John Moffatt

 

John Moffatt was an English actor and playwright known for his numerous roles on BBC radio, notably as Hercule Poirot in 25 adaptations of Agatha Christie novels, and for portraying Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in dramatizations of Sherlock Holmes, as well as appearing in other radio and television productions throughout his career.

 

His full name was Albert John Moffatt, and he was born in Badby, England, to Ernest Moffatt and Letitia Hickman, servants to Alexandra of Denmark at Marlborough House and Sandringham House. He studied at Richmond Park Academy in London, and then spent three years working in a bank in the City of London. In the evenings, he attended drama classes taught by John Burrell at Toynbee Hall. Moffatt concealed his attendance from his parents, who considered a theatrical career too uncertain.

He first appeared on stage in 1944 at the Liverpool Playhouse, playing the Raven in a touring children's production of The Snow Queen. His debut in mainstream theatre came in 1945 at the Perth Theatre, playing opposite Alec McCowen, with whom he developed a lifelong friendship. Over the next five years he learned his craft by performing over 200 roles with repertory companies in Oxford and Windsor, and at the Bristol Old Vic. At Oxford, he and the young Tony Hancock played the Ugly Sisters in Cinderella. Moffatt retained his interest in pantomime, being a celebrated actor of the traditional British role of the pantomime dame, and having written five plays in the genre.

 

Moffatt's first BBC radio appearance was in the serial Mrs Dale's Diary (1950), and for much of the 1980s he was a member of the BBC Radio Drama Company. Later radio credits included the roles of Oswald in King Lear, Lord Chief Justice in Falstaff, and Quilp in The Old Curiosity Shop. He also portrayed Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in BBC adaptations. His best-known radio role was as Hercule Poirot in 25 adaptations of Agatha Christie's plays. The first was The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, broadcast on 24 December 1987.

Moffatt made his television debut in 1953, playing Grebeauval in The Public Prosecutor, appearing in many BBC and commercial network broadcasts over the following decades. He played Joseph Surface in The School for Scandal, Brush in The Clandestine Marriage, the Prince of Aragon in The Merchant of Venice, Casca in Julius Caesar, Malvolio and Sir Andrew in two different productions of Twelfth Night, and Ben in The Adventures of Ben Gunn. In 1980, he appeared in the Thames Television television series Love in a Cold Climate, an adaptation of a novel by Nancy Mitford. He also appeared in an episode of the Agatha Christie adaptation of Miss Marple, The Body in the Library, playing the role of Edwards.

 

Moffatt's film career began with Loser Takes All (1956), playing a small role as a hotel waiter. His only other film of the decade was The Silent Enemy (1958). In 1963, he appeared in Tom Jones (1963). The 1970s were the most prolific decade for his big-screen work, with appearances in Julius Caesar (1970), Lady Caroline Lamb (1973), Romance with a Double Bass (1974), Galileo (1974), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), and S.O.S. Titanic (1979). In the 1980s, he appeared in the television series Minder (1982) and in Britannia Hospital (1982), his last film.

 

After retiring from the theater in 1988, Moffatt performed regularly alongside Judi Dench and her husband, Michael Williams, in the verse collection Fond and Familiar. Upon Williams's death in 2001, Dench and Moffatt performed the show with Geoffrey Palmer.

John Moffatt died at his home after a long illness, two weeks before his ninetieth birthday. He was single and was survived by his sister, Marjorie.

Dick Powell

 

 

Richard Ewing "Dick" Powell was born in Mountain View, Arkansas on November 14, 1904, he was an American singer, actor, radio voice, producer, and film director.

 

Born in Mountain View, Arkansas, Powell studied at Little Rock College (now the University of Arkansas at Little Rock) before beginning his singing career with the Midwest-based Charlie Davis Orchestra. He recorded several albums with Davis and, also on his own, with Vocalion Records in the late 1920s.

Powell emigrated to Pittsburgh, where he enjoyed great local success as Master of Ceremonies at the Enright and Stanley Theaters. In April 1930, Warner Bros. acquired Brunswick Records, then owned by Vocalion. Warner Bros. was impressed by Powell's singing and stage presence, and offered him a film contract in 1932. He made his film debut as the lead singer in Blessed Event. He continued to play the role of a young crooner in musicals such as 42nd Street, Footlight Parade, Gold Diggers of 1933, Dames, Flirtation Walk, and On the Avenue, often working alongside Ruby Keeler and Joan Blondell.

 

From 1949 to 1953, Powell starred in the NBC radio show Richard Diamond, Private Detective. The weekly 30-minute program featured him as a friendly private detective with a quick wit.

In the 1950s, Powell produced and directed several B-movies and co-founded Four Star Television, acting in and supervising various programs for the company. His film The Enemy Below (1957), based on the novel by Denys Rayner, won an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.

Powell died in West Los Angeles, California, on January 2, 1963, of lymphoma, at the age of 58. He was one of many members of the crew of The Conqueror (1956) who died of the same disease. The Conqueror was filmed in Utah, near an atomic testing site. It was rumored, though never proven, that the filming location may have been the cause of the cancers affecting the production staff. Dick Powell was cremated and his ashes interred in the Columbarium of Honor at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.

Richard Diamond, Private detective

 

Richard Diamond (Private Detective) is an American television series consisting of 77 episodes that first aired over four seasons from 1957 to 1960. The series is also known as Call Mr. D (applied to syndicated reruns).

The series originated from the radio show of the same name, which aired from 1949 to 1953 and starred Dick Powell, who later served as producer. Richard Diamond is a private detective who is assigned various cases by ordinary people. Diamond tackles them with the help of his secretary Sam, whom he calls from a phone installed in his car, and police lieutenant McGough. The series was produced by Four Star Productions, Dick Powell's company.

The series debuted on CBS but aired on NBC for its final season. David Janssen plays Diamond. His secretary, Sam, is shown only from the waist down, and only her legs are visible. Initially, these were Mary Tyler Moore's legs, but later other actresses provided the legs. Moore and the other actresses were never credited during the show's run, and Moore's participation was only discovered after an interview with TV Guide in 1959. Russ Conway occasionally appears as Lieutenant Pete Kile during the final season. Over the course of its four seasons, the setting of the series changed from New York to Los Angeles.

The original music is by Frank De Vol, including the theme for the first and second seasons. The third season featured a jazz theme composed by Pete Rugolo.

Guest stars include Chris Alcaide, Phyllis Avery (three times), Francis De Sales, Don Keefer, and Joyce Meadows.

 

The series was broadcast in the United States from 1957 to 1960 on the CBS television network (seasons 1-2-3) and on NBC (season 4).

Agatha Christie's radio plays

   

BBC radio have produced over 70 full cast adaptations of Agatha Christie’s beloved crime stories, including Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Hercule Poirot is one of the most famous fictional characters of all time, known for his Belgian accent, waxed moustaches, perfectionism and “little grey cells”. Poirot would be the first to call himself a great man – he has never been known for his modesty – but with such success in his career, it is difficult to argue with him. Miss Marple doesn’t look like a detective. But looks can be deceiving… this apparently unassuming woman from the small village of St Mary Mead is surprisingly worldly and uses the fact people underestimate her to full advantage when investigating.

Agatha Christie's works have been adapted for radio numerous times, with BBC Radio being a prominent producer of these adaptations. These include full-cast dramas featuring characters like Hercules Poirot or Miss Marple.

John Moffatt notably portrayed Hercule Poirot in 25 BBC Radio productions, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 between 1985 and 2007. These adaptations include full-cast dramatizations of Poirot novels and short stories, written by Michael Bakewell.

Miss Marple also features in radio adaptations, including "Miss Marple Tells a Story". The BBC Radio 4 series also includes a variety of other Christie adaptations, such as "The Pale Horse", "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd", and "4.50 from Paddington". A series titled "Agatha Christie: Twelve Radio Mysteries" features twelve BBC Radio 4 dramatizations. 

BBC Radio 4 Extra offers an episode guide with various Agatha Christie dramas, including "The Sittaford Mystery" and "The Pale Horse". 

More info here.

Pete Kelly's Blues

Pete Kelly's Blues book cover

Pete Kelly's Blues was an American crime-musical radio drama which aired over NBC as an unsponsored summer replacement series on Wednesday nights. It was broadcast from July 4 through September 19, 1951.

It was the creation of Jack Webb. Webb got his start as a late night disc jockey playing Jazz records in San Francisco. His move to radio drama in a series of crime dramas based in San Francisco. In 1949 he found lasting fame when he created and starred in Dragnet. It is a little jarring during the first few minutes of Pete Kelly to hear Sgt. Joe Friday's voice looking for more than "Just the facts, Ma'am."

Webb was a life-long enthusiast of Dixieland Jazz, and with his well known insistence on realism in his productions, it isn't surprising the Pete Kelly's Blues would be filled with Jazz powerhouses. Cornet player Dick Cathcart became friends with Webb during WWII, and was his musical stand-in. Other members of the Big Seven were Matty Matlock on clarinet, brothers Ray and Moe Schneider on piano and trombone, Morty Corb on bass, and Bill Newman's guitar.

Pete Kelly is a jazz man who just wants the chance to play his kind of music. The world that he plays in isn't always the kindest, and the stories on this short lived show won't always end happily. "…it's about the blues; Pete Kelly's Blues."

The series was produced during three months, but inspired a 1955 film version of Pete Kelly's Blues, in which Jack Webb produced, directed and starred. It used many of the same musicians, including Cathcart, and Ella Fitzgerald was cast as Maggie Jackson. A  television version, still produced and directed by Webb but with William Reynolds in the lead, aired in 1959, using scripts originally written for the radio version.

Two albums were released, a soundtrack recording and Pete Kelly Lets His Hair Down, an instrumental album using the musicians from the series with songs arranged by tempo - "blue songs" and "red songs".

Jane Wyatt

Jane Waddington Wyatt was born in Mahwah, New Jersey, on August 12, 1910,  was a three-time Emmy Award-winning American film and television actress.

Wyatt was born in Campgaw (now part of Mahwah), Bergen County, New Jersey, but moved to New York City at three months old. Her father was Christopher Billop Wyatt Jr., a Wall Street investor, and her mother Euphemia Van Rensselaer Waddington, a theater critic for the Catholic World. She was educated at The Chapin School and then Barnard College. After two years, she dropped out and entered the Berkshire Playhouse in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where she performed for six months in various roles.

She had three siblings: Christopher III, Elizabeth, and Monica. She was also a distant cousin of Eleanor Roosevelt and the poet Harry Crosby, all of whom were descendants of Philip Livingston, one of the signers of the United States Declaration of Independence.

Although one of her first suitors was John D. Rockefeller III, on November 9, 1935, Wyatt married investment broker Edgar Bethune Ward. The couple had met in the late 1920s, spending a weekend as guests of Franklin D. Roosevelt in Hyde Park. They had three children and the marriage lasted until his death on November 8, 2000.

One of her first Broadway theater jobs was as an understudy to Rose Hobart in a production of Trade Winds. With favorable reviews on Broadway and known for her understated beauty, Wyatt moved from theater to film, where she played her most famous role at the time in the 1937 Frank Capra film, Lost Horizon, opposite Ronald Colman. Other notable films that same year included Gentleman's Agreement (opposite Gregory Peck), None but the Lonely Heart (with Cary Grant), and Boomerang (with Dana Andrews).

Her film career suffered due to her outspoken opposition to Senator Joseph McCarthy, a leading figure in the McCarthy era. Her career was temporarily damaged by her hosting a performance of the Bolshoi Ballet during World War II, despite having done so at the request of President Roosevelt. As a result, she returned to her theatrical roots in New York for a time, appearing in plays such as Lillian Hellman's The Autumn Garden, alongside Fredric March.
From 1954 to 1960, she co-starred with Robert Young in Father Knows Best, a TV series about the life of the Anderson family in Springfield, a Midwestern city. She won the Emmy for Best Actress three years in a row for this performance.

Jane Wyatt is known for her role as Margaret Anderson in the television series "Father Knows Best," but the series also began as a radio show in 1949. Additionally, Wyatt appeared on the radio show "Family Theatre," where she played a mother struggling to raise her children properly, in an episode titled "Violets for Courage."

In short, Jane Wyatt had a radio role, both with "Father Knows Best" and "Family Theatre."
The television version of "Father Knows Best" was based on a radio show that first aired in 1949, where Jane Wyatt played Margaret Anderson.

Wyatt was also a part of this show, appearing in the episode "Violets for Courage," where she played a mother facing trials over her children's upbringing, alongside Robert Ryan.

Wyatt died on October 20, 2006, in Bel-Air, Los Angeles, of natural causes at his home in Bel-Air, California, at the age of 96. His funeral was held at St. Martin of Tours Church in Brentwood, California.

Howard Duff

Howard Duff was born in Bremerton, Washington on November 23, 1913. His first film role was as a prisoner in Brute Force (1947). His notable films include The Naked City (1948), All My Sons (1948), Panic in the City (1968), In Search of America (1971), A Wedding (1978), and No Way Out (1987).

He appeared in numerous films with his first wife, actress and director Ida Lupino. One of Duff's last and best performances was as Dustin Hoffman's lawyer in Kramer vs. Kramer (1979).

On radio, Duff worked locally in Seattle-area theater until entering the United States Army Air Corps during World War II. He was assigned to their radio service, and announced re-broadcasts prepared for the Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS). In this role, he served as the announcer for the drama Suspense, dated March 16, 1943. Duff's most memorable radio role was as Dashiell Hammett's private eye Sam Spade in The Adventures of Sam Spade (1946–1950). Due to accusations of Duff being a communist and with his TV and film career starting to take hold, he ultimately left the program in 1950 at the start of its final season; Stephen Dunne took over the voice role of Sam Spade.

On television, he had several roles, including an episode of the television series Climax! titled "Escape From Fear" in 1955. Duff also appeared alongside Ida Lupino on the CBS sitcom "Mr. Adams and Eve" from January 1957 to September 1958. From October 1960 to April 1961, Duff played the role of Willie Dante on the NBC adventure mystery series "Dante." In 1964, he guest-starred in the episode "Prodigy" on the NBC medical drama "The Eleventh Hour," alongside Jack Ging and Ralph Bellamy.

From September 1966 to January 1969, Duff played Detective Sergeant Sam Stone on the ABC series "Felony Squad," on which he worked with Dennis Cole. In the 1980s, he appeared in dramas such as "Flamingo Road" on NBC and "Knots Landing" and "Dallas," both on CBS.
Duff had a stormy relationship with actress Ava Gardner in the late 1940s. He married fellow actress Ida Lupino in 1951. They had one daughter, Bridget Duff, born on April 23, 1952. They separated in 1966 and divorced in 1984. He later married Judy Jenkinson.

Duff died in 1990, at the age of 76, of a heart attack in Santa Barbara, California. He was cremated, and his ashes were given to his family.