With the celebration of her ninety-fourth birthday today, actress Shirley Mitchell is the last surviving recurring cast member of I Love Lucy.  Couch potatoes remember Shirley as Lucy Ricardo’s pal Marion Strong, the women’s club colleague whose distinctive laugh prompted Lucy (in the episode “Lucy Tells the Truth”) to offer up the verbal smackdown: “Stop […]

Today’s birthday celebrant—born in Providence, Rhode Island one hundred and eighteen years ago today—may not possess the cachet of other character actors from Radio’s Golden Age, as his resume didn’t extend beyond a handful of feature films and television shows.  But, Herbert Butterfield had a distinctive voice that is easily recognized by old-time radio fans; […]

Sixty-nine years ago on this date, Mutual-Don Lee West Coast listeners got their first taste of Brett Halliday’s sleuthing creation in a half-hour detective series appropriately titled Michael Shayne, Private Detective.  The program was durable enough to last until 1953, though it would go by a variety of names (The New Adventures of Michael Shayne, […]

John William Cahn, Jr. was born on this date ninety-three years ago today in Lexington, Kentucky.  He’s better known by his stage name, William Conrad.  He remains a favorite among old-time radio fans for his incredible voice, a commanding rumble which would no doubt rattle the roof of any studio he happened to be in […]

The actress fondly remembered by classic television and old-time radio fans for portraying the female half of the sleuthing couple known as Mr. and Mrs. North was born ninety-four years ago on this date in Long Beach, California.  Actress Barbara Britton went by Barbara Maureen Brantingham in the early days, attending Polytechnic High School and […]

Thomas Charles Sanders was born on this date in 1904 to English parents in St. Petersburg, Russia.  Old-time radio fans, of course, know him as Tom Conway, and know that he played two famous detectives on the airwaves.  He was Arthur Conan Doyle’s titular sleuth in The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes from 1946 to […]

Arnleifur Lawrence Thorsteinson was born ninety-seven years ago on this date…in an Icelandic village in Lundar, Manitoba, Canada.  Fortunately for the radio stations and national networks that would eventually hire him as an announcer and actor, he decided to shorten that handle to “Larry Thor.”  Old-time radio fans know his rich, resonant tones well; married […]

Whether you know him as Teddy Bergman (his birth name) or Alan Reed—an identity he adopted to separate his comedic roles from the dramatic ones (as well as downplay his Jewish heritage)—you certainly know his voice as the head of television’s first prime-time animated sitcom: Fred Flintstone of The Flintstones.  The career of this remarkable […]