In 1940, actor William Gargan—born in Brooklyn, NY on this date in 1905—received appreciative tribute from his peers when he was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his portrayal as a young foreman in the 1940 tearjerker They Knew What They Wanted.  Sadly, he didn’t win (he lost to The Westerner’s Walter Brennan)—but […]

Basil Rathbone was born on this date in 1892—and I’ll come clean right from the get-go: I am a tremendous fan of the actor’s work.  Basil possessed a suavity and menace that made him one of the cinema’s best villains; even when he was engaging in stovepipe-hat-and-twirly-moustache antics he had an undeniable élan and panache […]

In Leonard Maltin’s old-time radio memoir The Great American Broadcast, veteran announcer Jackson Beck recalled a most amusing anecdote involving today’s birthday celebrant.  “There was a time Rosa Rio was playing the organ,” reminisced Beck, “and Dorian St. George, who was a real prankster, was the announcer at the show.  She’s at the Hammond organ, […]

A doorbell rings at a residence in the Midwest, and the all-too-trusting couple that resides inside welcomes their visitor with an enthusiastic “Come in!”  I’ll keep you in suspense no longer: the couple is Fibber McGee & Molly (Jim and Marian Jordan), and it’s a good bet that the person on the other side of […]

In his invaluable reference book The Great Radio Soap Operas, author Jim Cox opines that Gertrude “Trudy” Warner—born in Hartford, Connecticut on this day in 1917—“may have played the leads or female leads in more dramas than any other actress.”  In fact, Jim wrote an article for Radio Recall in 2006 entitled “Soap Stars: Ethereal […]

Today’s birthday celebrant was once dubbed “the Canadian Orson Welles”…and after leaving The Great White North in 1946, Fletcher Markle—born on this date in Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1921—would not only direct and produce Welles’ The Mercury Summer Theatre (in 1946), but contribute (though uncredited) to the director’s cult film noir The Lady from Shanghai (1947).  […]

If you were to ask character actor Edward James Begley—born in Hartford, Connecticut on this date in 1901—about the highlight of his professional career, he would probably have responded that it came on the night of April 8, 1963…when he won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor (his first and only Academy Award nomination).  According […]

The legendary Fred Allen had words of high praise in his book Treadmill to Oblivion for long-time Fred Allen Show regular Minerva Pious, who was born on this date in either 1903 (according to most sources) or 1908 (according to her headstone) in Odessa, Kherson Governale (then Czarist Russia, nowadays part of Ukraine). Pious “was […]