------------------------------
The Old-Time Radio Digest!
Volume 2005 : Issue 266
A Part of the [removed]!
[removed]
ISSN: 1533-9289
Today's Topics:
SINATRA [ Sandy Singer <sinatradj@[removed]; ]
Johnny Ray and Jack Benny [ JackBenny@[removed] ]
Mel Blanc and celebrity imitations [ Michael Shoshani <mshoshani@sbcglob ]
Purvis Belch, Suicide [ John Mayer <mayer@[removed]; ]
9-2 births/deaths [ Ron Sayles <bogusotr@[removed]; ]
Purvis burps? [ Jack & Cathy French <otrpiano@erols ]
"Tonight We Love" [ Ron Sayles <bogusotr@[removed]; ]
Amazing Dunninger [ atmore@[removed] ]
Prokofiev [ "Derek Tague" <derek@[removed]; ]
GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK [ Sandy Singer <sinatradj@[removed]; ]
NEW OTR BOOK ON CASEY, CRIME PHOTOGR [ "David S. Siegel" <otrdsiegel@veriz ]
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2005 01:09:44 -0400
From: Sandy Singer <sinatradj@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: SINATRA
Michael -- you can't believe a thing Friedwald writes -- he is a total
phony -- I know him! He has written SO many lies about Gordon Jenkins,
IT would fill a book! Axel's wife, June, has all the gory details!
[removed]
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2005 01:10:30 -0400
From: JackBenny@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Johnny Ray and Jack Benny
Derek Tague writes:
With Phil Chavin's recent Johnnie Ray story, I kind of remember once seeing
a "Jack Benny Program" from a time in the early 1950s when Mr. Ray was
all the rage. In it, Dennis Day took on Johnnie Ray's histrionically
overwrought song stylings to hilarious extremes with Ray's hit song "Cry"
(also brilliantly parodied on record by Stan Freberg as "Try"). I
remember it
being one of the funniest things I ever saw Dennis perform. Are there any
Kubelsky-ans in the ether who can flesh out the details?
That show is available in our video library. The [removed]
*************SPOILER ALERT***********************
is that Ray wants a large sum of money (probably $10K, as I recall) and Jack
doesn't want to pay him that. So Ray sings him a couple of songs, and Jack
ends up tearing his clothes off and crawing around on the floor in a frenzy
like the girls do, and finally signing the contract.
--Laura Leff
President, IJBFC
[removed]
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2005 02:06:56 -0400
From: Michael Shoshani <mshoshani@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Mel Blanc and celebrity imitations
Ivan G. Shreve writes:
I've read Mel's autobio and while I want to believe him, I've heard too many
instances in cartoons where he relied on celebrity impersonations. Off the
top of my head, I'm thinking [removed] channeling of Edgar Bergen (as Mortimer
Snerd) in Bugs Bunny cartoons like "Tortoise Beats Hare" (1941) and
"Tortoise Wins By a Hare" (1943)
I believe that the Snerd Tortoise voice was provided by Kent Rogers,
who was the original Snerd-like voice of Beaky Buzzard. Rogers was
killed in WW II, and his character voices were ghosted in the late 40s
by Stan Freberg before Mel Blac started doing them in the 1950s.
Michael Shoshani
Chicago
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2005 08:28:22 -0400
From: John Mayer <mayer@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Purvis Belch, Suicide
Andrew Steinberg <otrdig1@[removed]; asked:
Does anyone know if this is true?: May 9th, 1935 - Melvin Purvis
(the FBI man who killed John Dillinger) was doing an ad for
Fleischmann's Yeast when he unexpectantly belched on live radio. It
was dubbed "The Burp Heard Round the World.
Nothing about it on the urban myth pages, but there seems to be some
truth to it:
The website [removed] says:
"The first Belch ever broadcast on national radio was heard in 1935.
Melvin H. Purvis, head of the Chicago office of the FBI, was making a
guest appearance on a program sponsored by Fleischmann's yeast. In
the middle of delivering a commercial for Fleischmann's, Mr. Purvis
inadvertently emitted the dreaded sound, and for years afterward this
brand of yeast was known as 'Purvis's folly.' "
But [removed]
says: "G-man Melvin Purvis raised eyebrows when, during the course of
a radio interview, he let out a loud belch. The program's sponsor,
Fleischmann's Yeast, was not amused." No mention of Purvis actually
doing a commercial for the sponsor.
BTW, Purvis, was a far more hands-on kind of guy than his boss and
it's not inconceivable that the Dick Tracy character might have been
inspired by him; at least, they wore similar hats. He became so
popular J. Edgar Hoover apparently began to fear he might squeeze him
out of the limelight. To make sure that didn't happen, Hoover
pressured Purvis out of the FBI and, reportedly, hounded him
throughout the rest of his life, making it very difficult to get a
job. For a while he was spokesperson for Post Toasties Junior G-men,
a role that any of us are likely to think was pretty cool, but which
Purvis himself, apparently, regarded as a shameful mockery of the war
he'd waged against America's public enemies. He probably committed
suicide at the rather young age of 57 in his home in South Carolina.
Some have suggested he might have killed himself by accident, but, in
addition to his professional disappointments, he also was dying
painfully of cancer. One more radio connection: he had owned a radio
station in his hometown of Florence, South Carolina.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2005 08:28:29 -0400
From: Ron Sayles <bogusotr@[removed];
To: Olde Tyme Radio List <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: 9-2 births/deaths
September 2nd births
09-02-1896 - Amanda Randolph - Louisville, KY - d. 8-24-1967
actress: Mama "Amos 'n' Andy"; Oriole "Beulah"
09-02-1898 - Arthur Young - Bristol, Gloucestershire, England - d. 2-24-1959
actor: Junior Fitz "Ma Perkins"; Son "The Baxters"
09-02-1902 - Henry J. Taylor - Chicago, IL - d. 2-24-1984
commentator: 'Your Land and Mine"; "News Commentary"
09-02-1904 - Vera Vague (Barbara Jo Allen) - New York City, NY - d. 9-14-1974
comedienne: "Vera Vague Show"; "Bob Hope Show"; "Jimmy Durante Show"
09-02-1909 - Adrienne Marden - Cleveland, OH - d. 11-9-1978
actress: Patrica Jordan "Story of Bess Johnson"
09-02-1914 - Tom Glazer - Philadelphia, PA - d. 2-21-2003
folk singer: "[removed] Radio Project"; "Living 1948"; "The Eternal Light"
September 2nd deaths
01-13-1918 - Steve Dunne - Northampton, MA - d. 9-2-1977
actor: Sam Spade "Advs. of Sam Spade"
01-14-1908 - Russ Columbo - Camden, NJ - d. 9-2-1934
singer, bandleader: "Russ Columbo Show"
03-08-1899 - Gladys Thornton - Florida - d. 9-2-1964
actress: Aunt Addie "My Son and I"; Mrs. Tasek "The O'Neills"
04-02-1919 - Charles Frederick Lindsley - d. 9-2-1990
judge: "Noah Webster Says"
05-07-1908 - Edmund MacDonald - Massachusetts - d. 9-2-1951
actor: Tommy Hughes "Big Town"; Inspector Burke "Murder Will Out" s
05-18-1907 - Clifford Curzon - London, England - d. 9-2-1982
pianist: "March of Dimes"
08-10-1902 - Curt Siodmak - Dresden, Saxony, Germany - d. 9-2-2000
film writer: "Suspense"
08-22-1904 - Jay Novello - Chicago, IL - d. 9-2-1982
actor: Sam Sabaaya "Rocky Jordan"; Glenn Hunter "One Man's Family"
08-27-1896 - Morris Ankrum - d. 9-2-1964
actor: "Shakespeare Festival"; "Campbell Playhouse"; "A Report to the Nation"
11-22-1914 - Frank Graham - Michigan - d. 9-2-1950
actor: Diogenes Smith "Lum and Abner"; Jeff Regan "The Lion's Eye"
xx-xx-1928 - Billy Roy - Detroit , MI - d. 9-2-2003
actor: "Smilin' Ed's Buster Brown Gang"
--
Ron Sayles
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2005 08:29:20 -0400
From: Jack & Cathy French <otrpiano@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Purvis burps?
On Friday, September 2, 2005, at 12:09 AM, Andrew Steinberg wrote:
Does anyone know if this is true?
May 9th, 1935 - Melvin Purvis (the FBI man who killed John Dillinger) was
doing an ad for Fleischmann's Yeast when he unexpectantly belched on live
radio. It was dubbed "The Burp Heard Round the World.
I don't know about the burp, but as a former FBI historian, I know it
is not true that Purvis killed John Dillinger. In fact, Purvis did not
get off a shot outside the Biograph Theater in Chicago in 1934 when
Dillinger was gunned down.
Jack French
Editor: RADIO RECALL
[removed]
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2005 13:24:59 -0400
From: Ron Sayles <bogusotr@[removed];
To: Olde Tyme Radio Digest Digest <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: "Tonight We Love"
"Tonight We Love" for "The Mercury Theatre on the Air."
Someone gave this title, but it's true moniker is "Piano Concerto No.
1 in B flat Minor by Tchaikovsky.
Ron Sayles
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2005 14:15:58 -0400
From: atmore@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Amazing Dunninger
Hi:
This mailing list and many members have helped me alot on my research
into Joseph Dunninger for a book I am writing and other projects I am
working on. As many of you know, he was on the radio primarily in the
1940's reading the minds of his audience and celebrity guests.
This past June at the Golden Nugget Hotel in Las Vegas, I recreated a
radio "broadcast" of one of his 1944 shows and hope to perform it in other
venues as well. The Vegas show was filmed and I made a professional
dvd of the show. If this is of interest to you, my website is:
[removed].
$5 off and no postage if you mention you are a member of this list.
Thanks for all you help.
Joe
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2005 14:31:00 -0400
From: "Derek Tague" <derek@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: Prokofiev
X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: from multipart/alternative
X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: Alternative section used was text/plain
The always amazing Jack French wrote:
Walter Winchell thought it was ironic too, and in one of his columns he
chided
J. Edgar Hoover for using music from a Communist composer on his FBI show.
In rebuttal, Hoover pointed out that 1) Sergei Prokofiev was not a Communist
<snip>
when Alan Bell wrote:
The theme to The FBI in Peace and War was Prokofiev's March from the Love
for Three Oranges. I've always thought that was ironic, using music for a
program about the FBI from a Russian composer living under communism.
What's even more ironic was that Prokofiev died the same day as Stalin! (kinda
like [removed] Lewis & Aldous Huxley both dying on that fateful day, Nov. 22nd,
1963).
Along the same lines, I had heard that Broadway critic Jack O'Brian had a
similar problem when once-blacklisted actor Howard daSilva was cast as
founding father Benjamin Franklin in the film "1776," notwithstanding that if
McCarthyism existed back then, Adams, Franklin, Jefferson, et. al. would've
fallen victim to it.
Before this gets TOO political, I'll adjourn and wish everybody a splendid
Labour, er, Labor Day weekend.
Yours in the ether!
Derek Tague
*** This message was altered by the server, and may not appear ***
*** as the sender intended. ***
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2005 14:59:36 -0400
From: Sandy Singer <sinatradj@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK
>From yesterday's Hollywood [removed]
George Clooney's deeply felt docudrama "Good Night, and Good Luck"
provides a snapshot of the moment in history in which a major American
radop and television personality named Edward R. Murrow took on the
malevolent power of a muckraking [removed] senator named Joseph McCarthy and
won.
[removed]
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2005 16:23:10 -0400
From: "David S. Siegel" <otrdsiegel@[removed];
To: OTR DIGEST <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: NEW OTR BOOK ON CASEY, CRIME PHOTOGRAPHER
I'm pleased to announce the availability of a new OTR book, "Flashgun
Casey, Crime Photographer: From the Pulps to Radio and Beyond" that I co
authored with J. Randolph (Randy) Cox.
Many Digest readers will remember Casey's long run on CBS from 1943-1950
and again from 1954-55, and some may recall the ill fated television
version of Crime Photographer starring Darrin McGavin in 1951-52. (If you
lived in the New York metro area in 1945 and had a television set way back
then, you might even have seen one of the four Casey programs that were
televised that year.)
What you may not know is that Casey actually dates back to 1934 when he
first appeared in "Black Mask," the popular mystery/detective pulp
magazine -- and that he appeared in two movies -- even before he came to
radio -- and that the popularity of the radio show lead to Casey novels,
comic books and a play. The radio program even figures into the dialogue of
one of the novels.
The new book -- the first one devoted exclusively to Casey -- looks at all
these incarnations of Casey and traces how the character changed as he made
the transition from one media to another.
For OTR fans, the book includes
-- complete program logs of both the radio and TV series
-- 2 uncirculated radio scripts by Alonzo Deen Cole (who wrote most of the
scripts over the 10 year run)
-- Photos of both the radio and TV casts.
And -- if you're a fan of other aspects of nostalgia, like old movies and
the noir stories of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Erle Stanley
Gardner and Cornell Woolrich -- and want a fuller picture of Casey and his
creator, award winning mystery writer George Harmon Cox -- additional
chapters discuss Casey in the pulps, novels, film, comics and play. There's
also a complete Casey short story, a literary biography of Coxe -- and
reminisces from both Coxe's daughter and the daughter of Alonzo Deen Cole.
The 205 page trade paperback retails for $[removed], plus $[removed] for shipping,
and can be ordered online at
[removed] -- or -- orders can be sent directly to me at
Book Hunter Press
PO Box 193
Yorktown Heights, NY 10598
(914) 245-6608
bookhunterpress@[removed].
We accept Visa and Mastercard, checks and money orders.
Dave Siegel
--------------------------------
End of [removed] Digest V2005 Issue #266
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