In 1950, actor-announcer Frank Graham was at the peak of his radio career.  He was the star of Jeff Regan, Investigator—a detective series heard exclusively over CBS Radio on the West Coast. The series had originally starred future Dragnet cop Jack Webb when it premiered in 1948.  It was not an easy task to follow in Webb’s footsteps, but Graham was doing okay as […]

No one could have possibly seen it coming.  On the night of April 8, 1975, as the live telecast of the 47th Academy Awards was calling it a wrap for the evening, the Best Actor Oscar was handed out to a real “dark horse” in the race.  The winner wasn’t Al Pacino—who would appear to […]

In 1949, at the height of the success of radio’s My Friend Irma, actress Cathy Lewis—who originated the character of roommate Jane Stacy on the popular sitcom—was forced to briefly hand over the role of Jane while she recuperated from illness.  Filling in for Cathy as sidekick to the lovably ditzy Irma Peterson (Marie Wilson) was Joan Banks, a […]

While attempting to make a name for himself as an actor in motion pictures, Bob Bailey did a little freelancing in radio.  Though under contract to 20th Century-Fox, he discovered that he enjoyed performing in the aural medium.  “If you know how to handle your voice in radio,” Bailey once observed of the craft, “it’s almost impossible to destroy an illusion.”  That […]

Universal Pictures brought a live-action version of the classic TV cartoon series The Flintstones to the big screen in 1994, and had the novel idea of casting Jean Vander Pyl (the actress who voiced Wilma Flintstone on the original show) in a small role. (Vander Pyl was the only surviving cast member of the Flintstones starring quartet, which also included Alan Reed, Mel Blanc, and Bea Benaderet).  Portraying […]

In May of 2017, the memoirs of character actor Jeff Corey—born Arthur Zwerling in Brooklyn on this date in 1914—were published to much critical acclaim.  Written with his daughter Emily, Improvising Out Loud: My Life Teaching Hollywood to Act concentrates a great deal on Corey’s second career as an acting teacher.  (The change of profession was necessitated by his blacklisting […]

If we were to truly recognize the birthday of author Brett Halliday, we’d have to settle in for a series of blog posts.  “Brett Halliday,” the author who brought the adventures of detective Michael Shayne to life on the printed page, was a pen name used by any number of hard-working mystery scribes, including Bill Pronzini, Robert Terrall, Ryerson Johnson, and Dennis […]

It seems odd that an actor who claimed to have emoted on over 10,000 radio broadcasts and provided voiceovers for 700 commercials doesn’t even rate an entry at Wikipedia…it’s a crime against the acting profession, not to put too fine a point on it.  Allow us to assuage your outrage by paying proper tribute to a character […]