Golden Age of Radio

Guy Lombardo: Star of "Guy Lombardo Time"

2026-03-01T09:00:00.002-06:00

Star Lines

Guy Lombardo

Star of CBS'
"Guy Lombardo Time"

BORN in London Ontario Canada, June 19, 1902. He attended St. Peter’s School in Ontario 1909.20. While in school, he organized a four-piece band consisting of himself, his brothers Carmen and Lebert, and Fred Kreitzer, all of whom are still with his Royal Canadians orchestra today.

ORIGINAL LOMBARDO GROUP played at church socials and similar affairs, eventually expanded to nine musicians and thereafter gained fame throughout Canada.

IN 1923, American booking agent Mike Shea engaged the Royal Canadians to play at an Elks’ convention in Cleveland. Lombardo gave notice to the Toronto hotel where he had been playing steadily and stayed in the U.S.A.

FOLLOWING YEAR, after several hotel engagements, Lombardo persuaded Cleveland’s radio station WTAM to give him air time. At his own expense he took his crew to the studio in city’s outskirts to broadcast every night.

AS THE NETWORKS came into being Lombardo’s “sweetest music this side if heaven” won national popularity. By 1929, the Canadian maestro was one of the top band men in the country.

IN THAT YEAR, the New York Hotel Roosevelt first booked him, and then called him back year after year. He returns again this coming season for his 21^st year

YEAR AFTER YEAR, despite the emergence of new bands, Lombardo’s orchestra has been voted tops in pools by the nation’s radio and music cities. He attributes his continued popularity to the fact that he plays his songs in the dance rhythms the public wants. He has introduced more than 275 songs that became favorites.

PERSONAL NOTES: Maried to the former Lilliebell Glenn, whom he met in his carly Cleveland days.

Principal bobby is speedboat racing, in which he won the Detroit Gold Cup in 1946. He belongs to the Columbia Yacht Club in New York and makes his home at Free-port, Long Island.

FIBBER McGEE AND MOLLY JOIN “PARADE OF STARS”

2026-02-15T09:00:00.000-06:00

FIBBER McGEE AND MOLLY JOIN “PARADE OF STARS”

ADD OF GREATEST ARRAY OF TOP RADIO ENTERTAINMENT EVER HEARD IN SOUTH FLORIDA; OPEN TUESDAY

Mrs. Uppington, Wally Wimple, Harlow Wilcox, Included In Cast

The WIOD-NBC “Parade of Stars” is just about complete—FibberMcGee and Molly are back!

The famed comedy team, long at the top of any list of America’s favorite entertainers, have returned to Wistful Vista for another season of homey, hilarious fun.

STARS RETURN—Fibber McGee and Molly open another great radio season Tuesday night in their old familiar spot at 9:30 p. m. preceding the Bob Hope program.

They’ll be heard every Tuesday night in their familiar spot at 9:30 p. m. beginning this week. With them will be their program “regulars.” Including Mrs. Abigail Uppington, Mayor LaTrivia, Wallace Wimple, Old Timer, and Nick De Populous.

Announcer Harlow Wilcox resumes his duties in the show for the sponsor, while Billy Mills and his orchestra and the King’s Men quartet operate the musical department of the show.

This is Fibber and Molly’s eighth season on the air. Seven years ago they made their first broadcast in New York but it wasn’t too good, according to the man who should know, Don Quinn, the McGees’ script writer.

“At the end of the first year” confesses Quinn, “it was just a punk show. The characters were too broad. The continuity wasn’t good. In fact the whole thing was bad radio. All three of us—Jim, Marian (Fibber and Molly), and I—were ready to give up.”

But they streamlined the program and it began to pay off. Fibber changed from a preposterous liar to the neighborhood blowhard. Mrs. Uppington lost her comic-strip manner and became simply the society leader of Wistful Vista. Molly became more sympathetic and lovable. And that’s where the show stands today.

Every poll of radio listening shows Fibber and Molly among the top five.

Since the program started, in 1935, the various character parts have been taken by Bill Thompson who does Horatio K. Boomer, Nick, Old Timer, and Wimple—as well as others they are called for. As versatile as they come, Bill has played more than twenty-eight foreign character parts as well as various American accents.

Mayor LaTrivia is played by Gale Gordon. Mrs. Uppington by Isabel Randolph, and the little girl who regularly plagues Fibber is done by Molly McGee herself.

BALL AND CHAIN—The marital tribulations of Wallace Wimple are oft recounted on the Fibber McGee and Molly show. Part is taken by Bill Thompson who also does several other characters on the program.

THE MILKWAUKEE JOURNAL—SCREEN and RADIO

2026-01-30T09:00:00.000-06:00

THE MILKWAUKEE JOURNAL—SCREEN and RADIO

Sunday, December 30, 1945

The McGees Are Just Folks

By Carlton Cheney

ON A RECENT trip to New York, Jim Jordan, better known as Fibber McGee, of Fibber and Molly, was standing in the main corridor of the NBC studios when a little crowd of sightseers approached. Led by a uniformed guide, they nore down on Jordan, elbowed him out of the way and continued their hunt for glimpses of stars.

That no one paid him the least attention did not surprise Fibber’s other self. Even after some eight years of life in Hollywood, where stars rarely pass unrecognized, Jim and Marion Jordan, though tops among radio teams, can usually walk down a crowded Vine st. without being mobbed by autograph hunters.

The fact that they remain relatively inconspicuous once they get away from the microphones does not disturb or displease the Jordans. Plain folk from country and small town, the one the son of a farmer, the other the daughter of a coal miner, they make no pretense of radiating glamor and will probably never get used to the idea that they are, in any sense, celebrities. In a Hollywood much given to exhibitionism and the keenest of rivalry for public attention, they seem strangely out of place.

They Don’t Go for Hollywood’s Glitter

In truth, Fibber and Molly are rarely so comfortable as when they get away from Hollywood’s bright lights, tinsel glitter and psuedo-sophistication and retrent to the rustic simplicity of their little two and one-half acre ranch in the San Fernando valley, or better still, to the remoteness of their cattle ranch not far from Bakersfield in the San Joaquin. There they feel they are surrounded by their kind of people, by neighbors who speak their language.

“I like Bakersfield,” remarked Jim recently “That’s my kind of town You walk down the street, and people stop to ask about your cattle or inquire how the work is going on the new well. Everyone’s so friendly and neighborly.”

In their little one story, four room dwelling on the cattle ranch, the Jordans spent most of the weeks they were off the sir in summer.

“At our place in the San Fernando,” said Marion, “we have eight rooms. With help so hard to get nowadays, when we’re there I’ve had to do most of the housework myself. Up on the cattle ranch, I can take care of those four rooms in a breeze.”

As to the cattle ranch, Marion would have it known that it is no mere hobby. On the sprending acres they raise fine black I’ole Angus stock and are currently enlarging the herd from 200 to 250 head.

“Jim is very much at home up there,” she said. “You know, he was raised on a farm. But don’t get the idea that he likes to get out and pitch hay. Some of the other ranchers go in for raising their own feed, but we don’t. Jim says he pitchforked enough hay and carried enough water to the farm hands as a boy to last him the rest of his life. He’s interested now in managing things, being the businessman. And he’s a good businessman too.”

Besides the cattle project, the Jordans operate a nursery on 12 San Fernando valley acres, where they specialize in the raising of Cinerarias. Their entry of these flowers in the Pasadena flower show last spring won first prize. From the seed of this stock they expect to raise 3,000 flats of Cineraria plants.

These agricultural and horticultural activities, however, are side lines. Prime interest of both the Jordans is their weekly air show on NBC. Having reached the peak as a radio team after many years of discouragement and many battles with adversity, they seem to feel a deep responsibility to their job. Each of the Jordans leans heavily upon each other’s judgment.

Both Jordans derived great satisfaction from their recent trip to Toronto. Ont. and New York. They had not been in New York since their first broadcast as Fibber McGee and Molly 10 years ago when Jim overhead one of the NBC pages remark to some of his co-workers the day after that broadcast.

“Did you listen to that new show last night?” inquired the young man, not recognizing Jordan standing near by. “Boy, is that a stinker! Bet it won’t last long”

The Jordans, Fibber McGee and Molly, reading a script for their Tuesday night show (8:30 p. m., WTMJ-NBC)

SAY HELLO TO . . .

2026-01-15T09:00:00.000-06:00

SAY HELLO TO . . .

BEN ALEXANDER –the announcer on tonight’s Chase and Sanborn program on NBC. This expert master of ceremonies is the same Ben Alexander who was a child actor when the movies were young. He’s 29 now, and still appears in pictures occasionally, but devotes most of his time to radio. You’ll hear him on his own program, Little Ol’ Hollywood, at 9:30 tomorrow night over NBC-Blue.

Introducing JOAN ALEXANDER

2025-12-30T09:00:00.000-06:00

Introducing JOAN ALEXANDER

Equal to any role -versatile is the word for Joan

JOAN ALEXANDER, lovely, brown-haired with deep, brown eyes, is all things to plays. She’s the versatile actress who plays Lynn Alexander, the proprietor of a music school in Lewiston on the Lone Journey, and has portrayed Lois Lane, the girl friend of Superman, for years.

To meet her, Joan is poised, alert, interested in the world and what goes on in it.

That she has this cosmopolitan air is not surprising. In her young life she has been to a lot of far flung places in the world. When Joan was eight years old, her father, who owned a linen factory in Madeira, took her on her first trip to Europe.

By the time Joan was through with a part of her schooling, she had made up her mind to become an actress. She studied with the fabulous European actor, director and coach, Benno Schneider. And, as part of her training, she toured the leading cities of Europe, North Africa and Latin America.

In 1938, Joan was in Vienna when Hitler’s troops marched into that city. That was when she decided to return to America. She had already had a good view of Yugoslavia, England, France and, as she puts it, “I even got to Casablanca before President Roosevelt and Humphrey Bogart put it on the map.”

It wasn’t long before she began to get some attention—and what’s better—jobs here at home. She played in several stock companies and appeared on Broadway in “Jeremiah” for the Theater Guild and on “Merrily We Roll Along” and “Mr. Hamlet.”

She spent a brief time in Hollywood, and then returned to New York and began her radio career. Since then, she’s been busy all the time, working on shows like Right to Happiness, Bright Horizon.

Besides being an accomplished actress and an accomplished citizen, Joan is an expert horsewoman. Her other favorite sports are tennis and swimming. Of course, she’s had to forego all of these diversions for awhile, because by the time this appears in print she will have become a mother. She was married around the time we met her and she keeps her private and her professional life strictly separate.

Biography Steve ALLEN

2025-12-15T09:00:00.000-06:00

1950

Biography

Steve ALLEN

If her stays in character, a busy summer faces Steve Allen, the guiding comedy light of the “STEVE ALLEN SHOW”, summer replacement for “OUR MISS BROOKS”, heard over CKTS on Sundays at 6:30 p.m. ERT.

Allen, already an established comedian on the west Coast, will continue his midnight Columbia Pacific Network show each night as well as assuming the key spot in his new entertaining audience participation program.

Steve’s Rangy 6’3’’ frame will come in handy to shoulder the added workload for a quick loot at his background reveals a host of theatrical and non-theatrical accomplishments and interests.

For example, don’t be surprised to credit for a song include: “Written by Steve Allen”, I he personable young comedian already can point to his recently-published song. “Let’s Go to Church Next Sunday”. Other tunes he has penned include “Little Man”, and “An Old Piano Plays the Blues”.

No wonder musical-minded Allen likes to vary his comedy ad-libbing long enough to play one his favorite songs on the piano—and effectively sing the lyrics too.

Between broadcasts Allen can be found writing a column for Song Hits Magazine on a subject of his own choosing.

It is not surprising that such a versatile chap should be the son of parents who were active in the theatrical world. His mother, Belle Montrose, was a well-known comedian of her day and Steve’s father, Billy Allen, was a singer and straightman.

An early travelling trouper with his folks, Allen has to list 16 schools when asked where he got his education. His college years were spent at Drake University, des Moines, and Arizona State Teachers College, Phoenix.

Soon he made the hop to Hollywood where he first was a gag writer. Then it wasn’t long before Steve Allen himself became a West Coast radio personality in his own right.

Yet the story of the many-sided Mr. Allen wouldn’t be complete without mentioning that he is the author of “Windfall” a little book of poems.

Louise Arthur

2025-11-30T09:00:00.000-06:00

Louise Arthur

__the New Orleans redhead, was a dancer at thirteen but had to conquer a syrupy Southern accent before she could become an actress. She currently combines work in the theater and movies with her radio career and is Annie Marie Templeton on NBC’s Woman in White, Mondays through Fridays at 2:15 P.M., EDT. Her work in a full length 16 mm film. The People’s Choice, is bringing her fan mail from South Africa, India, Hawaii and the Philippine Islands.

DON BALL . . .

2025-11-15T09:00:00.000-06:00

DON BALL . . . our hat’s off to Don Ball of CBS for having a name easy to catch over the air. Block Island, R. I., was his home before he reached 11 inches over 5 feet in his vertical movement. Weighing 165 pounds and with reddish brown, wavy hair and blue eyes, he could convince anyone to buy Ipsy Wipsy wash Cloths. He’s 29 and married.

Old Time Radio Veterans Day

2025-11-11T09:00:00.019-06:00

The 11th November, is observed annually across the world to honor military veterans, who have served in the armed forces.

The anniversary is always marked with special remembrance programs, and as well as the ones on television, there are also many radio shows available.

One of the most popular is Wings To Victory. Presented by the Army Air Forces, each thirty minute story is a dramatization of America heroism based on combat reports from the fighting fronts.

If you'd like to listen to a little music and variety, there's a series called Sound Off. It features favorites such as Tommy Dorsey and Glen Miller and ran from 1946 - 1948. Sponsored by the US Army as part of its recruiting program, and the shows are remarkably good quality.

There's great music and variety from Command Performance too, a series that was created especially for the US Armed Forces.

You'll find a non-stop selection of poignant old time radio shows to remind us of the courage and bravery of the fighting men and women who have served in the conflicts of the past century.

As we contemplate today, let us remember that Veterans Day is a time to honor all our brave men who have lost their lives in war and is commemorated as a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace.

Say Hello To – JACK BAKER

2025-10-30T09:00:00.000-05:00

Say Hello To –

JACK BAKER—whose nickname around NBC’s Chicago studios is “The Louisiana Lark,” partly because he was born in Shreveport, partly because he loves to sing. His real name is Ernest Mahlon Jones, he has been a semi-pro baseball player, a baseball coach and a schoolteacher, and his job as star soloist on this morning’s Breakfast Club is the result of an audition he took at NBC back in 1936.

Betty Barclay

2025-10-15T09:00:00.000-05:00

Betty Barclay

__ was selling Sammy Kaye’s records in a music shop in Macon, Go., when she decided that some day she would be the vocalist with his band. Today she is appearing with him on both Sunday Serenade and So You Want to Lead a Band, over the ABC network. She admits that it took several preliminary jobs with other name bands and her singing of “I’m a Big Girl Now” to put her where she wanted to be.

SAY HELLO TO . . . GEORGE BARNES

2025-09-30T09:00:00.000-05:00

SAY HELLO TO . . .

GEORGE BARNES—the 19-year-old guitarist you’re likely to hear doing solos on almost any NBC musical show originating in Chicago—Club Matinee, Breakfast Club, Plantation Party, Show Boat, to name a few. He plays an amplified guitar, which has a more resonant tone than an ordinary guitar and works with electricity. Because he loved music too much to waste time at anything else, he left high school at the end of his sophomore year and has been playing in bands ever since. He looks like a very calm person, but really has terrible stage fright at the mike. He was married last March to singer Adrienne Guy.

BEN BERNIE

2025-09-15T09:00:00.000-05:00

BEN BERNIE . . . the Old Maestro was Bernard Ancel May 32, 1893, the day he became one of the eleven little Ancels back in Bayonne, N. J. When it was decided that Ben was too frail ever to follow the family trade as a smith, his father decided he should be an engineer. His mother decided he’d become a violinist. So violinist he became. He gave a concert in Carnegie Hall at 14, and a year afterwards was teaching violin in a school. There’s a wife and son.

Jack Barry

2025-08-30T09:00:00.000-05:00

Jack Barry

__ the twenty-eight –year-old bachelor who has the temerity to go on the air each Sunday afternoon at 1:30, EST. with the five youngsters of Mutual’s Juvenile Jury, a program which he originated. Barry also has to his credit the finding during the past year of an average of more than one hundred apartments a month for veterans, through his appeals on the Daily Dilemmas program on Station WOR.

FORD BOND . . .

2025-08-15T09:00:00.000-05:00

FORD BOND . . . since his thirteenth year has earned his own way as a musician. Not that he had to, but he wanted to. To humor his parents, he pretended to study medicine, but by 19 was directing choirs and glee clubs. Radio claimed him in Louisville, Ky. New York got him in 1930. On the side he still sings in a church.

John Brown

2025-07-30T09:00:00.000-05:00

The part of Al was played by John H. Brown, another native English actor, born at Hull, Great Britain, on April 4, 1904. Later, in America, while attempting to break into radio, he derived his principal livelihood as mortician’s clerk in New York City. It seems ironic, since one of the most unforgettable roles he would later play—in dual mediums—was as an undertaker. As a sideline, Brown turned up in a handful of pithy New York stage productions, including Peace on Earth (1933-34 and a reprise in the following spring). The Milky Way (1934) and The Pirate (1942-43). Meanwhile, when the call finally arrived for a radio audition, it didn’t take him long to reach the big time.

Brown’s dossier could have given rise to the backyard expression “Well I’ll be John Brown!” The industrious the plan packed a normal lifetime for most audio entertainers into an all-too-brief 52 years, ending with his demise on May 16, 1957, at West Hollywood, California. Brown might not have been stretching the truth when he guessed that he was part of 15,000 radio programs, including 10,000 airing live and half as many via transcriptions. He was active on more than two dozen network gigs.

He won continuing roles in all of the following: TheAdventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1944-54, where he was neighbor “Thorny” Thornberry). The Amazing Mr. Smith (1941). The Bickersons (1946-48, 1951). The Bury Mr. Bingle (1943, in the namesake role). The Charlotte Greenwood Show (1944-46). The Danos Ranyon Theater (1948-49, as “Broadway.” the narrator). The Daney Kaye Show (1945-46, as “Mr. Average Radio Listener”). A Date with Judy (1944-50, as Melvin Foster, Judy’s dad). A Day in the Life of Dennis Day (1946-5, as Mr. Willoughby. Day’s employer). December Bride (1952-53). The Gay Mrs. Featherstone (1945). The life of Riley (1944-51, in dual roles, as Gillis, Riley (1944-51, in dual roles, as Gillis, Riley’s chum and colleague, and Digby “Digger” O’Dell, “the friendly undertaker”). Lorenzo Jones (ca.1937-ca.1939, as Jim Barker, Jones’ employer). Maisie (1945-47, 1949-51, 1952). The Mel Torne Show (1948, as Torme’s college dean). The Saint (1940s, as Inspector Fernak) and Tillie the Tixiler(1942, as Simpkins, Tillie’s employer).

In addition, Brown played in repertory companies that supplied actors for multiple series Bevlah (1947-54). Columbia Presents Curwin (1941). The Eddie Cantor Show (1935-39, 1940-49). The Edgar Bergen and CharlieMcCarthy Show (1940s, ca. carly 1950s). Lincoln Highway (1940-42). The MercuryTheater on the Air (1946). Mystery in the Air (1945). The Shadow (1940s), Twehe Players (1948) and The Whistler (1942-55).

Furthermore, he reprised one of his most memorable radio roles on television Brown was mortician Digby “Digger” O’Dell on NBC-TV’s TheLife of Riley in 1949-50 but did not return to show when it was renewed from 1953 to 1958. In the meantime, in 1951 he resurfaced for a few weeks as Harry Morton, next door of CBS-TV’s George Burns and Gracie Allen. He didn’t last long, however, discarded after being black listed during the “red scare” of the early 1950s for being perceived as a communist sympathizer.”

127. BROWN, John (actor; b. April 4, 1904, Hull, England; d. May 16, 1957, West Hollywood, CA). Life of Riley (1945-51); Duffy’s Tavern (1946-48).

A sought-after straight man and stooge for nearly every top comic. As somber-voiced Digger O’Dell, the friendly undertaker, Brown was an eagerly anticipated character on Life of Riley. He had actually worked as a clerk in a mortuary in New York while trying to break into radio. At age 20 he auditioned for Cantor and picked up a one-shot broadcast role. Fred Allen soon added him to his Mighty Art Players. In the 1940s, he popped up on Maisie, Ozzie and Harriet (as neighbor Will Thornberry), A Date with Judy and Charlie McCarthy. In 1941 he worked seven weekly shows, beginning on The Shadow on Sunday to Lincoln Highway on Saturday. Brown calculated that he had been on 10,000 live broadcasts and 5,000 ETs.

Kay Campbell

2025-07-15T09:00:00.000-05:00

Kay Campbell

__has played on almost every network program originating from Chicago. Currently she’s Martha Logan on ABC’s Breakfast Club, Ellie Fits on the CBS Ma Perkins broadcast and Kas Benning of Breakfast with the Bennings, a feature on Chicago’s local station, WMAQ. It all adds up to a day which begins at 7:30 a.m. and ends at 11:30 p.m. and leaves her poised, blonde and beautiful. She finds time to be local secretary of the American Federation of Radio Artists, too.

SAY HELLO TO . . . MARION CLAIRE

2025-06-30T09:00:00.000-05:00

SAY HELLO TO . . .

MARION CLAIRE—soprano star of the Chicago Theater of theAir, on Mutual tonight at 10:00. Chicago is Marion’s hometown, and she returns to it for these broadcasts after a glamorous career in opera and movies. She was a child violinist when she was ten, playing with symphony orchestras. Later, applying her talents to singing, she went to Milan, Italy, to study, and made her debut there in 1926. Once she appeared at a command performance before the Crown Prince of Italy. In America, she’s sung with Chicago Civic Opera Company, and in the movies you saw her as Bobby Breen’s mother in “Make a Wish.”

John Conte

2025-06-15T09:00:00.000-05:00

John Conte

__the announcing voice on both the Screen Guild and SilverTheater programs on CBS, is one of the youngest announcers on the air. To be exact, he’s twenty-three, with years of experience behind him—including a year of being the object of Gracie’s radio affections on the Burns and Allen show. He sums up: “I always know what I wanted so I went shead and did it.”

Bill Cullen

2025-05-30T09:00:00.000-05:00

Bill Cullen

__was a pre-med student at the University of Pittsburgh when lack of funds made him turn to radio. His first job was as an announcer at KDKA. This made too tough a schedule along with his pre-med work so be switched and became a Bachelor of Arts. Next he tackled New York and joined CBS. Now he’s m.c. on the Winner Take All program and announces several of the other popular shows of that network.

Ben Cooper

2025-05-15T09:00:00.001-05:00

Ben Cooper
Young as he is, Ben Cooper, who plays Brad on the second Mrs. Burton show (CBS, Monday through Friday, 2 PM, EST), longer surprised when Ben turns up for a rehearsal dressed in a colorful and complete cowboy outfit. He’s merely getting the feel of the costume, because his idea of The Thing To Be when he’s grown up is a ranch owner and he wants to be ready to step right into the part when it comes along. He goes the whole way in preparation too. He’s up on what the average rancher eats and is learning how to cook scrambled eggs and flapjacks.

Nor is he entirely impractical about his dream. He already has his own horse, named Gypsy. He rides very well and he hopes that someday soon he’ll meet the owner of Republic Pictures and get a chance to work in western movies. That’s a two-edged plan. Get the idea? Ben will be practicing more, while earning the money with which to buy his dream ranch.

Ben was born in Harford, Connecticut, in 1933. No one in his family was connected with the theater. His father, B. A. Cooper, a graduated of M.I.T., is an engineer and Mrs. Cooper is strictly a mother and wife. The Coopers now live an average suburban life in Beachurst, Long Island.

Aside from his forays in the theater and radio, Ben’s life is rather than average, too. He has a gang around home with whom he plays baseball, his position on the team being catcher. In line with his ranching ambitions, he’s constantly having the gang over to his house for barbecues, which Mrs. Cooper lets the boys prepare themselves. Like any other kid in America, Ben has his favorite movie stars; they’re Peggy Ann Garner and Roddy McDowell.

His becoming an actor was a casual thing. One of Mrs. Cooper’s friends has a son acting in the original company of “Life With Father.” The friend mentioned to Mrs. Cooper one afternoon that the boy playing one of the Day children in the Broadway success was outgrowing his part. Almost as an aside, she remarked that Ben looked just right for the role. And Ben decided it would be fun to try a job, even though he had had no training and had never thought of acting before. On their way to the theater for an interview, Mrs. Cooper was very nervous, Ben wasn’t. He soothed his mother, saying, “What difference does it make? If I get it fine. If I don’t, it won’t matter.” But he got the part.

At first, Mrs. Cooper did worry that his being an actor might change him in the wrong ways. It didn’t. He’s still perfectly natural. Maybe some of his smaller habits are a little mature for his age, like his always bringing Mrs. Cooper flowers if he happens to be late for dinner, or spending his whole first check for a gown for his mother. But, in the main, he’s still responding like a normal boy to various things. For instance, he’s usually very alert and responsive at rehearsals, except when he’s involved in eating dessert. The cast has lunch during rehearsals and, whenever Ben’s brought chocolate cake or chocolate pie from home as his contribution to the meal, he gets “lost,” as the musicians say. What boy wouldn’t? He also has a special girl in his neighborhood, whose name he won’t divulge and, again like every other boy, he has an idol. Ben’s crush is Basil Rathbone, with whom he has worked on the air and, every once in awhile, Ben breaks forth in a very creditable English accent.

Having started his theatrical career at eight and worked steadily ever since, Ben’s radio appearances are a staggering list, including Dr. Christian, Aunt Jenny, Listening Post, Land Is Bright, Bright Horizon, Arthur Hopkins Presents, Joyee Jordan, Portia FacesLife, as well as The Second Mrs. Burton.

What’s more, all the kids he knows like him—on account of that darn good game of baseball.

SAY HELLO TO . . . FRANK DANE

2025-04-30T09:00:00.000-05:00

SAY HELLO TO . . .

FRANK DANE – one of those versatile actors whom you’ll probably hear a couple of times today without knowing it.

On Arnold Grimm’s Daughter he plays Jim Kent, and on The Story of Mary Marlin he’s “Never-fail” Hendricks. Frank is Danish, but came to America as a child. He says that his biggest handicap as an actor had been learning English and getting rid of his Danish accent. He began his career on the stage, and still is enough of a stage actor to have one important mannerism in front of mike—he always needs enough room to swing his arms. He made his network debut in 1928 and has benn on the air ever since.

Elmer Davis and the news

2025-04-15T09:00:00.002-05:00

ON THE AIR TONIGHT: Elmer Davis and the News, on CBS at 8:55 P.M., E.D.S.T., tonight and every night in the week.

Through all the exciting and frequently horrifying events of the last year, CBS listener have learned to appreciate the quiet, logical news analyses of Elmer Davis. This quiet, middle-aged man never gets hysterical, never lets the horror of the day’s happenings betray him into illogical conclusions. In a world gone crazing, he usually makes sense, and that’s something to be thankful for.

Davis’ broadcast comes to you tonight from a small studio just off the busy CBS news from in New York. He has an office there, with a large colored map of Europe on the wall, where he spends most of his time, keeping a watchful eye on all the news that comes in over INS and UP wires. News despatches that he thinks are important, he puts aside, and makes notes from them for his broadcast. He almost never uses a script, and occasionally doesn’t even have time to jot down rough notes. But whatever the pressure, he works quietly and never gets excited.

Elmer Davis was born fifty years ago in Aurora, Indiana. He won a Rohades Scholarship, and finished his education in Oxford, England, in spite of the advice of his friends to stay in Indiana and teach school. When he got back to America he was hired by the New York Times as a reporter. That wasn’t his first newspaper experience, though—he’d started at the age of fourteen on the Aurora Bulletin as a printer’s devil, at a salary of one dollar a week. In the years since he returned from Oxford, Davis has become one of America’s well-known writers, and has published short stories and novels in most leading magazines. He joined Columbia’s staff last August 23, just a week or so before England and France declared war on Germany.

Davis always wears a light tweed suit and a black bow tie. He has gray hair and thick black eyebrows over keen brown eyes. He’s married, and has two children—Robert Lloyd, 20, and Anne, 14. Bob is a student at the University of Chicago, but Anne lives with her parents in a New York apartment in winter and a summer home at Mystic, Connecticut, in summer.

After a day’s work (which frequently means from fourteen to eighteen hours), Davis loves to settle down in his easy chair, which he admits is so old it “Looks like the devil.” With several hamburger sandwiches and a copy of the works of Horace or Catullus, in the original Latin. He has a particularly terrible kind of mike-fright. Every time he sits down to broadcast he’s assailed by a fear that he’ll suddenly go insane and start talking nonsense, treason, blasphemy or – worst of all—libel into the microphone. It isn’t likely that anything as upsetting as this will ever happen, though, to the well-balanced, calm and collected Mr. Davis.

Dorothy Day

2025-03-30T09:00:00.000-05:00

Dorothy Day

AS FAMOUS for her fashion comments as for the top-drawer “names” she interviews, lovely Dorothy Day, the WINS-WLW glamor-gal commentator, is easily one of the top personalities in her field.

In between writing and conducting two programs a day, five days a week, over WINS (one of her programs is also piped directly to Cincinnati’s WLW), dynamic Dorothy does fashion commentaries for the country’s leading designers. Recognition of her topflight position in the field was further evidenced by her selection for the somewhat demanding task of conducting a fashion show before 22,000 people at last year’s Israel Orphan Asylum benefit at Madison Square Garden.

Dorothy attends all business luncheons and women’s expositions gathering material for her radio programs, all of which she herself writes. Her daily program over WINS from 10:00 to 10:30 A.M., A Woman’s View of What’s New, is a well-balanced combination of fashion, budget menus, home-decorating and music, plus stimulating interviews with interest the woman of today.

Every day is Dorothy’s guesting day. The passing parade of celebrities who have appeared on her programs include such notables as Mrs. Vincent Astor, the well-known New Yorker; Mrs. Bernard Gimbel, wife of the philanthropist; Jerry Colonna, William Eythe, Catherine McLeod, Sonnia Darrin of the movies; Ray Lev, one of the foremost women pianists in America; leading designers of women’s clothes, including Tsang Tsing-Ying, Chinese designer; Jean Sablon, the Parisian singer; the Met’s Helen Jepson, and a host of others.

What especially distinguishes Dorothy Day from other interviewers is her extraordinary talent for making her guests feel at home, so that listeners get the full flavor of their guest’s personality, instead of the somewhat stiff mutterings we all hear from time to time. Her many listeners regard Dorothy as their good friend, and welcome her guests as they would her, sincerely, with friendly interest.

LOUIS DEAN . . .

2025-03-15T09:00:00.000-05:00

LOUIS DEAN . . . is from down in Alabama. Valley Head is the town. He’s 32 years old, five feet eleven, weighs 160 pounds. Eyes are blue and hair is dark brown. Yes, he’s single. Likes double-breasted suits and is awfully neat. Likes, too, to dance and golf and read good books. He’s the fellow who announced Col. Stoopnagle and Bud.