Subject: [removed] Digest V2007 #318
From: [removed]@[removed]
Date: 11/10/2007 10:18 AM
To: [removed]@[removed]
Reply-to:
[removed]@[removed]

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


                            The Old-Time Radio Digest!
                              Volume 2007 : Issue 318
                         A Part of the [removed]!
                             [removed]
                                 ISSN: 1533-9289


                                 Today's Topics:

  Conrad's Height                       [ JimBourg@[removed] ]
  Re: Jim Hawthorne dies                [ Philip Chavin <pchavin@[removed]; ]
  Re: WOTW, again.                      [ Don Shenbarger <donslistmail@sbcglo ]
  War of the Worlds                     [ James H Arva <wilditralian@[removed] ]
  War of the Worlds recordings          [ "MICHAEL BIEL" <mbiel@[removed]; ]
  Re; War of the Worlds                 [ "Glenn P.," <C128User@[removed]; ]
  WOTW                                  [ Steve Kostelecky <doyasteve@[removed] ]
  Hoaxes still happen?                  [ Wich2@[removed] ]
  11-10 births/deaths                   [ Ronald Sayles <bogusotr@[removed] ]
  Looking For Replacement               [ "michael adams" <madams@[removed] ]
  This week in radio history 11-17 Nov  [ Joe Mackey <joemackey108@[removed] ]

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

Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2007 13:25:41 -0500
From: JimBourg@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Conrad's Height
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In a message dated 11/8/2007 11:18:52 [removed] Central Standard Time,  
[removed]
 
In Nachman's book, Raised on Radio, he describes Bill Conrad as "squat." As  I
remember him from TV, he was a rather tall man who was large all over. Or  am 
I just fooled by his incredible voice? Who's got it right?

Nachman

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Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2007 14:10:50 -0500
From: Philip Chavin <pchavin@[removed];
To: ToPostOn OTRdigest <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Re: Jim Hawthorne dies

In January 1953 I was in the KNX studio audience, on
Sunset Boulevard, at Jim's casual midnight radio
broadcast (live, I seem to recall). I think the show
was called simply "Hawthorne" or possibly "The
Hawthorne Show".  And I believe he was called (even by
himself) simply "Hawthorne" - at least around that
period. A laid-back, funny man.

Desi Arnaz was his guest that night, promoting, I
believe, his new recording called "There's A Brand New
Baby At Our House" -- Lucy had given birth a few days
before.

-- Phil C.

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

Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2007 14:11:04 -0500
From: Don Shenbarger <donslistmail@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Re:  WOTW, again.

Has anything come to light regarding the transcriptions discs
purchased at the Ralph Murchow estate auction five years ago? The
notation in the display frame appears to read "Original Transcriptions".

Don

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

Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2007 14:13:30 -0500
From: James H Arva <wilditralian@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  War of the Worlds

There has been much written about whether or not there was mass panic
resultant from the "War of the Worlds" broadcast.  All that I can add is
to pass on -- from my late grandmother -- an eyewitness account of what
was happening in Harrisburg, PA at the time.  My grandparents did not
hear the broadcast, as they were in church when it happened.  As they
left the warm glow of the incandescent lights in the church -- smiling
and shaking hands and good-bye-ing with friends -- they walked into the
street, and there they saw numerous people standing in the middle of it,
looking up at the night sky and wringing their hands and wailing
hysterically.  It was quite a perplexing experience for them, until they
finally discovered the cause of it all.

Now ... this is a community which -- at THAT time -- was filled with
pretty level-headed folks only one or two generations away from the farm,
and not given to the kind of hysteria generally demonstrated by
intellectuals who are often educated way beyond their intelligence, so
... if a significant number of THEM were excited, I can only imagine what
the poor neurotic minds in places like New York City or Los Angeles might
have been thinking.

Regards,

Jim Arva

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

Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2007 14:48:14 -0500
From: "MICHAEL BIEL" <mbiel@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  War of the Worlds recordings

Chris Holm noted that someone had cast doubts on the WOTW recording, saying
it was a re-creation done the following week.  I doubt that because that
would be evident in the cast call sheets for the following week, since there
would have been some different members and effects people needed for the two
different programs.   There IS a possibility that it is the rehearsal
recording because there have been statements that the rehearsals of Mercury
Theatre were listened to before the final airings.  But I tend to doubt even
this possibility.  What I CAN tell you is this:  The recording we know was
credited to Manheim Fox when it was first issued on LP in the late 60s.  The
year __before__ that first LP issue of this version, I was given a tape of
this recording that includes surface noise for thirty seconds after the ID
break announcement and before the re-join announcement.  There is silence
for 30 seconds -- only surface noise.  Thus, this is a line check recording.
No other recording of these discs includes that break.  I doubt that a
re-creation the week after would have kept in the break at 30 seconds
length.  While a rehearsal might have done so to keep the timing exact, I
also think that a rehearsal might have broken for a time-out break at that
point, to relax, go over notes, and to regroup.

In the 1950s, Sydney Frey issued an incomplete recording on Audio Rarities.
The opening, closing, ID break announcements, and one other section are
missing.  The sound quality and surface noise are quite different.  However,
there is no doubt whatsoever that it is of the same performance.  Although I
have been in touch with Frey's daughter, I do not know if the original discs
are still in her files.  I also have a story of how this set might have been
come to have been recorded and how her father might have gotten them.  No
confirmation from her as she was too young then to be involved.

In a recent newspaper article about the CBS News Archive, there is a
photograph of the archivist holding a yellow-labeled 16-inch disc that the
caption says is the WOTH.  I can tell you that this was __not__ in the disc
collection of CBS News when I saw the collection in the early 70s.  Its the
first thing I looked for.  The entertainment division had a different
archive that I have never been able to crack, and the discs might have been
there.  I and another digest member had been offered a set of WOTW discs at
separate times, and both of us noted that the discs were dated as being a
1948 dub.  I seem to recall a scan of yellow labels.  Maybe that is what CBS
now has.  In the 1970s I was told by a man who had later become a
supervising engineer at CBS that when he was new at CBS he had actually been
the one to cut the discs of the program at CBS and had been ordered to
smuggle the discs out of CBS.  He told me that they were later lost, I
think, when his kid brought them in to school for show-and-tell.  A few
years earlier I was shown a set of 12-inch lacquers in the possession of a
very famous collector of a genre other than OTR.  Did he get them at
school??  But on the other hand, I was specifically told by another
long-time CBS engineer who used to be a digester member that CBS New York
never had any disc cutting equipment, just like CBS Hollywood never had any
either.  Yet my other source said he was there when a pair of disc cutters
was installed at 485 Madison [removed] September 1938 in time for the Munich
Crisis.

Is this starting to read like The DaVinci Code?  I have been asked to be on
a WOTW panel for next years FOTR.  It has been my intention to try to follow
up these leads.  Wish me luck.  And by the way, does anybody have any
contact with Manny Fox?  Is he still alive?  Can someone confirm that he is
not Sonny Fox?

Michael Biel  mbiel@[removed]

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

Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2007 15:59:20 -0500
From: "Glenn P.," <C128User@[removed];
To: Old-Time Radio Mailing List <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Re; War of the Worlds

 > ...the book "Invasion from Mars, the 1938 panic broadcast" was written
 > by Howard [removed]

[removed] Wasn't it titled simply, "The Panic Broadcast"? I have a copy of
a book with that title by Koch, but I don't know if it's the SAME [removed]

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

Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2007 18:52:31 -0500
From: Steve Kostelecky <doyasteve@[removed];
To: OTR Digest <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  WOTW

As a diehard Wellesian I would argue that, even
lowballing at [removed] million people, that is still a
considerable amount of people convinced Mars was
invading the earth. I think the broadcast remanins a
major event of the 30s and afterward if for no other
reason than the myth pointed out the power radio had
on the imaginations of the American public. It is
still referred to as one of the most profound
broadcasts of the era and constantly resurfaces in
fiction as an imagininative jumping off [removed] is
one thing a work of fiction is supposed to do. People
constantly ask me about it.  And without it we'd never
have seen one of the most amazing "apologies" to have
been filmed in a newsreel. Orson certainly could
America on more than frozen peas.

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

Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2007 18:54:31 -0500
From: Wich2@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Hoaxes still happen?

A recent pre-Halloween Fark thread discussed  the  Mercury Theatre
... War of the Worlds, and ... claimed that  the  recording we are all
familiar with wasn't the actual   broadcast, but  was rather a re-creation
done a week  later

Errant twaddle.

At least, according to every source I've  ever read, up to and including
Simon Callow's studiously researched Welles  books. And never heard folks like
Arthur Anderson, Ted Reid, or Bill Herz refer  to such a unique circumstance.

- Why would the actual broadcast  transcription NOT exist - when most do from
before & after?
- Orson was  so ridiculously busy at that point, he sometimes barely had time
for the show  itself - let alone a re-do.
- Starting in the 70's, he often carped in  interviews about the bootleg LP
releases of the show - and never once a peep  about the story above, from a
man
who loved to embellish a good  yarn.

-Craig W.

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

Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2007 22:19:39 -0500
From: Ronald Sayles <bogusotr@[removed];
To: Olde Tyme Radio Digest Digest <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  11-10 births/deaths

November 10th births

11-10-1889 - Claude Rains - London, England - d. 5-30-1967
actor: "Shakesperian Circle"; "This Is War!"; "Presenting Claude Rains"
11-10-1891 - Gary Breckner - Illinois - d. 6-25-1945
announcer: "Al Pearce and His Gang"; "Gateway to Hollywood"
11-10-1893 - John P. Marquand - Wilmington, DE - d. 7-16-1963
writer: "Information Please"
11-10-1899 - George Storer - Champaign, IL - d. 11-4-1975
Broadcast Executive
11-10-1907 - Jane Froman - St. Louis, MO - d. 4-22-1980
singer: "Florsheim Frolic"; "Bromo Seltzer Hour"; "Gulf Musical
Playhouse"
11-10-1909 - Johnny Marks - Mount Vernon, NY - d. 9-3-1985
songwriter, lyricist: "Great Moments in Music"
11-10-1909 - Robert Arthur, Jr. - Corregidor, Philipines - d. 5-2-1969
writer: "The Mysterious Traveler"
11-10-1915 - Bob Shepard - NYC - d. 12-19-1993
announcer: "Pot O' Gold"; "Counterspy"; "Break the Bank"; "You Can"t
Take it with You"
11-10-1916 - Billy May - Pittsburgh, PA - d. 1-22-2004
orchestra leader: "Music Depreciation"; "Stan Freberg Show"
11-10-1918 - Jack McCoy - Akron, OH - d. 3-18-1991
announcer: "Steve Allen Show"; "Dinah Shore Show"
11-10-1919 - George Fenneman - Peking, China - d. 5-29-1997
announcer, actor: "You Bet Your Life"; "Dragnet"; Buzz "I Fly Anything"
11-10-1925 - Richard Burton - Pontrhydfen, South Wales - d. 8-5-1984
actor: Readings of poetry, plays and school programmes for the BBC
11-10-1929 - Stanley Morgan - Liverpool, England
novelist and sometime radio actor

November 10th deaths

02-08-1868 - Evangeline Adams - d. 11-10-1932
astrologist: "Horoscope Talks"
02-18-1919 - Jack Palance - Lattimer Mines, PA - d. 11-10-2006
actor: "Bud's Bandwagon"
03-04-1916 - William Alland - Delmare, DE - d. 11-10-1997
actor: "Mercury Theatre"; "Doorway to Life"; "Frontier Gentleman"
03-26-1918 - William Hardcastle - Newcastle, England - d. 11-10-1975
newscaster: "The World At One"
03-28-1910 - Jimmy Dodd - Cincinnati, OH - d. 11-10-1964
singer, songwriter: "Lifebuoy Show"; "Command Performance"; "CBS
Radio Workshop"
03-29-1924 - Jackie Vernon - NYC - d. 11-10-1987
comedian: "Bill Stern Show"
04-10-1921 - Chuck Connors - Brooklyn, NY - d. 11-10-1992
actor: "Family Theatre"
04-29-1908 - Jack Williamson - Bisbee, Arizona Territory - d. 11-10-2006
writer: "Dimension X"; "Future Tense"
06-11-1914 - Gerald Mohr - NYC - d. 11-10-1968
actor: Philip Marlowe "Advs. of Philip Marlowe"; Jacque Monet "Our
Miss Brooks"
xx-xx-1911 - Charles Woods - d. 11-10-1997
announcer, emcee: "Lone Journey"; "Strange"

Ron Sayles
Milwaukee, Wisconsin

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

Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2007 10:04:38 -0500
From: "michael adams" <madams@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Looking For Replacement
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Bought a CD of a BBC 4 Program - Beware of the Trains at a convention early
this summer. Just got around to playing it. The cd is bad and stops after 28
minutes . I am looking for a good copy ( A very good story). Know of a dealer
who deals in BBC material or have a copy yourself ?. Please let me know. Also
my yearly request for a copy of the BBC program The Holly and the Ivy, Will
trade film version for Radio version.
madams@[removed]

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Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2007 10:04:45 -0500
From: Joe Mackey <joemackey108@[removed];
To: otrd <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  This week in radio history 11-17 November

 From Those Were The Days --

11/11

1932 - The National Broadcasting Company opened its new studios at Radio
City in New York City. They celebrated with a gala program at Radio City
Music Hall.

1938 - Kate Smith sang God Bless America for the very first time. It
would later become her signature song. Irving Berlin penned the tune in
1917 but never released it until Miss Smith sang it for the first time
on her radio broadcast.

1940 - The chant, "invovo legem magicarum," was heard for the first time
when Mandrake the Magician debuted on WOR in New York City.

11/14

1921 - KYW radio, Chicago, IL broadcast the first opera by a
professional company. Listeners heard Samson Et Dalila as it was being
performed at the Chicago Auditorium.

1922 - The British Broadcasting Corp. began its domestic radio service.
(From Today in History at the NY Times)

11/15

1926 - Network radio was born. 24 stations carried the first broadcast
from the National Broadcasting Company. The program was a gala 4
1/2-hour broadcast from the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City.

Joe

--------------------------------
End of [removed] Digest V2007 Issue #318
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