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Broadcasting, July 15, 1937 |
Happy 100th birthday to Orson Welles, star of stage, movies, magic, wine commercials and radio. I wrote a little bit about his movies on my other blog:
http://bigvriotsquad.blogspot.com/2015/05/orson-welles-100-may-6-2015.html
This story describes his first job writing and directing for the radio, an adaption of
Les Miserables for Mutual. The "New Drama Technique" was narration.
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Broadcasting, January 15, 1938 |
Welles played
The Shadow in 1937 and 1938. This article describes it expanding to the Pacific Coast Done Lee network, which was affiliated with Mutual. It was on a sustaining (unsponsored) basis because sponsor Blue Coal didn't sell its products on the West Coast.
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Broadcasting, June 1, 1938 |
Welles produced many of his stage successes under the aegis of the Mercury Theater. When he got a regular radio show on CBS, he called it
The Mercury Theater of the Air.
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Broadcasting, August 15, 1938 |
By August, CBS was touting Wells as a major drama player/director/writer. For a short time, the show was called
First Person Singular.
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Broadcasting, September 15, 1938 |
Welles participated in a course at Columbia University with several other major radio stars.
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Broadcasting, September 15, 1938 |
CBS carried the show on into the fall and winter.
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Broadcasting, November 15, 1938 |
That fall, on 30-October-1938, Welles produced an adaption of
The War of the Worlds by HG Wells. The first half of the show was presented as a news broadcast. Stories vary, but some people took it seriously. I did not include the continuation of the article, but it is worth looking up.
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Broadcasting, November 15, 1938 |
In part because of
The War of the Worlds, the show gained a sponsor and became
Campbell's Playhouse.
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Broadcasting, November 15, 1938 |
The fake news broadcast raised some issues.
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Broadcasting, December 15, 1938 |
The FCC decided not to do anything about
The War of the Worlds.
I received a cassette recorder when I was 11 or 12 and used it to record my own radio shows. One of my first productions was an imitation of "The War of the Worlds," which I had heard on Gene Nelson's old radio show on KSFO. My father patiently served as the announcer.
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