Time for Saturday with Jimmy Stewart!

From 60 years ago this week!

Burton Stephen "Burt" Lancaster (November 2, 1913 – October 20, 1994) was an American film actor and star, noted for his athletic physique, distinct smile (which he called "The Grin") and, later, his willingness to play roles that went against his initial "tough guy" image. Initially dismissed as "Mr Muscles and Teeth", in the late 1950s Lancaster abandoned his "all-American" image and gradually came to be regarded as one of the best actors of his generation.

Lancaster was nominated four times for Academy Awards and won once, for his work in Elmer Gantry in 1960. He also won a Golden Globe for that performance, and BAFTA Awards for The Birdman of Alcatraz (1962) and Atlantic City (1980).

 

 

Great episode with Alan Reed, the voice of Fred Flintstone!

This is special episode written by Vic Perrin, who acted in the episode as well.

Vic Perrin (April 26, 1916 – July 4, 1989) was an American actor and voice artist. He is best remembered as the "Control Voice" in the original version of the TV series The Outer Limits (1963 – 1965).

During the 1940s and 1950s, Perrin was a regular performer on old-time radio, appearing in many shows. He was a regular guest star on the radio version of Gunsmoke and wrote at least one script for that show.

One of his first TV roles was in a 1953 episode of Adventures of Superman entitled "The Golden Vulture", where he played a hapless sailor on board a freighter run by a self-styled pirate.

Vic Perrin played minor character roles on numerous TV series in the 1950s and 1960s including Dragnet, Gunsmoke, Have Gun — Will Travel, The Untouchables, and Mission: Impossible. He was a regular voice-over in the original Jonny Quest cartoon series (as the voice of Dr. Zin and other villains). He voiced the villain, The Gimmick, in an episode of Blue Falcon.

He played a voyeuristic serial killer in the 1966 made-for-TV movie Dragnet, which served as a pilot episode for the color version of the TV series.

Perrin also had voice-over and character roles in four classic Star Trek episodes. During the first season, he was the voice of the real Balok in "The Corbomite Maneuver", and he voiced the Metron in "Arena", where Kirk fought the Gorn. He was also the head man on a planet of pacifists who would not trade dilithium crystals, in "Mirror, Mirror", and the voice of Nomad in "The Changeling", both second season episodes. To the legions of fans of the Superfriends series, Perrin's voice is well known as the voice of villain, Sinestro, an arch-nemesis of Green Lantern.

Perrin was believed to be the original narrator of Walt Disney World's Spaceship Earth at Epcot from when it originally opened in 1982 until 1986, but this is not known for sure.

He continued to do voice-overs and to play character roles until a few years before his death.

Marlene Dietrich (German pronunciation: [maɐˈleːnə ˈdiːtrɪç]; 27 December 1901 – 6 May 1992)^[1] was a German-born American actress and singer.

Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself. In 1920s Berlin, she acted on the stage and in silent films. Her performance as Lola-Lola in The Blue Angel, directed by Josef von Sternberg, brought her international fame and a contract with Paramount PicturesShanghai Express and Desire capitalised on her glamour and exotic looks, cementing her stardom and making her one of the highest paid actresses of the era. Dietrich became a US citizen in 1939; during World War II, she was a high-profile frontline entertainer. Although she still made occasional films in the post-war years, Dietrich spent most of the 1950s to the 1970s touring the world as a successful show performer. in the USA. Hollywood films such as

In 1999 the American Film Institute named Dietrich the ninth greatest female star of all time.

Betty Grable (December 18, 1916 – July 2, 1973) was an American dancer, singer, and actress.

Her iconic bathing suit photo made her the number-one pin-up girl of the World War II era. It was later included in the Life magazine project "100 Photos that Changed the World". Grable was particularly noted for having the most beautiful legs in Hollywood and studio publicity widely dispersed photos featuring them. Hosiery specialists of the era often noted^{[citation needed]} the ideal proportions of her legs as: thigh (18.5") calf (12"), and ankle (7.5"). Grable's legs were famously insured by her studio for $1,000,000 with Lloyds of London.

Judy Garland (born Frances Ethel Gumm; June 10, 1922 – June 22, 1969) was an American actress and singer. Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years, Garland attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist, and on the concert stage. Respected for her versatility, she received a Juvenile Academy Award, won a Golden Globe Award, received the Cecil B. DeMille Award for her work in films, as well as Grammy Awards and a Tony Award. She had a contralto singing range.^[1]

After appearing in vaudeville with her sisters, Garland was signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as a teenager. There she made more than two dozen films, including nine with Mickey Rooney, and the film with which she would be most identified, The Wizard of Oz (1939). After 15 years, Garland was released from the studio but gained renewed success through record-breaking concert appearances, including a critically acclaimed Carnegie Hall concert, a well-regarded but short-lived television series, and a return to film acting beginning with A Star Is Born (1954).

Despite her professional triumphs, Garland battled personal problems throughout her life. Insecure about her appearance, her feelings were compounded by film executives who told her she was unattractive and overweight. Plied with drugs to control her weight and increase her productivity, Garland endured a decades-long struggle with addiction. Garland was plagued by financial instability, often owing hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes, and her first four of five marriages ended in divorce. She attempted suicide on a number of occasions. Garland died of an accidental drug overdose at the age of 47, leaving children Liza Minnelli, Lorna Luft, and Joey Luft.

In 1997 Garland was posthumously awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and several of her recordings have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In 1999, the American Film Institute placed her among the ten greatest female stars in the history of American cinema.

An impressive stint as a guest host on Jack Benny's radio show caught the attention of NBC officials, who eventually offered him his best known role as host of The Tonight Show. Paar was the program's host from 1957 to 1962. At first, the show was called "Tonight Starring Jack Paar"; after 1959 it was officially known as The Jack Paar Show. The series became on September 19, 1960, one of the first regularly scheduled videotaped programs in color. Only a few minutes of video of Paar's talk host career in color are known to exist today; NBC's policy at the time was to preserve programming on black-and-white kinescopes, but even so, the videotapes of most of Paar's Tonight Show appearances were taped over and no longer exist, a policy that continued through the first ten years of Johnny Carson's subsequent hosting of the same series. It was during Paar's stint as host that The Tonight Show became the entertainment juggernaut that it remained for the next five decades. Of all the program's hosts, Paar generated the most obsessive fascination and curiosity from both the press and the public.

The Tonight focus was always on compelling conversation and Paar's guests tended to be literate raconteurs such as Peter Ustinov rather than actors selling their current films, while Paar himself was a superb storyteller. Further, Paar surrounded himself with a memorable group of regulars and semi-regulars, including Cliff Arquette (as the homespun "Charlie Weaver"), author-illustrator Alexander King, Tedi Thurman (NBC's sultry "Miss Monitor") and comedy actresses Peggy Cass and Dody Goodman. Paar's oft repeated expression, I Kid You Not. In 1959, Paar's gagwriter Jack Douglas became a bestselling author (My Brother Was an Only Child, A Funny Thing Happened to Me on the Way to the Grave: An Autobiography) after his regular appearances with Paar. Douglas' pretty Japanese wife Reiko often appeared, as did Hungarian sexpot Zsa Zsa Gabor, French comedienne Genevieve and several Brits as well; Paar enjoyed conversing with foreigners and knew their accents would spice up the proceedings.

During this time, Paar also made occasional appearances on the television game shows Password and What's My Line? On episode 215 of the latter, Paar filled in as guest panelist for Steve Allen, his predecessor at The Tonight Show.

50 years ago today we were in Suspense!

Joseph Cheshire Cotten (May 15, 1905 – February 6, 1994) was an American actor of stage and film. He is best remembered for his association with Orson Welles, which led to appearances in Citizen Kane, The Third Man, The Magnificent Ambersons and Journey into Fear, which Cotten wrote.

Cotten first achieved prominence on Broadway, starring in the original productions of The Philadelphia Story and Sabrina Fair. He became a recognizable Hollywood star in his own right with films such as Shadow of a Doubt (1943) and Portrait of Jennie (1948).

Pretty high quality episode with music too!

Claudette Colbert (pronounced /koʊlˈbɛr/; September 13, 1903 – July 30, 1996) was a French-born American stage and film actress. Born in Saint-Mandé, France and raised in New York City, Colbert began her career in Broadway productions during the 1920s, progressing to film with the advent of talking pictures. She established a successful film career with Paramount Pictures and later, as a freelance performer, became one of the highest paid entertainers in American cinema. Colbert was recognized as one of the leading female exponents of screwball comedy, but was also known for her versatility; she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her comedic performance in It Happened One Night (1934), and also received Academy Award nominations for her dramatic roles in Private Worlds (1935) and Since You Went Away (1944). Her film career began to decline in the 1950s, and she made her last film in 1961. She continued to act extensively in theater and briefly television during her later years. After a career of more than 60 years, Colbert retired to her home in Barbados, where she died at the age of 92, following a series of strokes. Colbert received theatre awards from the Sarah Siddons Society and also received lifetime achievement awards from Kennedy Center Honors, and in 1999, the American Film Institute placed her at number 12 on their "AFI's 100 Years... 100 Stars" list of the "50 Greatest American Screen Legends".

Step back in time with Jimmy Stewart, Nelson Eddie, Elanor Powell, Fanny Brice, Ray Bolger, and Frank Morgan

 

Percy W. Kilbride (July 16, 1888 – December 11, 1964) was an American character actor. The son of Irish immigrants, and despite being raised in a big city, he made a career of playing country hicks, most memorably as lazy Pa Kettle in the Ma and Pa Kettle movie series. Kilbride began working in theater at the age of 12 and eventually left his young son and young daughter to become an actor on Broadway. He first played an 18th-century French dandy in A Tale of Two Cities. His film debut was as Jakey in White Woman in 1933. He left Broadway for good in 1942. In 1945 he appeared in The Southerner. In 1947 he and Marjorie Main played the supporting parts of Ma and Pa Kettle in The Egg and I, starring Fred MacMurray and Claudette Colbert. Those were followed by the popular Ma and Pa Kettle series with Kilbride and Main playing the main characters, during which time he also played in other movies. Kilbride retired after making the 1955 film Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki. He did, however, take a small role in Son of Flubber in 1963.

Gene Tierney (November 19, 1920 – November 6, 1991) was an American film and stage actress. Acclaimed as one of the great beauties of her day, she is best-remembered for her performance in the title role of Laura (1944) and her Academy Award-nominated performance for Best Actress in Leave Her to Heaven (1945).[1] Other notable roles include Martha Strable Van Cleve in Heaven Can Wait (1943), Isabel Bradley Maturin in The Razor's Edge (1946), Lucy Muir in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), Ann Sutton in Whirlpool (1949), Maggie Carleton McNulty in The Mating Season (1951) and Anne Scott in The Left Hand of God (1955).

Don't know many people buying right now, but I do know a lot that are trying to sell their house.

Video for podcast - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqUjciB0Q80 Part 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5vZzoBixAU

Our first podcast in quite awhile! Featuring part of a 1972 interview with Jimmy Stewart, about the horse "Pie," that Jimmy worked with in most of his westerns.

 

The War Years continues.

 

Sorry this is a little early.

Exactly 50 years ago today, Vincent Price kept us in Suspense! He made his film debut in 1938 with Service de Luxe and established himself as a competent actor, notably in Laura (1944), opposite Gene Tierney, directed by Otto Preminger. He also played Joseph Smith, Jr. in the movie Brigham Young (1940), as well as a pretentious priest in The Keys of the Kingdom (1944). As Mr. Manningham in Angel Street, in which he had a three year run, photo by Carl Van Vechten, 1942. Price's first venture into the horror genre was in the 1939 Boris Karloff film Tower of London in which his character was murdered by Karloff's. The following year he portrayed the title character in the film The Invisible Man Returns (a role he reprised in a vocal cameo at the end of the 1948 horror-comedy spoof Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein). In 1946 Price reunited with Gene Tierney in two notable films, Dragonwyck and Leave Her to Heaven. There were also many villainous roles in slick film noir thrillers like The Web (1947), The Long Night (1947), Rogues' Regiment (1948) and The Bribe (1949) with Robert Taylor, Ava Gardner and Charles Laughton. His first starring role was as conman James Addison Reavis in the 1950 biopic The Baron of Arizona. He was also active in radio, portraying the Robin Hood-inspired crime-fighter Simon Templar, aka. The Saint, in a series that ran from 1943 to 1951. In the 1950s, he moved into horror films, with a role in House of Wax (1953), the first 3-D film to land in the year's top ten at the North American box office, and then the monster movie The Fly (1958). Price also starred in the original House on Haunted Hill (1959) as the eccentric millionaire Fredrick Loren. (Geoffrey Rush, playing the same character in the 1999 remake, was not only made to resemble Price, but was also renamed Steven Price.) In between these horror films, Price played Baka in The Ten Commandments.

Finally part two of this Silver Theater classic, the first part was shared with you a number of Saturdays ago, and is still available for download of course.

My fellow Americans: The sudden criminal attacks perpetrated by the Japanese in the Pacific provide the climax of a decade of international immorality. Powerful and resourceful gangsters have banded together to make war upon the whole human race. Their challenge has now been flung at the United States of America. The Japanese have treacherously violated the longstanding peace between us. Many American soldiers and sailors have been killed by enemy action. American ships have been sunk; American airplanes have been destroyed. The Congress and the people of the United States have accepted that challenge. Together with other free peoples, we are now fighting to maintain our right to live among our world neighbors in freedom, in common decency, without fear of assault. I have prepared the full record of our past relations with Japan, and it will be submitted to the Congress. It begins with the visit of Commodore Parry to Japan eighty-eight years ago. It ends with the visit of two Japanese emissaries to the Secretary of State last Sunday, an hour after Japanese forces had loosed their bombs and machine guns against our flag, our forces and our citizens. I can say with utmost confidence that no Americans today or a thousand years hence, need feel anything but pride in our patience and in our efforts through all the years toward achieving a peace in the Pacific which would be fair and honorable to every nation, large or small. And no honest person, today or a thousand years hence, will be able to suppress a sense of indignation and horror at the treachery committed by the military dictators of Japan, under the very shadow of the flag of peace borne by their special envoys in our midst. The course that Japan has followed for the past ten years in Asia has paralleled the course of Hitler and Mussolini in Europe and in Africa. Today, it has become far more than a parallel. It is actual collaboration so well calculated that all the continents of the world, and all the oceans, are now considered by the Axis strategists as one gigantic battlefield.

Unfortunately the last episode made of the Mel Blanc show! It's been fun Mel, thanks for everything.

I love Jack's spoofs of all things radio! Sorry I'm on vacation, so things may get a little sporadic in the next few days.

Joseph Cheshire Cotten (May 15, 1905 – February 6, 1994) was an American actor of stage and film. He was perhaps best known for his collaborations with Orson Welles, which included Citizen Kane, The Third Man, The Magnificent Ambersons and Journey into Fear, which Cotten wrote, and for his work with Alfred Hitchcock in Shadow of a Doubt. He received his start on Broadway, starring in the original productions of The Philadelphia Story and Sabrina Fair, and became a recognizable Hollywood star in his own right with films such as Shadow of a Doubt and Portrait of Jennie.

60 Million people listened to it when it was first broadcast one week after the attack on Pearl Harbor! It's been rarely heard since, so this is one of the shows I am proudest to bring you! Jimmy Stewart and Orson Welles in "We Hold These Truths!"

A day that will live in infamy!

A lot of folks have this episode mislabeled in their collection, or don't have this one at all. It's kind of scarce and not included correctly in most collections.

Another show from the day of the Pearl Harbor attack!

The broadcast from the night of the attack on Pearl Harbor!

Edward Everett Horton (March 18, 1886 – September 29, 1970) was an American character actor with a long career in film, theater, radio, television and voice work for animated cartoons. From 1945 to 1947, Horton hosted radio's Kraft Music Hall. During the 1950s, Horton worked in television. One of his most famous appearances is an I Love Lucy episode, where he is cast against type as a frisky, amorous suitor. (Horton, a last-minute replacement for another actor, received a special, appreciative credit in this episode.) Beginning in 1959 he narrated the "Fractured Fairy Tales" segment of the Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoon show. In 1965 he played the medicine man, Roaring Chicken, in the sitcom F Troop. He parodied this role, portraying "Chief Screaming Chicken" on Batman as a pawn to Vincent Price's Egghead in the villain's attempt to take control of Gotham City. His last role, as a moribund tobacco company president in a wheelchair, was in the motion picture Cold Turkey, released after his death.

One week before the attack on Pearl Harbor! Our first episode in our daily trek through the war years with Jack and the gang!

More fun with Jack Paar!

Independence day, what a good day to be set free!

Out west with Jimmy!

60 years ago today Phil and Alice had their season finale.

70 years ago jack went back to his hometown, Waukegan, for his '38-'39 season finale.

Last show of the '36-'37 season.

Lucy and Television, a great mix!

Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives (June 14, 1909 – April 14, 1995) was an Academy Award winning American actor, writer and folk music singer. The prominent music critic John Rockwell has been quoted in the New York Times as saying that "Ives's voice... had the sheen and finesse of opera without its latter-day Puccinian vulgarities and without the pretensions of operatic ritual. It was genteel in expressive impact without being genteel in social conformity. And it moved people."

During World War II, as part of a special services company entertaining troops in the South Pacific, Paar was a clever, wisecracking master of ceremonies. More than once, his pointed jibes at officers nearly got him into trouble. After WWII, he came to the attention of RKO Radio Pictures, which hired him to emcee Variety Time (1948), a compilation of vaudeville sketches. Paar later recalled that RKO didn't know what to do with him. His producers, trying to decide what kind of screen characters he could play, compared Paar with other RKO stars. Finally, according to Paar, one of the executives had an inspiration, and figured out who Jack Paar really was: "Kay Kyser, with warmth." Paar projected a pleasant personality on film, and RKO called him back to emcee another filmed vaudeville show, Footlight Varieties (1951). Paar was featured in a few films, including a role opposite Marilyn Monroe in Love Nest (1951). Like fellow humorists Steve Allen and Henry Morgan, Jack Paar dabbled in motion pictures but was much more comfortable behind a studio microphone, broadcasting. Paar found loyal listeners nationally, beginning as Jack Benny's 1947 summer replacement, then as the 1950-51 host of radio's The $64 Question on NBC. He appeared as a standup comic on The Ed Sullivan Show and hosted two TV game shows, Up To Paar (1952) and Bank on the Stars (1953), before hosting The Morning Show (1954) on CBS. In 1956 he hosted The Jack Paar Show on the ABC Radio network.

Wouldn't you like to be unbound from the things that tie you down?

It's Saturday time for more Jimmy Stewart.

60 years ago, Agnes Moorehead kept us in Suspense! In this episode A woman seems to be going crazy, caused by someone trying to force her into taking a long vacation. Agnes Moorehead's early career was unsteady, and although she was able to find stage work she was often unemployed and forced to go hungry. She later recalled going four days without food, and said that it had taught her "the value of a dollar." She found work in radio and was soon in demand, often working on several programs in a single day. She believed that it offered her excellent training and allowed her to develop her voice to create a variety of characterizations. Moorehead met the actress Helen Hayes who encouraged her to try to enter films, but her first attempts were met with failure. Rejected as not being "the right type," Moorehead returned to radio. Moorehead met Orson Welles and by 1937 was a member of his Mercury Theatre Group, along with Joseph Cotten. She appeared in his radio production Julius Caesar, had a regular role in the serial The Shadow as Margo and was one of the players in his The War of the Worlds production. In 1939, Welles moved the Mercury Theatre Group to Hollywood, where he started working for RKO Studios. Several of his radio performers joined him, and Moorehead made her film debut as his mother in Citizen Kane (1941). She also appeared in his films Journey into Fear (1943) and The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), based on a novel by Booth Tarkington. She received a New York Film Critics Award and an Academy Award nomination for her performance in the latter film. Moorehead played another strong role in The Big Street (1942) with Henry Fonda and Lucille Ball, and then appeared in two films that failed to find an audience, Government Girl with Olivia de Havilland and The Youngest Profession with Virginia Weidler. By the mid 1940s, Moorehead joined MGM, negotiating a $6,000-a-week contract with the provision to perform also on radio, an unusual clause at the time. Moorehead explained that MGM usually refused to allow their actors to play on radio as "the actors didn't have the knowledge or the taste of the judgment to appear on the right sort of show."[2] In 1943-1944, Moorehead portrayed "matronly housekeeper Mrs. Mullet", who was constantly offering her "candied opinion", in Mutual Radio's The Adventures of Leonidas Witherall; she inaugurated the role on CBS Radio.[3] Moorehead skillfully portrayed puritanical matrons, neurotic spinsters, possessive mothers, and comical secretaries throughout her career. Moorehead was part of Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre on the Air radio program in the 1930s and appeared in Broadway productions of Don Juan in Hell in 1951-1952, and Lord Pengo in 1962-1963. She played Parthy Hawks, wife of Cap'n Andy and mother of Magnolia, in MGM's hit 1951 remake of Show Boat. She was in many important films, including Dark Passage and Since You Went Away, either playing key small or large supporting parts. During the 1940s and 1950s, Moorehead was one of the most in demand actresses for radio dramas, especially on the CBS show Suspense. During the 946 epsisodes run of Suspense, Moorehead was cast in more episodes than any other actor or actress. She was often introduced on the show as the "first lady of Suspense". Moorehead's most successful appearance on Suspense was in the legendary play Sorry, Wrong Number, written by Lucille Fletcher, broadcast on May 18, 1943. Moorehead played a selfish, neurotic woman who overhears a murder being plotted via crossed phone wires who eventually realizes she is the intended victim. She recreated the performance six times for Suspense and several times on other radio shows, always using her original, dog-eared script. In 1952, she recorded an album of the drama, and performed scenes from the story in her one-woman show in the 1950s. Sorry, Wrong Number also inspired writers of the CBS television series The Twilight Zone to script an episode with Moorehead in mind.[4] In "The Invaders" (broadcast 27 January 1961) Moorehead played a woman whose isolated farm is plagued by mysterious intruders. In "Sorry, Wrong Number" Moorehead offered a famed, bravura performance using only her voice, and for "The Invaders" she was offered a script where she had no dialogue at all. In the 1960-1961 season, Moorehead made guest appearances as Aunt Harriet in the short-lived CBS sitcom My Sister Eileen starring Shirley Bonne and Elaine Stritch as Eileen (an aspiring actress) and Ruth Sherwood, respectively, two single sisters living in New York City. That same season, she appeared in Pat O'Brien's ABC sitcom Harrigan and Son. In the 1963-1964 season, she appeared in an episode of the ABC series about college life, Channing. In 1967, she portrayed an Indian named Watoma on the ABC military-western series Custer with Wayne Maunder in the title role. As Endora in Bewitched (1965) In 1964, Moorehead accepted the role of Endora, in the situation comedy Bewitched. She later commented that she had not expected it to succeed and that she ultimately felt trapped by its success. However, she had negotiated to appear in only eight of every twelve episodes made, therefore allowing her sufficient time to pursue other projects. She also felt that the television writing was often below standard and dismissed many of the Bewitched scripts as "hack" in a 1965 interview. The role brought her a level of recognition that she had not received before as Bewitched was in the top 10 programs for the first few years it screened. Moorehead received six Emmy Award nominations, but was quick to remind interviewers that she had enjoyed a long and distinguished career. Despite her ambivalence, she remained with Bewitched until its run ended in 1972. She commented to the New York Times in 1974, "I've been in movies and played theater from coast to coast, so I was quite well known before Bewitched, and I don't particularly want to be identified as a witch." Later that year she said that she had enjoyed playing the role, but that it was not challenging and the show itself was "not breathtaking" although her flamboyant and colorful character appealed to children. She expressed a fondness for the show's star, Elizabeth Montgomery, and said that she had enjoyed working with her. Co-star Dick Sargent, who in 1969 replaced the ill Dick York as Samantha's husband, Darrin Stephens, had a more difficult relationship with Moorehead, and described her as "a tough old bird...very self-involved."

It seems like what's going on today, again.

70 years ago today was the last episode for Kenny Baker as a regular on Jack's show! Say goodbye to Kenny with this penultimate episode of the 1938 - 1939 season.

It's Thursday and time for more Judy Garland!

One of my first Podcasts! Eddie Anderson's first time playing the Rochester character by name! He wont appear again as Rochester again for months!

During World War II, Bob Crosby spent 18 months in the Marines, touring with bands in the Pacific. His radio variety series, The Bob Crosby Show, aired on NBC and CBS in different runs between the years 1943 to 1950, followed by Club Fifteen on CBS from 1947 through 1953 and a half-hour CBS daytime series, The Bob Crosby Show (1953-1957). He introduced the Canadian singer Gisele MacKenzie to American audiences and subsequently guest starred in 1957 on her NBC television series, The Gisele MacKenzie Show. On September 14, 1952, Bob replaced Phil Harris as the bandleader on The Jack Benny Program, remaining until Benny retired the radio show in 1955 after 23 years. In joining the show, he became the leader of the same group of musicians who had played under Harris. According to Benny writer Milt Josefsberg, the issue was budget. Because radio had strong competition from TV, the program budget had to be reduced, so Bob replaced Phil. Prior to joining Benny on the radio, Crosby, who was based on the East Coast, would often play with Benny during Benny's live New York appearances, and he was seen frequently throughout the 1950s on Benny's television series. As a performer, Crosby had tremendous charisma and wit combined with a laid back persona. He was able to swap jokes competently with Benny, including humorous references to his brother Bing's wealth and his string of losing racehorses. Crosby was married and had five children, three girls and two boys. The enduring popularity of the Bob Crosby Orchestra and the Bob Cats - whose biography was written by British jazz historian John Chilton, was evident during the frequent reunions in the 1950s and 1960s. Bob Haggart and Yank Lawson organized a band that kept the spirit alive, combining Dixieland and swing with a roster of top soloists. From the late 1960s until the mid-1970s, the group was known as The World's Greatest Jazzband. Since neither leader was happy with that name, they eventually reverted to The Lawson Haggart Jazzband. The Lawson-Haggart group was consistent in keeping the Bob Crosby tradition alive. Bob Crosby died in 1993 due to complications from cancer.[1]

Wow! Three of the greatest monologists ever on the same show, Jack Benny, Fred Allen, and Jack Paar!

A special Sunday with Jimmy Stewart!

Armed for battle?

With the Supreme Court in the news quite a lot, this seems timely!

70 years ago today, more fun with Sherlock Holmes!

A musical with Judy Garland, sounds like a good idea to me. Let's get all the kids on the block and put on a show!

50 years ago this week out west!

High quality sound out west with Raymond Burr at Fort Laramie.

Yes, over 70 years ago Mary Livingstone had a movie. THIS WAY PLEASE (Paramount, 1937), directed by Robert Florey, is an enjoyable little "B" musical noted for its introduction of the radio voices of Mary Livingston (Mrs. Jack Benny), James and Marian Jordan (as Fibber McGee and Molly of Wistful Vista) to the silver screen. Top-billing goes to Charles "Buddy" Rogers, a popular singer in the early days of Paramount musicals, making a possible comeback attempt to recapture those glory days, but in the long run, he is overshadowed by an up-and-coming Betty Grable, only three years away from her achieving popularity with those lighthearted Technicolor musicals for 20th Century-Fox during the World War II years beginning with DOWN ARGENTINE WAY (1940). As for the storyline, Betty Grable plays Jane Morrow, a young girl who applies for a job as a theater usherette, hoping to someday get her big chance performing on the stage. She encounters Brad W. Morgan (Charles "Buddy" Rogers), a matinée idol and singer who is master of ceremonies at the local first run movie house. After taking an interest in her, Brad arranges in giving her a chance with an audition, and in the long run, she attracts much attention while Brad starts to lose his credibility. After Jane becomes engaged to marry Stu Randall (Lee Bowman), with a big wedding ceremony arranged to take place at the movie theater, it will be up to Brad to try to break into the theater to claim her. The musical program features: "This Way Please?/ "Delighted to Meet You" (sung by chorus during opening credits); "This Way Please?" (voiced by Buddy Rogers on a record); "Is It Love or Infatuation?" (sung by Buddy Rogers and chorus); "Delighted to Meet You" (sung and tap danced by Betty Grable); "What This Country Needs is Voom-Boom" (sung and performed in comedic style by Romo Vincent, Jerry Bergen and Wally Vernon as Trumps, Bumps and Mumps); "This Way Please?"/ "Delighted to Meet You" (sung by Mary Livingston); "I'm the Sound Effects Man" (sung by Rufe Davis) and "Is It Love or Infatation? (instrumental during wedding ceremony). While this is a 1930s musical, much of the score, especially "Is It Love or Infatuation" (the big song plug here, particularly one big scene when there are multiple Betty Grable images on the movie screen within a movie screen to help promote her) plays at a slower tempo, giving the impression that this is a 1940s musical during the big band era. The supporting cast includes Porter Hall as S.J. Crawford, the theater manager; Cecil Cunningham as Mrs. Eberhart, his secretary; and unbuckled, Akim Tamiroff seen briefly as a tartar chieftain on the movie screen in the theater; and James Finlayson, a familiar character actor who frequently co-starred in numerous Laurel and Hardy comedies for Hal Roach in the 1930s, appearing as Jim O'Toole, a policeman who is to give Fibber McGee and Molly a ticket for illegally parking their car where it shouldn't be, only to find himself agreeing to let them park on that spot with him minding the car, thanks to Molly. And speaking of character actors, there is Ned Sparks, in his usual droll manner, playing as "Inky" Welles, the "love interest" to Maxine (Mary Livingston), the head usherette, who wants to marry him. Classic television fans will be quick to take notice and recognize Rufe Davis (Floyd Smoot, the train engineer, from the 1960s TV sitcom, PETTICOAT JUNCTION starring Bea Benadaret and Edgar Buchanan), making his movie debut as a radio technician encouraged by Mr. Crawford to sing in front of an open mike, "I'm the Sound Effects Man," and true to his word, comes up with more sound-effect noises, ranging from duck sounds, dog fights, cows and factory whistles, plus much, much more. While THIS WAY PLEASE is no cinematic masterpiece, this "B" musical-comedy, which runs at a swift 72 minutes, is a cinematic boost to the career of the very young Betty Grable. On a final note, the radio personalities of Fibber McGee and Molly would reappear in several likable comedies in the early 1940s for RKO Radio. Other than their one liner exchanges throughout the movie (Molly: "McGee, a man winked at me." McGee: "Ah, we all make mistakes"), the one thing that certainly stands out is Molly's contagious laugher. (**1/2)

70 years ago Henry Fonda hung out with Dean and Jerry! Henry Jaynes Fonda (May 16, 1905 – August 12, 1982) was an American film and stage actor, best known for his roles as plain-speaking idealists. Fonda's subtle, naturalistic acting style preceded by many years the popularization of method acting. Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor, and made his Hollywood debut in 1935. Fonda's career gained momentum after his Academy Award-nominated performance as Tom Joad in 1940's The Grapes of Wrath, an adaptation of John Steinbeck's novel about an Oklahoma family who moved west during the Dust Bowl. Throughout six decades in Hollywood, Fonda cultivated a strong, appealing screen image in such classics as The Ox-Bow Incident, Mister Roberts and 12 Angry Men. Later, Fonda moved toward both more challenging, darker epics as Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West (portraying a villain who kills, among others, a child) and lighter roles in family comedies like Yours, Mine and Ours with Lucille Ball. Fonda was the patriarch of a family of famous actors, including daughter Jane Fonda, son Peter Fonda, granddaughter Bridget Fonda, and grandson Troy Garity; his family and close friends called him "Hank". In 1999, he was named the sixth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute.

When Mel speaks in his french accent, how can you not have fun?

60 years ago this was the season finale of Jack's show!

The show that has run for 72 years! This episode is 65 years old today! My last D-Day podcast!

D-Day with Burns and Allen!

Red Skelton on D-Day.

Bob Hope on D-Day.

The President speaks on D-Day.

D-Day with Fibber.

NBC's Prime Time on D-Day!

Tonight we begin our special D-Day coverage! This was the chat given by FDR on the eve of D-Day. He will refer to it at the beginning of his D-Day prayer speech, which we sill bring you tomorrrow.

70 years ago this week, Jack Benny was in Scotland Yard with Sherlock Holmes!

70 years ago today the Screen Guild Theater had it's last episode of the season.

Spend some time with Judy, Cary, and Mickey!

There is a place for you at the table.

Originally broadcast April 19, 1951 on CBS and presented as program 365 in the “Suspense” series on Armed Forces Radio. Jimmy Stewart plays a businessman who is drawn into helping a young woman who says she is being pursued by a doctor that’s trying to kill her. The circulating copies of this show are missing the last ten minutes. (This would lead me to believe that they’re dubbed from a network copy of the show that was given to one of the staff or performers or done as an aircheck on 12″ 78 rpm discs and that one of the discs is missing.) This version of the show is complete - a real treat since this particular episode of “Suspense” has an ending that relies on sound effects and great acting to create a tense climax to the story. The show was dubbed directly from an AFRS vinyl disc. There’s a couple of sections with pops in the disc, but the sound is quite good otherwise.

Turn up the fire and listen in.

Judy and the cast of OZ!

60 years ago this week Ed Wynn visited Duffys! Although many gag writers later provided material for Ed Wynn's performances in radio, television and movies, it was his proud boast that every line he ever spoke during his early career as a stage performer was written by himself. He hosted a popular radio show, The Fire Chief for most of the 1930s, heard in North America on Tuesday nights, sponsored by Texaco gasoline. Like many former vaudeville performers who turned to radio in the same decade, the stage-trained Wynn insisted on playing for a live studio audience, doing each program as an actual stage show, using visual bits to augment his written material, and in his case, wearing a colorful costume with a red fireman's helmet. He usually bounced his gags off announcer/straight man Graham McNamee; Wynn's customary opening, "Tonight, Graham, the show's gonna be different," became one of the most familiar tag-lines of its time. Sample joke: "Graham, my uncle just bought a new second-handed car... he calls it Baby! I don't know, it won't go anyplace without a rattle!" Wynn was a radio superstar who reprised his radio character in two movies, Follow the Leader (1930) and The Chief (1933). Near the height of his radio fame he founded his own short-lived radio network, the Amalgamated Broadcasting System, which lasted only five weeks in 1933 and nearly destroyed the comedian, according to radio historian Elizabeth McLeod, who has written that the failed venture left Wynn deep in debt, divorced, and finally suffering a nervous breakdown. Wynn was offered the title role in MGM's 1939 screen adaptation of The Wizard of Oz, but he turned down the role, as did his Ziegfeld contemporary W. C. Fields. The part finally went to Frank Morgan.

You are loved, do you show God's love to others?

More Six Shooter action with Jimmy Stewart!

60 years ago this week Lucy was on the playhouse!

70 years ago, continuing our Gunga Din saga!

interestingly different episode!

60 years ago Mary was sick.

Listen to the Masterpiece!

60 years ago Jimmy Stewart kept us in Suspense!

60 years ago Jimmy Stewart and Frank Capra were on the Playhouse!

Jack Haley (August 10, 1898 – June 6, 1979) (born John Joseph Haley, Jr.) was an American film actor best known for his portrayal of the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz. He also portrayed farmworker Hickory, who appeared in the Kansas sequences, in the film.

70 years ago this week.

Hear Jimmy Stewart sell nothingness, and tell us about the six shooter.

70 years ago today, at the Kentucky Derby!

Very Special Podcast with Great intros by me, Jimmy Stewart, and William Conrad! 50 years ago this week, not to be missed, introduction to the eighth season of Gunsmoke!

Another fantastic sounding western story in high quality 128/44!

Another Wednesday, another Welles performance!

Claudette Colbert (IPA: /koʊlˈbɛɹ/; September 13, 1903 – July 30, 1996) was a French-born American stage and film actress. Born in Saint-Mandé, France and raised in New York City, Colbert began her career in Broadway productions during the 1920s, progressing to film with the advent of talking pictures. She established a successful film career with Paramount Pictures and later, as a freelance performer, became one of the highest paid entertainers in American cinema. Colbert was recognized as one of the leading female exponents of screwball comedy, but was also known for her versatility; she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her comedic performance in It Happened One Night (1934), and also received Academy Award nominations for her dramatic roles in Private Worlds (1935) and Since You Went Away (1944). Her film career began to decline in the 1950s, and she made her last film in 1961. She continued to act extensively in theater and briefly television during her later years. After a career of more than 60 years, Colbert retired to her home in Barbados, where she died at the age of 92, following a series of strokes. Colbert received theatre awards from the Sarah Siddons Society and also received lifetime achievement awards from Kennedy Center Honors, and in 1999, the American Film Institute placed her at number 12 on their "AFI's 100 Years... 100 Stars" list of the "50 Greatest American Screen Legends

Happy Mother's Day, Mary, from Jack, a little early!