Golden Age of Radio

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. 

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 th...

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 __ 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—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 . . . 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 __ 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 . . . 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.

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 t...

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—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 __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 __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 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 co...

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.

ON THE AIR TONIGHT: Elmer Davis and the Ne ws, 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 not...

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 stim...

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. 

PETER DONALD—has spent most of his life in show business. Born in Bristol, England, he played his first part at three; attended the Professional Children’s School in New York; modeled for thousands of ads; and has appeared in several Broadway productions. He made his radio debut in 1928 and at thirteen was the youngest emcee in radio. He is now on Talk Your Way Out Of It, heard on ABC.

PAUL DOUGLAS . . . a six-footer, with blue eyes and dark brown hair, is the fellow who runs the children’s show at Columbia. Announces lots of other shows, too. He’s 26 years young, tips the scales at 195 (but doesn’t look it) and is married. Philadelphia is the old home town. Paul is an extra friendly fellow and everybody’s friend in the studio and out.