Subject: [removed] Digest V2001 #411
From: "OldRadio Mailing Lists" <[removed]@[removed];
Date: 12/27/2001 9:03 PM
To: <[removed]@[removed];

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


                            The Old-Time Radio Digest!
                              Volume 2001 : Issue 411
                         A Part of the [removed]!
                                 ISSN: 1533-9289


                                 Today's Topics:

  Re: Looking for My Favorite Husband   [ Joe Mackey <joemackey108@[removed] ]
  Today in Radio History                [ Joe Mackey <joemackey108@[removed] ]
  OTR Book                              [ "Thomas Mason" <batz34@[removed] ]
  Re: Fathers of Radio                  [ Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed] ]
  Franklin MacCormack                   [ "Arte" <arte@[removed]; ]
  Big Sister                            [ otrbuff@[removed] ]
  Vaughn deLeath                        [ William L Murtough <k2mfi@[removed]; ]
  Bob Bailey-Born to play this role     [ Mike Ray <MRay@[removed]; ]
  Christmas gifts                       [ George Aust <austhaus1@[removed] ]

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

Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2001 00:37:14 -0500
From: Joe Mackey <joemackey108@[removed];
To: otr-net <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: Re: Looking for My Favorite Husband

Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2001 23:02:52 -0500
From: "[removed]" <swells@[removed];
Subject: Looking for My Favorite Husband

 Accordin to Hickerson, you may have a vary difficult time tracking them
down. He states that only 63 known episodes are in circulation. Now that
doesn't mean that, that is all that exist, but it would render any that are
not circulating rather difficult to obtain.

   In addition to that the same show will will numerous titles and
dates.  I have a copy of the original log compiled by Gregg Oppenheimer,
son of Jess, (also a list member) and comparing his log against shows
I've found here and there the differences are outstanding.  I stand by
Gregg's list.  Dates will be off, dupe shows with different dates and
titles, etc.  Its all very confusing.
   Joe

--
Visit my home page:
[removed]~[removed]

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

Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2001 10:12:24 -0500
From: Joe Mackey <joemackey108@[removed];
To: otr-net <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: Today in Radio History

  From Those Were The Days --

1939 - The Glenn Miller Show, also known as Music that Satisfies,
started on CBS radio. The 15-minute, twice-a-week show was sponsored by
Chesterfield cigarettes and was heard for nearly three years.

1968 - The Breakfast Club signed off for the last time on ABC radio,
after 35 years on the air.

  Joe

--
Visit my home page:
[removed]~[removed]

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

Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2001 10:14:03 -0500
From: "Thomas Mason" <batz34@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: OTR Book

I was looking through the pages of the weekly Comic Buyers Guide and came
across an ad for a book entitled "Radio's Greatest Years" written by Frank
[removed] revised second edition. It seems to cover the entire spectrum
of OTR and even has a forward by Norman Corwin.  It is full size 8 1/2" by
11" and has over 264 pages.
Anyone know anything about this book?  The price is right at $[removed],
considering what books go for nowadays.
Tom Mason

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

Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2001 10:15:08 -0500
From: Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: Re: Fathers of Radio

On 12/26/01 11:05 PM OldRadio Mailing Lists wrote:

With all respect to Fessenden and Marconi and
Tesla and Edison and even Nathan Stubblefield, the
REAL "Father of Radio" is indisputably Dr. Mahlon
Loomis, who broadcast Morse code radio signals as far
back 1865, during the closing days of the Civil War,
and who in 1876 (or possibly 1877) broadcast the
world's first radio-telephone messages.

While Loomis (as well as Tesla and Stubblefield) may have succeeded in
transmitting signals without wire, they weren't transmitting *radio.* All
of these experimenters were working with simple low-frequency electrical
fields, not the generation and transmission of Hertzian radio waves.
Their signals were broadband, brute-force electrical transmissions, not
tuned radio-frequency signals -- and had no more to do with the basic
principles of radio than a string stretched between two tin cans has to
do with the principles of the telephone.  While it is possible to
transmit signals by the Loomis/Tesla/Stubblefield methods, there's no way
to *tune* these signals -- rendering the system essentially useless as a
means of mass communication. It was an interesting scientific novelty --
but the limits of the basic theory would have prevented it from ever
growing beyond that.

Loomis secured a patent in 1872 for what he called "conductive wireless
transmission," but whether or not this system actually worked as well as
he claimed is very much disputed. The complete text of the patent can be
viewed at Thomas White's Early Radio website, at
[removed]~[removed]. The salient feature of the
patent is, in Loomis's own words:

"The utilization of natural electricity from elevated points by
connecting the opposite polarity of the celestial and terrestrial bodies
of electricity at different points by suitable conductors, and, for
telegraphic purposes, relying upon the disturbance produced in the two
electro-opposite bodies (of the earth and atmosphere) by an interruption
of the continuity of one of the conductors from the electrical body being
indicated upon its opposite or corresponding terminus, and thus producing
a circuit or communication between the two without an artificial battery
or the further use of wires or cables to connect the co-operating
stations."

Loomis used a combination of large puddles of salt water and wired kites
to conduct electrical charges from point to point. As can be seen, the
essential feature of true radio -- the generation and transmission of a
tunable RF carrier wave which can be modulated to carry information -- is
not a part of Loomis' idea. His theory is similar to the theories pursued
by Tesla and Stubblefield, but had little to do with the work done over
the 19th Century by Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, Henrich Hertz,
Oliver Lodge, Alexander Popov, John Stone Stone, Reginald Fessenden
(probably the first person to successfully transmit voice by actual
Hertzian radio waves) and, yes, Guglielmo Marconi. No one individual can
be designated the "Father of Radio," but these scientists definitely had
more to do with its development than the conductive/inductive theorists.

Elizabeth

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

Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2001 10:15:18 -0500
From: "Arte" <arte@[removed];
To: "OldRadio Mailing List" <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: Franklin MacCormack

I grew up listening tom Franklin MacCormack on WGN's
"Meister Brau Showcase"
(midnight - 6am).

His reading of Browning's "How Do I Love Thee" is classic.

Another interesting note: Franklin suffered a massive heart
attack and died while on the air.
Not sure of the date, but I think it was in the early 70s.

He had been an actor and announcer on several OTR programs.
I've heard in name in the credits of "Little Orphan Annie"
an "Heartbeat Theater" among others.

"And the [removed] burning."

Arte

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

Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2001 11:52:10 -0500
From: otrbuff@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Big Sister

Actually, there were five -- not four -- actresses who played the part of
Big Sister.  The list given in Thursday's digest omitted the name of the
most durable thespian to portray her, Grace Matthews.  She assumed the
role on June 24, 1946 when the drama made a rather unusual (though not
unprecedented) shift from one soapmaker to another.  When, after a
decade, Lever Brothers canceled, Procter & Gamble was waiting in the
wings to pick it up, carrying it -- with Grace Matthews in the role of
Ruth Evans Wayne -- for the duration of the washboard weeper, through
Dec. 26, 1952.  And while Thursday's post noted that the serial
surrounded Wayne and her relationship with her younger sibling, Sue Evans
Miller, make that two younger siblings.

Actually, Ruth was a mother hen (in the absence of deceased parents) who
clucked more around her younger lame brother Ned ("Neddie" in earliest
days).  While he may have been physically distorted, he and Sue came
across to the radio audience as mental weaklings.  Fans tuning in over a
protracted period must have felt neither could ever mature well enough to
be capable of running their own lives.  They were lucky to have Ruth to
address their worries and heartaches.  Whether she did them a good turn
by allowing the twosome to run to her for advice on everything is
debatable.  She left little for them to figure for themselves.  But then,
in the early years, without her assistance, there would have been no plot
-- and no drama.  (Incidentally, Sue was also played by Helen Lewis, in
addition to four other actresses named Thursday.)

Neddie was eventually restored to physical health by the brilliant young
surgeon Dr. John Wayne, who was fond of Ruth.  They married and that's
when the real troubles began for the heroine.  Up to then it had been
mere child's play.   But that's another story.  Suffice it to say that
John, ever mindful of pretty legs, eventually had a torrid affair with
Hope Evans, Neddie's young wife, his own sister-in-law.  You can see that
it all dissolved into a mixed-up mess.  If ever a series required a
counselor-in-residence, it was this one, and Big Sister inevitably filled
the bill.

Meanwhile, the actress Grace Matthews also played leads on The Brighter
Day, Hilltop House, Soldier's Wife and The Story of Dr. Susan.  For a
while she was Margo Lane on The Shadow and had a recurring role on Just
Plain Bill.  She was in the cast of television's The Guiding Light
(1968-69).  In the 1970s she appeared sporadically on The CBS Mystery
Theater.  Matthews was born in Toronto, Canada Sept. 3, 1910 and died May
15, 1995 at Mount Kisco, N. Y.

Jim Cox

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

Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2001 12:16:38 -0500
From: William L Murtough <k2mfi@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Vaughn deLeath

About 1939 while I was at WMCA in New York I was the engineer on a talk
show with Vaughn. This was after her singing career. She sat at a table
in small studio 4 as I recall. I was using an RCA 44-BX mike suspended
from an extension to an RCA floor stand. This was superior to the usual
desk mount as the talent had room for their script to lay on the table.
As I started to set up the mike, Vauhgn arose from her chair and stepped
back, explaining that she had been hit in the mouth at another station
when the engineer set up the microphone. I remember her as being a very
pleasant lady.

Another comment. Mike Biel noted a few days ago that Mickey Katz had not
broadcast live. The remote broadcasts from the Golden Pheasant Restaurant
in Cleveland which I mentioned Mickey's reading of fractured fairy tales
were all live. Too bad they were not recorded so that we could enjoy them
again.

Bill Murtough

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

Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2001 13:03:56 -0500
From: Mike Ray <MRay@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: Bob Bailey-Born to play this role

Hi Gang: I'm right in the middle of re-listening to the
Yours Truly Johnny Dollar 5-part series staring Bob Bailey.
Now I always thought, and it is widely accepted that Bailey
was by far the best of the Johnny Dollars. The show I think
was mediocre at best till this brilliant actor was hired by
writer producer Jack Johnstone to play the part. but  I think
his ability goes far beyond just being the best Dollar. This
man had incredible attributes as an actor. Not only could Bailey
be a tough guy when needed, (which is no big deal since all
deceives can do that) but he also displayed a great deal of
compassion and warmth that all the other 'detectives' seem to
lack. His abilities as Dollar with his great range and depth gave
me the feeling that Bailey was born to play this role. In fact I
can't think of a single actor who was better equipped to play
any part, like Bob Bailey was in playing the role of  Johnny
[removed], this gave me an idea of what a top 10 list might
look like of those actors or actresses who were born to play a
certain role.

1.	Bob Bailey as Johnny Dollar
2.	James Stewart as Britt Ponsit (The Six Shooter)
3.	Eve Arden as Connie Brooks (Our Miss Brooks)
4.	Jack Webb as Joe Friday   (Dragnet)
5.	Orson Welles as Lamont Cranston (The Shadow)
6.	Brace Beemer as the Lone Ranger
7.	Parley Bear as Chester Proudfoot  (Gunsmoke)
8.	Bennett Kilpack as Mr. Keen  (Mr. Keen Tracer of Lost Persons)
9.	Lon Clark as Nick Carter  (Nick Carter, Master Detective)
10.	William Boyd as Hopalong Cassidy

Honorable mention: Alan Ladd as Dan Holiday (Box 13),
Frank Lovejoy as Randy Stone (Nightbeat),
Fanny Brice as Baby Snooks,
William Conrad as Matt Dillion (Gunsmoke),
John Stanley as Sherlock Holmes,
Bud Collyer as Superman,
William Bendix as Chester A. Riley (The Life of Riley).
Bob Hope (entertainer of the troops)

I would love to see who you believe was born to play
a certain [removed] final note. If you have not ever
taken the time to introduce yourself to the 5-part
series of "Yours Truly Johnny Dollar" programs you
have missed something very special.
Best regards,
Mike Ray

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

Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2001 20:10:51 -0500
From: George Aust <austhaus1@[removed];
To: OTR Digest <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: Christmas gifts

Santa was very good to me this year, as it was an OTR Christmas. I
received John Dunning's "On The Air" which I had wanted for a long time
but didn't want to spend the money on myself. Also John Dunning's book
"Two O Clock Eastern Wartime". And as if that weren't enough, I was
given Herbert Hobler's "And Now The News 1945" which had the added bonus
of a bookmark from our friend Hal Stone. Thank you Hal.
Speaking of books, I just finished reading "Listening in" by Susan J.
Douglas. I wonder if many others on this list have read it . I would be
interested in hearing their opinions of  her work. I have definite mixed
feelings about it. I almost quit at the begining because I have always
had a strong dislike of anyone telling me what I think or what I feel,
and Ms Douglas does that throughout her book assigning thoughts and
feelings to OTR's listening audience. Sort of a psychological/
socialogical /historical/ revisionist.(Hows that for making up a new
term?) But over all I think that it was worth my time and I did learn
from it. But then I have so much to learn yet, that it doesn't require a
scholarly work to improve my meager knowlege of such a fascinating
subject as OTR.

Happy New Year to everyone.
George Aust

--------------------------------
End of [removed] Digest V2001 Issue #411
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