Posted on October 10, 2020, 8:00 am, by Ivan G. Shreve, Jr., under
Birthday,
Classic movies,
Classic television,
Radio adventure,
Radio comedy,
Radio crime,
Radio drama,
Radio mystery,
Radio western.
The 1968 feature film comedy With Six You Get Eggroll served as actress-singer Doris Day’s cinematic swan song. Dodo would turn her attention to television after Eggroll’s release, with a successful sitcom that aired over CBS-TV from 1968 to 1973. Not many people are aware, however, that Eggroll’s plot—two widowed individuals with children from their […]
Posted on August 22, 2020, 8:00 am, by Ivan G. Shreve, Jr., under
Birthday,
Classic movies,
Classic television,
Radio adventure,
Radio comedy,
Radio crime,
Radio drama,
Radio horror,
Radio mystery,
Radio sci-fi,
Radio western.
Radio actors learned practically from their introduction to the medium that their fortunes were set if their talents included a mastery of dialects. Take Jay Novello, who was born in Chicago on this date in 1904. Because he was the child of Italian immigrants, Novello was already fluent in that tongue before he took up English […]
Posted on August 21, 2020, 8:00 am, by Ivan G. Shreve, Jr., under
Birthday,
Classic television,
Radio comedy,
Radio drama,
Radio sci-fi,
Radio western.
When Vic and Sade writer-creator Paul Rhymer decided to add a third character to his program in July of 1932, he had only one phone call to make. You see, that third addition was going to be for “Rush Meadows”—the son of one of Sadie’s old school friends who gave Rush up for adoption to the Gooks since she was unable to […]
Posted on July 27, 2020, 8:00 am, by Ivan G. Shreve, Jr., under
Birthday,
Classic movies,
Classic television,
Radio comedy,
Radio crime,
Radio drama,
Radio mystery,
Radio variety,
Radio western.
You’re familiar with the old cliché: a young girl leaves her hometown and heads for Hollywood, determined to become an actress…nay, not just an actress—a star! All that needs to be done is to hang around a drugstore’s soda fountain drinking chocolate malteds until some talent scout wanders in, notices our future star at the counter, and […]
Posted on June 18, 2020, 8:00 am, by Ivan G. Shreve, Jr., under
Birthday,
Classic movies,
Radio comedy,
Radio crime,
Radio drama,
Radio variety,
Radio western.
In the Golden Age of Radio, actors were often called upon to play “meek” individuals—or whatever nickname you prefer: wimp, nebbish, milquetoast, etc. The gold standard for these portrayals might be Bill Thompson, who even utilized “wimp” in the name of his famous creation “Wallace Wimple.” But the go-to thespian continually called upon to play any number […]
Posted on June 4, 2020, 8:00 am, by Ivan G. Shreve, Jr., under
Birthday,
Classic movies,
Classic television,
Radio adventure,
Radio crime,
Radio drama,
Radio western.
The actor born Donald Alan Diamond in Brooklyn, NY on this date in 1921 was in real life a rather nondescript individual…but that is precisely the quality you want when you’ve decided you want to be a character actor. Diamond’s knack for dialects—Spanish ones in particular—kept him busy in radio during the 1940s, and with the […]
Posted on April 20, 2020, 8:00 am, by Ivan G. Shreve, Jr., under
Birthday,
Classic movies,
Classic television,
Radio adventure,
Radio comedy,
Radio crime,
Radio drama,
Radio horror,
Radio mystery,
Radio variety,
Radio western.
George Allen took over as director of the West Coast radio mystery anthology The Whistler beginning in the mid-40s, and one of the hallmarks of his tenure with the program was building a stock company that was facetiously referred to as “Whistler’s children.” He tailored the casting of many of radio’s finest performers to the needs of […]
Posted on February 15, 2020, 8:00 am, by Ivan G. Shreve, Jr., under
Birthday,
Radio comedy,
Radio crime,
Radio drama,
Radio variety,
Radio western.
Actress Mary Lee Robb’s first professional radio job in 1947 was a small one. She was hired to play Pearl, the daughter of Abner Peabody (Norris “Tuffy” Goff) on the long-running comedy serial Lum ‘n’ Abner. In a 1988 interview with author-historian Chuck Schaden (Speaking of Radio), Robb still remembered the two lines she had as […]