Subject: [removed] Digest V2005 #158
From: [removed]@[removed]
Date: 5/22/2005 10:45 AM

To: [removed]@[removed]

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

                                The Old-Time Radio Digest!
                                  Volume 2005 : Issue 158
                             A Part of the [removed]!
                                 [removed]
                                     ISSN: 1533-9289

                                     Today's Topics:

      Jerry Vale and Page Cavanaugh         [ "Walden Hughes" <hughes1@[removed]; ]
      RE:Jon Pertwee                        [ "Garry Lewis" <garrylewis747@earthl ]
      Re: Bill & Jon Pertwee                [ mickey <mickey44@[removed]; ]
      Shelock Holmes                        [ "RadioAZ@[removed]" <radioAZ@bas ]
      Bill Pertwee                          [ "[removed]" <donsplace@[removed]; ]
      CBS Radio News/Tone/Chirp             [ "bcockrum" <rmc44@[removed]; ]
      CBS World News Roundup                [ Art Chimes <achimes@[removed]; ]
      Galen Drake                           [ Jack & Cathy French <otrpiano@erols ]
      OT dylan thomas                       [ "Kurt E. Yount" <blsmass@[removed]; ]
      studds terkel                         [ "Kurt E. Yount" <blsmass@[removed]; ]
      Damon Runyon, On George Burns         [ jameshburns@[removed] (Jim Burns) ]
      5-22 births/deaths                    [ Ron Sayles <bogusotr@[removed]; ]
      Jack Benny's last live broadcast      [ Kermyt Anderson <kermyta@[removed]; ]
      Henry Corden                          [ Kermyt Anderson <kermyta@[removed]; ]

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

    Date: Sat, 21 May 2005 17:30:29 -0400
    From: "Walden Hughes" <hughes1@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Jerry Vale and Page Cavanaugh

    Hi Everybody,

    we just book Jerry Vale for the June SPERDVAC meeting [removed]
    Jerry was the singer on the the 1950s Peter Lynn  Hayes  show.  Does any one
    have a copy of this show that we can use?  I also just book Page Cavanaugh
    for the September   SPERDVAC meeting.  Did Page have his own radio show?  I
    have him with Spike Jones, and Songs by Sinatra.  Page is still playing
    piano around CA.  In fact I just receive a new CD with him   playing piano
    on some of the tracks.  Take care,

    Walden Hughes

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

    Date: Sat, 21 May 2005 17:31:00 -0400
    From: "Garry Lewis" <garrylewis747@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  RE:Jon Pertwee

    According to IMDB Jon and Bill were cousins. They don't have a death date
    for Bill, so I  he maybe still alive. Jon died in 1996.
    A side note was that Bill was the "godfather" to Ian Lavender( Pvt. Frank
    Pike ) on "Dads Army".

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

    Date: Sat, 21 May 2005 19:58:01 -0400
    From: mickey <mickey44@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Re: Bill & Jon Pertwee

    Kermyt Anderson wrote:

>     Since they both appeared in popular BBC shows starting in the
>     50s, I presume they were brothers? Is Bill still alive?

    Bill is still alive and is the slightly younger (B - 1926) cousin of Jon.

    mickey

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

    Date: Sat, 21 May 2005 19:58:26 -0400
    From: "RadioAZ@[removed]" <radioAZ@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Shelock Holmes

    Shelock Holmes holds the distinction of being the most often portrayed
    fictional character in movies.  Anyone know the most often portrayed
    historical character in movies?

    I was recently in a Half-Price bookstore and saw a boxed set of Sherlock
    Holmes radio shows.  I was about to purchase it when I noticed it was not
    OTR.  These were recently produced scripts.  I don't recall who put them
    out.  I'm not sure if they used the OTR scripts which are liberally
    available from the archives of the Wisconsin State Historical Society in
    Madison.  Or, were they written anew for that series.  Anyone know any more
    about that new Holmes set?

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

    Date: Sat, 21 May 2005 19:58:54 -0400
    From: "[removed]" <donsplace@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Bill Pertwee

    Bill Pertwee, according to a number of short biographies posted on
    the 'net, is the cousin of the late Jon Pertwee.

    Don't know much about Jon' s radio work, but he did do voice work on
    the Teddy Ruxpin series, and was brilliant on TV as both Dr. Who and
    Worzel Gummidge.  Absolutely the most gracious and forgiving man I've
    ever spilled hot coffee on.

    [removed]

    "Nobody knows the exact age of the human race, but everybody agrees
    that it is old enough to know better."

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

    Date: Sat, 21 May 2005 21:24:03 -0400
    From: "bcockrum" <rmc44@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  CBS Radio News/Tone/Chirp

    Can't help but joining the discussion about CBS and can't help but believe
    some of the effusive, positive comments the last couple of days are more
    from nostalgia than a serious look at the radio network's news on the hour.
    Those good ol' days of a news organization's own correspondents in the major
    capitals of the world are long gone and with them the advantage of having
    someone who has some depth of knowledge of what he's talking about. (What
    was the drummers' song in "The Music Man," -- "ya gotta know the territory"?

    In addition to using stringers for reports from the scene, these days there
    is a plethora of "readers" done by a second reporter ... no more than a
    second voice whose purpose is ... to be a another voice in the newscast. For
    instance, the newscast anchor in NY throws it to a "reporter" in Washington
    for a story about such-and-such government study that is coming out today --
    and the reporter is reading nothing more than what could be wire copy or a
    rewrite from the Washington Post. And I've written before of my disgust of
    cutting in and out of CBS (TV) News audio during special programming.

    Nor, of course, is CBS Radio really into news as it once was in terms of
    length. The 10-minute newscast on the hour in the 1960s made the network the
    New York Times of the air. And the 15-minute newscast in the morning (The
    CBS World News Roundup) and in the evening (The World Tonight), added to
    that image (not to mention Lowell Thomas). But today the news roundups are
    only 10 minutes long in the morning, nine in the evening, with many local
    stations cutting away after the first few minutes.

    I seldom hear an ABC newscast, so I'm not sure how well they do. And for
    that matter, listening to CBS gives me such heartburn that I don't listen
    much to them anymore, except to set my watch -- which is really unnecessary,
    thanks to an Internet link to the government's atomic clock ... or just by
    looking at my own radio-controlled clock.

    The "bong," by the way, is really a piano note. I don't recall which one.
    NBC might have had the famous chimes to close out a program, but CBS at
    least had a strong on-the-hour voice with its tone, compared with NBC's
    puny, high-pitched one.

    -0-

    Regarding the "chirps" -- we used to just call them "bleeps" -- which are
    still around, though unnecessary through a second automation system. When I
    first visited a CBS affiliate while in college, the CBS NetALERT (that's the
    way they spelled it) device sat in an equipment rack to the left and behind
    the announcer in the control room. It was gray, took up about 10 inches of
    space vertically and was emblazoned with "CBS Laboratories" across the
    bottom. It was a noisy affair -- while the listeners might have heard the
    chirp one second before the start of the program, in the control room the
    sound was "ka-chunk" as a relay in the device moved a wheel with backlit
    numbers showing through a little window (maybe an inch in diameter) ...
    followed by another ka-chunk as the wheel re-set itself, going from "1" back
    to "0". The noise was particularly unnerving to the announcers whose
    microphone would occasionally pick it up. By the time I went to work there a
    year or so later, the NetALERT box had been moved to another room and
    replaced with a row of 10 buttons (in front of the audio board and above the
    Western Union clock) that silently lit up, reflecting the cue that was being
    fed by CBS.

    The one chirp was commonly called the system cue, signaling the start of a
    regularly scheduled program, on the hour or otherwise. I'm not sure I
    remember them all, but it would have been something like: two chirps -- a
    closed circuit feed ... sometimes a matter of updates on planned programs,
    but there was a regular closed circuit report in the afternoon in which
    affilates were told of the latest changes to the commercials that were
    scheduled, etc. Three chirps -- a news bulletin ("We interrupt this program
    for a CBS Radio NetALERT bulletin.") ... Four chirps -- a longer form
    special report. I'm not sure of the rest; it seems that at least a couple of
    numbers were listed as "spares" ... and then there was number nine -- a
    national emergency.

    Bob C.

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

    Date: Sat, 21 May 2005 22:05:48 -0400
    From: Art Chimes <achimes@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  CBS World News Roundup
    X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: from multipart/mixed
    X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: Alternative section used was text/plain

    George Tirebiter wonders (Digest 2005:157) whether there is a morning
    version of the "CBS World News Roundup Late Edition."

    The original "CBS World News Roundup" has been on the air at 8:00 [removed]
    for as long as I can remember. I haven't listened to it in a long time
    -- I much prefer NPR news -- but according the the website of parent
    company Westwood One, it is still on the air as a 10-minute feed with
    multiple optional cutaways.  The clock for this and the 7:00 [removed] "Late
    Edition" (all times Eastern) are at
    [removed]

    I seem to remember the Roundup as a 15-minute program in years past, but
    I could be wrong.

    Incidentally, I hope Mr. Tirebiter won't mind me revealing (for those
    who aren't in on the joke) that his nom de listserv is a Firesign
    Theater character. Firesign produced a number of extraordinary comedy
    albums in the late '60s and early '70s (or so), which included a
    significant number of OTR references and sendups, such as hard-boiled
    detective Nick Danger, Third Eye. You could write a dissertation
    deconstructing their work, and maybe someone has. A few years back they
    were doing short segments of uneven quality on "All Things Considered."

    -Art-

    [server removed an attachment of type text/x-vcard which had a name of
    [removed]; charset=windows-1252]

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

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

    Date: Sat, 21 May 2005 22:09:28 -0400
    From: Jack & Cathy French <otrpiano@[removed];
    To: OTRBB <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Galen Drake

    For those seeking information on Galen Drake, in addition to several of
    his shows in circulation, about 150 of Drake's programs are set forth
    verbatim in the book, "This is Galen Drake" published by Doubleday &
    Company in 1949. It runs about 300 pages and Joseph Auslander wrote the
    introduction to it.  Several on-line sellers of used books have it for
    sale or it can be obtained through the Inter-Library System by going to
    your nearest public library.

    Jack French
    Editor: RADIO RECALL

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

    Date: Sun, 22 May 2005 10:21:42 -0400
    From: "Kurt E. Yount" <blsmass@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  OT dylan thomas

    I know this is off topic, but you mentioned that recording of Dylan
    Thomas.  It is very valuable.  I have not heard about such a recording
    from washington.  Just thought I would tell you.  I have been interested
    in Thomas for years and this is the first I heard of him giving a poetry
    reading in Washington.  Hold on to it.  Kurt

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

    Date: Sun, 22 May 2005 10:21:52 -0400
    From: "Kurt E. Yount" <blsmass@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  studds terkel

    He was on WFMT I believe.  I don't know when he quit, or even if he has.
    I heard a new interview with him on KPFK a couple of weeks ago.  Quite a
    guy.  Kurt

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

    Date: Sun, 22 May 2005 10:23:53 -0400
    From: jameshburns@[removed] (Jim Burns)
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Damon Runyon, On George Burns

    Doing some research the other day, I came across a column by Damon
    Runyon--

    On George Burns!

    (Runyon, of course, was the inventor of all those "guys and dolls," and
    some say, first with his work as a sports-writer, and then his famous
    short stories--America's way of actually thinking about a mythological
    Broadway, of another [removed])

    My best guess, is that this seems to be from the early [removed]

    Best, Jim Burns
    ________________________

    "Burns the Devestating"

    By Damon Runyon

    I am a tough one to make laugh.

    I have a dead pan and a soul above laughter or even chuckles, except on
    very great provocation. I mean you to have to say or do something funny
    to cause me to go har-har-har or even ho-ho-ho.

    There are not many fellows on stage or screen and none on the radio who
    can extract a giggle from me. A few do it with the written word. What I
    am trying to convey to you, dear reader, is that I am a hard-berled
    audience.

    Yet there is one man who utterly devestates me when he opens up his bag
    of tricks at a private gathering. He has me laughing up and down the
    scale. His power over my risibilities is something extraordinary. I am
    speaking of George Burrns, whose wife is the inimitable Gracie Allen and
    the firm name Burns and Allen.

    Now George Burns is a professional performer, an actor no less. He has
    been on the stage, in pictures, and on the air with Mrs. B for years. I
    do no recall that via any of these mediums he has ever drawn a giggle
    from me, because George is always the straight man and Gracie has all
    the funny cracks. Hence, George never penetrated my sense of humor until
    I connected with him socially.

    I would say that I am his greatest audience with possibly one
    exception--his wife.  Gracie listens to him entranced and keeps
    remarking: "Isn't George wonderful?" or "Isn't George cute?"  She has
    heard the same jokes and seen the same routine over and over again but
    it never fails to kill her. I think this must be love.

    Still, there is another who finds George just as funny as either Gracie
    or old Doctor Runyon and that is Jack Benny, a comedian himself. He
    literally falls right on the floor laughing at George. What appeals to
    Jack about George's performance is the seriousness with which George
    goes about it. He works like a dog. He loves to be "on," or the center
    of attraction, all the time and is a bit inclined to resent the attempts
    of others at entertainment.

    He is pretty cunning about it, and his long experience enables him to
    out-maneuver the average rival for the spotlight. I saw him one night
    against Eddie Cantor, Lou Holtz, Jack Benny and Danny Kaye, all on the
    floor of a living room at a Hollywood party at the same time, and George
    was out in front all the way. He would not work as hard on the stage for
    a large salary as he does for nothing at a party.

    I have known George many years. He was in vaudeville a long time before
    he went to Hollywood with Gracie to win fame and fortune.
    He draws largely on his vaudeville experiences for his party routine,
    stories, imitations, songs and dances.  He goes all the better among
    professionals because they know the people he is talking about.

    I have great admiration for George for the unaffected manner in which he
    treats his toupee.  Never in this world was another such toupee. It fits
    George's head like the paper on the wall, only much better.  I want to
    tell you how good that toup is. I did not know it was one until George
    himself made some crack about it.  He is not at all abashed by his
    toupee.  He boasts of it and occasionally tamps it down in public
    without embarrassment.

    I like that.  I  mean if a man has a great toupee like George's he is
    entitled to brag about it, the same as a man who has an extraordinary
    set of oral furniture is entitled to take it out and display it. One
    trouble with this world is that too many persons are ashamed of these
    gifts.

    I would like to bet that no other man in show business has a greater
    memory for old time names and places than George.  He is an encyclopedia
    of vanished vaudeville though he is still in his middle years.  He is
    the business head of the Burns-Allen firm.  They have a beauitful home
    in California but live very quietly, their greatest dissipation being
    one of those parties I have been telling you about.

    I have to stop now because I am laughing just thinking of George and it
    inteferes with my typing.
    ________

    Courtesy the James H. Burrns [removed]

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

    Date: Sun, 22 May 2005 10:24:01 -0400
    From: Ron Sayles <bogusotr@[removed];
    To: Olde Tyme Radio List <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  5-22 births/deaths

    May 22nd births

    05-22-1859 - Arthur Conan Doyle - Edingurgh, Scotland - d. 7-7-1930
    author: "Adventures of Sherlock Holmes"
    05-22-1879 - Alla Nazimova - Yalta  in the Crimea - d. 7-13-1945
    actress: " I'm An American"; "Towards the Century of the Comman Man"
    05-22-1891 - Parks Johnson - Sheffield, AL - d. 10-4-1970
    emcee, interviewer: "Vox Pox"
    05-22-1903 - Ward Wilson -Trenton, NJ - d. 3-21-1966
    actor, announcer: Mr. DeHaven "Aldrich Family"; Beetle "Phil Baker Show"
    05-22-1906 - Harry Ritz - Newark, NJ - d. 3-29-1986
    comedian: (The Ritz Brothers) "Hollywood Hotel"
    05-22-1907 - Laurence Olivier - Dorking, England - d. 7-11-1989
    actor: "Biography in Sound"; "Document A/777"; "Hour of Mystery"
    05-22-1910 - Johnny Olsen - Windom, MN - d. 12-12-1985
    emcee, announcer: "Ladies Be Seated"; "Get Rich Quick"
    05-22-1934 - Peter Nero - NYC
    socialite pianist: "Voices of Vista"
    05-22-1938 - Susan Strasberg - NYC - d. 1-21-1999
    actress: Emily Marriott "Marriage"

    May 22nd deaths

    02-01-1902 - Langston Hughes - Joplin, Mo - d. 5-22-1967
    writer: "America's Town Meeting of the Air"
    02-27-1915 - Donald Curtis - Cheney, WA - d. 5-22-1997
    actor: Michael Shayne "Michael Shayne"
    03-27-1921 - Fletcher Markle - Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada - d. 5-22-1991
    actor, director, producer: "Columbia Workshop"; "Studio One"; "Mercury Summer
    Theatre"
    04-04-1902 - Bernice Berwin - Bay Area, CA - d. 5-22-2002
    actress: Hazel Barbour "One Man's Family"
    05-11-1892 - Margaret Rutherford - London, England - d. 5-22-1972
    actress: "Wisdon of Miss Marple"; "Theatre Guild On the Air"
    06-19-1912 - Martin Gabel - Philadelphia, PA - d. 5-22-1986
    actor: John Wayne "Big Sister"; Gregory Hood "Casebook of Gregory Hood"
    06-29-1907 - Joan Davis - St. Paul, MN - d. 5-22-1961
    comedienne: "Sealtest Village Store"; "Joan Davis Show"
    07-04-1884 - George Trendle - Norwalk, OH - d. 5-22-1972
    executive: WXYZ Detroit; Original idea for "The Lone Ranger"
    08-12-1926 - John Derek - Hollywood, CA - d. 5-22-1998
    actor: "Lux Radio Theatre"
    08-30-1917 - Dan Enright - d. 5-22-1992
    producer: "Put Up or Shut Up"; "Brain Train"; "Juvenile Jury"; "Life Begins
    at 80"
    --
    Ron Sayles
    Milwaukee, Wisconsin

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

    Date: Sun, 22 May 2005 11:30:37 -0400
    From: Kermyt Anderson <kermyta@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Jack Benny's last live broadcast

    Joe Mackey wrote:

>     5/22

>     1955 - Jack Benny signed off his last live network radio broadcast
>     after a run of 23 years.

    If I'm not mistaken, Jack's show hadn't been broadcast live for several
    years by this time. I know that in the final years the show would be
    recorded in front of an audience, with somebody (sometimes Joan Benny)
    reading Mary's lines, and then Mary's lines would be recorded
    separately and edited in before the broadcast. The broadcast itself
    (like most--if not all?--radio comedy and drama of the mid-50s) was
    transcribed. So this raises the question: when was the last time Jack's
    radio show was broadcast live? Perhaps as early as 1950? (Maybe Laura
    Leff has the answer to this?)

    Kermyt

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

    Date: Sun, 22 May 2005 12:00:55 -0400
    From: Kermyt Anderson <kermyta@[removed];
    To: OTR <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Henry Corden

    I've just read on [removed] that Henry Corden has
    died. He was the replacement to Alan Reed for Fred Flintstone's voice,
    and was part of Jack Webb's television Dragnet stock team. Does anybody
    know if he did radio work? It seems more than likely.

    Kermyt

    --------------------------------
    End of [removed] Digest V2005 Issue #158
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