Santos Ortega

Santos Edward Ortega was born in New York City on June 30, 1899, to parents Rafael (born in Venezuela and of Spanish descent) and Isabella (née Corbett, from Ireland) Ortega. 
Ortega initially had aspirations of joining the priesthood and studied briefly at the St. Joseph's Seminary of the De La Salle Christian Brothers in Pocantico Hills, New York, but changed his mind after landing a series of small acting roles in a series of Broadway productions.

He began his career when he was 17 in the theater in "an extravaganza at the old Hippodrome Theater. Later, he went on tour with a singing group, returning to New York City to appear on the Broadway stage including roles in Jeb (1946), Puppets of Passion (1927), What Never Dies (1926-1927), What's the Use (1926), and Marilyn's Affairs.
As radio stations began to come on the air in large numbers, radio programs began to gain momentum, thus opening up new opportunities for Ortega. He first worked in radio in comedy, appearing on a variety show, Blackstone Plantation, where he played a character named Don Rodrigo. Ortega later said that he was hired for the role after a casting director hired the young unknown based on seeing Ortega's name, assuming that he would be perfect for the role.

Despite Ortega's ethnic-sounding name, and the fact that he did have Latino origins on his father's side, he did not speak Spanish. He came to learn that if he convincingly mastered a Spanish dialect, more work would come his way, and it did.

He served as straight man for the duo of Frank Crumit and Julius Sanderson. Ortega said, "It was a song and patter show, and I provided the laughter." He went on to be active in the medium, starring in The Adventures of Nero Wolfe (1943–1944) and narrating Gang Busters, as well as Stroke of Fate. Perhaps his most famous and notable radio role was Commissioner Weston on The Shadow. He played the title role in Bulldog Drummond (1942–43) and was heard in the daytime radio serials Valiant Lady (as Edward Curran), Perry Mason, 1948's Roger Kilgore, Public Defender, and as the title character in The Adventures of Charlie Chan (1947–1948), The Affairs of Peter Salem from 1949 to 1953, and Hannibal Cobb (1950–1951).

Throughout the 1930s and 1940s and into the 1950s and early 1960s, the prolific Ortega lent his remarkable range of voice characterizations to numerous other radio drama series such as Inner Sanctum, The Mysterious Traveler, Suspense, Casey Crime Photographer, The Eternal Light, The Columbia Workshop, The Big Story, Perry Mason, You Are There, Dimension X, and X Minus One. He also originated the radio role of Inspector Queen on The Adventures of Ellery Queen.

Ortega died on April 10, 1976, in Broward General Hospital in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, while he was visiting in that area. Survivors included a son, a daughter and a sister. A memorial service was held April 25, 1976, at the Church of the Heavenly Rest in New York City.

Parker Fennelly

Parker Fennelly (October 22, 1891 – January 22, 1988) was an American radio and film actor. He participated in hundreds of radio shows.

He performed on stage, radio, film, and television. He grew up in Maine and studied acting at the Leland Powers School in Boston. Fennelly worked in theater for much of his career, appearing in 15 Broadway plays from 1924 to 1955, including Mister Pitt (with Walter Huston), Our Town, and The Southwest Corner. Two of Fennelly's plays were produced on Broadway: Fulton of Oak Falls (co-written with George M. Cohan) in 1937, and Cuckoos on the Hearth in 1941. The latter was often performed thereafter in summer theaters around the country. Several other plays of Fennelly's were also successfully produced.

Fennelly began working on radio during the late 1920s in a comedy duo with Arthur Allen called the Stebbins Boys, appearing on the programs The Stebbins Boys of Bucksport Point and Snow Village Sketches (also known as Soconyland Sketches). Fennelly and Allen portrayed stereotypical dry New Englanders, a role Fennelly would play over and over.

Fennelly appeared on many live television programs of the 1950s, such as Philco Television Playhouse, Studio One, and Lux ​​Video Theatre. Among his film credits were Alfred Hitchcock's The Trouble With Harry (1955), The Kettles On Old MacDonald's Farm (1957), Pretty Poison (1968), and Angel In My Pocket (1969). From the late 1950s to the 1980s, he was a commercial spokesperson for Pepperidge Farm on radio and television, reprising the role of Titus Moody.

Fennelly embodied the moody New England Yankee with roles in radio, film and television. Weekly he played Titus Moody on the program "Allen's Alley", a highly successful radio show hosted by Fred Allen.

In later years he became familiar as a television spokesperson for the Campbell Soup Company. In 1971 he worked in the Universal film How to Frame a Figg, alongside Don Knotts.

He died at the age of 96 in Peekskill, New York. He is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York.

Elspeth Thexton Eric

Elspeth Thexton Eric was born on September 15, 1907. She was an American actress in old-time radio, "usually cast as the other woman in soaps and serials".

The daughter of a doctor, Elspeth Thexton Eric was born in Chicago, Illinois. She attended Bradford Academy and graduated from Wellesley College with a double major in economics and English literature. After hearing tales of woe about "girls who had tried to crash the great White Way and failed, she enrolled in a business school and left word with her friends in New York to let her know when a job was to be had there.

Eric's initial work on radio came in Big Sister and Aunt Jenny's Real Life Stories.
Other programs on which Eric appeared included The Haunting Hour, The FBI in Peace and War, Abbott Mysteries, Ever Since Eve, Front Page Farrell, Quick as a Flash, Rosemary,  Mommie and the Men, Inner Sanctum Mystery, Bulldog Drummond, Manhattan at Midnight, Green Valley, U.S.A., Gang Busters, 21st Precinct, Grand Central Station, and Mr. District Attorney.

Elspeth Eric was one of radio's busiest actresses throughout the 1940s and 1950 and was heard on such radio drama series usually playing gun molls and ladies with criminal intents. In the 1970s she wrote and was heard on many of Himan Brown's CBS MYSTERY THEATER radio series.

Eric gained early acting experience with the Woodstock Summer Theatre. In 1932, she acted in the troupe at the Westchester Playhouse at Mount Kisco, New York.

Eric had the role of Lil Monte in the Road of Life soap opera, which was broadcast on TV and radio in 1955, with the same cast. She also appeared in "His Name Was Death," an episode of Robert Montgomery Presents (March 18, 1957), "Young Man Adam," an episode of Studio One (December 29, 1952), and "The Unfraid," an episode of The Web (November 23, 1952).
In a 1955 newspaper article, Eric indicated her preference for working in radio.

Elspeth Eric died of cancer in Manhattan in 1993.

William Gargan

William Gargan was born on July 17, 1905, he was an American radio, film, and television actor.

His full name was William Dennis Gargan, and he was born in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. His older brother was actor Edward Gargan.

After completing his studies, Gargan worked as a salesman of bootleg whiskey to speakeasies in New York, later joining a detective agency. While visiting his brother at a musical theatre, he was offered a stage job, which he accepted, beginning his stage career by performing in the play Aloma of the South Seas.

Gargan played character roles in many Hollywood productions, playing policemen, priests, reporters, adventurers and stereotypical Irishmen. His roles included Detective Ellery Queen, whom he played twice, although he became best known as Detective Martin Kane in the 1949-51 radio-television series Martin Kane, Private Eye. He also played a private detective on Barrie Craig's NBC radio show Confidential Investigator, which aired from 1951 to 1955.

Gargan's first regular radio role was Captain Flagg on Captain Flagg and Sergeant Quirt, beginning in February 1942. He also portrayed Ross Dolan in I Deal in Crime, and Inspector Burke in Murder Will Out, and was host of G. I. Laffs.

In 1949 Gargan was in New York City when he phoned acquaintance Frank Folsom of RCA. Folsom invited Gargan for lunch. He went to the fifty-third floor of 30 Rockefeller Center. Inside were executives from BBD&O, The New York Stock Exchange, and others. During lunch Gargan mentioned that he was looking for a job in TV.

Folsom phoned Norm Blackburn, VP of TV and Radio at NBC and a good friend of Gargan’s. Gargan was asked if he’d be interested in playing a pipe-smoking detective, sponsored by the U.S. Tobacco Company. The show became Martin Kane, Private Eye. It would be shot for TV and separately done for radio as well. Mutual Broadcasting carried the radio series. It debuted on Sunday August 7, 1949 at 4:30PM eastern time. Meanwhile, the TV version aired on NBC Thursdays at 10PM.

Gargan's career ended in 1958 when he became ill with laryngeal cancer, necessitating the removal of his larynx. Speaking in an artificial voice, Gargan became an activist and spokesman for the American Cancer Society, warning on many occasions about the dangers of smoking.

Gargan and his wife, Mary were married in Baltimore on January 19, 1928. They had two sons. Bill (nicknamed Barrie) was born on February 25, 1929. Leslie was born on June 28, 1933.

William Gargan died of a heart attack in 1979 while on a plane from New York to San Diego, California. He was 73 years old. He was buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in San Diego.

Barrie Craig, Confidential Investigator

Barrie Craig, Confidential Investigator was a detective drama aired on NBC Radio from October 3, 1951 to June 30, 1955.

William Gargan, who also played the better known television and radio detective Martin Kane, was the voice of New York eye Barrie Craig while Ralph Bell portrayed his associate, Lt. Travis Rogers. Craig's office was on Madison Avenue and his adventures were fairly standard PI fare. He worked alone, solved cases efficiently, and feared no man. As the promos went, he was "your man when you can't go to the cops. Confidentiality a specialty." A few years earlier Gargan had played a similar character in Martin Kane, Private Eye. Gargan also starred in the role in an unsuccessful 1952 TV pilot written and directed by Blake Edwards. It was presented on ABC's Pepsi-Cola Playhouse as "Death the Hard Way" (October 17, 1954).

This series has been produced with various spellings of the primary character name. Barrie Craig, Confidential Investigator is one of the few detective radio series that had separate versions of it broadcast from both coasts. Even the spelling changed over the years. It was first "Barry Crane" and then "Barrie Craig". NBC produced it in New York from 1951 to 1954 and then moved it to Hollywood where it aired from 1954 to 1955.

Detective Barrie Craig (William Gargan) worked alone from his Madison Avenue office. Unlike his contemporaries Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe, Craig had a laid-back personality, somewhat cutting against the popular hard-boiled detective stereotype. Others in the cast included Ralph Bell, Elspeth Eric, Parker Fennelly, Santos Ortega, Arnold Moss, Parley Baer, Virginia Gregg and Betty Lou Gerson.