Subject: [removed] Digest V2002 #474
From: "OldRadio Mailing Lists" <[removed]@[removed];
Date: 12/7/2002 8:44 PM
To: <[removed]@[removed];

------------------------------


                            The Old-Time Radio Digest!
                              Volume 2002 : Issue 474
                         A Part of the [removed]!
                                 ISSN: 1533-9289


                                 Today's Topics:

  Re: Aware Inc.                        [ Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed] ]
  OTR Sets At Target And Walmart        [ lynn wagar <philcolynn@[removed]; ]
  Liberty Broadcasting                  [ Larry Gassman <lgsinger@[removed] ]
  The Mad Russian                       [ EdHowell@[removed] ]
  Re: Zero Mostel                       [ Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed] ]
  The Mad Russian                       [ Jandpgardner@[removed] ]
  Random thoughts                       [ Richard Carpenter <sinatra@ragingbu ]
  Nemo                                  [ John Mayer <mayer@[removed]; ]
  Traphagen                             [ "" <cooldown3@[removed]; ]
  Mad Russian                           [ "Roger Robineau" <Robineau2@cogeco. ]
  Irene Dunne and Bright Star           [ lone wolf <the_onewolf2000@[removed] ]
  Re: "Red Channels" and its Sources    [ Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed] ]
  The Mad Russian                       [ Conrad Binyon <conradab@[removed] ]
  Bob Steele                            [ JayHick@[removed] ]

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 7 Dec 2002 10:56:17 -0500
From: Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Re: Aware Inc.

On 12/6/02 10:21 PM OldRadio Mailing Lists wrote:

At the time of blacklisting radio artists, I think it was called "Red
Channels", the irony was that it was compiled by a man in upstate New
York who had no connection with industry nor any knowledge of the
political preference of the prople that he condemned.

I believe the man you're thinking of was Laurence A. Johnson, who was a
supermarket manager from Syracuse. His only connection to show business
was that he refused to stock the products of sponsors who were connected
with programs using talent that he found politically objectionable, and
he began compiling a list of such performers for his own use. Eventually
he began making this list available to other store owners who shared his
political views.

Meanwhile, three former FBI agents by the names of Kenneth Bierly,
Theodore Kirkpatrick, and John Keenan began publishing "CounterAttack"
magazine around 1947, forming a company called "American Business
Consultants" and marketing the magazine mostly to small corporate
organizations. They were eventually joined by Vincent Hartnett, a former
radio producer, and the only person involved with the group to have had
any direct connection with the broadcasting industry. ("Red Channels"
itself might have been inspired by a 1934 book called "The Red Network,"
written by ultra-right-wing activist Elizabeth Dilling. Dilling's book
lists hundreds of figures from 1930s public life along with allegations
of their "Jewish/Communist" sympathies, and its format and level of
credibility are very similar to those of "Red Channels." According to
Mrs. Dilling, the YMCA, the NAACP, the Federal Council of Churches of
Christ, and the University of Chicago were all Communist fronts.)

Eventually Johnson's path crossed with that of the CounterAttack group --
and he and Hartnett became close friends. They formed an organization
called "Aware Inc," which acted as a followup to the work begun by "Red
Channels" -- publishing regular newsletters adding to and expanding the
list of names published in the book. Aware Inc. also offered a service to
networks: on payment of a fee, they would examine lists of performers
submitted by the network and "clear" those names who were politically
acceptable for broadcasting. Aware Inc. maintained close ties with the
pro-blacklist contingent in New York AFRA, and depended on these allies
for much of its inside information. It was participation by New York
AFRAns in Aware Inc. which nearly tore the local apart in the  early
1950s.

In addition to all this, Aware Inc. offered a "service" to individual
performers which was essentially an old-fashioned blackmail racket.
Hartnett would unearth some bit of politically compromising information
on a performer, and then write that performer a letter asking if it were
true that, for example, they had attended the New York City May Day
parade on May 1, 1939. If the performer responded -- and given the power
wielded by Aware Inc it was quite likely that he or she would -- it would
eventually lead to an offer by Hartnett to "investigate and clear" the
allegations for a cash fee. Quite a few performers were shaken down by
this racket during the mid-1950s, and Hartnett and Johnson became wealthy
men. Their power was finally broken by the lawsuit filed by former CBS
radio personality John Henry Faulk, who claimed that Aware Inc. had
deliberately conspired to destroy his career after he refused to
cooperate with them. The court's decision in favor of Faulk drove Aware
Inc. into bankruptcy.

Elizabeth

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 7 Dec 2002 10:56:31 -0500
From: lynn wagar <philcolynn@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  OTR Sets At Target And Walmart

I's like to correct some information I gave in error
last week about Walmart selling the New radio spirts
sets including Bob Hope set.

I had stated that Walmart was selling the same radio
spirits sets as Target and that would be $[removed]

I was in Walmart yesterday and to my surprise they
are only $[removed]!!

It's may not be a big deal to some but $10 is still
alot to save on anything!

My apologies!!!

Lynn Wagar

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 7 Dec 2002 11:05:09 -0500
From: Larry Gassman <lgsinger@[removed];
To: OTR Digest <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Liberty Broadcasting

Hello,
in 1999 Elizabeth sent along a history of the Liberty Broadcasting system.
Earlier in the week, a question was asked about the outlet station that
carried the network in Los Angeles.

Elizabeth wrote:

Liberty was the brainchild of Texas radio entrepreneur Gordon McLendon
and began full-scale network operations in October 1950. McLendon's KLIF
in Dallas was the flagship, and the network quickly built a base of
stations concentrated in the South and Southwest, and portions of the
West and Midwest. Most of the stations in the network were relatively
small, but occasionally larger outlets like KMPC in Los Angeles and WCFL,
Chicago were involved.

While the Liberty Game Of The Day (a series of recreated baseball
broadcasts) was the primary attraction, the network did offer a schedule
of news and feature programs: the Crosby documentary you mention is one
example, and there's an Al Jolson Memorial Program in circulation that
was also produced by Liberty. Altogether, the Liberty schedule filled ten
hours daily, and while some rather talented people worked for the
network, such as newsman Frank Blair and sportscaster Lindsey Nelson,
they were never in the same ballpark as the Major Networks, and never
attracted any major stars. The only thing the network really had to offer
was "Game Of The Day."

During 1951, Liberty's Game of the Day recreations became fantastically
popular in areas where there was no access to local big-league
broadcasts, and attracted national sponsorship from Falstaff Brewing.
Unfortunately for McLendon, the broadcasts also attracted the attention
of the Office Of The Baseball Commissioner. Baseball had already made its
own arrangements with Mutual for a live series of "Game Of The Day"
broadcasts, and saw McLendon as an illegal interloper.

While McLendon preferred to view himself as a sharp operator, a more
precise term would be "pirate," since most of his baseball broadcasts
were presented without any legal authorization from the teams or the
Commissioner's Office, and with rare exceptions, the network paid no
royalties or licensing fees. Pressure from Organized Baseball forced
Western Union to revoke Liberty's access to the baseball wire -- and
without Game Of The Day, McLendon knew his network was doomed. In an
attempt to stay alive, McLendon filed a $14 million lawsuit against
Baseball in February 1952, but he lost. The legal expenses and the loss
of revenue piled up -- and in May of 1952, Liberty went silent for good.
McLendon, however, bounced back -- he went on to become a prime mover in
the creation of "Top Forty" radio, and is considered a pioneer in the
development of modern radio format theory.

Elizabeth

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 7 Dec 2002 12:04:54 -0500
From: EdHowell@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  The Mad Russian

The Mad Russian was a comedic character on the old Kay Kyser Kollege of
Musical Knowledge.  .........   "How do you do?"n (And, golly, what a hair
do!)

Anyone know if Kyzer is still alive? Last I heard he was in [removed]

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 7 Dec 2002 12:06:02 -0500
From: Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Re: Zero Mostel

On 12/7/02 11:12 AM OldRadio Mailing Lists wrote:

In the mid-1970s, I remember seeing an interview with Zero Mostel, shortly
before he died, in which he stated thst the reason he was blacklisted was
simply because he signed a petition to allow African-Americans into
major-league baseball.

A few citations in "Red Channels" refer to a given performer's support
for "The Committee to End Jim Crow in Baseball" as a factor in their
listing -- but this citation does not appear in Mostel's entry in the
book. Rather, he is one of the few performers in the book to actually be
accused of Communist Party membership, on the basis of a Senate
investigating committee's claim that he "entertained at social functions
of Communist Party." He is also charged with being among the sponsors of
the 1947 May Day Parade, being a member of the American Youth Committee,
performing at a benefit for the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee in
December 1943, and attending a reception at the Park Central Hotel in
1947 for several "Hollywood Writers, Directors, and Actors" sponsored by
the Civil Rights Congress.

Ironically, the "Committee to End Jim Crow in Baseball" *did* have a
documented link to the American Communist Party. It was openly sponsored
and promoted by The Daily Worker, the Communist newspaper, which  had
been campaigning thruout the late 1930s for integration of Major League
Baseball -- the Worker's sports editor Lester Rodney was an extremely
knowledgeable baseball fan who closely followed doings in the Negro
Leagues, and in fact the Worker was one of the only white newspapers in
the US to regularly cover Negro League baseball. But as sincere as
Rodney's efforts seem to have been, continuous Communist activism on this
issue did far more harm than good by seriously compromising efforts by
more mainstream reformers to achieve integration in baseball. By
attatching itself so visibly to the issue, the Worker served only to give
hardline segregationists a "Red card" to play in their opposition to
black players -- evidence, perhaps of just how inept attempts at
"Communist infiltraton" of American popular culture really were.

Elizabeth

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 7 Dec 2002 12:52:01 -0500
From: Jandpgardner@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  The Mad Russian

Greetings from England!
In #473, Bob Griffin asks about a comic character known as "The Mad Russian".
That was the name by which Bert Gordon was known on the Eddie Cantor Show for
several years from the mid 1930s. His famous catchphrase was "How Do You
Dooooo". Bert was in a few films including "New Faces of 1937" and, in 1943,
"Laugh Your Blues Away" and "Let's Have Fun". He was the star of this last
film playing an eccentric Russian playwright called 'Boris Rascalnikoff', not
unlike his radio character.
Born in 1898, Bert Gordon died in 1974.
John.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 7 Dec 2002 13:27:24 -0500
From: Richard Carpenter <sinatra@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Random thoughts

  Here are two random thoughts fished from the stream
of my consciousness:

   When I was 8 or 9, I used to listen to
"Gangbusters" and then shiver at the thought that
thugs and thieves might invade my house. It never
occurred to me that we had absolutely nothing worth
stealing.

   Re the discussion of McCarthy, HUAC, etc.: I share
Jon Lennon's view: "Imagine there's no countries ...
nothing to kill or die [removed]" And if that makes me a
flaming liberal pinko commie, then so be it.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 7 Dec 2002 13:28:54 -0500
From: John Mayer <mayer@[removed];
To: OldRadio Mailing Lists <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Nemo

Bill Orr <billorr6@[removed]; commented:

 During my early days in broadcast (late 40's), I was told that NEMO was
 derived from the Greek meaning "far away, remote".

Well, I fear I have, as the saying goes, little Latin and less Greek,
but I believe you were misinformed: nemo is a Latin word meaning no
one, as in the saying, amply demonstrated here daily, "Nemo solus
satis sapit." That is, no one is sufficiently wise unto him(her)self.
For some reason, I recall the definition because of my childhood
admiration for the captain of the same name (how I wished I! had a
submarine shaped like a sea monster; I would even have faithfully
practiced my scales [no pun intended] so that I could do justice to
its great organ, an appointment it seemed every submarine really
should have). And later, of course, I discovered the young dreamer
who was his namesake (actually I guess _Little Nemo in Slumberland_
actually preceded the age of OTR, but I think all those here, who
appreciate the powers of imagination, would find much to admire in
McKay's work. Especially with minds "expanded.")

 I am reminded of a Third Officer on a merchant freighter being called
 "tertius"...

I believe this is also a Latin word for, as you say, "third."

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 7 Dec 2002 14:12:29 -0500
From: "" <cooldown3@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Traphagen

I arrived in Corpus Christie, Texas in May of 1984 and became a steady fan
of a radio personality by the name of Traphagen. This was his last name and
I no longer remember his first name unfortunately.
He did drive time shows and had a running banter that was happy but yet
relevant to the city that he loved and which loved him back.
He wsas in constant treatment for cancer and died during the next year.
Before he passed the entire town took up collections and funded a reunion
trip back to the northeast [possibly new jersey] for an extended family
reunion.
Does anyone have any information about this unusual and beloved person with
the unusual name?
Cheers,
PAtrick

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 7 Dec 2002 14:54:41 -0500
From: "Roger Robineau" <Robineau2@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Mad Russian

The Mad Russian was on Duffy's tavern.  His favourite saying was : " How
do you dooooo?" (Bert Gordon as the Mad Russian).

Roger Robineau

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 7 Dec 2002 14:55:02 -0500
From: lone wolf <the_onewolf2000@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Irene Dunne and Bright Star

I am looking for some info on the radio program called
Bright Star with Irene Dunne and Fred MacMurray.

What I am looking for is a list of the names of the
complete cast, for example who played the maid and who
played the copy boy?  I have not seen their names
listed in any references on OTR that I have.

Also I would like a chronological listing of all of
the episodes.  I have references that say there were
32 shows, some 52 shows and some 73 shows?  Which is
correct, does anyone know?

Also, I have a copy of about 30 shows, does anyone
have a complete collection on hand?

Any info that you can give will be greatly
appreciated.

Thanks.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 7 Dec 2002 17:38:47 -0500
From: Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Re: "Red Channels" and its Sources

A. Joseph Ross notes --

This is true, but McCarthy's prominence and his methods of operation made
him prominent
as a symbol of the "Red Scare," and the word "McCarthyism" has come to
apply to all of the
different aspects of those excesses.

One individual who may have even more to do with the atmosphere of the
Red Scare era than McCarthy was Thomas Clark, the Attorney General under
the Truman Administration. It was Clark who issued a list of 82
"Subversive Organizations" in a report to the Federal Loyalty Board in
1947 -- and it was this list that "Counterattack" used as a primary
source in compiling "Red Channels." If any report was located linking any
performer in any way with any one of these organizations, they were cited
in "Red Channels."

Clark's list, in turn, was drawn from an assortment of old FBI memos,
hearsay, and various published sources.  A number of the organizations
listed by Clark were defunct groups which had advocated wartime aid to
Russian refugees, while others were Depression-oriented groups which had
been defunct since the 1930s. Still others had seen the peak of their
activity in the 1920s or even the 1910s. And some of the organizations
listed were Trotskyite Socialist in alignment -- making them even more
passionately anti-Soviet than the Attorney General himself. The list, in
short, was a patchwork job which was not based on first-hand, up-to-date
research -- and was a poor source to use if one was serious about rooting
out bona fide Soviet operatives.

While on the subject, it's interesting to note that CounterAttack also
made heavy use of a report on "Communist Front Organizations" prepared by
a member of the Dies Committee in 1944. This report was hastily cobbled
together as a political maneuver when the Dies Committee was facing
withdrawal of its congressional mandate -- and after the 2,000-page
report had been printed and displayed, and funding secured for another
term, the Committee realized that the document was filled with
poorly-researched, unverified charges -- and ordered it withdrawn and all
copies destroyed. The FBI, however, refused to turn in its copy -- and
given that the founders of CounterAttack were all former FBI men, they
must have had access to it. CounterAttack made free use of the document,
even though it had been discredited and repudiated by the very committee
which had created it.

Elizabeth

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 7 Dec 2002 17:48:21 -0500
From: Conrad Binyon <conradab@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  The Mad Russian
X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: from multipart/alternative
X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: Alternative section used was text/plain

 OldRadio Mailing Lists <[removed]@[removed]; wherein Robert
Griffin queried

I seem to remember a comedic character on radio many years ago who was
called "The Mad Russian." Can anyone verify the existence of such a
character? Thanks in advance for the help.

Bert Gordon was known as the "Mad Russian"
He appeared on the Eddie Cantor Show and his tagline
was an exaggerated "How do you dooo?"

Check out his comedy presents in the follow clip from
a CD available from CD NOW "Golden Years of Comedy

[removed]~tt-600111/0201769_0101_00_0002.
ra

---
conradab@[removed] (Conrad A. Binyon)
   From the Home of the Stars who loved Ranches and Farms
     Encino, California.

  *** This message was altered by the server, and may not appear ***
  ***                  as the sender intended.                   ***

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 7 Dec 2002 22:04:02 -0500
From: JayHick@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Bob Steele

I had the pleasure of meeting Bob Steele a number of years ago.  I presented
a special award to him from FOTR on his morning show a number of years ago.
He joined WTIC in 1936 and gave his last program on November of this year.
He was on once a month recently.  He was on WTIC for 66 years.  What other
radio personalities were connected with the same station for that long or
longer?  Jay

--------------------------------
End of [removed] Digest V2002 Issue #474
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