Voices in the ether

I was a child of radio for a good ten years before television elbowed the use of imagination aside. They were good years indeed, and I was glad to have them. I’d sit, rapt, beside a large, floor model radio, (they were elaborate pieces of furniture then), staring at cloth covered speakers, listening intently to the most splendid voices, and picturing them with all my might.

Some of these voices were so distinctive that I could pick them out no matter the program. I got to know their names. Ralph Bell had a smirk in his voice. His specialty was being the smartest crook in the room, calm and contemptuous of the rest of his gang. Anne Seymour‘s voice throbbed with suppressed tears. If you needed a long suffering mother or an ill used wife, call Anne Seymour. A great voice, no question, but given what it signaled, sometimes I wished she’d just go away.

The first voices I can remember focusing on were Miriam Wolfe and Brace Beemer. Beemer was the Lone Ranger. His deep baritone dripped testosterone and safety. Nothing could go wrong when that stirring, coal black voice spoke up, even in a whisper to Tonto.

Miriam Wolfe was part of the repertory cast on the Saturday morning children’s show, Let’s Pretend. Her rich, throaty contralto made her the ideal cackling witch or cruel stepmother. Versatile as all get out, she could, of course, play warm and kindly roles, but nobody could cast as chilling a spell as Miriam Wolfe. Years later, I caught her on rebroadcasts of a spine tingling series out of Oklahoma City, Scott Bishop’s Dark Fantasy. There she was again, freezing everyone’s blood with her deadly curses.

The audio palette of my childhood was limited to the basics – sweet, sinister, trustworthy, cowardly, corrupt, scheming and a few others. Adolescence expanded the rainbow to include sex. For me, the sexiest voices on the air were Tom Collins and Cathy Lewis.

Tom Collins was Chandu the Magician. His low, commanding voice gave me shivers of pleasure. How I wanted to be his nephew, sharing his exotic, hair raising adventures. What a Batman Collins would have made.

My favorite of all radio voices was Cathy Lewis. Nothing was beyond the range of her expressive pipes. Early on, she wanted to be a singer. I’d love to have heard that, but there’s nothing on record. She could purr, but there was always a no-nonsense, street smart subtext. She was equally convincing as adoring wives and femmes fatale. Lewis acquits herself brilliantly with Robert Taylor in the best ever episode of Suspense, the horrific “House on Cypress Canyon.”

Cathy Lewis was my reason for listening to My Friend Irma. I was as allergic to Irma Peterson’s moronic schemes as I was to those of Chester Riley, but friend Jane, as voiced by Lewis, is a refreshing blend of cultured, sardonic indulgence. I remember an episode where Jane is dying to get tickets for A Streetcar Named Desire, but Irma keeps screwing things up. During the show’s popular run, Lewis fell ill. For a time, Joan Banks filled in, and Jane faded to bland.

Lewis was married for fifteen years to the brilliant and busy Elliott Lewis. These days, I’m listening to a show they did in 1953 and ’54, On Stage.

Elliott produced the show. He had a hand in everything then. He was unforgettable as the hilariously depraved and dissolute Frankie Remley on The Phil Harris and Alice Faye Show. He’s a shrewd and flexible actor, and it’s a treat to hear him and Cathy together. In the first episode, a bit part is played by Mary Jane Croft who would eventually become his second wife. Hard to fathom parting from a woman with as delicious a voice as Cathy Lewis. But as I listen to these programs, none of that has happened yet. That is years away. Here are two people happy in the pleasure of each other’s company and talent. On Stage is a sonic photograph of a couple still in love.

Asleep at the switch

Old time radio is my sonic comfort food. To a child of the pre-television era, it informs my earliest memories – staring at the cloth grill of a wooden floor model radio, taller than I was, surrounded by my family, all of us using our imagination to picture, in precise detail, what we could only hear.

John never shared my fondness for those broadcasts: in fact, he quite disliked them. In the car, with him at the wheel, it was a bone of contention. On a Saturday afternoon, to tune in Chuck Schaden‘s Those were the Days was to risk his displeasure. So I didn’t. Small price to pay to keep peace in an otherwise deeply harmonious household. Perhaps it was the age gap. I was five years his senior. Whatever the reason, such programs irritated him. To me, however, they were and are like a warm blanket of charm, humor and civility.

The pleasure I take in them is by no means indiscriminate. I have no patience with bad writing such as was foisted on Alan Young, Dennis Day, Harold Perry (after his ego trip desertion of The Great Gildersleeve) and even that genius voicesmith, Mel Blanc. Their eponymous shows suffered from cheap, lazy, broad one liners buffered (or battered) by intrusive laugh tracks. Nor, though I respect William Bendix as an actor, do I find the moronic domestic abuses of The Life of Riley remotely amusing. Riley belonged in a home for the terminally bumbling, perhaps on the same wing with Irma Peterson.

Worlds away, in terms of real humor, was, for example, Paul Rhymer‘s exquisite Vic and Sade, a long running treasure played without studio audience or canned hilarity. It went over my head as a kid, but now, helplessly, I am the laugh track. Clever writers were the backbone of The Jack Benny Program and Our Miss Brooks. I respond as well to the sweetness and gentle pace of The Great Gildersleeve, the cozy wit of Ozzie and Harriet and Phil Harris and Alice Faye‘s killer supporting cast: Elliott Lewis and Walter Tetley invariably steal that show.

Aside from comedy, I bask in the sumptuous ambiance of the Lux Radio Theatre while Cecil B. DeMille was at the helm and I’m gratifyingly chilled by any episode of Chandu the Magician or Scott Bishop’s Dark Fantasy.

Since 1970, I’ve been able to indulge my nostalgic cravings on Saturdays from 1:00 to 5:00 with Those were the Days now on WDCB, primarily a jazz and big band station at 90.9 FM. More recently, there has been a late night program on Saturdays with Carl Amari and Lisa Wolf, first on WGN but now on WIND. I’ve had to stop listening because of WIND’s politically toxic posture that bleeds even into its commercials. Clearly, I and my “ilk” are not welcome there.

A third option is available for an hour every weekday evening at midnight on WBBM, 780 AM. This is what brings me to write, and sadly, what generates this blog’s title. As curated by Greg Bell, When Radio Was is a welcome oasis. Commercials are frequent but bearable (the Penny Mustard brothers are often the funniest performers on the program). In recent months, however, things have changed drastically. Whoever is charged with managing the transcriptions (I’m beginning to think no one) is indeed asleep at the switch.

These nights, the program will suddenly shift back in mid show to what you’ve already heard, or to something completely different – rather trying if you’ve invested time in a mystery. Worse, the programming may be abandoned halfway through, replaced by nothing but commercials or by nothing at all – just dead air. Most exasperating of all, In the past two weeks, they have played the same episodes of Mayor of the Town and Ma Perkins six times. SIX! The Mayor and Ma have outworn their welcome. I tune out each time they arrive once again with their too oft told tale. So must everyone else.

Neither Bell nor the sponsors seem to be aware of this station’s slipshod management. If I knew whom to write about this debacle, I would. In my ignorance, I merely record it here.

Same time, same station, same everything is getting me down.