Golden Age of Radio

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...

John Stanley Sherlock Holmes : Sundays, 7 P.M. EST, MBS stations. When you hear the clipped, British accent of John Stanley as Sherlock Holmes (Mutual, Sundays, 7 PM, EST) you can almost see the fog swirling and eerie as it blanket Baker Street. It’s a cinch for actor Stanley to sound as though he was born in London, because he was born in London. Not only that, but during his early childhood, John lived only a half-mile from the famed Baker Street, hangout of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s celebrated sleuth. Although Stanley was born in England, he was an American the moment he came into the world. John’s father was Professor Henry W. S. Stanley and John was born while his parent was teaching diction at St. Mark’s College, London. The wife of Professor Stanley was also an American and all of their four children were raised in England. John graduated from Malvern College. “When I was twenty-one years old,” he explains, “the urge to come to my own country suddenly ...