One hundred and four years ago on this date in Jamestown, NY, the woman who would become virtually synonymous with television situation comedy entered this world as Lucille Désirée Ball. October 15, 1951 marked the small screen debut of I Love Lucy, a domestic comedy vehicle featuring Lucy and her real-life bandleader husband Desi Arnaz. […]

I’d never be able to prove it in a court of law…but I’d be willing to gamble that when the need arose for an actress to play the part of a spinster or neighborhood busybody, Irene Tedrow was on everyone’s speed dial. (Okay, I just remembered that they didn’t have speed dial back then—that might […]

Radio’s resident “crime buster” was inarguably director-producer-writer Philips H. Lord, who gravitated to creating crime-themed programs. Perhaps the fate met by his first success over the airwaves, a folksy drama entitled Seth Parker, pushed him in that direction. That series became the victim of a publicity stunt gone awry (involving a schooner that wound up […]

When Paramount Pictures brought the hit Broadway musical Grease to the big screen in 1978, some of the film’s casting decisions tickled the fancies of both old-time radio devotees and classic TV fans. One such decision was assigning the role of Rydell High School principal, Miss McGee, to character great Eve Arden. Arden had made […]

Turner Classic Movies occasionally schedules a 1956 film noir directed by Fritz Lang entitled While the City Sleeps. In the film, a troubled young man (John Drew Barrymore) has embarked on a killing spree (earning him the nickname “The Lipstick Killer”), and the heir to a magazine empire (Vincent Price) challenges three editors who head […]

On this date in 1909 in New York City, Maria Paoli and Pasquale DeSantis welcomed Joseph Vito Marcello DeSantis into the world. The shorter version of that name is Joe DeSantis, a man who would become one of the most celebrated character actors on stage and radio, and in movies and television. Interestingly, Joe’s first […]

Robert Bainter Bailey was born in Toledo, OH on this date in 1913. Though some would argue he never fulfilled his ambition to become a motion picture star, old-time radio fans will trump that card by insisting that Bob Bailey was king in the medium of radio, thanks to his exceptional speaking voice. Radio veteran […]

It wasn’t a drink from the legendary Fountain of Youth that kept today’s birthday celebrant seemingly young throughout his impressive show business career. A purported glandular disorder prevented Walter Campbell Tetzlaff—better known as Walter Tetley, and born in New York on this date in 1915—from undergoing normal adolescence, and thus his voice was never allowed […]