Gracie Allen and George Burns are Mr. and Mrs. in private life. She's the dumbest gal at large in the world today, if you can believe all you hear on the radio, and furthermore, she introduced into George's life an annoying lost brother and other pestiferous in-laws.

If this picture is accurate, then George has grounds for divorce in any fair-minded court in the land. But tut, tut, and a couple of more tuts -- don't you believe it. Burns and Allen are a couple of love birds, although wedded these many years.

She affectionately buttons up his coat before she kisses him out the door, to make sure that he doesn't catch cold, and they play bridge together, which, expert psychologists have ascertained, is the supreme test of domestic felicity.

Far from being dumb, she is the "brains" of the combination and carefully squires the pennies in the mutual family budget. They played together in vaudeville for some time before they decided on the shuddering leap together.

Furthermore, "Mrs. Burns" is named after a coal wagon and how many wives would stand for that? It happened this way: George was born into the world as a Birnbaum and when he started in vaudeville, the first name that popped into his head was "Burns Bros." ... that of the coal dealers on whose wagons he used to steal rides as a boy and pilfer odd bits of fuel for the family stove.

John McCart in Microphone, June 22, 1934

I have had at my disposal a vast fortune. Society, in the popular sense of the word -- I almost said tabloid -- knew me as one of its two leading hostesses; Social Registerite, and all that. I have been married, and that union was blessed with a darling child, my daughter. Cobina, Junior. Singing on both the operatic and concert stages I have known, with all their sweets and their heartaches; and I have sung to many radio audiences as featured artist.

In talking to the ambitious, talented girls I meet in radio circles, I find that all of them are keen to arrive at one, or perhaps at two, of the pinnacles I have known. All of them place professional achievement first, and most of them wish to have husband and child. Society -- at least one of those other distinctions -- as well. I want only one! And the distinction I wish to lose as rapidly and as completely as possible is all that's included in that term "Society"!

To be or not to be a Society woman -- that is the question that has haunted me persistently for lo this many a year. You would think that the Depression which swept away my fortune would have solved the problem for me automatically. But if that didn't do it, you surely would think that being dropped from the Social Register (I suppose because I work), besides a divorce, would settle the matter finally.

However, many of my society friends have shown that they possess a quality that the world in general gives them little credit for ... the quality of loyalty. They are the real aristocrats who have proven that it is I, Cobina Wright, that they sought -- and not my parties at Sutton Place and Sands Point. This has been an enormous comfort to me, and yet it leaves me with the same old problem on my hands: How to prevent my being "in Society" from overshadowing my career as an artist.

Because it may, I choose to get out of Society. And there you have it!

Although I have been a professional singer since I was 16 years old, I am better known as a hostess, both socially and for charity affairs. However, I must say that I do not feel slighted artistically.

I have known the great satisfaction that every singer feels as the result of favorable comment from the critics. In this country from coast to coast, as well as in Europe, such men as W. J. Henderson, Herman Devries and Walter Damrosch, to name only a few, have said very kind things about me in the press, for both my opera and concert work. And yet my name is better known as the promoter of Society Circus Balls, and for having entertained in my homes such figures as David Lloyd George, Lord Arthur Balfour, Theodore Roosevelt, Lord Robert Cecil, General John J. Pershing, Bernard Baruch, Arturo Toscanini, Fritz Kreisler, Jascha Heifetz, Noel Coward, Beatrice Lillie, Fanny Brice and scores of others, whose names are family bywords.

Naturally, I had more fun personally at the smaller parties. At the larger affairs my time was spent chiefly in seeing that things went off smoothly, and that everyone was having a good time.

One party that I gave in my apartment on Sutton Place I remember as a distinctly enjoyable one. Among those present were Feodor Chaliapin, George Gershwin, Charlie Chaplin, James Cromwell (recently married to Doris Duke), William Rhinelander Stewart, Paul Kochanski, the late Ralph Barton, Prince Christopher of Greece, Mary Hoyt Wiborg, Mrs. Kochanski and Germaine Taillefere. Immediately after dinner Kochanski sent for his violin. Accompanied by Pierre Luboschutz, he played divinely. Chaliapin, who was in rare good spirits, became inspired, and he strode up and down the room singing from Boris Godunov. Then Charlie Chaplin ordered buns from the kitchen and performed his famous stunt with them. Leaping for the piano, George Gershwin played for him ... the party lasted until the wee small hours and Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt declared that she never had stayed up so late without noticing it.

At that time the late Mrs. Benjamin Guiness and I were considered the only ones in New York who held salons which included both artistic and social lights. However, all this entertaining never detracted from my artistic desires. Possibly it seemed so to many, but I worked just as hard at my singing when I was mistress of a vast fortune, as I do now. I would have strived even harder then had I not considered that my first duty was to my husband and to my child.

Later on, when my daughter was no longer a baby, I had a very important decision to make. Two offers came to me at the same time, both of them very attractive. One was from the late Otto Kann and Giulio Gatti-Casazza to sing with the Metropolitan Opera Company; the other from Arthur Honegger to tour the United States, interpreting his songs with symphony orchestras, with him at the piano.

It took me three days and a long discussion with Otto Kahn, who was a real friend and, I believe, a great admirer of my work, before I decided to go with Arthur Honegger. The roles which I wanted most, such as Tbais and Mehsamle, already had been contracted by the Metropolitan, so it seemed that the tour would mean more to me artistically. It proved a grand success, but I often wonder now if I had accepted the Metropolitan offer, would it not have helped me a great deal in my present radio work on Cobina Wright's Party, airing on CBS stations.

I know I have made many mistakes in my life. But I thank fortune that I am still a young woman with strength and vitality and a very optimistic outlook. I still hope to accomplish many fine and artistic things in my field. I live for my daughter, whom I work to educate and support. She is the greatest thing in my life, and I desire more than anything else in the world to have her proud of me always. She has given me the courage to strive hard in the face of adversity. I am trying to raise her to love people as I do, and to get a real joy out of everything she does. If I can achieve that, the change in our financial circumstances certainly will become of negligible importance.

For the immediate present I aim at making my radio programs better and better each week. I want to put into them more and more of what I have learned in the past, and to have each program teach me new things for the next one. I feel certain that if I can do this, that reputation of mine as a Society hostess will sink gradually into an obscure place in my life, and that a reputation as a hostess on the air will take its place. These are the things I hope to do.

Cobina Wright Sr. in Radio Guide, May 25, 1935

A new radio contract recently made will bring Lum and Abner back on the air again. This is expected to happen this present month of May. The pair of Arkansas-born entertainers who made Pine Ridge a nationally known postal station and changed a name from a myth to a reality are reported to have accepted a contract with the makers of Alka-Seltzer.

Details of the new deal in broadcasting Lum and Abner 's humorous philosophy are lacking, but a long distance conversation had one recent night between Chester H. "Lum" Lauck and his father W. J. Lauck Sr. revealed the famous pair of entertainers were getting ready to face microphones soon.

Talking from Lexington, Kentucky, where he and other racing friends had gone to witness the Derby, "Chet" informed his dad it was expected a west coast broadcast would be made first. Later in the year after the heated season was nearing its end, a regular network would be broadcasting the new Lum and Abner programs.

What system would be used wasn't indicated, the Mena recipient of this latest news from radioland explained, nor were other details made clear. But the Mena entertainers are coming back to the air and the beloved voices of Lum and his boyhood pal Abner will be heard again by the thousands of loyal fans they've made throughout the nation because of their clean and interesting program.

From the Mena Star, May 15, 1941

So what's to get excited about Arnold Stang? To paraphrase the irrepressible Gerard of the Henry Morgan Show, what's not to get excited?

After all, people constantly are getting excited over the Boston kid who parlayed a feigned Brooklyn accent and a boyhood penchant for comedy into a modest fortune and a bright future that has a long time to burn before reaching peak incandescence. During the past 10 of his 24 years, the anemic looking New England comedian's earnings for milquetoasting on radio and screen narration on Warner-Pathe newsreels have snowballed into a quarter of a million dollars.

Stang answers all fan mail personally. Some fans he keeps. Those are the ones who do not ask for money. He gets lots of letters from incredulous listeners who ask, "Do you look as funny as you sound?" Stang is cagey. He sends a picture of himself, with the note. "Judge for yourself."

Many ask how to break into radio. Apparently, Stang is not appalled by thought of competition. He warns these hopefuls to steer clear of dramatic schools, and advises them to get experience at local radio stations and in little theater groups. Stang got his own early training by playing bench warmer on the Corsairs Athletic and Social Club baseball team in Chelsea. Since, to put it in Stang's own deathless prose, he was "a lousy ballplayer," he had to do something to gain the respect of his fellow Corsairs. So he took to memorizing comedy routines he heard on the radio and regaling the team with his wit.

"It worked out great," Stang recalls. "They could play ball better than I. I could tell jokes better than they."

Stang's humor has improved, and his audiences have multiplied through the years. He owns one of the funniest and most ubiquitous voices on the air. He is perhaps best known and most deservedly celebrated as the hyper-suspicious, delightfully cynical, albeit meek Gerard on the Henry Morgan Show.

His radio performances are legion and legend. His querulous, high-pitched tones have been enlisted by the greatest funnymen of the kilocycles to keep their followers laughing. Some who answer to this roll call, in addition to Morgan, are Fred Allen, Jack Benny, Ed (Archie) Gardner, Alan Young, Milton Berle, Judy Canova, Groucho Marx, Eddie Cantor, Abbott and Costello, Bob Hope, Al Jolson, Frank Fay, Kay Kyser and William Bendix.

Shortly before comedian Jack Paar's half hour on ABC was canceled. he wooed Stang with a $1,000 a week offer to appear on his show for a few minutes each Wednesday night to give it a sorely needed shot in the Hooper. "If I have to mortgage myself, I'll pay you what you want," Paar pleaded.

Stang was flattered, but the offer did not pierce his fidelity to boss Henry Morgan, whose show then rode the same network the same evening at a time when Paar was being ballyhooed as another Morgan -- and Morgan was privately chafing at the similarity between Paar originality and old Morgan scripts.

There's been a steady clamor from Stang addicts for a show of his own. The temptations have been great, but Stang has cautiously resisted rushing in prematurely. He's rejected 30 different program ideas. At one time eight comedy shows were being dangled before him simultaneously, and all he did was shake his rabbit-like head and shrug, "So what's to rush?"

"My own show would need good writing, strong support and a certain warmth," Stang told us some time ago. "I would never try to carry a program by myself. I want a situation comedy, not a gag deal."

Apparently, Stang has finally found what he wants for he is even now busy preparing his "dream show," while continuing his appearances on the Milton Berle and Henry Morgan shows. Another Stang venture will be a lead comedy role in a Broadway musical this season.

Hollywood -- which has had Stang and wants more -- is crazy for him, but he keeps turning down fat paying movie roles because he does not deem them suitable to his personality. He insists upon reading the script before accepting a part. If he had an agent, the agent would need an agent to deal with him.

While Stang was in Hollywood last year with the Henry Morgan show, Eddie Cantor signed him as a supporting comedian. Stang drew a bumper crop of laughs, but he was called on to play a different character each week. Dissatisfied, Stang asked and received from Cantor an "amicable" release. Stang issued a statement: "Due to inability to fulfill a contractual obligation to develop an identifiable character, I have parted company vith Eddie Cantor."

Not only because of contractual ties, but because of warm personal regard, the Boston kid isn't likely to walk out on Henry Morgan. "Henry is one of the most intelligent people I know," Stang avers. "I am most grateful to Henry because he has raised the standard of radio a great deal. He has made sophistication stylish in radio. He has stimulated many others to raise their standards."

Stang was torn almost limb from limb by the three top comedians -- Morgan, Berle and Cantor -- who wanted him on their programs while he was in Hollywood. "It almost killed me," he gasps at the recollection.

His schedule called for appearances on the Eddie Cantor preview in Hollywood on Monday, on the east and west coast editions of the Milton Berle show in New York on Tuesday, on the Henry Morgan show in Hollywood on Wednesday, and on the Eddie Cantor show in Hollywood on Thursday. Midnight Monday, he boarded a plane to New York. In Gotham, he remained long enough to play Berle's psycho-neurotic son on the east coast broadcast and the west coast repeat. With the studio audience still applauding, he raced back to La Guardia Field and hopped a plane that got him to Hollywood late Wednesday afternoon, just in time to answer his cue on the Morgan show.

After three sleepless days, he managed on one instance to induce some shuteye on the flight back to Hollywood. He was asleep 10 minutes when the hostess shook him awake. "Are you really Gerard on the Henry Morgan show?" she wanted to know. From there in, further slumber was out of the question.

Two weeks of that grueling timetable was enough for Stang. Berle had to find himself a less neurotic neurotic. Stang's reluctance to appear in just any movie stems from his burning desire to become the Harold Lloyd both of talking pictures and radio. He has the looks, the ability, the point of view -- and the eyeglasses.

Stang's hobby is collecting lens-less eyeglasses. His collection of more than 100, gathered from the far and far-sighted corners of the myopic world, probably is one of the greatest extant, barring those of optometrists. Stang always is in the market for new additions. Friends dig up odd looking glasses for him. Stang spots specimens himself in pawnshop windows, then bangs the lenses out of them.

His most unusual is a pair of small, round Mother Hubbard spectacles he bought in Boston. His favorite possession is the pair of frames Harold Lloyd wore in the silent films. Lloyd gave them to Stang while producing Seven Days Leave. Stang's ambition is to acquire a pair of Bobby Clark's glasses.

His (Stang's) habit is to keep the cheaters he wears in every picture and play in which he acts. He tags them and tenderly stores them in a drawer. They have become Stang's trademark, along with his never-absent bowtie. He will not perform without them. This caused an impasse when Stang co-starred in the Broadway revival of Sailor Beware in 1943. Stang insisted upon wearing spectacles in the show, and producer Arthur Beckhardt was dead set against the idea.

"Who ever heard of a sailor wearing glasses?" Beckhardt groaned.

The dickering -- and bickering -- continued. Meantime Stang did a benefit at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. At supper, he wrung from the commanding officer an admission that in his outfit there were no less than 30 gobs who wore glasses. The C.O. obligingly gave Stang a note to that effect, and in the face of this evidence, Beckhardt capitulated.

Stang executes his bowtie-and-glasses identity even to the caricature on his letterheads and envelopes. He never has appeared without them, except once when as a joke he wore a long tie for a day. "Nobody noticed it," he confesses.

Among the films in which Stang has garnered additions for his glassless eyeglass collection have been My Sister Eileen, with Rosalind Russell; They Got Me Covered, with Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour; Let's Go Steady, with Skinnay Ennis; Hepcats, with Bob Crosby, and Seven Days Leave, in which he was the featured comedian sharing billing with Victor Mature. On the set the two were known as "Mature and Immature."

Stang has been in the boy wonder business a long time. He left Chelsea at 12 when a postcard request won him a New York City radio audition. He used as fare the money he had saved for his mother's wedding anniversary present. Two weeks after the bespectacled urchin stormed Gotham, he was commanding fat checks on The Children's Hour. His mother found the belated gift worth waiting for.

Stang has been in radio ever since. He did not take time out even during school days. He was admitted into Townsend Harris High School in New York, an institution reserved for students with the capacity to absorb four years learning in two or three. Stang eschewed all school dramatics. He was too busy acting for cash on the radio. His extracurricular endeavors had a marked effect on his studies. At the age of 14, Stang won a gold medal for attaining the highest scholastic average in the city.

Stang attributes his proficiency as a laugh-getter to the fact that he approaches comedy as acting, not clowning. For the same reason, he is understandably proud of his little known serious work. He played Spit, the tough young hoodlum in Dead End, on the New York stage and on the air. He portrayed the murderer in radio dramatizations of Ring Lardner's The Haircut twice on the Phillip Morris Playhouse and once on the Great Plays series.

"So what's to be modest?" he asks. "I used to be a pretty darn good actor."

William Tusher in Radio and Television Best, November 1948

Keith "Doc" Wildeson, WLW orchestra leader, began leading his Wildcats one year after joining the station. That was in 1932.

Wildeson was born and grew up in Pitcairn, Pennsylvania, where he attended high school. It was while in high school that he began playing in an orchestra -- an avocation which developed into a full-time profession. As a young man, not yet out of high school, he entered radio by the back door. He traveled to Pittsburgh each week, playing trumpet with a group of high school musicians on KOKA. They were paid for the half-hour show -- one of the first commercial broadcasts in history.

After leaving high school, Wildeson played with such aggregations as Ted Lewis, Jan Garber and Henry Theis. He came to WLW with Theis in 1932, where he played with the late "Fats" Waller and was featured on the trumpet when The Red Skelton Show originated at WLW. His Wildcats furnished the musical background recently for Ernie Lee recordings by Victor.

Wildeson and his band are heard on Sunnyside Review, Morning Matinee and The Ernie Lee Show. Wildeson's Wildcats, a small group of musicians specializing in sweet and swing music, had gained attention in the WLW area through frequent night club and theater engagements.

For recreation, Wildeson chooses bowling, golfing, hunting and fishing. Travel is pretty well out as a hobby because the musician has toured every major city in the United States since entering professional music at the age of 17.

Wildeson's ambition is to be a top-flight conductor, a goal he is not too far from realizing. With this in mind, he has resumed music studies at Cincinnati's College of Music.

Success seems to run in the family. Wildeson's teen-aged daughter Kay recently won the junior tennis title for girls in Cincinnati. Not only is she an accomplished tennis player, but young Kay is following closely in the footsteps of her father. She spends several hours each day practicing on a newly purchased piano while papa Doc watches and teaches.

The popular musician, a very handsome fellow to say the least, left high school early. It was in Pitcairn that he met the woman he was to some day marry -- Theadora Cutshall.

When Wildeson first came to WLW he listed one of his greatest pleasures in radio as, "a relaxed show with kidding continuity." He has that show now, five days weekly, with Ernie Lee, ballad singer, starring in the vocal role.

From Radio Mirror, February 1948

Many of you remember Rosemary LaPlanche by her title, Miss America 1941, representing the state of California. Others may know her as RKO star and cast member of the Lum and Abner movie Two Weeks to Live. However, I knew her best because Rosemary was my mother.

Rosemary was born to Charles and Anna LaPlanche in Glendale, California, on October 11, 1923. She had a big sister, Louise, who was four years older. It was a family in every sense of the word. Charles worked for the telephone company, and Anna took care of the girls while "Charlie" was at work. Both Rosemary and Louise loved to entertain and would go out in their backyard and put on dance shows for neighbors, or just for their own entertainment. On weekends, the LaPlanche family would walk for miles, each family member eating from a gallon carton of ice cream while walking to the one movie theater in town. It was something they loved doing together and always looked forward to seeing the Hollywood movies.

Louise, Rosemary's sister, began acting at age three when she appeared as the child Esmerelda in the silent film classic The Hunchback of Notre Dame, starring Lon Chaney. Both girls showed both beauty and talent. It was just a fun day in the life of the LaPlanche girls to take dance lessons and perform in their backyard. They were not pushed into the entertainment field, they just loved performing and couldn't get enough of it.

Louise and Rosemary attended Marshall High School. Both entered beauty contests for fun. Rosemary's sister Louise was Miss Catalina 1939 and Miss North America. Rosemary started entering the local beauty contests in 1940 at the age of 16, while still in high school. Entering and winning all the contests leading up to the Miss America pageant in 1940, she became Miss California and represented California in the Miss America Pageant. Many people do not know that in 1940 Rosemary and the contestant from Pennsylvania tied for the title. The judges were asked to vote several times to break the tie. They were still tied after many hours. The news headlines were printed in California saying that "Miss California Wins!" Still, with no decision, another judge from Pennsylvania was brought in to break the tie. Of course, he placed his vote for Miss Pennsylvania and Rosemary became the first runner-up. It was quite a scandal and controversial.

Rosemary was told if she could win the American Legion Contests leading up to the Miss America Pageant for the following year, she could be included in the pageant again. Rosemary couldn't wait for the opportunity, and won every one of the pageants including Miss California 1941. She was proud to represent her native state a second time and went on to win Miss America 1941 at the age of 17. To this day, she is one of the most beautiful and popular Miss Americas of all time. After being in the pageant twice, pageant rules were changed to say that no contestant may appear in the Miss America pageant more than once.

While in high school, Rosemary appeared in her first movie, Mad About Music, with Deanna Durbin. As I was growing up, I remember mom singing the song called "I Love to Whistle" from that movie to me.

After graduating high school and holding the Miss America title, Rosemary represented the United States as it went to war in December 1941. Naturally, Rosemary became a centerfold in many of our servicemen's lockers and she received fan mail and marriage proposals! During that time, mom went on a coast-to-coast train tour selling war bonds. The Hollywood War Bond Cavalcade included over 20 major celebrities, including Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, James Cagney, Greer Garson, Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland ... and of course, Rosemary LaPlanche. Following her time spent representing the United States as Miss America, she was invited to spend time with President and Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt on their private boat on the Potomac River.

Shortly after that, Rosemary was signed to a contract with RKO Radio Pictures, while her sister Louise was signed at MGM. Some of Rosemary's most remembered movies are Strangler of the Swamp, with leading man Blake Edwards; Devil Bat's Daughter, Two Weeks to Live with Lum and Abner, Federal Agents vs. the Underworld (a serial), Jack Armstrong, The All-American Boy (another serial), Prarie Chickens with Noah Beery Jr., Show Business with Eddie Cantor and Betty Co-Ed. Mom told me she made over 50 movies during her RKO years.

In January 1947, Rosemary married the love of her life, my dad, Harry Koplan, a television emcee and radio personality. My dad created and emceed a new television show called You 're Never Too Old, then later both mom and dad emceed The Koplan/LaPlanche Show.

In October 1950, they became the proud parents of Carol Louise (that's me), and two years later in June 1953, Rosemary gave birth to Terry Michael. My brother and I couldn't have asked for a better set of parents. They both were the perfect role models for both of us. I am presently teaching kindergarten in Sherman Oaks, California, and my brother Terry is in the insurance business also in Sherman Oaks. Terry is married to wife Claire and has two sons, Christopher and Michael.

Living in Sherman Oaks, California, since 1955, Rosemary retired from show business, only occasionally filming a television show or a commercial. Rosemary was happy being a full-time wife and mother. And may I add that my mom and dad were the best and loving parents!

During her retirement, Rosemary took up oil painting and became quite recognized for her paintings ... especially her seascapes and desert scenes. She had several one-woman art shows and was awarded Best of Show in a special competition. She sold most of her framed paintings to people who loved her technique and appreciated fine art. In 2000 her sister Louise, who now lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, donated one of Rosemary's paintings, "Laguna Shores," to the Miss America Organization.

In May 1973 Rosemary became a widow when her husband Harry passed away while they were on a business trip to Gallup, New Mexico. They had been married 26 years, the most wonderful 26 years of mom's life. Then, in May 1979 after a year of suffering with kidney cancer, Rosemary passed away to join her beloved husband Harry.

I remember one day while mom was ill, I came home from school and mom told me she recognized herself on TV in Lum and Abner's Two Weeks to Live. Rosemary only wished she had been able to view the movie from its beginning. She had many fond memories of all her movies, but she spoke frequently of the time she worked with Lum and Abner on Two Weeks to Live. She even gave me a press book from the movie that she had kept, with black and white pictures of the lobby cards and posters, with information about the movie in it. Now that they sell videotapes of old movies, I am proud to own my own copy of the movie. Oh how I wish my mother could have seen it.

Rosemary LaPlanche was not only Miss America 1941 , a beautiful, talented performer, artist, loving wife, and wonderful mother, but she was a gift to everyone's life she touched. I am so very proud of her and am thrilled to have been asked to share just a small part of her life with you.

Carol Koplan in Jot 'Em Down Journal, February 2003

Falling asleep at night to the sweet strains of the popular Swiss instrument, the zither, played by her father and mother, is one of Elsie Mae Emerson's earliest memories as a little girl up in Kaukauna, Wisconsin. She loved it, for like the other seven members of her family, Elsie Mae Look was a born musician.

Every member of the family plays the piano. The guitar, the mandolin, and the violin were also favored instruments in the home. Emerson's mother taught all kinds of stringed instruments.

At the age of three Emerson amazed her family by sitting down to the piano and imitating a tune she had heard one of her elders play. From that time on until she began the study of music at five, she played by ear. She was so gifted and so full of music that her teacher had difficulty getting her attention fixed on the notes, for Emerson thought it was much more fun playing by ear.

During her girlhood days Emerson was identified with everything musical in her home town. She played for all school affairs, dancing classes, glee clubs, the orchestra, musicales and operettas. On Sunday she played for the church and choir. On week nights, she was pianist at the local theater. She studied voice, organ, piano and harmony at the Lawrence Conservatory of Music in Appleton, Wisconsin.

Then Emerson came to Chicago to continue her study of music at the American Conservatory of music and at the Columbia School of music. Later she studied with Ralph Waldo Emerson, the man she was to marry.

Together, Elsie Mae and Ralph came to WLS in 1925 as alternate organists. During the years that have passed, listeners have thrilled to the music of these two artists.

Working together in their mutual interest of music, each realized that they had so much in common that life without the other would not be complete. One of the outstanding events of the station's early days was the wedding of Elsie Mae and Ralph which took place before the microphones in the Sherman Hotel on April 9, 1925.

Two sons have brought added happiness to the Emerson home. Ralph Waldo Emerson Jr. (Skippy) was born on June 5, 1930, and little John Skinner Emerson (Jackie) was born on Halloween 1935.

According to Ralph, Elsie Mae is not only a fine musician but she is a splendid cook. In these modern days of bake shops, Elsie Mae bakes all the bread the family uses.

There is nothing Emerson enjoys as much as going swimming. She loves the great outdoors and though her home is in the heart of a great city, the farther away from civlization she can get, the happier she is.

She stands four feet, 11 1/2 inches and tips the scales at just 100 pounds. She has brown eyes and softly waving auburn hair. She was born in Kaukana, Wisconsin, November 18.

Jack Holden in Stand By, April 10, 1947

Both the training school and the practical school of experience made Hazel Dopheide the finished actress whom radio listeners know. After graduating from the dramatics department of McKendree College and the School of Speech at Northwestern University, Hazel entered Chautauqua and lyceum work. This was shortly before the rise of radio and Chautauqua was in its heyday.

At 18, Dopheide was billed as the youngest dramatic reader of plays on the lyceum platform. She read the parts of all characters -- men, women and children. Her repertoire included such plays as The World and His Wife, The Money Makers, Mary Magdalene and Friendly Enemies. The last named play Dopheide memorized by attending seven consecutive performances in Chicago.

Dopheide has plenty of memories of long sleeper jumps between towns, of leaky tents -- playing her part while the stage manager held an umbrella over her head -- blazing heat and shivering nights. She knows how it feels to go on when too ill to be safely out of bed, how it feels to lose her voice in the middle of a performance. And she loved every minute of her experience, really.

There were many compensating factors -- travel to strange towns, interesting countryside, amusing incidents of the show and the companionship and friendship of her fellow artists. One night Hazel was playing the piano accompaniment for a tenor solo. A bass singer stood beside her, turned the music, and with a palmetto fan, shooed the mosquitos away from her. Finally one skeeter that Dopheide says must have been the size of a hummingbird landed on her neck. The bass singer couldn't resist. He slapped her neck with a loud resounding crack. He got the mosquito, all right, but he broke up the tenor's solo.

Another time when Dopheide was in the tensest part of a dramatic reading, a half-grown kitten ambled onto the stage. Almost immediately a small dog in the rear of the tent -- "he was waiting for his cue," she says -- rushed happily down the aisle and with loud, ecstatic barks chased the cat from the stage. She had paused for this disturbance, then she picked up her lines and went on.

She enjoyed her association with such stars as Strickland Gillilan, Edmund Vance Cooke, the Rev. S. Parkes Cadman, Madame Schumann-Heink and many others.

Dopheide started in radio at KMOX St. Louis, playing the leads in scores of dramatic productions. One of her most successful was Memories, which ran for two and a half years. At KMOX she also was featured in short stories and plays in which she took all the parts. When she came to Chicago, her first regular work was on WLS in Cradle Dramas. In these she played mother roles and as a result was soon in demand, especially for mother parts. However, she does a wide variety of other parts from ingenues to character.

Her favorite role at present is the feminine lead of Ma and Pa Smithers, even if she does have to "hector" Pa frequently. She conceived and built the idea of House By the Side of the Road in which she and Tony Wons starred on NBC last year. Other shows in which she has appeared include Homemakers' plays, Station E-Z-R-A, Ma Perkins, Little Orphan Annie, Judy and Jane, Romance of Helen Trent, Just Plain Bill, Painted Dreams, Backstage Wife and others.

Dopheide was born in Palmyra, Illinois, on May 12. She's a tall girl, with gray eyes, brown hair and one of the grandest smiles you're apt to encounter.

From Stand By, November 16, 1935

Ever feel like pushing yourself under the rug when your tongue tripped, slipped or balked and turned up with a neat little phrase you never should have uttered? Or hopelessly muffed an important introduction, or stuttered on the snappy comeback that should have panicked your dinner guests?

Then you can readily sympathize with the poor announcer or actor who suddenly finds themself pulling what they are sure must be radio's prize "boner." Though they can be laughed at later, these inexplicable twists of the tongue have given the boys and girls in the studios some mighty bad moments.

Such slips in no way reflect on a performer's ability, for practically everyone on the air -- veteran and novice, star and bit player -- makes his share of "fluffs." The phenomenon can't be explained any more logically than tripping on a sidewalk or spilling a glass of water on your vest. Boners just happen, and no amount of rehearsal and preparation can guarantee they won't.

Sometimes, the result of a jumbled phrase causes the listener to howl with far greater glee than could be induced by professional gag writers after a week of burning the midnight oil. While most of the quip are innocently humorous, some of them have sent the perpetrators off into a corner, blushing furiously, while censors gnawed their blue pencils in future indignation. Like the time that -- perhaps we'd better not go into that one!

High on the list of funniest twisted tongue lines is one that occurred during the broadcast of an NBC soap opera. The harassed heroine was aboard a ship riding a dense dog. In a voice taut with emotion, she proclaimed to her coast-to-coast audience that the fog was "thick as sea poop."

Another momentarily unhappy performer was the young man playing the part of an aide-de-camp to a German general on Mutual's Nick Carter. Said the general: "We are surrounded on all sides by the enemy, they come from the left, from the right, from the east, west, north and south -- and we are without food and water!" The aide was supposed to exclaim, "Is it that bad?" Instead the luckless actor found himself burbling, "Is that bad?"

Then, of course, there was the dramatic actress, appearing on a CBS serial, whose simple line, "We'll give the bell a pull," came out unexpectedly as "We'll give the bull a pill!" And young Bill Lipton, who has appeared in hundreds of roles since his air debut at the age of 11, once admonished a fellow actor in a soap opera to "Keep a stuff ipper lup, old boy."

It isn't always the players who supply unintentional humor in the dramatic shows. The boys in the sound effects department can claim their share of the scallions for boners and poor timing. Many an overworked producer and director has spent sleepless nights planning all sorts of medieval tortures to inflict on the hapless sound effects person who ruined a dramatic scene.

On one occasion, the breathless lovers in a popular soap opera were supposed to whisper their words of endearment against a soft, light background of summer breeze. The director signaled for his "light breeze" but the sound technician -- evidently in a slight state of confusion -- obliged with a gale of hurricane proportions. The young lovers were actually drowned out by the sound of nature run wild.

Then there was the time the plot called for the sound of surf beating against the rocks. What the listeners heard instead was a sound of a crowd cheering the players at a football game. The ocean waves are said to whisper many things. This was probably the first time in history that they roared out, "Hold that line!"

From Tune In, July 1945

When the script for CBS' Escape called for the sound of a horde of rats attacking a lighthouse, squealing, clawing at the windows, gnawing through a trap door and boarding a ship, it would seem almost enough to stump even a veteran radio soundperson. Escape's two veteran radio technicians, Bill Gould and Cliff Thorsness, admit that creating this effect was certainly about their toughest challenge. Their work on it deserves a Distinguished Achievement Award.

"It was a tough show to work out the sound on," the technicians acknowledged when we cornered them for a behind-the-scenes discussion, "because none of the effects called for were straight, legitimate ones. They couldn't be found in any sound library -- and CBS had the finest. We had sound recordings of individual rats, but none of them in quantity or doing the things this script called for them to be doing. So we had to start strictly from scratch."

Working under the supervision of Al Span, head of the CBS sound department, Thorsness and Gould set about manufacturing the realistic noises of a rat attack.

Three full days of preparation were required, including one day of special recording. To create the noise of rats in great quantity, the sound technicians combined recordings of mice, birds, pigs and monkeys, playing them back at diverse RPM speeds. They recorded for four solid hours, employing 10 turntables.

To create the sound of rats clawing at the windows, a big round stiff brush (off the janitor's giant sweeping broom) was hit upon as the most effective prop. The noise of the brush being swept across actual glass, amplified through a contact mic (the "throat mic" such as was used by Army pilots during the war) produced the desired effect.

For the sound of the rats gnawing through a wooden trap door, berry boxes were crunched, not as customarily in the hand, but in the technicians' mouths, because the actual noise made by the contact of wood against teeth made the difference between an unconvincing sound and a startlingly real one.

For the sound of the rats' teeth working on the metal parts of the trap door, tin cans were used and again a contact mic was employed.

The technicians reported that one of the most difficult effects to create for the show was the noise of the rats as they cling to the revolving beacon atop the lighthouse. For this, the volume of the rats' squealing was increased, then faded out, to produce the realism of their closeness as they were swung towards the hearer.

Another of the more difficult effects, according to the two technicians, came about when the script had one of the rats breaking away from the park, calling for the noise of a single rat to be heard effectively against the combined squealings and clawings of the horde.

The final difficult effect called for was the sound of the rodents vacating the lighthouse to scamper aboard a boat.

An additional reason the show was particularly challenging, the two sound effects people declared, was the fact that Escape's producer William N. Robson is a strong perfectionist. "An effect might sound very satisfactory," they clarified, "but with Robson, it had to sound really real."

"We were pleased," they admitted, "when Harry Bartell, one of the actors, told us we'd made the rats real enough to smell them."

Billy Gould laughed. "They became real enough to me -- I actually found myself not able to eat."

Escape's rats, however, weren't the first eerie effect which Gould and Thorsness have been called upon to produce.

"Remember," smiled Billy, ready to spoil his appetite again, "Arch Oboler's man-eating spider on Lights Out?"

"And," supplied Cliff, with a weak grin, "the attack of the ands on Escape's broadcast of Leiningen vs. the Ants!"

Thorsness also recalled working on the Norman Corwin production which starred sound entitled The Anatomy of Sound.

"That one wasn't easy," he remembered. "It was a narration built around all the ordinary sounds one hears throughout a day. It was a problem of producing simple sounds in a natural way yet making the listener very aware of them."

In addition to Escape, Thorsness works sound on other drama shows as Family Hour and Philip Marlowe, and has created effects in the past for Norman Corwin, Orson Welles, Man Called X, Big Town, Hollywood Star Time and Blondie.

Gould is soundperson on Escape, Johnny Dollar, the Joan Davis show and Our Miss Brooks, and previously worked Suspense, The Whistler, Fletcher Markel's Ford Theater, the Jack Kirkwood series, and the Jimmy Durante program.

Both Gould and Thorsness have been with the CBS sound department for more than 10 years.

Prior to this, Thorsness have manager of LA's downtown Orpheum Theater, and Gould was show-business veteran, having worked in vaudeville and tent shows since the age of seven.

Gould's goal is to produce and direct variety shows for television. Thorsness aspires to the production end of radio dramatic productions.

As a perfect tag for this story dealing with their creation of realistic radio rats, Thorsness made a confession.

"I can't stand mice. When it comes to taking a mouse out of a trap, I make my wife do it."

Lynn Roberts in Radio-TV Life, March 24, 1950

Bobby Benson was one of those rare network shows that had two distinct radio series, with over a decade separating both runs. The original show was aired on CBS from 1932 to 1936. Thirteen years after its demise, it was resurrected with a new cast on Mutual in 1949 and it continued on the air until 1955.

Despite the fact that both versions were of relatively short tenure, and were aimed almost exclusively at a juvenile audience, the Bobby Benson show did accomplish at least two significant things. It permanently forged the personality of the leader of the Dead End Kids and it launched the career of a comedian who eventually won five Emmy Awards on network television.

Herbert C. Rice gets the credit for creating the Bobby Benson show. The premise of this kids' adventure program was that a young boy inherited a ranch in the Big Bend country of Texas, near the banks of the Rio Grande River. Aided by his foreman Texas Mason (originally named Buck Mason) and a bunch of other adult cowpokes, including Waco, Harka and Irish, this young lad rode the range to adventure and mystery on a white horse named Silver Spot.

The 1930s show was sponsored by the Hecker H-O Company, the makers of H-O Oats, Hecker's Cream Farina, Presto Cake Flour and other grain products. In deference to the sponsor, Bobby's cattle spread was called the H-Bar-O Ranch.

I haven't determined how many youngsters were the radio voice of the Cowboy Kid in the 1930s version, but the principal one was Billy Halop, who was about 12 years old at that time. His sister Florence was also in the cast and she played Polly Armstead, Bobby's companion. Both of the Halops had started early in New York City radio; Billy was on Skippy, The March of Time, The Children's Hour and Lady Next Door.

Billy Halop was given star treatment as Bobby Benson; his photo was prominent in several radio premiums and he toured the U.S. in W.T. Johnson's Circus Rodeo as a feature act. It was heady stuff for the young radio actor and Halop never got over it, despite his later success on Broadway and in Hollywood.

In the fall of 1935 Billy left the Bobby Benson show to join rehearsals of Sidney Kingsley's new play Dead End, which opened on Broadway at the Belasco Theater on October 29, 1935. Halop, then 16, portrayed the leader of a gang of street urchins, some of whom were played by other young radio actors. Henry Hall, using his childhood nickname of Huntz as his stage name, was the same age as Halp and had been in many a series: Coast to Coast on a Bus, Home Sweet Home, The Rich Kid and Life of Jimmy Braddock. Bobby Jordan, youngest of the gang at 13, was also on several radio programs, including Peter Bachelor.

Rounding out the Dead End Kids in the play were Sidney Lumet, Gabe Dell (who was born Gabriel Del Vecchio), Charles Duncan, Bernard Punsley and the Gorcey brothers, Leo and David. Dell, Duncan and Punsley had some stage experience but none on radio. The two Gorceys had no acting experience at all, but their father, diminutive Bernard Gorcey, had been a lead in Broadway's long running Abie's Irish Rose and also played radio's Popeye. Billy's sister Florence was not cast in Dead End but Gabe Dell's sister Ethel was.

Dead End did not open to critical acclaim, but it slowly built its popularity and eventually ran for 687 performances, a fine record for those days. For comparison, the original Broadway runs of Our Town and The Little Foxes totaled less than 300 and 400 performances, respectively.

Duncan, who had the secondary lead in the gang, quit the show in the summer of 1936 to take a major role in another drama called Bright Honor. Leo Gorcey, his understudy, took over the role. Bright Honr was anything but; it closed after 17 performances and Duncan disappeared with it.

By that time Warner Brothers had bought the movie rights to Dead End and all the major kids in the cast (minus Duncan and Lumet) headed for Hollywood. The wise-cracking hoodlums made about half-a-dozen successful films for Warners, supporting leads like Humphrey Bogart, Jimmy Cagney, Pat O'Brien and Ronald Reagan. Eventually, minus Halop, the boys went on to make nearly a hundred movies as the Dead End Kids, the East Side Kids and the Bowery Boys.

In August 1974 I interviewed Huntz Hall in St. Louis where he was making a stage appearance on the Goldenrod Showboat, a riverboat theater. Speaking of his Dead End Kids days in New York and Hollywood, Hall said, "It's sad, but Billy never got along with us and we never got along with him. He just never got over being Bobby Benson. He had to be the star and insisted on making more money than the rest of us. It just wasn't fair. Between movie scenes at Warners, Billy would be arguing for more money in his contract while the rest of us kids were playing on a mock-up pirate ship on the back lot."

Jack French in OTR Digest, May to June 1991

They laughed when the after dinner speaker, talking about the shows and ratings, referred to Lederle Laboratories' The Doctors Talk It Over. When the snickers died down, an advertising agency executive remarked, "The program must have something. It's in its third year on the air and the American Cyanamid Company (Lederle's parent company) doesn't throw away a quarter of a million dollars a year for anything, not even a broadcast program."

Lederle spends more on its air program than the entire advertising budget of all the rest of Cyanamid's units. It spends it to reach a tiny segment of the dialing audience, the medical profession. It has nothing to sell the public. It sells only ethical pharmaceuticals and biologicals, products used by hospitals and dispensed by druggists upon doctors' prescriptions. It sells nothing on the air, the program having none of the aspects of commercialization expected on a sponsored program. Sole identification of the billpayer is the opening, which states:

Lederle Laboratories, Incorporated, a unit of American Cyanamid Company and manufacturers of pharmaceutical and biological products, present transcribed: The Doctors Talk It Over.

That's all that directly or indirectly ties into the business of the sponsor until the signoff, when once again the announcer states:

The Doctors Talk It Over has been a transcribed presentation of Lederle Laboratories, Incorporated, a unit of American Cyanamid Company, and manufacturers of pharmaceutical and biological products.

There is generally also an offer of a free copy of the talk to professional listeners "by writing to Lederle Laboratories, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York 20, New York."

Just three mentions of the corporate title, that's all, weekly at 10 to 10:15 p.m. EST for well over $300,000 a year.

The program rating is usually between 1 and 2 (March 2 broadcast reached a 2.2), ranking, report after report, at the bottom of all sponsored shows on the air.

Lederle wants to reach just one audience -- MDs. Its rating is so low that there are no audience composition figures available from normal rating sources, nor are these same sources able to produce sponsor identification figures. That necessitated a special study, for it couldn't be taken for granted that The Doctors Talk It Over was reaching the correct audience. These special studies have been made three times. The returns indicate that doctors are listening and that regardless of the restricted air commercial, they know who is sponsoring the show.

The apparently small percentage of those who have heard the program who listen regularly is not unusual in the medical segment of the listening audience, since medical professionals are for obvious reasons in no position to listen regularly at any time of the day, although 10-10:15 p.m. is a period when the greatest percentage of medicos is likely to be available to listen.

It is also impossible to choose medical subjects that are of interest to all doctors, since of necessity some of the programs are addressed to specialists and others to general practitioners.

Finally, the program has to fight for medical ears against purely entertainment programs. For the latter reason the program has switched from Friday to Tuesday to Monday seeking a period when it wouldn't have to fight Bob Hope, Fibber McGee or Bing Crosby. That it does reach and influence as large a segment of the medical profession as it does is a tribute to the thinking behind the program.

It is not a pseudo-medical broadcast. The doctors who talk it over are leading figures in the medical field. At first they looked with a suspicious eye upon broadcasting under the sponsorship of a commercial firm. Most of that looking askance is no longer evident. Even the medical associations, both country and national, now feel that The Doctors Talk It Over is the nearest thing possible to a closed-circuit meeting with the people who mean the most to the professional. It is "ethical publicity" for the doctors who talk and a professional brush-up for listeners.

Like all successful broadcasting, and The Doctors Talk It Over is successful despite its bottom rating, the program is not required to travel under its own steam alone. Promotion of the program differs from that for a general-appeal air show.

The direct mail and giveaways are sent 100 percent to the medical professional. Over 123,000 announcement cards are sent out monthly to the medical and allied professions. They are decorative as a railroad timetable, but they do list the subjects, the authorities and the stations.

Each week an average of 1,800 reprints of the broadcast are requested and sent out. An offer of two bound volumes containing the actual scripts of the first 52 broadcasts brought in 85,000 requests. That meant 85,000 doctors impressed with Lederle Laboratories. Disks of each broadcast are made part of a circulating library and are drawn upon regularly by schools, medical societies, nursing schools and allied professional groups. This service, provided without charge, has built extra respect among these groups for the ethical character of the program and its sponsor.

Not only has the program given Lederle the medical personality it desired but its medical representatives, numbering about 250, find it has made their job of contacting the profession and hospitals far easier and much more productive. The 50 branch offices also note that direct calls from pharmacists have increased progressively as the program has been on the air.

Nurses and attendants also feel a glow when Lederle is mentioned, for several broadcasts have placed the nursing profession before the medical profession. A recent program was devoted 100 percent to the Massachusetts Plan, which establishes regular increments for not only the nurses in hospitals but attendants as well. Since the plan also regards the nurse as a professional person and looks forward to the day that nursing will not include maid and porter duties, it's natural that Lederle, who brought information about the plan to the profession and the public eavesdroppers who listened in on the program (March 17), won more friends through the broadcast.

The presentation was one of the first network transcribed programs. The reason it is transcribed is that it would be impossible to guarantee that any practicing physician could be available for broadcast at any specific time. Then too a doctor is not a professional broadcaster and plenty of work with each guest authority is essential if they are to sound as their coworkers in the field expect.

Milton Cross is the reporter on the show, and with Joseph L. Boland, Jr., of the agency travels to each recording date, with the authority outlining the scope and factual context of the show for the writer.

The Doctors Talk It Over may not rate among popular broadcast vehicles but it's right for the profession to which it's addressed and has justified its cost of a quarter of a million a year to a firm that had spent practically nothing before for advertising.

Today the outstanding ethical pharmaceutical house -- to the medical profession -- is Lederle. The company has arrived at that pinnacle through not selling on the air.

From Sponsor, April 1947

It was really aversion to silence that resulted in the professional debut of Ben Bernie. Years ago, but not too many says the Old Maestro, in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge in a tiny blacksmith shop, a son with a rhythmic cry was born.

The father, a master smithy, wanted him to become an engineer, but the mother, a gentle-voiced little person who was sometimes discovered gazing entranced into a violin store window, held out for their son to be a musician. Bernie developed into a dutiful son. He studied to be an engineer and learned to play the violin in his spare time.

But fate interjected a long slim finger which pointed another way. Bernie was seventeen and he was a violin salesman in a New York department store. It was his duty from nine to five each day to produce melodies of one kind or another on the $4.98 instruments marked down from $7.50.

They were pretty bad as fiddles go, and so apparently was Bernie. He took to explaining to what prospective customers there were that if his playing annoyed them, it was even worse on him because he had to stay with it.

Somehow the patter caught hold, just as it did years later on dance floors all over the country. Crowds fell into the way of gathering around the original violin salesman. Because he told them that the violins were awful and the upkeep was something terrible, he sold more than anybody else ever had.

One night Bernie wished on the stars on his way home and the next morning a visiting booking agent happened along. He veni-ed, he vidi-ed, he vici-ed and Bernie signed on the dotted line. The Old Maestro was launched in the show business!

After success as a single act in which he discovered his patter combined with his violin was an unbeatable team, he found himself on the same vaudeville bill as Phil Baker. They tell this story that happened in a small Minnesota town. Bernie was standing out front one evening talking to the cashier when a husky miner came up and put down a quarter.

"But it will cost you 50 cents," said the cashier.

The customer pointed a knobby finger at a sign reading "Evenings, 50 cents; matinees, 25 cents," and demanded, "How about that?

"Yes, but that 25 cents is for the matinees."

"Oh, that's all right," responded the son of toil. "I'd just as soon sit in one of those."

After the war, Bernie organized an orchestra with himself as its wise-cracking leader. It was an immediate vaudeville hit and a one-month engagement at the Roosevelt Grill in New York stretched into five years. His stomping ground of late has been the College Inn in Chicago.

It was there that he developed his penchant for 20 long, black cigars a day; there, too, that his love for horse racing first became known. Bernie says he has paid for more horses than the Whitneys or Vanderbilts, but they never let him take them home.

Right now Bernie and his orchestra are on tour, but in the fall they will be back at the Inn. "I hope you like it," says Bernie, and slowly knocks the ashes from the end of his slim cigar.

From Radio Guide, July 23, 1932

Will Rudy Vallee abdicate his throne as King of the Crooners? He will. But when Vallee steps away from the microphone for the last time, he will march into a high executive post in the radio world.

Vallee may become the highly paid chieftain of the artists' bureau in a great network. Many believe it is more likely that he will be enshrined as the first Will Hays of radio -- the dictator of the air needed to pour oil on the so frequently troubled ether waves. This is the consensus of opinions of those who have closely watched the latest chapters in the vivid, colorful Vallee saga.

Charles A. Lindbergh flew the Atlantic and, from the status of a pilot, rose to become a financial power in the world of aviation.

Vallee captured the applause and admiration of millions when he started this crooning business. After the first overwhelming rush of adulation had passed, he wisely reserved his personality and voice for a few selected broadcasts.

Thus his public was not sated, and he retained his fame and popularity while other stars rose and then waned. He made a million or more dollars before the microphone. He realized every ambition that a radio star can possibly entertain -- and he knows that sooner or later every star must grow dim.

He is as popular with the radio magnates as he is with the fans -- because he has not developed temperamental complexes, and still works as hard as when his Connecticut Yankees were barnstorming the studios.

So he believes that, just as Lindbergh became a mogul of aviation, he can become a big businessman of radio.

Vallee is now studying law under Dean Gleason L. Archer of the Suffolk Law School in Boston. He has probably been secretly perusing the statute books for more than a year. He is studying law not as a whim, or to croon to juries -- as some facetious commentators have smilingly indicated -- but for a mature purpose.

He is concentrating on law as he concentrated on music -- in dead earnest -- despite the soft voice and the wavy locks. If Vallee is to become the dictator of the radio industry he must know law. Didn't baseball pick a judge as its arbitrator? And isn't Hays an attorney?

How soon will the great transition take place? That depends. At present Vallee's voice is heard on the ether but once a week. Vallee is smart that way. It is understood that he is considering contracts that will carry him through the next two years.

Two years from now Vallee's law course will have been completed -- and he'll probably know more about the ins and outs of courtroom practice, under the expert tutelage of Dean Archer, than most young attorneys. So two years isn't a bad guess.

It might be sooner, however. There are whispers wandering around the New York broadcasting castles. The whispers hint that Vallee fears he is losing his voice. It sounds silly -- his voice on the air sounds as clear as ever -- but the whisperers want to know why Vallee has installed expensive air conditioning machines in his home, why he is so careful to sing only under perfect conditions, and then infrequently.

There is something else to be considered. Some observers believe that Vallee, when he abdicates the throne, will not become a radio dictator but a politician. Can Vallee be elected governor of Maine? Can he climb to the top of the political regime with the same ease as he ascended to the throne of radio?

Seriously, there are many who believe that if an election were held today he would become Maine's governor. They idolize Vallee in Maine. His Stein Song is the national anthem on the rocky and rugged coast. And there is no doubt whatsoever that he would get almost all of the women's votes.

How will Vallee's Horatio Alger tale end -- from crooner to radio dictator, or from crooner to governor?

Either job will be acceptable to Vallee.

From Radio Guide, August 21-27, 1932

I remember the Detrola table model radio being on the end of the kitchen counter close to the window. Part of the morning ritual was turning it on to hear the mellow voice of Clint Buehlman giving the weather and traffic reports. If I was real lucky he would be giving the school closings, and maybe, just maybe, he would be closing mine.

The radio was magic. I didn't know how it worked. I could figure out the gas stove. Just a pipe to the burner, light a match and one could boil water. I crawled behind the refrigerator one day, only to find a mechanical hutch for dust bunnies. One couldn't get excited about a stove or fridge.

What made the radio work? I peeked in the back, being careful not to get a shock. The five tubes glowed with a reddish-orange light. I saw the dial light. I could see the dial cord move when I turned the tuning knob. Oh, it has some wires, and a metal chassis, but unlike my bike or scooter, I couldn't see what made it work.

On Sunday evenings my parents would take it into the living room, place it on a chair and we would listen to our special programs. "Good evening Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at sea." Wow! The same guy who was talking to us was broadcasting to the ships far out at sea! Yes, we enjoyed the Lone Ranger, Gunsmoke and all the usual favorites, while we waited for television to be improved. Maybe next year my dad would buy a TV but for now the radio would do.

Even after the TV came, the radio was still part of the morning routine. With the advent of top 40 stations of the 1950s and early '60s, the old wooden radio seemed out of place. Old programs should come out of it, not the "latest and greatest hits," but still the radio did its yeoman's duty.

Through the years, with technical study, I found out how it worked. I was able to keep it in repair by replacing tubes, the line cord and dial cord. It is a simple radio.

A few years ago, I was able to purchase a "state of the art" radio. It is completely solid state, microprocessor-controlled and has 32 memories. It took me a few hours just to learn how to operate it. It covers the broadcast band and the entire high frequency region. It can do all modes: AM, FM, Sideband and Radioteletype, as well as being controlled by a computer.

It does this with cold efficiency, and I do mean cold. It has no tubes. No heat from tubes. It has no memories of school day mornings and Sunday evening programs.

The Old Wooden Radio is mine now, and with it I can tune in to the warmth of bygone years. I still peek into the back of it, because real radios glow in the dark.

Martin Braun in Illustrated Press, November 1990