The recurring character of Caroline Appleby, rival/nemesis of housewife Lucy Ricardo on the classic television sitcom I Love Lucy, was first introduced in the episode “The Club Election”—though the character’s first name was “Lillian” in that inaugural installment.  Actress Doris Singleton, who would play Caroline in nine additional Lucy episodes, was told by the show’s star that her character’s name was inspired by someone Ball knew from her girlhood days.  In an added bit of verisimilitude, Caroline’s husband Charlie (played by radio actor-announcer Hy Averback) worked at a TV station…just as Doris’ real-life husband, Charlie Isaacs, who was in show business as well (as a prolific radio and TV writer).

Dorothea Singleton Isaacs became good friends with Lucille Ball when the two of them appeared together on a broadcast of Ball’s radio sitcom, My Favorite Husband.  By that point in her career, Doris was using her vocal gifts to appear on many of radio’s top comedy shows, after previously dabbling in singing (as a one-time vocalist with the Art Jarrett Orchestra) and dancing (having spent three years with the New York City ballet).  Singleton worked with some of the Golden Age of Radio’s best-known comedians: Alan Young, George Burns & Gracie Allen, Bob Hope and (Bob) Sweeney & (Hal) March.  She appeared frequently on Jack Benny’s program (usually as Mary Livingstone’s maid, Pauline), and was one of several actresses to portray “Miss Duffy” on Ed Gardner’s hit sitcom, Duffy’s Tavern.  Other radio comedy shows on which Singleton appeared include December Bride (she was Ruth Henshaw, the role played by Francis Rafferty in the more successful boob tube version), Meet Millie, My Little Margie, That’s Rich and Young Love.

But, Doris Singleton also displayed her dramatic chops on occasion as well.  She was one of “Whistler’s children,” the nickname given to those performers who frequently emoted on The Whistler.  She also logged on-air time on such shows as The Adventures of Philip Marlowe, Barrie Craig, Confidential Investigator, Broadway’s My Beat, The CBS Radio Workshop, Let George Do It, The Lux Radio Theatre, Rocky Jordan, Suspense and Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar.  Even after the death knell sounded for Radio’s Golden Age, Doris did the occasional “new time radio,” appearing a few times on The Sears Radio Theater in 1979.

When television became the medium in the 1950s, Singleton adapted, adopted and improved her craft for such series as The Great Gildersleeve, The Adventures of Superman, The Bob Cummings Show, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The People’s Choice and Perry Mason, to name just a few.  She continued to be a presence on the small screen in the 1960s, most notably as sympathetic next-door neighbor Susie in the sitcom Angel, a short-lived series that aped the premise of I Love Lucy…only this time the housewife was of foreign extraction, not the husband.  Doris also made the rounds on such hit shows as The Dick Van Dyke Show, Hazel, Gunsmoke, The Fugitive, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. and Hogan’s Heroes.  Of course, she also made time for her old chum Lucy in a few episodes of The Lucy Show, and later turned up in the First Lady of Television’s follow-up, Here’s Lucy—a series on which she would have had a co-starring role had the star not decided to cast her offspring, Lucie and Desi, Jr., instead.

Doris cut back on her TV appearances in the 1970s, but did the occasional guest shot on shows like All in the Family, Marcus Welby, M.D. and Quincy, M.E.  Her last two television showcases were episodes of the successful Dynasty and the not-so-successful Just Our Luck, in 1982 and 1983, respectively.  She was asked to talk about her I Love Lucy experiences in the 2003 American Masters documentary, “Finding Lucy,” and a 2005 E! True Hollywood Story segment entitled…well, “I Love Lucy.”  With Singleton’s passing, at the age of 92, the only living recurring cast member of that iconic sitcom is Shirley Mitchell, who appeared in several episodes as Lucy’s chum Marion Strong.

One 60s TV series that I left off of Singleton’s voluminous resume earlier was My Three Sons—on which she played two different characters.  The first was Helen Morrison, the mother of Sally Ann Morrison (Meredith MacRae)—the woman who married the eldest of the Douglas sons, Mike (Tim Considine), and both left the series shortly after the start of the 1965-66 season…never to be heard from again.  Doris was pressed into service again in the 1970-71 season to play the mother (Margaret) of Polly Williams (Ronnie Troup), a girl who also nabbed herself a Douglas boy—this time eloping with youngest son Chip (Stanley Livingston).  I mentioned this only in that we must bid a sad goodbye not only to a fine radio and television actress in Doris, but also to one of those “three sons,” Don Grady…who left this world for a better one last night at the age of 68.

One of the joys that results from an immersion into the world of old-time radio involves discovering little-known or forgotten series that might have completely disappeared from the historical record had not a handful of broadcasts survived.  The upside is finding a show that’s better than its reputation (and in many case, superior to its more popular competition).  The drawback is that with so few episodes in circulation, there’s the eventual letdown once all the broadcasts have been played.

A good example of this was a Mutual mystery program that premiered on this date sixty-three years ago: Murder by Experts.  Produced and directed by the two men who also brought The Mysterious Traveler (not to mention The Sealed Book and The Strange Dr. Weird) to the airwaves, David Kogan and Robert A. Arthur, Experts featured a weekly tale of cold-blooded mayhem.  Each tale was adapted by Kogan and Arthur, and written by a novice author whose work was selected by a prominent member of the Mystery Writers of America.  Two other renowned genre scribes, John Dickson Carr (creator of famed sleuths Dr. Fell and Sir Henry Merivale) and Brett Halliday (the father of Michael Shayne) acted as hosts and narrators of the series, which had a two-year sustained run on Mutual before coming to an end on December 17, 1951.  (In the program’s final year the Master of Suspense himself, Alfred Hitchcock, acted as the program’s genial host.)

The program was produced in New York and took advantage of fine local acting talent such as Lawson Zerbe, Maurice Tarplin, Gertrude Warner, Larry Haines, Leslie Woods, and Santos Ortega.  The stories on Murder by Experts did not rely on a lot of the “gimmickry” that was present in other mystery anthologies, so the series was highly regarded.  It was even presented with The Edgar Allen Poe Award (“the Edgar”) for best mystery program (which can be heard on “Conspiracy,” an April 24, 1950 broadcast available in this Radio Spirits collection).  Sadly, only about 13-15 episodes of this neglected mystery treat have survived…but fans who have availed themselves of those broadcasts have confirmed that it is a series well worth making an acquaintance.

When “the Golden Age of Radio” came to what many acknowledge as its official end on September 30, 1962—there were only two major network dramatic offerings left standing.  One was Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar—a crime drama starring Mandel Kramer as “America’s fabulous freelance insurance investigator.”  The other was the real warhorse—billed as “radio’s outstanding theatre of thrills,” the dramatic anthology known as Suspense had been entertaining audiences for twenty years.  It premiered over CBS Radio seventy years ago on this date today.

Technically, the origins of Suspense go back a bit further—to a 1940 summer series that was also broadcast on CBS.  Forecast was a variety program that offered on-the-air auditions of potential series, with the listening audience urged to send in letters of support for those that struck their fancy.  The July 22, 1940 broadcast featured a radio adaptation of “The Lodger,” based on the 1926 film directed by Alfred Hitchcock (who was directing his first American radio broadcast).  Sir Alfred was interviewed on the program that evening—but if you listened to the show back then (or have heard it recently, since the transcription has survived) you might have said to yourself: “That doesn’t sound like Hitchcock.”  That’s because it wasn’t—it was actor Joseph Kearns, filling in for Hitch (who wouldn’t become comfortable as a host until his TV series fifteen years later).   Kearns would go on to play another pivotal role on Suspense—but more on that in a minute.

When Suspense debuted on June 17, 1942, the production of the show was overseen by William Spier—whose exacting standards and strict professionalism helped to make the program the success it ultimately became.  Spier—who would earn the nickname “the Hitchcock of the airlanes”—oversaw every aspect of the program, from story to sound effects…and he was also able to lure many of Hollywood’s big names to participate in his weekly half-hour theater.  Among the cream of the movie colony crop that made appearances on Suspense were Orson Welles, Cary Grant, Ida Lupino, Olivia DeHavilland, Frank Sinatra, Edward G. Robinson, Lana Turner and so many more.  Spier also exercised a little novelty in his casting on occasion, giving dramatic showcases to performers such as Bob Hope, Milton Berle, Lucille Ball, Judy Garland, Lena Horne and Phil Silvers.  Spier always took special care to tailor each story to the talents of each weekly guest, and they would place their complete confidence in him.

Suspense started its broadcast history as a sustained network program, but soon picked up a sponsor in Roma Wines in December of 1943.  The program’s early format was established by Spier with three simple rules:  the stories must be realistic, each tale would establish in its first few minutes a situation that placed the protagonist in a ticklish predicament, and the murderer would always be punished.  The program also used a narrator in its early years known as The Man in Black—a mysterious, omniscient observer who commented on the proceedings in a manner similar to The Whistler…except he didn’t get nearly as involved.  The Man in Black was played on occasion by Ted Osborne, but most fans know that Joseph Kearns was the one who played “Blackie” most often during the years the character was featured (1943 – 1947).

William Spier was inclined to break his own narrative rules on occasion.  He was loathe to do supernatural or science-fiction tales, but when a two-part presentation of “Donovan’s Brain” (starring Orson Welles) generated much positive buzz, he relented and allowed the program to tackle such material on occasion, with broadcasts like “The Dunwich Horror” and “The House in Cypress Canyon.”  Even the most famous of all the Suspense plays, “Sorry, Wrong Number,” violated a sacred tenet and allowed the guilty party to go free at the end.

Spier functioned as the show’s director-producer until February of 1948, when the network expanded Suspense to a full hour (and added Robert Montgomery as a weekly host) and utilized the talents of William N. Robson and Anton M. Leader.  The ballooning of Suspense did not help the show’s ratings, and it soon shrunk back to a half-hour while landing another sponsor in July of 1948: Autolite spark plugs.  Leader stayed with the program until the end of the 1948-49 season, and then handed the directorial reins to Norman Macdonnell (with Spier returning as producer), who in turn passed the baton to Elliott Lewis in August of 1950.  Lewis held the job (occasionally adopting stories based on real-life events) until Autolite relinquished its sponsorship.  Subsequent directors included the returning Macdonnell and Robson, along with Antony Ellis, Bruno Zirato, Jr., and Fred Hendrickson.

With Suspense returning to its sustained origins in 1954, the huge pool of Hollywood celebrity talent evaporated.  With only the occasional big name appearance, the program found itself relying on tried-and-true radio actors like William Conrad, Lawrence Dobkin, Georgia Ellis, Harry Bartell, John Dehner…and even the ubiquitous Joseph Kearns.  The budget for the series seemed to shrink with each passing year; often Suspense would have to recycle scripts previously used on its “sister” series, Escape.  Suspense moved its production from Hollywood to New York in late August of 1959, with multiple sponsors paying the bills.  CBS decided to put Suspense out to pasture in November of 1960.  There was still some life in the old filly, however, because it returned to the network on June 25, 1961 (replacing the cancelled Gunsmoke) and stayed around long enough to usher out the end of radio.

At the peak of its popularity, Suspense was one of radio’s most highly-regarded dramatic shows, winning a Peabody Award (in 1947) and earning the praise of Cary Grant, who once remarked: “If I ever do any more radio work, I want to do it on Suspense, where I get a good chance to act.”  New generations of OTR listeners are indeed fortunate that approximately 900 of the show’s 945 broadcasts survived the ravages of time and neglect, and many of them are available on CD from Radio Spirits…including this latest collection, Suspense: Around the World, which contains such classics as “The Most Dangerous Game” and “The Black Path of Fear.”  (Newcomers to the show might also want to check out Suspense: Classics and Suspense: Tales Well Calculated.)

It was her recurring role in M-G-M’s series of Andy Hardy films that firmly cemented Ann Rutherford’s onscreen “girl next door” persona.  In many of the movies, typical teenager Andy Hardy (played by Mickey Rooney) would find himself tempted by a young lovely (portrayed by such starlets as Judy Garland, Lana Turner and Esther Williams) only to return chastened to his reliable girlfriend, Polly Benedict (Rutherford).  Ann’s popularity in the Hardy series was such that some have speculated that much of that audience attended screenings of  Gone With the Wind to see Rutherford emote as Carreen O’Hara, Scarlett’s younger sister.  She was indeed fortunate to land the part.  Her M-G-M boss, Louis B. Mayer, didn’t want to lend her out…but Ann worked up a few tears (she was a fan of the book) and Mayer relented.  Until her passing on Monday night (June 10) at the age of 94, Ann Rutherford was one of the few surviving cast members of the film that many consider to be the greatest of all time.

Rutherford seemed destined for a career in show business.  Born in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1917, Ann’s father John was a former tenor for the New York Metropolitan Opera, and her mother Lillian (Mansfield) had been a silent film actress.  The Rutherfords moved to California when Ann was nine, and her first foray into the business came when she phonied up an acting resume and submitted it to station KFAC for a job.  A month later, she landed a part in a radio dramatic serial broadcast by the station.

The star struck Ann landed her first motion picture role in 1935 in Waterfront Lady, a B-movie cranked out by Mascot Pictures, which would soon morph into Republic.  She went on to be cast as the leading lady in that studio’s B-westerns starring John Wayne (The Lawless Nineties, The Lonely Trail) and Gene Autry (Comin’ ‘Round the Mountain, Public Cowboy No. 1).  She was hired by M-G-M in 1937 and soon started appearing in the Andy Hardy films (the role of Polly Benedict in the first film, A Family Affair, was played by Margaret Marquis).  She was also cast in Of Human Hearts, Dramatic School, A Christmas Carol, Four Girls in White and Pride and Prejudice.  She even played leading lady to “M-G-M’s star clown,” Red Skelton, in his trilogy of “Whistling” films from 1941-43; she was Carol Lambert, girlfriend of Wally Benton—the radio actor known to one and all as “The Fox.”

As an M-G-M starlet, Ann made several appearances on the studio’s official radio program, Good News (of 1939)—but her early radio experience also permitted her to take on a regular job as Connie Monahan, the girlfriend of Eddie Bracken on his self-titled situation comedy that was heard from 1945-47.  She also replaced the movie Blondie, Penny Singleton, on the radio sitcom of the same name for a brief period beginning in the fall of 1949.  Other radio programs that Rutherford guested on include the AFRS series Mail Call and G.I. Journal, and the homefront’s The Radio Reader’s Digest, Cavalcade of America and The Theatre Guild On the Air.

Rutherford left M-G-M in 1943 and decided to freelance, winning roles in productions like The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and The Adventures of Don Juan.  But, when the movie roles started to become sparse, she retired from films in 1950 and turned to television, appearing in guest spots on the likes of Tales of Wells Fargo, Perry Mason and The Donna Reed Show.  Ann revisited the lot where the Andy Hardy films were shot in 1972 with a small role in M-G-M’s They Only Kill Their Masters…and with the exception of a couple of appearances on The Bob Newhart Show (as Bob Hartley’s mother-in-law) and the all-star 1976 film flop Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood, Rutherford decided enough was enough.  (She was asked to play the part of Titanic’s elderly Rose but turned it down—giving Gloria Stuart both one heck of a break and an Oscar nomination.)

Ann Rutherford lived out the rest of her life as a wife and mother, but she loved answering her fan mail and attending Gone With the Wind tributes both as a surviving cast member and unofficial spokeswoman for the magical movie factory known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.  She had her time in the spotlight and saw no need to prolong it, once saying: “Oh, I suppose, if you were a Helen Hayes, it might mean something if you left the business.  You’d be depriving the show world of something.  I’m depriving that world of nothing.”  She’ll never know how wrong she was.

Bucolic was the watchword for many TV sitcoms during the 1960s: a trend that had actually started earlier (back in 1957) with The Real McCoys, but was in full swing at the start of the decade with the popular Andy Griffith Show.  Then in 1962, Paul Henning, a former writer for George Burns & Gracie Allen’s radio program, saw his critically-lambasted creation The Beverly Hillbillies shoot to the top of the Nielsen ratings, and in the fall of 1963, CBS guaranteed Henning a half-hour of TV to fill with whatever he desired.  He created a series called Petticoat Junction (based on the reminiscences of his wife Ruth’s family); about a rural hotel situated along a railroad spur that catered to traveling businessmen.  Set in a mythical town un-ironically called “Hooterville,” Junction would inspire a third sitcom in the fall of 1965 entitled Green Acres—though the roots of that show also sprung from a short-lived radio sitcom called Granby’s Green Acres, created by another veteran radio scribe, Jay Sommers.

Actor Frank Cady, who passed away on June 11 at the age of 96, was fortunate enough to appear on all three of these recurring series as genial storekeeper Sam Drucker.  He guested on The Beverly Hillbillies in ten episodes (owing to the fact that the series was set far away from the mythical Hooterville), but he was on the other two series practically every week, a rarity in the world of TV.  On Petticoat Junction, he served primarily as straight man and foil to one of the show’s main characters, the scheming “Uncle” Joe Carlson (Edgar Buchanan)…and on Green Acres, he was given the opportunity to be humorously eccentric whenever he interacted with that sitcom’s protagonist, Oliver Wendell Douglas (Eddie Albert)—a New York lawyer yearning to make a new life for himself and his wife (Eva Gabor) in the country…and finding himself trapped in a small town populated with lunatics.

Despite the countrified nature of his famous television character, Cady was actually a native Californian, born in Susanville in 1915.  His aspirations to perform stretched back to his days in elementary school, and while attending Stanford University he majored in journalism and drama.  After graduating from college, he served an apprenticeship at London’s Westminster Theater, appearing in four plays and making an appearance on BBC Television in 1938.  After returning to Stanford to pursue graduate work, and embarking on a teaching career that left him dissatisfied, Frank decided to try his luck in radio.  He worked as an announcer/news broadcaster at Stockton’s California’s KGDM shortly before World War II, put his career on hold to join the Army Air Force, and returned to his broadcasting aspirations at war’s end.

By this time, Cady was also appearing in local plays, which led to his being cast in a series of minor film roles.  In the classic 1948 noir He Walked by Night, he played a seedy individual pulled in for questioning regarding a cop killing.  Cady’s work in films often went unbilled, but he definitely made an impression.  In D.O.A., he played the bartender, while in The Asphalt Jungle he was a night clerk.  He was Mr. Ferderber, one of the first of the curiosity seekers in Billy Wilder’s Ace in the Hole, and he even appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window (as the male half of the couple who lowers their dog down from their upstairs apartment in a basket).  Other films to feature Cady include Father of the Bride, When Worlds Collide, The Atomic City, The Sellout, The Indian Fighter, and The Bad Seed.

During this period of activity on the silver screen, Cady never really abandoned his radio roots: he appeared often in guest parts on such shows as Gunsmoke, Fort Laramie and Have Gun – Will Travel.  Frank eventually started to phase out his film efforts to concentrate on TV work.  Landing a recurring role as Doc Williams on the television version of radio’s The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet did a lot to push him in that direction, but he also made time for guest appearances on dramatic series like 77 Sunset Strip, Sugarfoot, The Deputy, Perry Mason and The Untouchables.  (He even appeared in an installment of the TV Gunsmoke, an episode featuring OTR stalwart Jeanette Nolan as “Aunt Thede.”)

It was his dual gigs on Petticoat Junction and Green Acres that kept Cady busy throughout the 60s (with, of course, the occasional stint on Beverly Hillbillies).  Junction left CBS’ schedule in 1970 (Cady was one of only three cast members—the other two being Edgar Buchanan and Linda Kaye Henning—to stay with the show from beginning to end) and Green Acres followed a year later.  There would be the occasional guest shot on shows such as Hawaii Five-O and Eight is Enough—and Cady also signed up for the Green Acres reunion movie in 1990, Return to Green Acres—but the character actor was mostly content to rest on his laurels, retiring in 1991 to enjoy golf and hiking.  He also traveled extensively with his wife Shirley (whom he met during his days at Stanford) until her death in 2008.

In an interview with The Portland Oregonian (Cady and his wife moved to Oregon in 1991), the actor reflected back on his career: “You get typecast.  I’m remembered for those shows and not for some pretty good acting jobs I did other times.  I suppose I ought to be grateful for that, because otherwise I wouldn’t be remembered at all.  I’ve got to be one of the luckiest guys in the world.”  In the never aging world of television reruns, Frank Cady is definitely remembered…but he will be sorely missed outside of Hooterville.

The actor born ninety-eight years ago on this date in New York City had one of the most easily recognizable voices of all his radio brethren and sistern.  But were it not for a surprise bout of illness, Gerald Mohr would have become “Dr. Gerald Mohr”—he was a Columbia University medical student who found himself felled by an attack of appendicitis. Mohr was recuperating when one of his fellow patients, who was in the radio business, liked Gerald’s pleasing baritone voice and suggested he would be ideal for radio.  Mohr got in on the ground floor at that station as a reporter, and in the mid-1930s Orson Welles took him under his tutelage and hired him for his prestigious Mercury Theatre.  There, Mohr would appear in such plays as The Petrified Forest and Jean Christophe  (in which he had the starring role).

Mohr’s voice was his ticket to success in Hollywood.  One of his earliest gigs in the movie industry was using his sepulchral tones to voice the villainous Scorpion in the 1941 serial The Adventures of Captain Marvel; he later got the opportunity to be the bad guy in the flesh when he played “Slick Latimer” in the fifteen-chapter cliffhanger Jungle Girl.  When Warren William gave up his starring role in Columbia’s The Lone Wolf film series, Mohr stepped in to play Michael Lanyard in three of that series’ films (he also played the part briefly in a radio series as well).  Other films in which Gerald appeared include Lady of Burlesque, Gilda, Two Guys from Texas, Hunt the Man Down, Sirocco, Detective Story, The Sniper, The Ring, and Money from Home.  (His last onscreen appearance was as “Tom Branca” in Funny Girl.)

But radio is the medium in which Mohr definitely made his mark—it is estimated that he logged in nearly 4,000 on-the-air performances.  Gerald was the announcer on the 1930s radio serial The Shadow of Fu Manchu, and also played Jungle Jim in a radio serial, not to mention Bill Lance (The Adventures of Bill Lance), Sorrowful Jones (The Damon Runyon Theater) and Archie Goodwin (The New Adventures of Nero Wolfe).  Other radio appearances include The Adventures of Superman, Dr. Christian, Escape, Let George Do It, Mandrake the Magician, Night Beat, Rogue’s Gallery, Suspense, Tales of the Texas Rangers, and The Whistler…as well as most of the major dramatic anthologies: Cavalcade of America, Hallmark Playhouse, The Lux Radio Theatre, and Screen Director’s Playhouse.  Mohr also displayed versatility as a comic performer with appearances on The Adventures of Maisie, Burns and Allen, The Eddie Cantor Show (as Cantor’s kidnapper, “Baby Face”), The Judy Canova Show (as muscle-bound movie star Humphrey Cooper), My Favorite Husband, Our Miss Brooks (one of my personal favorites—he was Jacques Monet, Madison’s French teacher) and The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show.

Gerald Mohr’s signature role came in the fall of 1948, when CBS decided to have another go at getting Raymond Chandler’s famed literary sleuth Philip Marlowe on the air (a previous attempt by NBC in the summer of 1947 with Van Heflin had not been successful).  Chandler was on the record as not being thrilled with either performer on The Adventures of Philip Marlowe, but confided to his friend Erle Stanley Gardner that Mohr’s interpretation “at least packed personality.”  But for many old-time radio buffs, Mohr was the definitive Marlowe; most convincing when he barked out each week on the program’s memorable opening: “Get this and get it straight: crime is a sucker’s road, and those who travel it wind up in the gutter, the prison, or the grave…”  Mohr played the part until September of 1951, and surviving recordings of the program are huge favorites among OTR fans today.

Gerald Mohr would later go on to make guest appearances on close to 100 television shows; Warner Brothers’ television division used him quite frequently on such productions as Cheyenne, Maverick (he played Doc Holliday on a couple of occasions), Sugarfoot, 77 Sunset Strip and Hawaiian Eye; he also guested on the likes of Perry Mason, I Love Lucy, The Big Valley and Lost in Space…and he even fronted his own starring series in 1954-55 with the syndicated Foreign Intrigue.  He was working on a pilot for another series in 1968 when he suffered a heart attack after completing filming…and though he left this world for a better one at a far-too-early age, he has also left us with a Golden Age of Radio legacy that any actor would kill to have on his resume.

The name “Mary Lansing” isn’t going to be instantly familiar to many people, but the actress who was born on this date back in 1911 has a voice that might be recognizable to Walt Disney fans.  For the 1942 animated feature Bambi, Lansing provided the voice for the “Aunt Ena” and “Mrs. Possum” characters; the Louisiana native was just eighteen when she got her first taste of show business, with walk-on parts in such films as Happy Days (1929), Just Imagine (1930) and The Trial of Vivienne Ware (1932).

Mary’s show business career would blossom a bit more in the aural medium, however.  She began in radio back in the early 1930s; it was on a program called The Georgia Fifield Players that she met another radio actor who became her husband in 1933: Frank Nelson.  Nelson, of course, was one of the stock company players on radio and TV’s The Jack Benny Program, on which Lansing appeared on occasion (having an “in,” so to speak).  The Nelsons also worked together on a situation comedy that was heard over CBS (a three-day-a-week quarter hour for California Fruit) between 1942 and 1943 entitled Today at the Duncans, which cast them as a husband and wife experiencing many of the same troubles as most wartime families.  (Lansing and Nelson divorced in 1970; he would marry his fellow Benny co-worker Veola Vonn, to whom he stayed married until his death in 1986.)

But Mary demonstrated that she didn’t necessarily need to be “Mrs. Frank Nelson” to get a foot in radio’s door; she succeeded on her own merits, appearing on such prestigious dramatic anthologies as The Lux Radio Theatre, Hallmark Playhouse, The First Nighter Program, Family Theatre and The Mercury Summer Theater (with Orson Welles!).  She demonstrated a knack for comedy as well, emoting on such radio sitcoms as The Life of Riley, Amos ‘n’ Andy, My Little Margie, Fibber McGee & Molly, and the Shirley Temple version (in 1942) of Junior Miss, on which Lansing played her mother, Grace.  Mary was also one of those hard-working radio thespians who did whatever it took to get the groceries, including much “soap opera” work on series like One Man’s Family, The Guiding Light and The Private Practice of Dr. Dana.

A lot of the programs listed above have not survived the ravages of time and neglect, but fortunately some of Lansing’s radio performances have been preserved for future generations of listeners.  She was a member of the repertory company nicknamed “Whistler’s Children” (the appellation given to those actors and actresses who frequently appeared on The Whistler), and she can also be heard in surviving broadcasts of series like Gunsmoke, Suspense, Escape, Broadway’s My Beat and Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar.  Her experience in radio allowed her to transition with ease into TV roles; she guested on such series as The Real McCoys, Dr. Kildare, The Patty Duke Show, Bewitched and Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.  Lansing’s best-remembered boob tube gig was a semi-regular role as Martha Clark, wife of fix-it shop owner Emmett (played by Paul Hartman) on The Andy Griffith Show.  Mary played Martha on that series three times (and was in a dozen other episodes as different characters, including three as “Mrs. Rodenbach”) and then transitioned to the Griffith Show spin-off Mayberry R.F.D., where she reprised her role in nine additional episodes.  By 1974, Lansing had retired from the TV biz but she had plenty of other interests to occupy her time.  She moonlighted as an architectural designer (developing her own home in Studio City, known as “The Fryman Ranch”) and continued to be active in live theatre as founder and producer of The Hollywood Show Place Theatre.

There were any number of familiar radio folks celebrating birthdays today, but there’s a reason why I’m doffing my cap to Mary Lansing.  Every week at my home base of Thrilling Days of Yesteryear, you can follow along with the misadventures of America’s favorite hometown on Mayberry Mondays, a popular feature (though the explanation for it being so is still murky) on the nostalgia blog.  Lansing’s Martha Clark was pivotal in a recent outing entitled “Emmett and the Ring,” and I’d love to welcome any fans to the weekly craziness.

The small town of Tyrone, Pennsylvania added Fredrick Malcolm Waring to its population 103 years ago on this date—of course, Fredrick would shorten his name to the friendlier “Fred,” and during his teenage years he formed a band (with his brother Tom and friend Poley McClintock) which soon achieved local renown as Fred Waring’s Banjo Orchestra.  The musical aggregation played at fraternity parties and dances during Fred’s days at Penn State University…and though it was a dream of the musician to become a member of the school’s prestigious Glee Club, he was rejected at every turn by the organization’s advisor.  Undaunted, Waring took the band on the road as the group for which he is best remembered, Fred Waring and His Pennsylvanians—who were soon doing so well in the entertainment business that Fred decided he really didn’t need all that high-falutin’ education.

The concept of the glee club, however, was something that Waring never abandoned.  As his aggregation grew and grew, he began to add more instruments to the band…which, by this time, had started recording for RCA Victor and scoring million-selling records like “Sleep” (which would become one of Waring’s theme songs, often used to close his later radio broadcasts) and “Collegiate.”  Fred Waring and His Pennsylvanians had grown to a fifty-instrument orchestra by 1929.  Then, in 1930, when the band was booked alongside the famous Hall Johnson Choir, Fred fell in love with their choral harmony sound.  One night, Fred was pressed into service to lead the choir when Johnson himself fell ill…and from that moment on, he might as well have started writing love letters.  Waring’s mission was clear: he wanted desperately to duplicate those marvelous harmonies.

Fred and the band had appeared on radio as far back as 1923, but the maestro turned down nearly two dozen offers for a regular radio gig because sponsors just weren’t all that keen on his “glee club” idea.  His first regular network series was for CBS in 1933, sponsored by Old Gold Cigarettes, and that only lasted a season because the sponsor threw up his hands in resignation when Waring refused to abandon his unique blend of instrumentation and choral arrangements.  By 1939…things were a bit different.  Waring, now broadcasting five-days-a-week for a quarter-hour on NBC for Chesterfield, had built his orchestra to 81-pieces along with his “glee club” (supervised by Robert Shaw, who would go on to become one of the country’s preeminent choral directors) and was one of the most popular entertainers on the air.  His opening theme song, “I Hear Music,” became familiar to millions of listeners, who dubbed him “America’s Singing Master.”

Fred Waring’s sound had the same popular appeal as New Year’s Eve perennial Guy Lombardo (and His Royal Canadians), and he continued on in radio throughout the 1940s, even hosting a series that served as the summer replacement for Fibber McGee & Molly from 1946 to 1948.  His most important radio presentation went on the air on June 4, 1945 when NBC hired him to do a daytime series that would be of the same quality as their prime-time programs.  Waring’s orchestra cost $18,000 a week alone, and it is believed to have been the most expensive daytime experiment on the air at that particular time.

By 1949, Fred Waring had answered the siren song of that newfangled medium known as television…and though he continued to appear periodically on radio, his important TV achievement was The Fred Waring Show, telecast on CBS from 1949 to 1954.  Waring never slowed his pace when it came to performing and touring with his Pennsylvanians (he often logged some 40,000 miles a year) and by all accounts, was an affable individual outside the workplace…and a dedicated taskmaster once he punched the time clock.  His blending of choral harmonies and orchestral arrangements was indeed one of a kind…and “blending” is certainly the right choice of wording here, because although his music may not be remembered by some today—everyone’s familiar with the Waring Blendor (invented by a friend of Waring’s, Frederick Jacob Osius, who talked Fred into backing his patent in the 1930s).  No, that’s not a typo (and it’s not a Peabody and Sherman pun—trust me)—they changed the spelling of “blender” to give it that special distinction.