Chester Morris

Chester Morris (February 16, 1901 – September 11, 1970) was an American film and radio actor, starring in the 1940s detective series Boston Blackie and participating in the Boston Black radio shows in the 1940s..

His full name was John Chester Brooks Morris, and he was born in New York City to stage actors William Morris and Etta Hawkins. Morris made his Broadway acting debut at the age of 17 in Lionel Barrymore's The Copperhead.

His film career began in 1917 with the film An Amateur Orphan. Morris was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor for his work in Alibi (1929), directed by Roland West. He also starred in two other West-directed films, The Bat Whispers (1930) and Corsair (1931).

In 1930 he appeared in the prison film The Big House, but by the end of the decade his career was on the wane, leading him to act in B-movies such as Smashing the Rackets (with Edward Pawley, in 1938) and Five Came Back (1939). His career was revived between 1941 and 1949, when he played the character Boston Blackie in 14 low-budget films produced by Columbia Pictures, the first of which was Meet Boston Blackie. He also played the detective in a radio show series.

Morris was also known for being a magic show enthusiast. He often performed as a magician on his personal tours and in promotion of his films. Unlike many stars who simply said a few words to the audience before the screening of the films, Morris enjoyed doing a full-blown magic and vaudeville act, even using live animals. During World War II he performed hundreds of free magic shows for the United Service Organizations at Army and Navy camps and hospitals. In 1944 a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress was named "The Chester and Lili Morris" in honor of himself and his wife and their contribution to the U.S. war effort. Morris also contributed original tricks to magician's publications, often incorporating the magic tricks into his film performances, as in "Boston Blackie and The Law" (1946).

Morris married Suzanne Kilborn on September 30, 1927, and divorced in November 1939. They had two children, Brooks and Cynthia. He later married Lillian Kenton Barker on November 30, 1940, with whom he had a son, Kenton.

Chester Morris was severely afflicted with cancer when he committed suicide while occupying a room at the former Holiday Inn in New Hope, Pennsylvania by taking an overdose of barbiturates. He died in 1970. At the time of his death he was working on a stage adaptation of The Caine Mutiny Court Martial at the Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope. His remains were cremated and his ashes scattered.

Frank Lovejoy

Frank Lovejoy (March 28, 1914 – October 2, 1962) was an American film actor of the 1940s and 1950s, who usually played supporting roles. Before becoming a film actor, Lovejoy was a successful radio narrator and stage actor. Lovejoy was a voice actor in the 1930s radio series Gangbusters, played the title character in the 1940s radio show Blue Beetle and appeared in the 1950s radio series Nightbeat.

Besides, Lovejoy played Dr. Christopher Ellerbe in Valiant Lady, Sam Foster in This Day Is Ours, and he had the roles of Brad Forbes on Brave Tomorrow and Larry Halliday in Bright Horizon. He also played the title character on the syndicated The Blue Beetle in 1940, several episodes of The Whistler, and starred in the later newspaper drama series Night Beat in the early 1950s and in episodes of Suspense in the late 1950s. He also starred as John Malone in The Amazing Mr. Malone. He appeared as boxer Rory Malone in the March 20, 1949 episode of Pat Novak for Hire entitled "Rory Malone".

In film, Lovejoy was effective at playing ordinary characters in extraordinary situations. Lovejoy also acted in many films about World War II. Of note is the 1952 film Retreat Hell, which depicts the US Army retreat at the Battle of Chosin Reservation during the Korean War. It was directed by Joseph H. Lewis.

Lovejoy was married to actress Joan Banks, with whom he had a son and a daughter. He had previously been married to Frances Williams. He died of a heart attack in New York in 1962.

Flash Gordon

The Adventures of Flash Gordon was a 26-episode radio serial adapting the comic strip of Flash Gordon. Recorded in New York and transcribed for broadcast on West Coast stations, the program aired from April 27 to October 26, 1935 over the Mutual Broadcasting System. As was common with radio serials, each installment was 15 minutes.

The final installment had Flash Gordon, Dale Arden and Dr. Hans Zarkov landing in a jungle, where they encounter another Hearst comics character, Jungle Jim (played by Matt Crowley), thus transitioning into Jungle Jim as the replacement series.

The first four episodes run through the first year of the comic strip story very quickly, in order to catch up to the current story. The first episode breezes through the first ten weeks of the strip, and a long narration at the beginning of episode 2 covers the next five weeks "off-screen", finishing the first storyline, "On the Planet Mongo". The rest of episode 2 covers the first eight weeks of the next storyline, "The Monsters of Mongo".

By Episode 5, the radio series has caught up with the current storyline, "The Witch Queen of Mongo", and begins to follow the comic week-by-week.

The Blue Beetle

The Blue Beetle was an old time radio show based on the super hero character that appeared in Fox Features comic books. The series ran from May 15 - September 13, 1940 as a CBS 30 minute syndicated series. Actor Frank Lovejoy provided the voice of the Blue Beetle for the first thirteen episodes. Later episodes were uncredited.

After his father was killed by a gangster's bullet, young Dan Garrett joined the New York Police Department, but soon tired of the slow pace and red tape of police work.

With the help of his friend and mentor, pharmacist and drug-store proprietor Dr. Franz, Dan acquired a costume of bullet-proof chain-mail-like cellulose material, and began a second life, fighting crime as The Blue Beetle.

His calling card was a small beetle-shaped marker that he left in conspicuous places to alert criminals to his presence, using their fear of his crime fighting reputation as a weapon against them. For this purpose he also used a "Beetle Signal" flashlight. The Blue Beetle's reputation was not his only weapon -- he carried a revolver in a blue holster on his belt, and was sometimes shown wearing a multi-pouched belt after the style set by Batman. Also in the Batman vein, the Blue Beetle had a "BeetleMobile" car and a "BeetleBird" airplane. In at least one radio adventure, he carries something called a "magic ray machine". The ray machine was a sort of super-scientific cutting device.

The radio show aired twice a week. Frank Lovejoy originally played the hero, but was later replaced with an uncredited actor. Each adventure was split into two 15 minute episodes. In the beginning, both parts of an adventure were aired in the same day, apparently putting the show in a 30 minute time slot, airing two two-part stories per week.

Nigel Bruce

Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce

William Nigel Ernle Bruce was born on 4 February 1895, usually known as Nigel Bruce, was a British stage and film, radio actor who gained fame as Doctor Watson in a series of films and radio plays with Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes.

His father was Sir William Waller Bruce, 10th Baronet (1856 – 1912), by his wife Angelica Selby (d. 1917), daughter of General George Selby, and he was born in Ensenada, Mexico during a holiday with his parents. He was educated at The Grange, Stevenage, and at Abingdon School, Berkshire. He served in France from 1914 as a Lieutenant in the 10th Service Battalion - Somerset Light Infantry, and in the Honourable Artillery Company, but was seriously wounded the following year, spending the rest of the First World War in a wheelchair.

His first stage appearance was on 12 May 1920 at the Comedy Theatre as a footman in Why Marry?. In October of that year he went to Canada as stage manager for Henry V. Esmond and Eva Moore, as well as playing Montague Jordan in Eliza Comes to Stay. He appeared constantly on stage thereafter, and eight years later began working in silent films. In 1934 he moved to Hollywood, settling in Beverly Hills.

During his film career he appeared in 78 films, including Treasure Island (1934), The Scarlet Pimpernel, Lassie Come Home, The Corn is Green, and Bwana Devil. He also appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's films Rebecca (1940) and Suspicion (1941).

He often played buffoonish, clueless gentlemen, and his main role was as Dr. Watson in the Sherlock Holmes series that began in 1939 with his good friend Basil Rathbone. Holmesian purists objected that in the books Watson was intelligent and capable, while Bruce's portrayal made him dumber and more clumsy. To millions of fans, however, Bruce was the definitive Watson. He starred in 14 films and more than 200 radio shows as Dr. Watson. Although Watson often appears as the older of the two characters, Bruce was actually three years younger than Rathbone. Unlike Rathbone, Bruce never tired of his role, and would even have liked to play it more often.

Unlike some of his contemporaries, he never renounced his British citizenship, despite his long residence in the United States, and retained his membership of the London clubs Garrick Club and Bucks Club until his death.

Bruce died on 8 October 1953 of an acute myocardial infarction in Santa Monica, California, in 1953, aged 58. He was cremated, and his ashes were kept at the Chapel of the Pines Crematorium in Los Angeles.

His last film, World for Ransom, was released posthumously in 1954.