Parley Baer

Parley Baer was born on August 5, 1914 in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. He was a film and radio actor, known for Dad Cadillac (1988), A Fever in the Blood (1961) and Dave, President for a Day (1993). He was married to Ernestine Clark. He died on November 22, 2002 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

He was the voice of Ernie Keebler on the Keebler cookies commercials.

He served in the Army Air Corps in the Pacific theater in WWII, earning seven battle stars and a presidential citation. Attained rank of captain.

During his struggling years, he served as a ringmaster for Circus Vargas and Barnum & Bailey. He would later serve on the board of the community L.A. Circus, and as a docent at the Los Angeles Zoo. Wrote publicity for Al. G. Barnes Circus, in winters. Announcer at Salt Lake City radio station, KSL.

He created and toured with his own circuses, doubling as ringmaster and performance director, roles he filled with other circuses as well.

In addition to the role of Chester on the Gunsmoke radio series which ran from 1952 to 1961 (the part was played by Dennis Weaver in the long-running television series), Baer was frequently heard on the Lux Radio Theater, Escape and Suspense radio programs, among others.

In the 1930s, Baer served on radio as director of special events for KSL. His first network show was The Whistler, which was soon followed by appearances on Escape (notably narrating "Wild Jack Rhett" and as the title patriot in an adaptation of Stephen Vincent Benét's "A Tooth for Paul Revere"), Suspense, Tales of the Texas Rangers (as various local sheriffs), Dragnet, The CBS Radio Workshop, Lux Radio Theater, The Six Shooter, and Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, to name a few.

In 1952, he began playing Chester, the trusty jailhouse assistant to Marshal Matt Dillon on the radio version of Gunsmoke, eventually ad-libbing the character's full name, "Chester Wesley Proudfoot" (later changed to "Chester Goode" in the televised version of the series, which featured Dennis Weaver in the role of Chester). Baer also worked as a voice actor on several other radio shows produced by Norman MacDonnell, performing as Pete the Marshal on the situation comedy The Harold Peary Show, as Doc Clemens on Rogers of the Gazette, and as additional characters on Fort Laramie and The Adventures of Philip Marlowe.

Other recurring roles included Eb the farm hand on Granby's Green Acres (the radio predecessor to television's Green Acres), Gramps on The Truitts, and Rene the manservant on a radio version of The Count of Monte Cristo. His later radio work included playing Reginald Duffield and Uncle Joe Finneman on the Focus on the Family series Adventures in Odyssey in the 1980s and 1990s.

Radio playwright and director Norman Corwin cast Baer as Simon Legree in the 1969 KCET television reading of his 1938 radio play The Plot to Overthrow Christmas.

As an on-camera performer, Baer was recognizable by his distinctive voice, his paunchy appearance, and his balding head. Often he portrayed fussy, bossy, and/or obstinate officials or neighbors. Extended television roles included blustering, by-the-book Mayor Stoner on The Andy Griffith Show, the neighbor Darby on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, frequent guest appearances on The Addams Family as insurance man and city commissioner Arthur J. Henson, and in the late 1990s, Miles Dugan on The Young and the Restless. He also appeared as a telephone executive on Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.

On November 22, 2002, Parley died from complications from a stroke at age 88.

Arnold Moss

Arnold Moss was born on January 28, 1910 and was an American character actor.

Born in Flatbush, Moss was a third-generation Brooklyn native. He attended Brooklyn's Boys High School. His first involvement with acting came when he was in college, after which he joined the Eva Le Gallienne Apprentice Group.

Moss was an announcer at two Baltimore, Maryland, radio stations, moving to WCAO in 1931 after having worked at WTAM. In 1932, he was the youngest announcer at CBS.

He played Dr. Fabian in Cabin B-13 on CBS radio in 1948–49, played in Cafe Istanbul on ABC radio in 1952, was Ahmed on Stella Dallas, was Philip Cameron in Against the Storm and was the first voice of the character of Ted White on the radio serial, The Guiding Light, from April 1948 to May 1949. Moss’s radio work included appearances on Columbia Workshop, Theater of Romance, Inner Sanctum Mysteries, Molle Mystery Theater, Cabin B-13 and CBS Radio Mystery Theatre.

Moss appeared in dozens of television programs during the golden age of TV. On November 22, 1950, he starred in "Lord Mountdrago" on Somerset Maugham TV Theatre. He appeared on television in Star Trek (1966) as mysterious actor Anton Karidian, alter-ego of the tyrannical Gov. Kodos of Tarsus IV, in the episode "The Conscience of the King". He also played in The Rifleman as the school teacher, Mr. Griswald, and as Chief Lonespear in Bonanza episode "In Defense of Honor" in 1968. Other television appearances include The Time Tunnel, The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and the anthology series The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, General Electric Theater, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Suspense, Tales of Tomorrow, Studio One, and Kraft Television Theatre. He played Prospero in Margaret Webster's 1945 production of Shakespeare's The Tempest for a combined total of 124 performances, the longest run of the play in Broadway history. He appeared in the original Broadway production of the Hal Prince/Stephen Sondheim musical Follies.

Moss died from lung cancer at his home in New York City on December 15, 1989.

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.