William Spier

William Spier was editor, producer, director. A lifelong radio man, he had broken in during the primitive days of 1929 and earned his stripes serving on such pioneering shows as The March of Time. Spier assembled the writing team of Bob Tallman and Ann Lorraine and began putting Spade together. He was impressed by the deep, cynical, tough qualities in Howard Duff's voice. Spier was also an American writer, producer, and director for television and radio. He is best known for his radio work, notably Suspense and The Adventures of Sam Spade. He was born in New York City to a Jewish father and a Presbyterian mother. Spier graduated from Evander Childs High School.

He eventually became the chief critic for the magazine Musical America at age 19.

In 1929, Spier was hired at the advertising agency Batten, Barton, Durstine and Osborn. At the agency, he produced and directed radio shows, such as The Atwater Kent Hour, an hour-long Sunday night presentation of Metropolitan Opera singers; General Motors' Family Party; and Ethyl Tune-Up Time. In 1936, he directed and co-wrote The March of Time program, hiring Orson Welles for his first job in radio. In 1940, Spier became chief of the writers' department and director of program development at the Columbia Broadcasting Company (CBS). At the same time, he was co-director, co-producer and some-time writer of Suspense, an anthology program of mysteries and thrillers, and Duffy's Tavern.

In 1941 Spier traveled to Los Angeles, which gave him access to a larger and better known talent pool. Guest stars for Suspense episodes included Lucille Ball, Cary Grant, Kirk Douglas, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Joan Fontaine, Judy Garland, Rita Hayworth, Marlene Dietrich, Richard Widmark and William Holden. Suspense had become increasingly popular; for the 1949–50 season, the program ranked number eight of the top 10 programs. The best known episode of the series was “Sorry Wrong Number,” starring Agnes Moorehead, in which a bed-ridden woman who by a chance incorrect phone connection overhears two men planning to murder a woman at 11:15 p.m. The episode was so popular that it was repeated eight times during the run of the series. The episode was even recorded on two 12-inch discs on Decca Records in 1943, becoming the number three most popular recording. The episode was eventually expanded for a successful film production, starring Barbara Stanwyck and Burt Lancaster.

In 1946, Spier directed, produced and sometimes wrote the radio series The Adventures of Sam Spade, based upon the detective created by Dashiell Hammett. Howard Duff starred as Sam Spade with Lurene Tuttle portraying his loyal secretary Effie. He also produced two anthology series: The Clock (radio) and The James and Pamela Mason Show. A 1949 magazine article said Spier "is generally rated radio's top-notch creator of suspense-type dramas.

In 1952, Spier introduced TV's first 90-minute show, Omnibus, for CBS. He produced Medallion Theatre on NBC in 1953–54. He created (with Louis Pelletier), produced, directed, and wrote for the 1954–1955 CBS situation comedy Willy, starring June Havoc. In some respects, the show was ahead of its time in that Havoc's character, Willa “Willy” Dodger, was an unmarried lawyer with her own legal practice in a small New England town. The show was a Desilu production, and like I Love Lucy, Willy was filmed before a live studio audience. Willy was broadcast at 10:30 p.m. on Saturdays opposite the popular NBC series, Your Hit Parade. Midway through the season, an attempt was made to increase ratings by having Havoc's character relocate to New York to represent show business clients; however, the show only lasted one season. In 1956, Spier produced three episodes of Man Against Crime. He subsequently limited his career in television to writing scripts for such television series as The Lineup, Peter Gunn and The Untouchables.

In 1954, Spier co-directed, with Roy Kellino, the film Lady Possessed, starring James Mason and Havoc, with a screenplay written by Mason and his wife, Pamela Mason, based upon her novel Del Palma.

Spier was married to Mary Scanlan from 1929 to 1939 and had three children with her: Peter, Greta, and Margaret. Spier died, aged 66, at the home he shared with Havoc in Weston, Connecticut.

The Adventures of Sam Spade

The Adventures of Sam Spade was first heard on ABC July 12, 1946, as a Friday-night summer series. The show clicked at once, and went into a regular fall lineup on CBS September 29, 1946. From then until 1949, Sam Spade was a Sunday-night thriller for Wildroot Cream Oil, starring Howard Duff in the title role. With Duff's departure, NBC took the series, leaving it on Sunday for Wildroot and starring Stephen Dunne as Spade. This version lasted until 1951, the last year running as a Friday sustainer.

Spade's appearance on the air marked an almost literal transition from Dashiell Hammett's 1930 crime classic, The Maltese Falcon, where he first appeared. Spade was a San Francisco detective, one of the most distinctive of the hardboiled school. His jump to radio was wrought by William Spier, who had already carved out a reputation as a master of mystery in his direction of another highly rated CBS thriller, Suspense.

Sam Spade shot him to national fame. The character, as Spier saw it, would Have many easily identifiable traits. The first thing Spade usually wanted to know was, "How much money you got on you?" "Two hundred? Okay, I'll take that and you can pay me the rest later." But Spade wasn't a spendthrift -- he never threw silver-dollar tips a la Johnny Dollar, even if he could have put it on his expense account. Spade favorite way to travel was by streetcar; it took him almost anywhere for a dime. He disliked cabs and liked cheap booze. You didn't need more than an occasional, subtle reminder: those glasses clinking every week as Sam opened his desk drawer and began dictation were enough. We knew Sam and Effie weren't toasting each other with Sal Hepatica. Sam was a man who worked out of his desk, and the thing closest at hand in that top drawer just might be a half-empty bottle of Old Granddad.

His clients got bumped off with startling regularity. Then Sam sent his report (and presumably his bill) to the widows. He dictated his cases to his faithful secretary, Effie Perrine, a babbling, man-hungry female who might have been the adult Corliss Archer. Each case came out as a report, dated, signed, and delivered. Spade license number - 137596 - was always included in the report. The cases unfolded in chronological order, the scenes shifting between Sam and Effie and the dramatization of Sam's dictation. Effie, who always seemed on the verge of tears whenever Sam became involved (as he did weekly) with a curvy client, was beautifully played by Lurene Tuttle, Jerry Hausner played Sam's lawyer, Sid Weiss. Lud Gluskin directed the music and Dick Joy announced. Soon after the series began, Ann Lorraine dropped her writing duties, and Gil Doud became Bob Tallman's writing partner.

The show ran in its original format through the episode of September 17, 1950. Then Howard Duff quit for a fling at movies, and Sam Spade languished for two months. On November 17, 1950, it returned on NBC. Duff's absence was handled in usual network form: by importing a new voice. NBC ran the show as though nothing had happened, using Steve Dunne as a boyish-sounding Spade. Spier and Miss Tuttle followed the series over, and for a time so did Wildroot. Wildroot and the listeners all got wise around the same time. Dunne was a good radio man, but he sounded like Sam in knee pants.

Duff once said that Hammett had done such a great job in The Maltese Falcon that any actor could have played Sam and become a radio hero. He saw that theory proved wrong.

Dashiell Hammett's name was removed from the series in the late 1940s because he was being investigated for involvement with the Communist Party. Later, when Howard Duff's name appeared in the Red Channels book, he was not invited to play the role when the series made the switch to NBC in 1950.

Ben Alexander

Ben Alexander was an Emmy-nominated American motion picture actor, who started out as a child actor in 1916. 

He was born in Goldfield, Nevada on June 27, 1911, and raised in California. Alexander made his screen debut at age of five in Every Pearl a Tear. He went on to portray Lillian Gish’s young brother in D.W. Griffith’s Hearts of the World. After a number of silent era films, he retired from screen work but came back for the World War I classic, All Quiet on the Western Front, in which Alexander made his first positive impression as an adult actor in the role of Kemmerick, the tragic amputation victim.

When Alexander’s acting career slowed down in the mid-1930s, he found a new career as a successful radio announcer in the late 1940’s, including for The Martin and Lewis Show, and in 1952, Jack Webb chose him to replace Barton Yarborough, who had suddenly and unexpectedly died and had played Friday’s original partner, Ben Romero. A few actors filled in as Friday’s partners until Alexander was hired as a permanent replacement in the newly created role of Officer Frank Smith, first, in the radio series, and then, in the TV series Dragnet.

On July 5, 1969, Alexander died because of a massive heart attack in his Los Angeles home when his wife and children returned from a camping trip.

Ben Alexander was awarded three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for television, radio, and movies.

CLASSIC OLD TIME RADIO is back!

The new CLASSIC OLD TIME RADIO is back with new great old time radio shows! Enjoy the most remembered old time radio shows from 1930 to 1960. Mystery, adventure, suspense, drama, comedy, scifi... a great variety of shows broadcasted 24/7! Info and links on the right column of this blog.

 

And every Friday, keep enjoying the life and career of old time radio actors and actresses as well as the history of different old time radio shows. 

 

Mason Adams

Mason Adams (February 26, 1919 - April 26, 2005) was an American voice actor and actor.

Adams was born in Brooklyn, New York, and was of Jewish descent. He earned a master's degree in Performing and Speech Arts from the University of Michigan. He also studied Drama at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He made his debut in 1940 in a summer play at the Hilltop Theater in Baltimore.

Adams worked on many radio programs during the Golden Age of Radio. A notable recurring role was that of Pepper Young on Pepper Young's Family, which ran from 1947 to 1959. He also portrayed the deadly Nazi Atomic Man in a classic 1945 serial on the radio version of The Adventures of Superman.

During the 1970s, Adams was a co-star of the NBC soap opera Another World, and in 1976, he was in the original 1976 Broadway cast for Checking Out.

Adams is perhaps most famous for his role as editor-in-chief Charlie Hume in the television series Lou Grant, which ran from 1977 to 1982. During his work on Lou Grant, Adams performed perhaps his most important role, as the President of the United States in the film Omen III: The Final Conflict (1981), with Sam Neill.

During the 1960s he was ubiquitous in television commercials for food and other household products, most notably for Chiffon margarine and Crest toothpaste (“Helps stop cavities before they start”). He also did the voice part for television commercials for Smucker's canned goods (“With a name like Smucker's, it's got to be good!”). He resumed this work in his later years.

Beginning in the 1980s, Adams did the voiceover for the commercial for Cadbury Creme eggs, which were advertised on television with Adams' catchy catchphrase: “Nobody knows Easter better than him.” He was the announcer for Lysol disinfectant (in 1986). Adams also did radio commercials for the Salvation Army. In addition, Adams was the narrator for Kix commercials in the 1990s, as well as in some Dentyne and Swanson's commercials. He was also the television promotional news announcer for WCBS (in 1992).

In one of the first episodes of Sesame Street, he played the narrator and voiced a cartoon with a jazzy triangle, and a slightly “square” square (with jazz music in the background). This caricature would be repeated on the show for many years well into the 1980s.

In the HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon he portrayed Senator Clinton P. Anderson. During the 1970s he co-starred in the NBC soap opera Another World.

He was married to Margot Feinberg (1957-2005). They had a daughter, Betsy, and a son, Bill. Adams died on April 26, 2005 in Manhattan, of natural causes.

Franklin Pierce Adams

Franklin Pierce Adams (Chicago, November 15, 1881-New York, March 23, 1960) was an American journalist and writer, known as Franklin P. Adams, and for his newspaper columns Always in Good Humour and The Conning Tower were the titles of his daily columns in the New York press, signed FPA.

As a panelist on radio's Information Please (1938–48), Franklin P. Adams was the designated expert on poetry, old barroom songs and Gilbert and Sullivan, which he always referred to as Sullivan and Gilbert. A running joke on the show was that his stock answer for quotes that he didn't know was that Shakespeare was the author. (Perhaps that was a running gag: Information Please's creator/producer Dan Golenpaul auditioned Adams for the job with a series of sample questions, starting with: "Who was the Merchant of Venice?" Adams: "Antonio." Golenpaul: "Most people would say 'Shylock.'" Adams: "Not in my circle.") John Kieran was the real Shakespearean expert and could quote from his works at length.

A translator of Horace and other classical authors, F.P.A. also collaborated with O. Henry on Lo, a musical comedy.

He began working at the Chicago Journal in 1903, but in 1904 he moved to the New York Evening Mail, where he worked until 1913, when he moved to the New York Tribune.

During his time at the Evening Mail, Adams wrote what remains his best-known work, the poem “Baseball's Sad Lexicon,” a tribute to the Chicago Cubs' double-play combination, “Tinker to Evers to Chance.” In 1911, he added a second column, a parody of Samuel Pepys' Diary, with notes drawn from F.P.A.'s personal experiences. In 1914, he transferred his column to the New-York Tribune, where it was famously retitled “The Conning Tower” and was considered “the pinnacle of verbal wit.”

During World War I he worked on the U.S. Army newspaper Stars and Stripes in Washington D. C. and in France as a captain in the intelligence service, after the war he returned to New York. While serving in the army, he became a captain. After the war, the so-called “comma-hunter of Park Row”. In 1921 he worked for the New York World, in 1931 for the New York Herald Tribune, and in 1937 for the New York Post until 1941. In 1938 he appeared on the radio program Information, Please.

Much later, the writer E. B. White freely admitted his sense of wonder: “I used to walk quickly past the house on West 13th Street, between Sixth and Seventh, where F.P.A. lived, and the block seemed to shiver".

Jane Ace

Goodman Ace and Jane Epstein

Jane Epstein was born in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1897. American radio actress and comedian. She was best-known for her role in the radio comedy Easy Aces.

She met Goodman Ace while both attended the same Kansas City high school. The couple married in 1922; soon after they were married, Ace lost his reporter's job. The Aces found they could forget their worries when playing bridge. Ace was hired by the Kansas City Journal-Post as its drama critic.

He brought his wife Jane in for an impromptu discussion; the favorable response led Goodman to create and write a 15-minute domestic comedy, Easy Aces.Billed as “radio’s laugh novelty,” the low-key Easy Aces featured Goodman as a harried businessman and Jane as his scatterbrained wife, prone to malaprops like “She has a voice like a nightingown” and “Congress is still in season.” In 1931, Easy Aces joined the CBS radio lineup, moving to WBBM in Chicago. Ace kept the material fresh by only permitting a quick reading rehearsal just before air time. A special table with a hidden microphone was constructed to cure cast members of mike fright. Easy Aces left the air in 1945, but Goodman Ace remained one of radio’s most respected writers, crafting material for Danny Kaye, Perry Como and The Big Show.

While doing Easy Aces, Jane was offered other radio roles in addition to the one on the couple's show. A radio producer wanted her to play the lead in a production of Dulcy, but she declined, reportedly believing she was unable to play other roles, because she did not consider the radio work she did as acting.

The couple was also part of the NBC Radio Weekday show which made its debut not long after Monitor. It aired Monday through Friday and was intended to reach female radio listeners. They also began writing and performing in commercials.

Jane died on November 11, 1974. Goodman Ace died March 25, 1982.