Oh all right, it isn't the most earth-shaking discovery ever. Still, it's been driving me nuts for at least a year. There was this actor on old-time radio. (Well, there was this actor on the radio a long time ago, now retroactively an actor on old-time radio.) He got smarmy down with a hammerlock. However, he mainly appeared on programs which didn't list the cast, or named only one or two leading actors. Character actors didn't make the cut.
As nobody much is working on an Internet Old-Time-Radio Database, the probability of ever finding out who this actor was seemed fairly remote. However, he turned up in the Screen Director's Playhouse's version of "Magnificent Obsession," toning down the smarminess to play the romantic lead. So I found him. Apparently, his big career moment was taking over for as the Great Gildersleeves. Speaking of smarmy.
I think I've mentioned before how many old-time-radio shows are different adaptations of the same show, usually a film script, but I've certainly hit a lot lately. I'm up to my third "Hired Wife," this was my second "Magnificent Obsession," and I just hit my second "Prisoner of Zenda," too. Interestingly, very few of these are recycled scripts. They're actually rewritten from different angles and are often quite different. Partly this is because some are half-hour radio programs while others are hour-long. Pretty neat, regardless.
No comments:
Post a Comment