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Betty Lou Gerson, Star of Arnold Grimm's Daughter

Betty Lou Gerson in the movie The Red Menace (1950) When a little six-year-old kid named Betty Lou Gerson stopped the show back in Birmingham eighteen years ago during an amateur performance, the home folks predicted that someday she'd blaze her name along the footlight trails. And they might have been right about this child of the southland -- except for the fact that radio snatched her up before she had her feet firmly planted on the theatrical stage. For more than four years now, this ... (read more)

2020/07/08

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

Jim and Marian Jordan Were the O'Henry Twins

Marian and Jim Jordan of Fibber McGee and Molly on NBC radio The velvet drop concealing the skinny legs of marimba said "Marian and Jim Jordan," and the names sparkled with all the fine, phony brilliance of a dancer's exit smile. The act on stage in this small-town theater was a harmony team -- the girl at the piano, the man leaning debonairly against it and singing a pleasant tenor to the girl's contralto. The keynote was a jaunty good cheer. They sang "When You're Smiling," and a comedy ... (read more)

2020/07/03

Fibber McGee and Molly at Home in Chicago

Jim and Marian Jordan perform Fibber McGee and Molly on NBC News of their impending assault on the screen capital had just broken when I called on Jim and Marian Jordan, who are Fibber McGee and Molly as well as sundry other quaint characters on a weekly radio program. I found them at a modest but quite fetching home in Peterson Woods, an attractive, spic-and-span district of Chicago's North Side, neither exclusive nor ritzy. It is the Wistful Vista of the McGee radio script. No ... (read more)

2020/06/29

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

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

Wendell Niles and the War of the Worlds

Wendell Niles and Marilyn Monroe on NBC Radio in 1952 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 ... (read more)

2020/06/02

The Five Radio Networks of NBC

In its early years NBC (the National Broadcasting Company) operated five different broadcast networks all labeled by color: Red, Blue, Orange, Gold, and White. OTR hobbyists are probably aware of the Red and Blue Networks but may not be familiar with the other colors. On Jan. 4, 1923, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) started "chain" (or network) broadcasting which was then defined as "simultaneous broadcasting of an identical program by two or more connected stations." ... (read more)

2020/05/31