novel whose title should be somewhat familiar to old time radio fans -- The War of the Worlds.

As you see, Escape's sources for stories were somewhat varied, but always excellent -- just witness the number of them that attracted the attention of Hollywood script writers. I hope you'll soon be reading your way through some of the above mentioned books, and pausing now and then to say, "Ah, but wouldn't this have been a great story for Escape!"

Daniel Daugherty in Return With Us Now, January 1979

Old Time Radio · Drama · Books · Escape · Alfred Hitchcock · Richard Connell · Stephen Crane · Sherlock Holmes ·

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Rudy Vallee's NBC Questionnaire

The document rests in the files of the press department of the National Broadcasting Company. It is a questionnaire, duplicates of which are submitted to all NBC stars of prominence. The questionnaire was answered by Vallee himself, painstakingly and neatly typed by his own musical fingers. The questions were answered in 1932, after the crooner's marriage.

Name (professional): Rudy Vallee

Nickname (in the studios): Rudy

Addresses: Office 111 West 57th St., phone Cir 7-4680; home 55 Central P West.

Do you have an NBC contract? Yes, with George Engles

Manager: None

Personal press agent: None

Talent (contribution to radio -- what do you do): Direct an orchestra and sing popular songs.

Your current programs: Fleischmann's Yeast Hour, Thursday from 8 to 9 pm Eastern daylight time

Height: 6 feet

Weight: 150 pounds

Complexion: Light

Hair: Brown

Where and when born: Island Pond, Vermont; July 28, 1901

Parents (Who were they? Did their leanings or characteristics have any bearing on your radio success? Were they talented?): Kathryn Lynch Vallee -- amateurishly musical -- sang a bit and played a little violin. Charles Alphonse Vallee -- was musical but never used his ability. Managed a theater as a sideline.

Are other members of your family musically or dramatically inclined? Kathleen Vallee Lenneville (sister) plays piano and organ -- and teaches piano.

Marital status (wife or husband's name): Fay Webb Vallee

Children (names and ages): None

Radio history (first audition): No audition. First broadcast was from Heigh Ho Club in February 1928, directing seven piece orchestra as nightclub broadcast.

First professional engagement (Any special circumstances? Anecdotes? Humorous incidents? Saxophone soloist at Strand Theater, Portland, Maine -- 1921. Had been head usher at same theater only two years previously. Chief electrician in the theater had given me my first alto sax. Rudy Wiedoeft was my idol -- his records showed me solo possibilities and I had begun studying solos assiduously. I had not learned the solo well enough for his appearance, and that nervousness of hands made me skip whole measures. The audience seemed to like it though.

Rudy Vallee in Radio Guide, June 23, 1934

Old Time Radio · Music · Rudy Vallee · Rudy Wiedoeft · Fay Webb · Publicity ·

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Richard Diamond, a Girl's Best Friend

The Richard Diamonds now in circulation are a must for the detective show freaks in the OTR audience. Dick Powell, the flip lady-killer crooner, is perfect as the flip lady-killer crooner detective. With more humor than Howard Duff's Sam Spade, with more unbelievable scripts than I Love a Mystery, with more dazzling chicks than Mike Shayne, the Richard Diamond series must be rated No. 1. On most shows, Powell answers the phone with his newest slogan for his business, like "Diamond speaking, a girl's best friend," or "Diamond's tough when he's in the rough."

The shows are far out too. Take "The Gray Man" (02/16/1951), who has been poisoned and is gradually turning colors, or the "Blue Serge Suite" case where every blue serge suite in town is disappearing! Or the time Rick takes a job in a butcher shop where "The Stakes Are High."

Helen is the perfect girlfriend. Unlike most detective's girls, she stays out of every case. You know Margo Lane had to be snooping over Lamont's shoulder. And Ann Williams, Casey's sidekick in crime photography, had to be taking every other picture. Edith Miller in Mr. DA even helped to solve crimes for goodness sakes! But not Helen. She waits in her rich, stately penthouse for Rick to finish his case, and when he finally shows up, he croons the Camel commercial, the kiss and fade out ... Diamond, you're a chauvinist pig but I love ya!

Here are the Diamond cases that I have heard. Maybe there are others you know of to add to the list.

• 05/29/1949: Blackmail
• 06/19/1949: Three Murder Suspects
• 06/??/1949: Grounds for Divorce
• 08/24/1949: Phony Seance Racket
• 01/19/1951: Man with the Scar
• 01/26/1951: Rollins Case
• 02/02/1951: Gaspary Case
• 02/09/1951: Blue Serge Suite
• 02/25/1951: Lady in Distress
• 03/02/1951: Red Horse
• 03/09/1951: Butcher Shop
• 03/23/1951: Monsieur Beauchard
• 03/30/1951: The Carnival
• 12/21/1951: Xmas Story
• 12/28/1951: Plaid Overcoat
• 01/04/1952: Merry-Go-Round
• 01/11/1952: White Cow Case
• 01/18/1952: Simpson Case
• 01/25/1952: Al Brennar Case
• 02/01/1952: Gerrbalki Case
• 02/08/1952: Eddie Burke Case
• 03/14/1952: Dixon Case
• 03/21/1952: Hank Burton Case
• 03/28/1952: Mr. Walker's Problem
• 04/04/1952: Enigma of Big Red

Undated Shows

• Gurman the Gunmaker
• 8:00 Killer
• Moran Suicide
• Murder in Oklahoma
• An Xmas Carol
• Big Foot Grafton
• Mona Lisa Case
• Jacobi's Back in Town
• Ice Pick Murder (Rexall sponsored)
• Baxter Matter
• Police Officer Symposium in Chapel Hill
• George Lexington Case
• Nancy Fowler Case
• No One Was Murdered Case
• Marilyn Conners Case

From Illustrated Press, November 1979

Old Time Radio · Drama · Detective · Richard Diamond · Dick Powell ·

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Wendell Niles and the War of the Worlds

Wendell Niles was part of that elite period when radio announcers were indeed as well-known as the programs on which they worked. Involved with virtually every aspect of show business for over 65 years, he certainly has had a career to look back upon.

Born in Montana on Dec. 29, 1904, Wendell Niles' first professional experience came in 1923 when he organized an orchestra. This proved to be quite a successful venture as Niles and His Montanans toured the country (and even other parts of the world) until 1927. The stock market crash in 1929 brought an end to that crazy decade of the 1920s and Niles was forced to bow out of the music business.

Deciding to pursue another field, Niles enrolled at New York University to study aeronautics. He returned to Seattle, which he now called home, and opened a flight school. Everything went peachy until the last minute, when some creditors clamped down on the whole project, and that was the end of that.

So Niles and his wife Ann (whom he had married in 1928), plus their two sons, Wendell Jr. and Denny, packed up and headed for Hollywood to try show business again. Niles began auditioning as an announcer, but encountered an unusual stumbling block: his younger brother Ken had already made quite a name for himself as an announcer, and "Wen Niles" was just a little too close to that name for the radio producers' comfort. "Are you trying to cash in on Ken Niles' reputation?" they asked.

Thus, Niles originally made the rounds of the studios under the name "John Dennison" (his mother's maiden name), and finally succeeded in landing his first network announcing job: on the George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, at which time Burns assigned him the monicker of "Ronald Drake." But with his own reputation now established, Niles was subsequently able to revert to his real name.

Niles likes to relate how he was actually the person responsible for making Orson Welles into a national celebrity. In 1938, Niles was announcer for NBC's Chase & Sanborn Hour, which boasted emcee Don Ameche and featured comedian Edgar Bergen (with Charlie McCarthy, of course). The competition across the dial at CBS was an obscure anthology show, Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre. The Chase & Sanborn Hour was such a whopping ratings success that it was considered foolhardy to put any type of worthwhile show in the timeslot against it.

As almost every student of radio now knows, on October 30, 1938, the Mercury Theatre presented its modernized dramatization of H.G. Wells' science fiction novel The War of the Worlds, concerning Martians invading the Earth. But when the program began, hardly anyone was listening; most of the radio audience was tuned to NBC to hear Bergen and McCarthy's latest witticisms. Somewhere around 10 minutes into the broadcast, Ameche introduced Niles "with a word about Chase & Sanborn Coffee." As Niles began to deliver his commercial, listeners across the nation participated in a tradition that continues to this day: They began dial-twisting. Reaching CBS, they were confronted by an apparently hysterical newscaster screaming that Martians had landed in New Jersey!

That did it. The rest was history, Orson Welles was a celebrity, and Niles now says, "If it hadn't been for me reading that coffee commercial, no one would have ever tuned to CBS to see what else was on!"

From Jot 'Em Down Journal, August 1989

Old Time Radio · Announcing · Wendell Niles · NBC · CBS · Chase And Sanborn Hour · Orson Welles · War Of The Worlds · Edgar Bergen · Don Ameche ·

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Why Science Fiction Didn't Last on Radio

They should have made the perfect pair. Think of the action, the drama, and the adventure of science fiction -- now add a dash of good sound effects, a dash of imagination, and away you go, off on the hottest radio series ever.

And yet ... the marriage didn't last.

It's too bad, too. The five United States SF series, which should have been the best shows in radio history, were weak and short-lived. They ranged over the years 1945 to 1958, yet the longest run was only three years, Dimension X is touted as the best, but even that falls way short of its potential. How come?

One of the biggest reasons is timing. If only SF had hit radio sooner, it might have stood a better chance. As it was, by the time SF gained enough popular appeal, radio was already being overshadowed by TV.

Also, science fiction was a popular medium when it hit radio in 1945. Of course it had come a long way from the first SF novels of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. Even so, it took until April 1926 -- only 19 years before the first U.S. SF radio series -- for the first SF magazine Amazing Stories to be published by Hugo Gernsback. And though this and other magazines helped to create some popularity for SF, it was a long time before SF fans were taken seriously. Most people considered them a bunch of crackpots. Probably the October 30, 1938, broadcast of War of the Worlds on the CBS Mercury Theater of the Air did little to help public opinion. The broadcast was aired without commercials or station breaks, so the show convinced a great number of people that the world was really going to end! Because of this, public outrage was vented against CBS and Orson Welles (the star of the show) for the production.

So the majority of the American public were just beginning to understand SF when it came to radio. Britain was the leader with long SF series, sometimes running two to six hours. Suspense and Escape also produced occasional SF shows in their series. But the first U.S. series devoted to SF was aired in 1945 called Exploring the Unknown. The shows, aimed at the "science at work, searching for knowledge that will shape your future, were produced by Sherman H. Dryer for broadcast on Mutual. Revere Copper and Brass Co. sponsored the show for two years from Dec. 2, 1945, through 1947. Then the show went to ABC for one season as a sustained program.

Mutual's second series, Two Thousand Plus, explored the years beyond 2000 A.D. Dryer also produced this show which began March 15, 1950, and ran through the 1951 season. Mutual then offered a third series, Exploring Tomorrow, during 1957 to 1958. This rather obscure series asked you to "step into the incredible, amazing future."

NBC offered the U.S. its first SF series with broad appeal to adults by way of the show Dimension X. This series, beginning April 8, 1950, and running through Sept. 29, 1951, concentrated on adventures in time and space "told in future tense." The show dramatized works by writers such as Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut, Isaac Asimov, and Robert Bloch. Ernest Kinoy, an NBC in-house scriptwriter, also contributed a story or two, in addition to adapting about half of the stories from the original pieces.

Dimension X was also one of the first shows to be recorded on tape. The story has it that the recording technique was so primitive that "Mars is Heaven," written by Ray Bradbury, had to be recorded three separate times -- because the NBC engineer, in editing the show, kept erasing it!

NBC's second attempt at SF, X Minus One, appeared in April 24, 1955. In some ways it can be considered as an extension of Dimension X, since X Minus One used several of the earlier series' stories. This time, the series lasted three years, going off the air on January 9, 1958. NBC tried to make a comeback with the show in the 1970s, but due to bad scheduling, and lack of publicity, the show gained few listeners and was dropped again.

X Minus One also employed more comedy than the earlier series. Kinoy again adapted about half of the scripts, and George Lefferts was a frequent contributor. Fred Collins announced, and Daniel Sutter directed. John Dunning, in his book Tune in Yesterday, notes that X Minus One offered some of the best drama of the mid-1950s and was also one of the few places where radio veterans such as Santos Ortega, Jack Grimes, Joe Julian, Reese Taylor, Luis Van Rooten, Joe DiSantis, etc. could find work.

Both Dimension X and X Minus One broadcast some of the best of SF radio. Dimension X's "Mars in Heaven"and "Martian Chronicles" by Ray Bradbury can both be considered classics. "The Light" by Poul Anderson is one of the excellent radio shows aired on X Minus One. But, all in all, the SF series cannot compare to many of the other radio series throughout its history. For instance, Escape easily beats any of the SF series in terms of excitement, adventure, and sophistication.

Probably one of the biggest problems of SF radio is the nature of SF itself. In creating science fiction -- a "theory" about what could happen in the future, specifically with regard to scientific achievement -- the authors of the '50s seemed to limit themselves. For one reason or another, they tied themselves to their own time and place and then saw all of the future in these terms. Thus, for the most part, the stories produced on X Minus One are about human beings doing depressingly human things, only in outer space.

Also, X Minus One worked in cooperation with Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine. Horace Gold edited the magazine at that time, and though many top authors were published by him, Gold appears to have had a rather narrow-minded view of what constitutes good science fiction. He liked slick writing and would reject even very original concepts if they did not fit into his editorial framework.

As a result, the stories -- and therefore the shows -- are often alike. There's usually no hint of anything nice or enlightening to be found in outer space -- only humdrum tales of machines that don't work, near fistfights in spaceships and often human beings condescending to straighten out some planet's business. To the 1970s listener, these storylines can seem corny. Also, there's no real sense of the moral crisis that inevitably contributed to the adventure in so many of the Escape programs. In comparison, the SF series seem like space soap operas.

But that doesn't mean the SF series should be shipped to outer space! The stories are fun, some of them are very exciting, and they make for good listening. My only regret was in thinking what could have been.

Janet Chapman in Airwaves, May 1977

Old Time Radio · Science Fiction · Dimension X · War Of The Worlds · Orson Welles · Exploring The Unknown · Sherman H Dryer · Two Thousand Plus · Exploring Tomorrow · X Minus One · Ernest Kinoy · George Lefferts · Ray Bradbury · Poul Anderson · Galaxy · Horace Gold ·

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