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

Have Gun – Will Travel

 

Have Gun – Will Travel is was American Western television series that was produced and originally broadcast by CBS on both television and radio from 1957 through 1963. A radio series starring John Dehner debuted November 23, 1958, more than a year after the premiere of its televised counterpart, making Have Gun – Will Travel one of the few shows in television history to spawn a successful radio version

Cowboys and Western stories did not have the same impact on the Radio as they did in Hollywood Movies. Several factors made Westerns a staple of the Movies, chiefly that they were relatively cheap to make and audiences were sure to enjoy the action-packed stories and beautiful southwestern landscapes. On the Radio, Westerns were largely relegated to Kiddie Programming with shows like The Lone Ranger, Bobby Benson and the B-Bar-B Riders, Straight Arrow, Red Ryder, and others.

The first "grown-up Western" on the Radio was CBS's Gunsmoke, a much grittier and realistic telling of the Old West. Arguably one of the greatest programs of the OTR era, at the time the Network was desperate to find material for its growing TV presence. Despite the objections of the show's creators, CBS was sure Gunsmoke would be a hit on the Small Screen. Both sides were correct, and soon CBS was looking for more shows to complement their Western TV hit.

Richard Boone starred in the TV version and was integral to the show's success. However, when CBS Radio floated the idea of bringing Have Gun – Will Travel to the radio, the part of Paladin was given to Radio Western regular, John Dehner. Paladin came from a wealthy family "back East" and had served as an officer in the Union Cavalry. After the Civil War, he made his way West, eventually settling into permanent residence at San Francisco's Carleton Hotel. Compared to other fictional Western Heroes, Paladin was very much a "dude" at home, he wore the finest clothes, supported the arts, spoke several languages, was president of the San Francisco Stock Exchange Club, was an expert chess (and poker) player, and always had an eye out for pretty ladies. When Paladin changed into his work clothes, any impressions of a "dude" fell away immediately.

The costume change was more visually effective in the visual medium of TV, of course. According to network mythology, when Richard Boone did his screen-test for the role, the only costume that fit him was the all-black gunslinger ensemble, which simply worked for the character. Dehner was more of a "dude" on the radio, and even more ruthless in the lawless lands that his job took him.

Like the Knights of old and radio's Hard-boiled detectives, Paladin had a very strict code of personal honor. Presenting himself as a mercenary (his standard fee was $1,000 in 1870s money), he would not hesitate to take a "charity case" if he ran across a just cause. Paladin made it a point to inform his clients that he was not an assassin and preferred to resolve conflicts without resorting to violence (although it rarely went that way). He could more than hold his own in fisticuffs, and was absolutely deadly with the Marlin Rifle tied to his saddle and the Colt .45 Single Action Army revolver strapped to his hip.

The Have Gun – Will Travel radio show broadcast 106 episodes on the CBS Radio Network between November 23, 1958, and November 27, 1960. It was one of the last radio dramas featuring continuing characters and one of only a handful of American radio adaptations of a television series. John Dehner (a regular on the radio series version of Gunsmoke) played Paladin, and Ben Wright usually (but not always) played Hey Boy. Virginia Gregg played Miss Wong, Hey Boy's girlfriend, before the television series featured the character of Hey Girl. Unlike the small-screen version, this medium usually had a tag scene at the Carlton at both the beginning and the end of the episode. Initially, the episodes were adaptations of the television program as broadcast earlier the same week, but eventually, original stories were produced, including a finale ("From Here to Boston", "Inheritance", and "Goodbye, Paladin") in which Paladin leaves San Francisco, perhaps forever, to claim an inheritance back east. The radio version was written by producer/writer Roy Winsor.

The TV program ran from 1957 through 1963 and had 225 episodes. Three novels were based on the television show, all with the title of the show.

The Creaking Door

 

 

The Creaking Door

was a popular South African old-time radio (OTR) horror/suspense anthology series from the 1960s, sponsored by State Express 555 cigarettes, known for its spooky door sound effect and tales inspired by American shows like Inner Sanctum Mysteries. It featured thrillers with supernatural and psychological twists, airing from the late 50s/early 60s into the 70s, and remains a beloved classic for OTR fans, showcasing the global reach of the genre.

 

It began with rebroadcasts of Inner Sanctum Mysteries until 1959, when South African productions started, influenced heavily by the American show's eerie atmosphere and sound cues.  The iconic creaking door sound, meant to set a chilling tone, became its famous trademark, mirroring Inner Sanctum's own doorknob/squeak effect.  The anthology offered horror, mystery, and sci-fi stories, often with moral lessons or shocking twists, broadcast by Springbok Radio.

 

Sponsored by State Express cigarettes (State Express 555), it was a significant production in South African radio, distinct from but connected to the larger OTR world.

 

Though less known internationally than its US counterparts, The Creaking Door is fondly remembered for its chilling narratives and distinctive style, with episodes still available on podcast platforms.