Drama

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What Happened on Radio Soaps in March 1953

Ad for The Romance of Helen Trent featuring Julie Stevens Aunt Jenny: All kinds of people pass before Aunt Jenny's experienced, understanding eyes as she surveys the lives of her neighbors in the small town of Littleton. But seldom has she known a personality like Sam Cutler, who deliberately set out to ruin his sister-in-law because she had defied him. What happened to Sam made the unexpected climax of this story one of those recently told by Aunt Jenny. 12:15 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, ... (read more)

2020/07/06

Don Ameche's Lucky Break in 1930

Don Ameche and Hildegarde Knef in Silk Stockings on Broadway Don Ameche armed himself with some letters of introduction, and set out. He wasn't afraid of New York. "I didn't have enough sense to be afraid," he said, with a wry grin. He delivered all the letters on his first day in New York, and like most letters of introduction, they didn't do any good. He was turned away politely, instead of brusquely; that was all. On his third day of job hunting, he met another young actor on the ... (read more)

2020/07/02

Mandel Kramer Commits Crimes on TV, Solves Them on Radio

Mandel Kramer during his years on CounterSpy Ordinarily, on other programs in which he appears, Mandel Kramer is a two-faced, ornery killer, as likely to be erased on a show as not. It is seldom Kramer lasts to the end of any show -- except on CounterSpy, where he is Harry Peters, the hard-working associate of David Harding. At a time when TV has made tremendous inroads into the entertainment world, the 35-year-old Harrison, New York, gentleman is one of the handful of actors who has not ... (read more)

2020/06/23

What It's Like to Be in One Man's Family

One Man's Family cast member Page Gilman The radio show One Man's Family seems as old as Methuselah, as time-honored as radio, itself, customary as a Sunday night supper. The show has been coming over the ether weekly for 11 years. Eight of those venerable mileposts have had the same sponsor, who still has seven years to go. The program was first produced by NBC on the west coast as a sustaining in 1932. Two years later it went nationwide, has long since become a radio legend, earned its ... (read more)

2020/06/17

Interview with Bobby Benson Radio Cowboy Ivan Cury

Ivan Cury wanted to be an actor from the word "go." He was born and raised on Manhattan's Upper West Side of parents who immigrated to America. "My dad came from Russia, my mother from either Poland or Austria, depending on which army occupied the land." At the age of 4, he tried to get a box office cashier to let him into a theater. Six more years went by before he had a chance to try out for a show, but during those years he studied music, dancing, acting -- anything he could to prepare ... (read more)

2020/06/16

Four Radio Shows Hired Les Tremayne to Replace Don Ameche

Les Tremayne, star of The First Nighter radio show For the first six years of my radio career, I was very particular about keeping a daily record of every show I worked -- the date, time, name of show or episode, each character I played (and sometimes there were up to 10 in a single show!), and, later on, pertinent observations and specific comments pertaining to these or made by others, which I felt important enough to record. My career accelerated to such an extend (up to 45 shows a ... (read more)

2020/06/14

The Life of Radio Soap Actress Tess Sheehan

Tess Sheehan performing on Wendy Warren and the News Tess Sheehan has become accustomed to it but when she first turned to radio, she was very much intrigued by the idea of acting in an air-conditioned studio every day. Sheehan, who plays Aunt Dorrie in CBS's Wendy Warren and the News and Nora in NBC's When a Girl Marries, has played to audiences in extremes of heat and cold, in freight sheds and tents, and under American, Canadian, and European skies. Dramatic training, at the time ... (read more)

2020/06/13

The Earliest Radio Shows of the 1920s

The Goldbergs creator Gertrude Berg during its radio years By the middle 1920s, it became obvious that radio manufacturers could no longer support free radio time. Fortunately, advertisers were discovering that radio was one of the most effective means of advertising available. So, it didn't take long after that for radio to become big business. Its popularity continued to grow -- until the biggest programs were heard by more than 40 million people. And advertisers were paying up to ... (read more)

2020/06/12

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 ... (read more)

2020/06/05

Richard Diamond, a Girl's Best Friend

Dick Powell and Evelyn Keyes in the movie Johnny O'Clock (1947) 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 ... (read more)

2020/06/03

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