Joe and Bateese

I'll start with Private Raymond M. Flynn. He was a vaudeville man, and WWI veteran. In 1919 he published the quite serious history book The History of Company E, 308th Infantry (1917 - 1919) [LINK]with Corporal Alexander Hussey. That's Ray on the left in the image above. He was born on February 22nd 1893 so he would have been about 41 years old in that picture. They were sponsored by Rub-ine Liniment. More here.

He was in vaudeville before the war (reputedly) and he returned to it afterward. He tried out a number of different ethnic parodies. But nothing worked until he tried out as half of the duo Joe and Bateese with Harold Crimi, in 1932. Ray played the part of French Canadian Joe LaFlamme. They stayed with the station until 1935. The Variety Radio Directory 1939-1940 still lists the program at WBZ in that time frame, but Flynn describes his own departure in a Lost Battalion bio as 1935 definitively. [SOURCE] That source dates to 1955 when ray would have been at least 60 years old.

A 1934 issue of the Cambridge Sentinel refers to Flynn and Crimi as "local boys" in describing a local theater jubilee they were in. But Flynn at least was really from Holyoke. Close enough. An issue of the Fitchburg Sentinel from the same year describes them appearing at the opening of a film attracting some of their "millions" of listeners. But within a year they parted ways. Crimi vanishes from the record, and Flynn makes it to Hollywood but not to any notable success. In his very short newsletter bio he wrote "My thoughts often go back to the days spent in the "pocket"-days which I am sure none of us who were there will ever forget."

Gretchen McMullen's Radio Cooking School

Gretchen McMullen's Radio Cooking School on 590 WEEI-AM from Boston and was designed to supplement lessons broadcasted from January to July, 1928.  The book was compiled to promotes the "Housekeeper's Chat" radio show on WEEI.

It was one of the earliest cooking/housekeeping programs , but it turned out to be long-lived. The show was not only still running 14 years later, just not on WEEI.  By then also syndicated on all 12 Yankee Network stations: WNAC-AM, WICC-AM, WEAN-AM, WLLH-AM, WRDO-AM, WTAG-AM, WSAR-AM, WCSH-AM, WLBZ-AM, WTIC-AM, WNBH-AM, and WFEA-AM. That's  according to the December 10th 1938 issue of Radio Guide.  But it's congruous with WNAC being a part in the Yankee Network after 1930. More here.

Alexander Russo refers to her in his book Points on the Dial: Golden Age Radio Beyond the Networks. Apparently John Shepard III had a hand in co-branding “The Gretchen McMullen Household Hour.” More here. The book is worth reading on it's own merits.

In 1941 she appears in the Radio yearbook on the staff of WBZA, and in 1942 she's noted in a 1942 issue of Broadcasting as taking a job at WBZ as a part of the new England Regional Network. The article also describes her as a food expert with 15 years broadcasting experience.  That matches nicely with a start date +/- 1 year from the publication of the that cook book. But where she went after 1943, I have no idea...

The Poet Laureate Of Radio

Surprisingly, Norman Corwin is not dead. He is in fact 101 years old as of May 3rd 1911. At this point we have to accept that the poet laureate of radio may well me immortal like the Count of St. Germain. Since we cannot be certain we might as well discuss how radio ends up having a poet laureate at all.

Corwin began as a newspaperman at the Greenfield Recorder and in 1926, and moved on to the Springfield Republican newspaper in 1929. (Both of which sort of still exist.) Westinghouse contacted the Republican seeking to assemble a regular fifteen-minute 10:30 PM newscast. This was to air on WBZA-AM. Somehow this job went to the new kid. He was only 18 years old. Ballsy kid that he was, several months later he pitched them on a regular poetry program. The resulting series was called "Rhymes and Cadences."

In 1936 he moved to New York City and began working at 20th Century Fox.  But the a poet laureate cant just work in publicity. He called up WQXR and pitched them on a show just like the one he had at WBZA. His program "Poetic  License" ran Tuesday nights at 9:15.  Then he started subbing for A.M. Sullivan, host of The new Poetry Hour on WOR-AM.

In 1938, he jumped to CBS. VP William B. Lewis heard an episode of  "Poetic  License" and was impressed. How impressed?  Impressed enough that within a week Corwin was radio director for the Columbia Workshop.  Another version of the story has him making a guest appearance on the RCA program "The Magic Key Of RCA" courtesy of his brother Emil Corwin who worked in the publicity department at NBC. Both tales are believable for different reasons. Both versions end the same way. Corwin with his own series which he wrote and directed "Norman Corwin's Words Without Music."  Starting in 1941, he was writing, casting, and directing a new play every week. He had just turned 31!

That constitutes an accomplished career on it's own. But his work in WWII is what endeared him to many. He wrote and produced a number a very patriotic works before, after and during the war effort. personally I find these works trite, jingoistic and trite. It's all very Stephen Vincent Benét. But it was popular and it fit the mood of the nation at the time. In the 1940s America was in an isolationist mood, and had a very real and vocal fascist political minority.  Things could have gone the other way. Readers of history who ultimately see our role in WWII as having any valor must give some credit to the rallying writers who helped turn public opinion toward the allies. For that reason, I find Corwin's accolades totally valid.  More here.

Anyway, Corwin was a hot ticket after the war, he did screen plays, books, magazine articles, and a torrent of plays. He left radio for the most part but still wrote the occasional radio drama until the format petered out in the 1960s. In 1971 he was heading up "Norman Corwin Presents" on CBC. Then in 1995 Corwin returned radio. He wrote and directed a whole series for NPR titled "More by Corwin." 

He has received the One World Award, two Peabody Medals, an Emmy, a Golden Globe, and was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 1993. At least two documentary films have been made on the topic of his life and career. He has authored 19 books, five stage plays, and innumerable film and TV works. Today he lives in Los Angeles and  is still writing.

Celia Mayer and Aunt Sammy

I wrote a post about Aunt Sammy back in  June of 2007. Recently I struck it lucky and was contacted by Paul Freirich, the son of a woman that played the part of Aunt Sammy on WBZA in Boston (see above.) Paul told me what he knew about her and her time in radioland and then even a bit about his own radio career. Between the emails and the 45 minutes of tape I have enough material for a few posts. I'll start with Aunt Sammy tonight and then get to Paul career later on.

Just to review...Aunt Sammy herself was a character created by the U. S. Department of Agriculture Bureau of Home Economics. It debuted in 1926 and by the early 1930s was carried on about 200 radio stations. It was a 15-minute short about cooking, and home making. The show ran until 1946. Celia Mayer was Aunt Sammy in the 1930s. More here. I have found very little information about the women who played Aunt Sammy. But fortunately some people take an interest in their family history, and a few of those even feel like sharing... 

JF: When did your mother play "Aunt Sammy" on WBZA?
PF: She never gave me exact dates but let's use a little detective work. She's at a WBZA mic and WBZA went back to Springfield and Boston get the WBZ call sign in 1931 [March of 1931] so it was before that. She worked at the Statler hotel and WBZA moved there in late 1928 or early 29 so it was after that. [More Boston radio history here]

JF:How old would she have been then?
PF:In 1930 she would have been 23 years old.

JF:How did she score that gig?
PF:She was a secretary at WBZA. For some reason she stayed through her lunch hour one day to get some work finished. The noon program on WBZA was organ music from the Pump Room at the Hotel Statler. That same day the organ broke down and they had dead air. Gordon Swann, the station PD came running into the office with one of the USDA scripts and my mother was the only one there. Swann thrust the script into her hands and said, "You're on the air". Mom was smart enough to realize that many women get nervous in front of of a mic and their voices go way up in pitch so she deliberately lowered hers. It must have worked because she was on the air for six months until they sold that time to a different sponsor who put a different program into that time slot. [More WBZ/WBZA history here]

JF:Did she do any other work in radio before or after that?
PF:No.

JF:There were different Aunt Sammys in Different regions. Did she know any of the others?
PF:She never mentioned any so I don't think so.

JF:How long do you think she stayed there?
PF: She was there for six months on the air. I don't know how long after that she stayed working there. I can tell you for a fact that she married my father in 1934. But I heard she was not there much longer after she was off the air. But a funny thing, she showed me a fan letter "You gave me your recipe for pecan pie and it's wonderful, and I haven't never been able to make it before and yours came out beautifully." But she couldn't make pecan pie. [The USDA provided all the recipes]

The June Foray

June Foray is still alive, she's 92 and even still working in the voice-over industry that made her famous. She is best known as the voice of many animated characters including both Natasha Fatale and Rocky the Flying Squirrel, Cindy Lou Who, and Jokey Smurf. She was born in 1917, in Boston, the second of three children. She was first on the radio at the age of 12 in a local Radio drama on WBZA.

The WBZA calls are not a typo, but they may be unfamiliar even to Boston-area readers. WBZ and WBZA were sisters stations in Boston. The callsign was first used in in 1924. In March of 1931, WBZ and WBZA swapped call letters moving WBZ to Boston and WBZA to Springfield. WBZA carried a simulcast of WBZ until it went dark in 1962. June claims to have been on the station at the age of 12 that would have been about 1929, which fits right into the window. More here. In an article in Nostalgia Digest she indicated that the first appearance was not on WBZA but another unnamed Boston area station but that WBZA was at least contemporary to the appearance. She was quoted as follows:

"Well my teacher had a radio show and I was on it. Then there was a weekly radio show on WBZA, the local station. They had a group of actors and I had the hubris to call them..."

Her first work in Network radio was about 15 years later in 1943 on Cavalcade of America a program sponsored by DuPont about American history. In 1945 she was on Smile Time, a comedy program on the Don Lee Network and simultaneously on the Buster Brown gang Program on NBC. She went on to appear on Lux Radio Theater and an innumerable list of programs. She appeared on Steve Allen's 15-minute morning program in LA, on 1330 KFAC-AM. In 1948 when Steve Allen launched "It's a great Life" on CBS Radio June came too. She stuck with radio while she moved in to TV work even picked up a spot on the Stan Freberg radio show in 1957 also on CBS.

In 2008 the ASIDFA gave out it's first June Foray award and June was it's first recipient. The award is given to "individuals who have made a significant and benevolent or charitable impact on the art and industry of animation." More recently she made the web 2.0 leap in October 2006, she appeared in the podcast "The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd" portraying Susan B. Anthony. Last year she finally wrote her autobiography "Did You Grow Up With Me, Too?"