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Happy Birthday, Joe DeSantis!
On this date in 1909 in New York City, Maria Paoli and Pasquale DeSantis welcomed Joseph Vito Marcello DeSantis into the world. The shorter version of that name is Joe DeSantis, a man who would become...
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Happy Birthday, Santos Ortega!
Radio historian and Radio Spirits contributor Jim Widner once asked humorously of today’s birthday celebrant “Any detective he didn’t play?” in a 2013 article of the Radio Recall newsletter. Jim is...
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“…ace cameraman who covers the crime news of the great city…”
Turner Classic Movies occasionally schedules a 1956 film noir directed by Fritz Lang entitled While the City Sleeps. In the film, a troubled young man (John Drew Barrymore) has embarked on a killing...
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”The only national program that brings you authentic police case histories…”
Radio’s resident “crime buster” was inarguably director-producer-writer Philips H. Lord, who gravitated to creating crime-themed programs. Perhaps the fate met by his first success over the airwaves,...
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Happy Birthday, Irene Tedrow!
I’d never be able to prove it in a court of law…but I’d be willing to gamble that when the need arose for an actress to play the part of a spinster or neighborhood busybody, Irene Tedrow was on...
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Happy Birthday, Gloria Blondell!
If Gloria Blondell—born in Manhattan, NY one hundred and five years ago on this date—ever resented living in the shadow of older sister Joan, she rarely displayed any outside bitterness. This is not...
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“M-O-L-L-É…”
It is interesting to note that one of radio’s most popular mystery anthologies—The Mollé Mystery Theatre, which debuted over NBC Radio seventy-two years ago on this date—did without its identifying...
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Happy Birthday, Walter B. Gibson!
When it came to pulp fiction, Street & Smith were among the leaders in that particular kingdom of the publishing world—the company churned out a large number of weekly magazines, comics and...
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“Saints preserve us, Mr. Keen! He’s got a gun!”
Back in the 1970s, when I first immersed myself in the wonderful world of old-time radio, my enthusiasm for “The Hobby” was such that I beseeched both my mother and father for stories about their...
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Happy Birthday, Jan Miner!
On radio, one of the rare daytime dramas to stand out from its weepy brethren and sistren was Hilltop House—a series that took place in an orphanage located in the fictional town of Glendale and...
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Happy Centennial Birthday, John Dehner!
For an actor who once set out purposely not to be typecast in Western roles, John Dehner—born John Forkum one hundred years ago on this date in Staten Island, NY—appeared in a lot of oaters across the...
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Happy Birthday, Harry Bartell!
On the radio western Fort Laramie, actor Harry Bartell—born in New Orleans, LA on this date in 1913—played the part of Lieutenant Richard Sieberts, a greenhorn junior officer stationed at the outpost....
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Happy Birthday, Edward G. Robinson!
To start off our birthday tribute today…a bit of trivia: the “G” in actor Edward G. Robinson’s name stands for “Goldenberg”—for Eddie G. was born Emanuel Goldenberg in Bucharest, Romania one hundred...
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Happy Birthday, Sir Ralph Richardson!
There’s a hilarious story (possibly apocryphal, so we make no claims as to its accuracy) concerning Sir Ralph Richardson, who was born in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England on this date in 1902....
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Happy Birthday, David Kogan!
Columbia University student David A. Kogan (born in New York City on this date in 1916) met Robert Jay Arthur, Jr. in his radio writing class. The pair would go on to form one of the most fruitful...
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Happy Birthday, Morton Fine!
Before embarking on a rewarding career as a radio, television and movie writer, Morton S. Fine—born a Christmas Eve baby in Baltimore, MD on this date in 1916—was a “jack-of-all-trades.” He worked in...
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Happy Birthday, Herb Ellis!
It’s not often that we here at the Radio Spirits blog get an opportunity to blow a noisemaker and celebrate the natal anniversary of an old-time radio performer who’s still with us—but that’s what we...
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“Fortune: Danger!”
It’s safe to say that without author Dashiell Hammett, the crime rate in Radio Land would be at risk of going on an uptick. Hammett’s legendary gumshoe Sam Spade—introduced in his novel The Maltese...
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Happy Birthday, Wyllis Cooper!
Radio writer and playwright Arch Oboler once had these words of praise for the man he would eventually replace as the mind behind the mayhem that fueled the horror series Lights Out: “Radio drama (as...
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Happy Centennial Birthday, John Dehner!
For an actor who once set out purposely not to be typecast in Western roles, John Dehner—born John Forkum one hundred years ago on this date in Staten Island, NY—appeared in a lot of oaters across the...
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