------------------------------
The Old-Time Radio Digest!
Volume 2004 : Issue 198
A Part of the [removed]!
[removed]
ISSN: 1533-9289
Today's Topics:
Radio Acting [ lawrence albert <albertlarry@yahoo. ]
Lava Soap [ "Stephen A Kallis, Jr." <skallisjr@ ]
Classical Themes [ Jack & Cathy French <otrpiano@erols ]
Love for Three Oranges [ John Mayer <mayer@[removed]; ]
Have Gun Will Travel Season One [ Jack Harris <jack@[removed] ]
Re: advertising in program openings [ Dixonhayes@[removed] ]
Digest People Are The Best! [ "John Matthews" <glowingdial@wowway ]
Love for Three Oranges [ "Bob Scherago" <rscherago@[removed]; ]
Amos and Andy, by O. O. McIntyre [ "Doug Leary" <doug@[removed]; ]
audio seduction [ "Clifton Martin" <MARTBART@peoplepc ]
Correction [ "hugobet" <hugobet@[removed]; ]
Re: Thanks [ hal stone <dualxtwo@[removed]; ]
"Love Of Three Oranges. [ Robert Coppedge <robertc@[removed]; ]
Chicago Magazine Article on Irv Kupc [ seandd@[removed] ]
6-11 births/deaths [ Ron Sayles <bogusotr@[removed]; ]
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 9 Jun 2004 18:31:01 -0400
From: lawrence albert <albertlarry@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Radio Acting
As I'm an actor first, let me say it again: RADIO
ACTING IS NOT JUST
READING!!!
As an actor let me be the SECOND to say: RADIO ACTING
IS NOT JUST READING. Nor is it going over the top. One
of my complaints about many of the lesser shows and
some of the better ones of OTR is that so many of the
actors seem to live on a diet of chewed scenery.
Now in the comedy programs this is not for the most
part a drawback but when I'm listening to a serious
piece and the talent is overacting so badly that I'm
afraid the individual is going to have a heart attack
then I feel safe in saying this person needs to take
more lessons or find another line of work.
Good radio acting requires the ability to project
reality even when reading the tritest of scripts. No
matter what type of voice is being used. However,
having said that It is my my sense that comparing OTR
acting with NTR acting is like the old apples and
oranges bit. It shouldn't be done.
Acting styles are not timeless, they change and
adapt with the years even in a medium such as audio
drama. What doesn't change is well meaning amateurs
with a love for the media and little else. Love
doesn't translate into talent.
There are many fine NTR groups when many talented
members who don't and shouldn't try to emulate the
actors from OTR days, except of course in their
professionalism.
Larry Albert
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 9 Jun 2004 19:40:32 -0400
From: "Stephen A Kallis, Jr." <skallisjr@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Lava Soap
[removed] Mann notes,
Prokofiev: The Love for 3 Oranges was the theme for one of the OTR
[removed] i can't recall the [removed]
The [removed] In Peace and War.
Stephen A. Kallis, Jr.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 9 Jun 2004 19:41:25 -0400
From: Jack & Cathy French <otrpiano@[removed];
To: OTRBB <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: Classical Themes
John W. Matthews requests:
Actually, I am trying to compile a list of classical pieces that were
used on old time radio shows as main themes, bridges and incidental
music.
I have the following info but need more. Can anyone help further ?
Before we start re-inventing the wheel, some words of caution are in
order. The above mission has already been completed by OTR maven (and
musician), Jay Hickerson.
His "2nd Revised Ultimate History of Network Radio Programming and
Guide to All Circulating Shows" (privately printed 2001) lists every
network series, approximately 6,000, and his description of each
usually includes both the title and composer of its theme. Then in
October 2003, Jay, relying upon a recently located copy of the 1938
"ASCAP Register of Theme Songs and Musical Signatures", brought out an
addendum to his 2001 compendium which lists the theme songs (classical
and otherwise) for an additional 375 radio series.
I would strongly urge Mr. Matthews to avail himself of both
publications, as I guarantee that virtually every known piece of
classical music used as the theme for a radio series will be in one of
these. I have examined both publications in great detail and I believe
the only series that is missing is one whose theme was not identified
until December 2003. In researching my book, "Private Eyelashes:
Radio's Lady Detectives" I located two classical music experts at
George Mason University who finally tracked down the theme of "Phyl Coe
Mysteries" : It's "The Procession of the Sardar" from the symphonic
suite, "Caucasian Sketches", written in 1895 by Russian composer,
Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov.
Jack French
[removed]
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 9 Jun 2004 21:34:27 -0400
From: John Mayer <mayer@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Love for Three Oranges
"[removed] MANN" <voxpop@[removed]; asked:
Prokofiev: The Love for 3 Oranges
was the theme for one of the OTR [removed] i can't recall the [removed]!
CHET NORRIS
One of the annoying aspects of this list is that it is impossible to
feel smug or clever here; I well know there will be many responses to
this question, but let me be one of the throng: That would be _The
FBI in Peace and War_.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 9 Jun 2004 21:34:42 -0400
From: Jack Harris <jack@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Have Gun Will Travel Season One
Sams has the first season on dvd of the TV series which preceeded the radio
show. The quality is great and I hope they do all of them. It is direct
from CBS and maybe if there is enough interest they might do Our Miss
Brooks. I hope.
for dive videos and computers
visit [removed]
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 9 Jun 2004 21:38:40 -0400
From: Dixonhayes@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Re: advertising in program openings
X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: from multipart/alternative
X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: Alternative section used was text/plain
Along the lines of the two opening jingles/plugs mentioned by Dennis Crow, I
would offer another favorite along the same lines: the Shredded Ralston
jingle from the beginning of "The Tom Mix Ralson Straightshooters." It's
accompanied by sound effects that sound as if Tom's horse is tapping out the
beat to
the jingle ("Take a tip from Tom, go and tell your mom, Shredded Ralston can't
be [removed]").
Dixon
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*** as the sender intended. ***
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 9 Jun 2004 21:39:28 -0400
From: "John Matthews" <glowingdial@[removed];
To: "OTR Digest" <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: Digest People Are The Best!
Hello folks, you folks are the greatest! Thank you to all of you who
have responded to my little inquiry about classical music used on radio
shows. I now have a good deal of info to sift through and a few great
websites some of you recommended. Also thanks to those who corrected my
boo-boos (hey, wasn't he Yogi Bear's little buddy? ;-)
I'm not sure yet where I will go with this project. I may post the info
on my page, may even put up streaming audio files of some of the pieces.
I'll probably even compile a few cd's worth for myself.
Anyway, thanks again to you all. I just wish I had more to contribute
to the list but alas, I am far from an OTR expert.
Take care and I'll see you on the radio!
John W. Matthews
The Glowing Dial Page [removed]
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 9 Jun 2004 22:07:17 -0400
From: "Bob Scherago" <rscherago@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: Love for Three Oranges
Prokofiev: The Love for 3 Oranges
was the theme for one of the OTR [removed] i can't recall the
[removed]!
CHET NORRIS
The march from Prokoiev's Love for Three Oranges
(no, not the ones in NJ) was the theme for
The FBI in Peace and War! (I think!)
Bob Scherago
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2004 08:52:01 -0400
From: "Doug Leary" <doug@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: Amos and Andy, by O. O. McIntyre
Here is an article about Amos and Andy by O. O. "Odd" McIntyre, a leading
columnist of the twenties and thirties, from a collection published by
Cosmopolitan Magazine in 1932. Hopefully it is of interest and is not too
long for the OTR mailing list. I also fervently hope readers can make
allowances for the use of the "darky" and focus on the information about
Correl and Gosden and their phenomenal success.
-----------------------
Amos and Andy
by O. O. McIntyre
Every night in the week, save one, a nation tunes in on the radio to listen
to Amos and Andy and the humdrum trivialities of their make-believe world.
And afterward many of us are just a bit puzzled why we are so interested.
Amos and Andy never crack a joke, sing a song or pull a wise-crack. To all
appearances the audiences might be listening to the monotonous drone of two
lazy darkies on the levee or in the cotton patch.
Yet in less than a year they have become the outstanding marvels of the
radio world -- supreme minstrels of the air whose homely philosophy of the
commonplace has made them beloved in almost every household in the land.
When they are broadcasting telephone calls all over the country drop to the
low after-midnight level.
Read the manuscript of their daily skit and it is the driest of pointless
drivel, and yet in their hands it pulses with pathos, glows with an
understanding sympathy, and you become suddenly conscious it is the warp and
woof of the phenomenon called life. You want to hear more.
No one is more surprised at their amazing grip on radio audiences than Amos
and Andy themselves. Amos, away from the microphone, mibht be a first
baseman and Andy a shortstop with the Gallipolis, Ohio, Orioles.
Indeed they were -- and still are -- two corn-fed, saucer-eyed country boys
who may be found at the forks of almost any creek, plowing and dreaming of
some day becoming big city chiropractors. Their wear derbies.
Amos, sometimes genial, often pessimistic, but always airily irresponsible,
is Freeman F. Gosden, of Richmond, Virginia. He is aged thirty, tall and
thin.
Andy, domineering, shiftless and with a lazy drawl, is Charles J. Correl, of
Peoria, Illinois. He is aged thirty-nine, short and tubby.
They are the sort who look up at high buildings and wear buttoned shoes and
finger rings around their neckties, and you feel certain they would answer
the first call of a stage hypnotist for volunteers.
Their career together dates back six years, when a fortuitous fate threw
them together in a southern city -- two improvident young men "looking for a
break." They knocked about jay towns in the West and South putting on
benefit shows for a percentage of the receipts -- if any.
At best it was a hand-to-mouth existence, and with the growing popularity of
the movies the future was about as bright as a puff of Pittsburgh smoke.
After many vicissitudes they landed in Chicago -- broke, jobless and ready
for ditch-digging or any other honorable vocation.
The radio's first sputter was beginning to be heard. Anybody could try out
an act so long as he offered it free. So Amos and Andy -- then just Gosden
and Correll -- dropped around to the Edgewater Beach Hotel one night and
offered a skit.
They called themselves Samn 'n' Henry, and Chicago did not turn handsprings,
or dance in the street over their offering. But it furnished them with a
sandwich and a cup of coffee, and they kept at it.
After a number of months, however, they did attract enough local attention
to receive an offer of $100 a week from a Chicago newspaper.
The man who now pays them such a salary that he holds his head in his hands
when it is mentioned heard them but did not think them of sufficient
importance for a national hook-up.
With misgivings he gave them a coast-to-coast tryout. And Sam 'n' Henry,
owing to a prior station right, became Amos 'n' Andy. And their success with
the first broadcast was instantaneous -- a knock-out.
The manufacturers of the advertised product which sponsored them found,
after six weeks, their business had increased seventy-eight percent.
As an instance of their astonishing hold on the public, their radio talk,
after five months, was changed from eleven PM to seven PM, Eastern Standard
Time, and the ensuing hullaballoo resulted in three long-faced sessinos of
the board of directors of the National Broadcasting Company.
Unless they were restored to their old time, one state threatened a boycott
on every store handling the article ballyhooed by the Amos and Andy
announcer. In ten days' time the studio received 250,000 letters, 50,000
telegrams and 10,000 long-distance calls of protest.
A town in Wyoming sent a petition containing 3,800 signatures, which, it
developed, included every man, woman and child within the corporate limits.
A delegation from Colorado and one from West Virginia mader personal
appearances in New York to plead.
As a compromise, Amos and Andy began making two nightly broadcaste -- one
for the East and one for the West. This, despite the change in time, gives
each section the same performance at approximately the same time.
Thus -- from $100 a week of less than a year ago -- Amos and Andy are now
enjoying the fruits of a two-year radio contract at $100,000 a year, a
thirty-week vaudeville engagement at $5,000 a week, and a six-week movie
engagement, which with royalties from records, and a comic strip they
foster, bring their weekly wage to the total of fifty-five hundred dollars
each for the current year.
It was my privilege recently to spend a pleasant hour with Amos and Andy,
and in all my years of interviewing successes, accidental and deserved, I
never saw more conspicuous examples of complete bewilderment.
They act as if they were holding something that would at any moment explode
in their hands.
Amos comes naturally by his southern accent. It was acquired from his Negro
mammy in Virginia. Andy picked up his drawl through association. You would
not recognize them by their voices away from the microphone.
Ever line and every situation in their ten-minute talk is their own
creation -- a serialization from day to day of inane conversations between
two garrulous darkies.
It is clean, wholesome and never sarcastic. Negroes themselves are
enthusiastic admirers. Each performance, indeed, might be best described as
a trifling episode.
The two darky delineators are happily married and their wives are good
friends, but they do not mingle socially. Each couple has a distinct group
of intimates.
"We learned from long observation of theatrical teams," said Gosden, "that
wives are frequently responsible for split-ups in partnerships. It probably
would not happen but we are avoiding the possibility."
But Amos and Andy themselves, from nine o'clock in the morning until they go
on the air at seven in the evening, are inseparable comrades.
They stroll about in Negro sections with ears cupped for "atmosphere."
I asked them if they did not get on each other's nerves at times. They
glanced at each other quickly and I caught a faint embarrassment.
It was Amos who answered: "Well, we did have a little ruckus once but it was
soon patched up. Anyway, it was my fault."
To which Andy quickly alphonse-and-gastoned: "Nothing of the sort. It was
entirely my fault."
But the tolerance between them was best illustrated by what might be
regarded as a triviality, but which was symbolic to me of a rarely achieved
friendship.
Amos told a story about a small-town darky to illuminate a point. It was
amusing but I am certain Andy had heard it many times. Yet he laughed
uproariously.
When Amos had vinished, as though feeling he had been too long in the center
of the stage, he turned to Andy with: "Tell them that story of the New
Orleans Negro and the hinge," adding" "It's the best Negro story in the
world."
And when Andy concluded Amos was shaking with laughter.
The late Lord Oxford believed the supreme test of friendship was the ability
to laugh at a friend's ofttold story.
Neither Amos nor Andy has the slightest suggestion of that annoying
self-assurance that so often topples quickly created idols off the pedestals
to an equally quick oblivion. Broadway clumps with feet of clay.
"You know" -- it was Amos speaking -- "we are just a couple of yaps out of
the brush and New York scares us stiff. We have been offered %7,000 a week
to play the Palace, the heavenly dream of every vaudeville actor. But we are
too frightened to accept."
And Andy added: "We see how they stand for us in small towns. Folks out
there are our sort and we speak their language, but the thought of an
audience of New Yorkers brings out goos pimples. Gosh!"
It is this modesty, I believe, that is their charm -- an alpenstock with
which they have scaled the radio's Matterhorn!
---------- 30 -----------
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2004 08:56:07 -0400
From: "Clifton Martin" <MARTBART@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: audio seduction
Creative writing teachers tell us we must read a lot if we would be writers.
Seems to me that if you aspire to radio writing or acting, you need to be a
passionate listener, in love with the spoken word, acutely aware of the
difference between the spoken and written word, fascinated by the way real
people really talk. The great radio writers and performers, past and
present, knew how to make love to (and through) a microphone. Arthur
Godfrey did it, Paul Harvey still does it and so does Garrison Keillor.
Clif Martin
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2004 10:28:13 -0400
From: "hugobet" <hugobet@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: Correction
X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: from multipart/alternative
X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: Alternative section used was text/plain
Asked for information yesterday on FRANK Hughes. First name, should have been
PAUL. Paul Hughes was the long-time voice on THE LONE RANGER program. Thanks
again Sy Palo
*** This message was altered by the server, and may not appear ***
*** as the sender intended. ***
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2004 10:28:43 -0400
From: hal stone <dualxtwo@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: Re: Thanks
Thanks to all for the B'day greetings.
And a particular thanks to Ron Sayles for leading off his Birth and Death
list with my "greeting" in upper case type. I was so glad to see my name on
the first list. :) But Ron, in my brief bio, you left out TV director for 25
years. I know this digest is about OTR, but [removed] a guy a break. :)
And to Walden Hughes, (as a birthday observance),for scheduling a replay
this coming Friday of an interview we did together. Unfortunately, I'm now
too old to stay up at night to listen to it again. :)
Now I gotta go blow out the *&^%^$(&) 73 candles before the wax screws up
the icing.
Hal(Harlan)Stone
Jughead
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2004 13:15:00 -0400
From: Robert Coppedge <robertc@[removed];
To: "Old Time Radio Digest (Original) ." <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: "Love Of Three Oranges.
There will probably be several answers to this.
The March from the "Love Of Three Oranges was the theme music for "The
FBI In Peace And War."
Bob Coppedge. - Terre Haute, Indiana.
--
Please visit my Home Page at:
[removed]
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2004 14:21:50 -0400
From: seandd@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Chicago Magazine Article on Irv Kupcinet
This long bio on late Chicago Sun-Times gossip columnist Irv Kupcinet
mentions several of the great radio stars he covered during his decades of
service.
Sean Dougherty
SeanDD@[removed]
[removed]
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2004 17:33:51 -0400
From: Ron Sayles <bogusotr@[removed];
To: Olde Tyme Radio List <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: 6-11 births/deaths
June 11th births
06-11-1900 - Lawrence Spivak - Brooklyn, NY - d. 3-9-1994
moderator, panelist: "Meet the Press"
06-11-1913 - Rise Stevens - NYC
singer: "Rise Stevens Show"; "Palmolive Beauty Box Theatre"
06-11-1914 - Dudley Manlove - d. 4-17-1996
announcer: "Candy Matson, YU2-8209"
06-11-1914 - Gerald Mohr - NYC - d. 11-10-1968
actor: Philip Marlowe "Advs. of Philip Marlowe"; Jacque Monet "Our Miss Brooks"
06-11-1919 - Richard Todd - Dublin, Ireland
singer: "Rinso-Spry Vaudeville Theatre"; "Your Hit Parade"
06-11-1920 - Hazel Scott - Port of Spain, Trinidad (Raised: [removed]) - d.
10-2-1981
singer, pianist: "Free World Theatre"; "New World A-Coming"
June 11th deaths
01-20-1920 - DeForest Kelley - Atlanta, GA - d. 6-11-1999
actor: "Suspense"
02-12-1898 - Wallace Ford - Batton, England - d. 6-11-1966
actor: "Hollywood on the Air"; "Royal Gelatin Hour"
05-26-1907 - John Wayne - Winterset, IA - d. 6-11-1979
actor: Dan O'Brien "Three Sheets to the Wind"
06-30-1879 - Walter Hampden - Brooklyn, NY - d. 6-11-1955
actor: Leonidas Witherall "Leonidas Witherall"
07-06-1882 - Ralph Morgan - NYC - d. 6-11-1956
actor: "Lux Radio Theatre"
07-10-1920 - David Brinkley - Wilmington, NC - d. 6-11-2003
newscaster: WRC Washington [removed]; "Nightline"
07-24-1914 - Frank Silvera - Kingston, Jamaica, West Indies - d. 6-11-1970
actor: "X Minus One"
12-20-1907 - Al Rinker - Tekoa, WA - d. 6-11-1982
singer (member of The Rhythm Boys) "Paul Whiteman Presents"
--
Ron Sayles
For a complete list:
[removed]
--------------------------------
End of [removed] Digest V2004 Issue #198
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