Ernest E. Chappell

Ernest E. Chappell was born on June 10. He was an American radio announcer and actor, best remembered for his featured role in the late 1940s radio program Quiet, Please. 

Before he began his career on radio, Chappell was "a concert baritone, a song-and-dance man in musical comedy, a lecturer and a stock company actor."

Earnest Chappel was the host and main character for Quiet Please. The cast was usually just one or two other people. The sound effects were often sparse. The music was an organ and sometimes, apiano. Although the resources may seem meager when listed here, the results were stunning. Chappel would tell his tales in first person, usually in flashback. The writer/ director was Wyllis Cooper, the same genius who created Lights Out years before and moved to Hollywood to try his hand as a film script writer. He left his old show to Arch Olober, who went on to become famous with the series while Cooper toiled away in obscurity writing screenplays. In 1947, he returned to his radio roots to produce Quiet Please (Dunning, 559). Chappel was the perfect choice for the weekly lead. There was nothing special about his voice. Although he had been a successful quiz show host on Are You A Genius?, he didn't exaggerate or project like many other actors of the time did. In fact, that's one of the noticeable differences about this series. Nobody sounds like they are acting at all, they just sound like regular people caught up in very unusual or terrifying situations. Cooper insisted on actors sounding natural, and along with his detailed dialog and surreal narratives, he proved what a remarkable medium radio could be on a small budget. After all, Cooper and Chappel did what they did without big bucks or big name actors. Instead, all they had was the imagination of one person and the acting talent of another.

The plots themselves weren't that sensational when reduced to a sentence or two. "Let The Lilies Consider" involved flowers that could think. "A Red And White Guidon" was a story about a small group of cavalry men. "Shadow Of The Wings" told the tale of a girl dying who thinks she sees an angel. These rather unexciting concepts became engrossing stories when told by Chappel, especially with the creepy organ music playing in the background. Chappel sounded just as bewildered as anyone by how unbelievable the events he witnessed were. His apologies and insecurities helped convince us that maybe it could happen. If anything, he seemed even more confused than we were because these strange things were happening to him.

"The Thing on the Fourble Board" is one of radio horror's greatest gems. Chappel relates a story about being a roughneck oil driller. His crew drills a hole into the prehistoric earth that unleashes an invisible creature, one that kills the workers until only Chappel remains. The creature becomes visible when paint is tossed on it, revealing a human/ insect combination that so unhinges the narrator that he... well, I wouldn't want to spoil it by saying more. After all, no one could relay the story better than the collective talents of Chappel and Copper.

There would probably have been more Quite Please episodes on that esteemed list, but unfortunately, only a dozen episodes survived to modern times. At least, that was the the general belief all the way up until sometime in the 1980s. But then I heard a rumor that Chappel's widow found a box of disks under the bed that turned out to be original transcriptions of the show. It sounded like another urban myth, too good to be true, yet still I hoped that maybe it was accurate. Since then, a total of 89 episodes have surfaced.

On February 10, 1925, Chappell was the announcer, as well as the director of the first radio station in Syracuse, New York, WFBL (which stood for First Broadcast License). He worked in Syracuse 1925-1927 and went to Rochester, New York, in 1928 to work at WHAM. On Monday, November 9, 1925, Chappell began writing for the Syracuse Herald. His column, "Riding the Waves With Chap", included promotion for the broadcasting industry and the local station.

In the 1930s, Chappell was master of ceremonies for Phil Spitalny's radio program. For several years on each program, Chappell also served as the announcer for The Campbell Playhouse (the sponsored continuation of The Mercury Theatre on the Air) and for The Adventures of Ellery Queen.

Chappell was also "the voice of Pall Mall" in American Tobacco's television cigarette commercials from the mid-1950s into the mid-'60s. His famous tag line: "Buy Pall Mall famous cigarettes...'OUTSTANDING! and they are mild!'"

Ernest passed away following a stroke at his home on July 4. 1983 in North Palm Beach, Florida. At his request, his body was cremated, according to his widow, Helen.

Arch Oboler

Arch Oboler (born on December 7, 1909) was a screenwriter, novelist, producer, and director who focused his work on film, radio, and television.

Born in Chicago, he was raised Protestant, although his parents were Jewish immigrants from Riga, Latvia.

Oboler attracted considerable attention for his radio scripts, and his work in this medium is considered the highlight of his career. Despite his tendency toward the macabre, he is praised as one of the greatest talents in broadcasting and is considered one of the innovators of the “golden age of radio.”

Oboler entered radio because he believed it had great unrealized potential for telling stories with ideas. He thought that the medium was being wasted on soap operas. In 1933, he wrote a spec script called Futuristics, which satirized the world of the present in light of the future. NBC bought Oboler's script and broadcast it as part of a dedicatory program to NBC's new futuristic headquarters in New York City, Radio City. The broadcast was a success, but it set the stage for Oboler's future run-ins with broadcasters. In the play, one of Oboler's characters lampoons the slogan of American Tobacco. At that time in broadcasting history, making fun of commercials was still taboo.

From 1933 to 1936, Oboler wrote potboilers for programs such as Grand Hotel and Welch's Presents Irene Rich. Things changed in 1936, when radio's leading impresario Rudy Vallée used a short radio playlet of Oboler's titled Rich Kid. The success of Rich Kid landed Oboler a lucrative 52-week stint writing plays for Don Ameche for The Chase and Sanborn Hour. During this time, Oboler wrote a number of idea plays and some were aired, in shortened form, on The Rudy Vallée Show and The Magic Key of RCA.

His early film work includes Escape (1940), Passage to the Future (1943), and A Survey Called Miracle (1948), all of which he wrote. In 1945, he made his double debut as a director with Bewitched and Strange Holiday, followed by the post-apocalyptic Five (1951), filmed in a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, owned by Oboler himself. A year later, he made Bwana, the Devil of the Jungle, the first feature film in 3-D to be released in theaters. He also directed The Twonky (1953), based on a story by Lewis Padgett (a pseudonym shared by science fiction author Henry Kuttner and his wife, fellow writer Catherine L. Moore). In 1956, Sidney Lumet staged Oboler's play Night of the Auk, a science fiction drama about astronauts returning to Earth after the first moon landing. In 1966, Oboler returned to directing a 3-D film, The Bubble.

On April 7, 1958, Oboler's son Peter died at the age of six when he drowned in water that had accumulated in the excavations of the author's home in Malibu.

Wyllis Cooper

 

Wyllis Oswald Cooper was born on January 26, 1899, he was an American writer, producer, and director whose career spanned radio, film, and early television, most notably as the creator of the pioneering horror anthology series Lights Out (1934–1947). Born in Pekin, Illinois, to Charles E. and Margaret L. Cooper, he served in the U.S. Army as a bugler along the Mexican border in 1916 before deploying to World War I with the American Expeditionary Force, where he endured gas attacks during the Argonne Offensive and remained in Europe until 1919. After the war, Cooper worked in advertising and journalism before entering radio in Chicago around 1928, initially as a copywriter and continuity editor for NBC and CBS.

Wyllis Cooper was the writer and creator of the quirky and spooky radio series Quiet Please and Lights Out. He had a knack for puzzling, thought-provoking, disquieting stories of invisible creatures, hallucinations (of talking flowers, for one handy example) and other scary flights of the mind.

Wyllis Cooper's macabre imagination was bred in the heart of America--he grew up in a small Illinois town called Pekin. From there it was one of the last places you'd expect a future horror/mystery writer to develop, the U.S. Cavalry. Willis Cooper served in the Signal Corps in WWI, and upon returning stateside, made a very odd transition, the one to work as an advertising copy writer. From there, a gentler switch to radio show writer.

In 1934, Wyillis Cooper went to the windy city and creating his howling, suspenseful show Lights Out. The program aired at midnight and created a spare, haunting sound. It was also quite adventurous in terms of the brutal fates to which it subjected its characters. They would boil in a ladle of steel or devoured by a giant amoeba. Cooper left the show in 1936, but it lived on. In fact, the program actually used some of his old, unproduced scripts after he departed.

He spent times on both coasts doing some screenwriting. But in 1947, he dipped back into his earlier medium, radio, creating another horror and supernatural show, Quiet Please. Like Lights Out, everything about it was quiet in a nearly menacing way. Cooper's brilliant scripts were narrated by Earnest Chappel, a former game show announcer who affected a truly creepy demeanor with his dull, gravelly delivery.

The uncompromising nature of Cooper's commitment to mind-bending, truly affecting science fiction ensured that his programs would win over listeners and draw critical acclaim.

Cooper was born at the right time, developing as a writer in the days when sound effects and appeals to the sense of hearing were paramount, due to radio's dominance. He did write for television and films, but we love him for his pioneering radio work, which you can now enjoy this comprehensive collection.

Cooper lived in Glen Gardner, New Jersey, and died in High Bridge, New Jersey, on June 22, 1955.

Lights Out!

Lights Out! was one of the most famous series of all time. Even those not interested in OTR have generally heard of Lights Out! Created by Wyllis Cooper (of Quiet, Please) in 1934, and passed on to Arch Oboler in 1936, the series went through several incarnations and reincarnations throughout its long life, lasting until 1947. The exact number of episodes is a nebulous issue, since Oboler frequently renamed episodes several times over for rebroadcast, expanded the length of some of Cooper's shows, and freely moved shows back and forth between Lights Out! and his other projects with re-edited intros, making it very difficult to identify episode origins with any degree of certainty. To make matters worse, many shows have been lost over the years. Therefore, this is by no means a definitive listing (if such a thing can actually exist), only a partial one based purely on personal bias as to what properly fits the parameters of this site and what does not. Episodes vary in length from 15 min to 60 min. In 1970, twenty-five of the Lights Out! episodes (along with one episode from Arch Oboler's Plays) were syndicated, given new names, and then rebroadcast as episodes of The Devil and Mr O. These episodes generally have better sound quality than the older versions and are sometimes mislabeled as being from the original series. 

In 1962, Arch Oboler released a 36-min LP album called Drop Dead! An Exercise in Horror. Some of the tracks from this LP are circulating as 'partial' Lights Out! episodes, most notably, "The Dark" and "Chicken Heart".

After 15 months of broadcasts limited to Chicago, NBC promoted Lights Out! to its full (Red) network on April 18, 1935, at 12:30 a.m.  It remained in that late Wednesday-early Thursday timeslot for the next four and a half years, providing initial network exposure to many of the Chicago radio acting company, who included Hal Peary, Willard Waterman, Mercedes McCambridge, Betty Winkler and Raymond Edward Johnson, among others.  But the show’s creator, Wyllis Cooper, left the show for a Hollywood screenwriting career after a year into its NBC run on June 3, 1936.

The show remained at its post-midnight timeslot of 12:30 a.m. on June 10, 1936, when young NBC staff writer Arch Oboler, 27, took over its writing and direction.  Any question that Oboler couldn’t pick up where Cooper left off was erased with his first drama, Burial Services.  The plot, concerning a paralyzed young woman being buried alive, (with all its attendant sounds), resulted in 50,000 letters, (mostly indignant complaints), sent to NBC. 

The subsequent three year run of Lights Out! is considered by many critics to be the series’ prime period when NBC gave the sustaining late night show a remarkably high production budget.  The funds allowed the program to fly Boris Karloff into Chicago to appear in a series of five encore broadcasts of popular Lights Out! stories including Oboler’s Cat Wife from April 6, 1938.  We won’t spoil the stories, but along these same lines, a shrewish woman was also the target of Oboler’s It Happened! starring Mercedes McCambridge from May 11, 1938. 

What would be the program’s longest network run, 274 episodes over four years on NBC, ended on August 16, 1939.  Lights Out! disappeared from the air until October 6, 1942, when Sterling Drug’s Ironized Yeast brought Oboler and the series back to CBS on Tuesday nights at the unusually early hour of 8:00 p.m.  Samples from this 52 week run include Bon Voyage from November 10, 1942, Meteor Man of December 22, 1942, and He Dug It Up from February 9, 1943.       

Casts in this Hollywood-based series were limited, often no more than three actors per programs, but Oboler’s scripts and liberal use of the skilled CBS sound crew gave them strong dramatic weight.  Oboler wrote reference to himself and the program’s use of gory sound effects into the May 11, 1943 drama, Murder In The Script Department. Then he pulled out all the stops and wrote himself, (going mad), into the script of the final broadcast in the CBS series on September 28, 1943, The Author & The Thing. Be advised that both plots have twist endings and involve the dark of late night. 
       
But the eight o’clock hour of broadcast, (7:00 p.m. in the Central Time Zone), often came at sunset or twilight and  worked against the title and spirit of Lights Out! despite its warning chant, “It’s…later…than…you….think…”, heard at the beginning and end of each episode.  The program’s only rated season, 1942-43, indicated that the early evening listeners weren’t yet ready for stories of ghosts, monsters and gore at that hour.  Family audiences gave vocalist Ginny Simms’ variety show on NBC a 14.2 Hooperating against  Lights Out! which registered a 10.0.  (Both beat the 5.0 scored by Blue’s combined quarter hours from newscaster Earl Godwin and Lum & Abner.)  

Lights Out! disappeared from the air again except for short summer runs on NBC in 1945 and 1946, then ABC in 1947.  These broadcasts are distinctive because they contained past and new material from Wyllis Cooper, creator of the series in 1934.  Samples from all three runs are posted, represented by Man In The Middle from August 25,1945,  The Coffin In Studio B from July 13, 1946 and  July 16, 1947’s Death Robbery, featuring the return of Boris Karloff to the freshly produced ABC summer series sponsored by Eversharp shaving and writing instruments.  

The lights were finally turned off on the series after a total of 350 original and repeat episodes on August 6, 1947.  But like the characters in so many Lights Out! stories, Arch Oboler brought a number of his stories back to life almost 25 years later in transcribed syndication as The Devil & Mr. O.  This 1970’s revival of his scripts from the 1942-43 season is represented here in The Hole, from December 3, 1971,  Three Thousand Dollars, heard again on January 21, 1972, and Cemetery, from February 25, 1972  which fittingly enough, concludes in a mausoleum.  

John Gibson

John Gibson was born on June 29, 1905 was a network radio actor who portrayed Ethelbert on radio adaptation of the pulp fiction series “Flashgun Casey, Crime Photographer.” Originally, Flashgun wasn't a cameraman. But during the first decade of his serialization, author George Harmon Coxe toned down the character's roughness and reinvented him as a hunch-following photographer with a knack for capturing crime scenes. 

In 1943, he was a tame enough character to make a CBS radio debut as "Casey, Crime Photographer." The stately Staats Cotsworth played the lead, and audience was captivated more by the character than the crime (a trend that the crime-investigation-as-entertainment genre has seemed to stray from just a bit in recent years). The adventures of Casey, crack photographer for The Morning Express, were told in this series. Casey hung out at the Blue Note Café, and was friendly with Ethelbert, the bartender, to whom he recounted his various exploits. 

John Gibson portrayed the role of Ethelbert on radio, and when the series premiered on television in April, 1951. Mr. Gibson was also a broadway, film, and television actor who might be best remembered by non-OTR buffs for his continuing role on CBS's "Edge of Night." On this installment of  "The Golden Age of Radio" we'll hear Mr. Gibson performing in excerpts from "The Magnificent Montague," "Nick Carter," "Milton Berle," and "The Columbia Workshop".

He was known for playing Barney Dunlap in the radio television program Speed Gibson of the International Secret Police. He played the chaplain in the sitcom television series The Phil Silvers Show.

He died on September 14, 1971.

Gerald Mohr

Gerald Mohr (June 11, 1914 – November 9, 1968) was an American radio, film and television actor who, throughout his artistic career, worked on some 500 radio programs, 73 films and more than 100 television shows.

Born in New York City, his parents were Henrietta Neustadt, a singer, and Sigmond Mohr. Mohr studied at the Dwight Preparatory School in New York, where he learned French and German, as well as studying piano and training as a horseman.

While a student at Columbia University, Mohr suffered from appendicitis, and while recovering in a hospital, another patient, a radio announcer, thought Mohr's pleasant baritone voice was ideal for radio. Mohr was hired by the radio station and became a reporter. In the mid-1930s, Orson Welles invited him to join his Mercury Theatre company. During his time with Welles, Mohr gained theatrical experience on Broadway with the plays "The Petrified Forest" and "Jean-Christophe".

Mohr made over 500 radio appearances throughout the 1930s, 1940s, and early 1950s. He portrayed Raymond Chandler's detective Philip Marlowe in 119 half-hour radio programs. He also worked on The Adventures of Bill Lance, was one of the actors who played Archie Goodwin on Nero Wolfe, frequently starred on The Whistler, and had various roles in multiple episodes of Damon Runyon Theater and Frontier Town. Other radio programs he worked on included Our Miss Brooks, The Shadow of Fu Manchu, Box 13, Escape, and Lux ​​Radio Theatre.

Mohr began acting in films in the late 1930s, playing his first villainous role in the 15-part serial Jungle Girl (1941). After three years serving in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II, he returned to Hollywood and played Michael Lanyard in three films of The Lone Wolf detective series in 1946-47. He also made cameo appearances in Gilda (1946) and Detective Story (1951), and co-starred in The Magnificent Rogue (1946) and The Sniper (1952). In 1949, he narrated, along with Fred Foy, twelve episodes of the first series of The Lone Ranger.

From the 1950s onward, he guest-starred in over one hundred television series, including the westerns The Californians, Maverick, Johnny Ringo, The Alaskans, Lawman, Cheyenne, Bronco, Overland Trail, Sugarfoot, Bonanza, The Rifleman, Randall the Avenger, and Rawhide.

Outside of the Western genre, Mohr acted in Crossroads, The DuPont Show with June Allyson, Harrigan and Son, The Barbara Stanwyck Show, Perry Mason, 77 Sunset Strip, Hawaiian Intrigue, Lost in Space, and many other series of the era, especially those produced by Warner Brothers and Dick Powell's Four Star Productions.

Mohr also worked in comedy, appearing in The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show (1951), How to Marry a Millionaire (1958), The Jack Benny Program (1961 and 1962), The Smothers Brothers Show (1965), and The Lucy Show (1968). He also had the recurring role of Brad Jackson on My Friend Irma (1952), and played psychiatrist Henry Molin in the February 1953 episode of I Love Lucy, "The Inferiority Complex."

Between 1954 and 1955, he played Christopher Storm in 41 episodes of Foreign Intrigue, produced in Stockholm for distribution in the United States. In several episodes, especially "The Confidence Game" and "The Playful Prince," he could be heard playing his composition "The Frontier Theme" on the piano. Foreign Intrigue was nominated for an Emmy Award in both 1954 and 1955.

Another series in which he appeared several times—seven times, in total—was Maverick, twice portraying the gunslinger Doc Holliday, a role he reprised in a 1958 episode of Tombstone Territory. Mohr also made four appearances on Perry Mason (1961–1966), in the episodes "The Case of the Unwelcome Bride," "The Case of the Elusive Element," "The Case of a Place Called Midnight," and "The Case of the Final Fadeout."

In 1964, together with his second wife, Mai, he planned the formation of a Stockholm-based film production company with Swedish and American screenwriters. The company intended to produce comedies, adventure films, crime films, and dramas for international distribution. In 1964, he made a Western comedy, filmed in Stockholm with some location shooting in Yugoslavia, titled Wild West Story.

He continued to use his powerful voice, voicing Reed Richards in the animated series Fantastic Four in 1967 and Green Lantern in 1968 in another animated series, The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure. In 1968, he made his final film appearance as Tom Branca in William Wyler's Funny Girl, and his last television appearance was in the Western series The Big Valley.

Gerald Mohr traveled to Stockholm in September 1968 to star in the pilot episode of a potential future series, Private Entrance, which featured Swedish actress Christina Schollin. Shortly after completing filming, Mohr died of a heart attack in Södermalm, Stockholm, at the age of 54. His remains are interred in the columbarium of Lidingö Cemetery, Sweden.

John Dehner

 

John Dehner was born on November 23, 1915 and was an American radio, film, and television actor who played countless roles, often as likeable villains. Between 1941 and 1988, he appeared in more than 260 films and television programs. Before acting, Dehner had worked as an animator for Walt Disney Studios (Burbank) and as a radio disc jockey. He was also a professional pianist. Born in the borough of Staten Island, New York City, Dehner had a long career as a radio actor, playing leading roles or supporting roles in series such as Gunsmoke and Philip Marlowe. He made his debut as Paladin in the radio version of Have Gun – Will Travel, one of the few occasions when a show that began on television was adapted for radio. In 1958, on CBS Radio, he starred in Frontier Gentleman, a Western series that began with a trumpet theme written by Jerry Goldsmith. The show was written and directed by Antony Ellis.

Dehner starred alongside Maudie Prickett in the 1953 episode “Bad Men of Marysville” in the western series The Adventures of Kit Carson, starring Bill Williams. He was a guest star in the 1955-1956 NBC western anthology series Frontier, as well as in the CBS Cold War drama Crusader, starring Brian Keith. He played Sheriff Henry Plummer in an episode of the 1954-1955 series Stories of the Century, with Jim Davis in the role of Matt Clark. In 1966, he played the killer “Iron Man” Torres in the episode “Night of the Steel Assassin” in the series The Wild Wild West, starring Robert Conrad.

Dehner gave two memorable performances in the ABC series Maverick (1957), starring James Garner, in the episodes “Shady Deal at Sunny Acres” and “Greenbacks, Unlimited.” He also played Pat Garrett in Gore Vidal's film adaptation of The Left-Handed Gun, starring Paul Newman as Billy the Kid. Dehner appeared in the film Scaramouche (1952) as Doutreval of Dijon, and played Mr. Bascombe, a non-singing character, in the 1956 film version of the Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II musical Carousel.

Dehner played Colonel Tedesco in the drama included in the anthology series Playhouse 90 The Killers of Mussolini, based on a story by A.E. Hotchner. Other TV appearances included three episodes of Hogan's Heroes, and in 1957 he worked on Texas Rangers with Gale Storm.

Dehner appeared in three episodes of The Twilight Zone: as Captain Allenby in “The Lonely” (1959); as an engineer who receives a curse in “The Jungle” (1961); and in a role in “Mr. Garrity and the Graves,” in the show's fifth and final season.

He also guest-starred in the episode “Three” of the crime series The Brothers Brannagan, starring Stephen Dunne and Mark Roberts, and played an old French general in an episode of the series Combat! titled “The General and the Sergeant.” During the same period, he worked on another short-lived series set in World War II, The Gallant Men, in the episode “A Moderately Quiet Sunday,” where he played a German captain.

Dehner appeared in several episodes of the series The Rifleman, playing different characters. He was also a guest star on the NBC show The Wide Country, a drama about rodeo competitors that aired in 1962-63. In an episode of The Andy Griffith Show, he played Colonel Harvey, and the following season he guest-starred in Jack Palance's circus-themed series for ABC, The Greatest Show on Earth, and in the CBS production Glynis, starring Glynis Johns and Keith Andes. Dehner was cast in the first season episode of F Troop “Honest Injun,” playing a crooked medicine man. In 1966, he guest-starred in the episode “Power of Fear” on Barry Sullivan's NBC western series The Road West, and also played the recurring role of Morgan Starr on The Virginian. In 1970, he worked on the film Cheyenne's Social Club, starring James Stewart and Henry Fonda.

Between 1971 and 1973, he played Cy Bennett, Doris Martin's boss on The Doris Day Show. He also appeared in the Columbo episodes “Swan Song” (1974) and “Last Salute to the Commodore” (1978), where he played the title character, the commodore. In 1983, he starred in an NBC television series, Bare Essence, in which he played Hadden Marshall. 

 

Dehner also played various historical figures, including Pat Garrett in the 1957 western film The Left-Handed Gun; Jean Lafitte in the 1964 episode “The Gentleman from New Orleans” in the series Bonanza; Thomas Jefferson in the 1964 episode “Plague” from the anthology series The Great Adventure; Dean Acheson in the 1974 TV movie The Missiles of October; Lafayette C. Baker in the 1977 film The Lincoln Conspiracy; John Muir in the 1979 TV movie Guardian of the Wilderness; Henry Luce in the 1983 film The Right Stuff; and Admiral Ernest King in the 1988 miniseries War and Remembrance. One of his last performances was as a friendly judge in the thriller The Edge of Suspicion.

John Dehner died of emphysema and diabetes in Santa Barbara, California on February 4, 1992. He was 76 years old. He was buried in Carpinteria Cemetery, California