“I’ve been as bad an influence on American literature as anyone I can think of.”  So declared the man born Samuel Dashiell Hammett on this date in 1894, a confession he made to his daughter Josephine in a display of cynicism that would be most appropriate of his famous literary creation, shamus Sam Spade.  Hammett […]

With the death of Barton Yarborough in December of 1951, Jack Webb was anxious to find a replacement for the actor who had portrayed Ben Romero to his Joe Friday on the radio and television versions of his hit police procedural Dragnet.  Webb relied on several actors in the interim, including Barney Philips and Herb […]

At one time in the 1940s, the man born Harry Lillis “Bing” Crosby, Jr. in Tacoma, Washington on this date in 1903 was the top-selling recording star…the number-one box office attraction…and the most popular performer on radio (headliner of The Kraft Music Hall).  Author Gerald Nachman observed in his book on Radio’s Golden Age, Raised […]

“Just play it like a nagging wife” was comedy writer Philip Rapp’s suggestion to actress-singer Frances Langford, who was about to take on a facet of radio performing with which she had only a passing familiarity.  Frances, born Frances Newbern Langford in Lakeland, FL on this date in 1913, had traded funny quips with comedian […]

Lester Joseph Damon—born in Providence, RI on this date in 1908—was memorably described by my Radio Spirits colleague Elizabeth McLeod as “the prototype of the radio actor on the go.”  From his earliest acting experience in stock companies during the 1930s to his busy radio gigs from the 1940s and onward, Les Damon never allowed […]

Old-time radio historian Jim Harmon minced no words in his book Radio Mystery and Adventure and Its Appearances in Film, Television and Other Media: “He was the announcer, perhaps the greatest announcer-narrator in the history of radio drama.  He pronounced words like no one ever had—‘SIL-ver,’ ‘hiss-TOR-ee.’  But hearing him, you realized everybody else had […]

The untimely death of “platinum blonde” Jean Harlow at the age of 26 was devastating news to moviegoers…but since the motion picture business is a business, MGM (Harlow’s employer) soldiered on by completing Jean’s final movie, Saratoga (1937), with Jean’s body double, Mary Dees.  Filming Dees from behind could go a long way towards covering […]

On March 24, 1949, actress Claire Trevor—born in Brooklyn, NY on this date in 1910—received one of the highest honors a performer can obtain from their peers in the motion picture industry: an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.  The role for which Trevor garnered her Oscar was that of Gaye Dawn in the film Key […]