Splash screen for OTR Westerns

Foreword - By Fred Foy

Photo: Fred Foy

I grew up surrounded by a variety of heroes, all displaying great courage in the face of untold dangers. Some came to life every Saturday afternoon at the movies in those cliff-hanging serials that always had you coming back for more. I rode with Tom Mix and his wonder horse, Tony, in The Miracle Rider. I traveled out of this world with Buster Crabbe as Flash Gordon and battled the evil emperor, Ming the Merciless. Gene Autry kept me on the edge of my seat as he discovered a lost civilization in The Phantom Empire. Nothing can ever dull my memories of Saturday matinees with my popcorn, my heroes, and the screams of my fellow serial worshippers, as we cheered the "good guys" on to victory.

Best of all, when the last villain was thwarted, I could look forward to more thrills and excitement at home simply by dialing in my favorites on the family radio. I still recall curling up on the living room davenport and listening to the adventures of Tom Mix, jack Armstrong, and Little Orphan Annie. I closed my eyes and let my imagination paint the pictures as the stories unfolded. I was chilled by the exploits of The Shadow and Lights Out As we listened, we created our own mental images. I am sure no creature we see today on television could ever duplicate those born in our imaginations as we became absorbed in a tale of chilling suspense.

That was radio-a wonderful world of the imagination. I could invite my heroes into the living room any day of the week and enjoy their exploits in the mind's eye. They were all very special, but my favorite heroes wore six-guns, sat tall in the saddle, and rode into the sunset when their work was complete. They were the cowboys-those strong and silent men of the West, who, on occasion, were known to burst into song. Sagebrush stars such as Tom Mix, Buck Jones, Tim Holt, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, and Hopalong Cassidy. They all wore "white hats" (the mark of the "good guys"). But the man who wore the mask, in my mind. surpassed them all. My favorite "champion of justice" - the Lone Ranger.

Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 7:30 p.m. was a "must" for the family, when the William Tell Overture heralded another adventure of The Lone Ranger. I followed the Ranger's adventures closely and was stunned when he was critically wounded and unable to speak. This lasted through several episodes. Finally, he spoke a short phrase and then, as the story line evolved, he became more fluent. At the time I thought his voice sounded slightly different but accepted it as a result of his long illness. I learned the true facts years later when I joined the show. At the time I had been listening Earle Graser had portrayed the Lone Ranger. On his way home from a broadcast, he had had a fatal auto accident. Imagine the panic that had erupted when the producers learned of his death. They had a show the next day and no Lone Ranger. The writers immediately put their heads together and came up with the idea of a critically wounded Ranger unable to speak. Brace Beemer was chosen to play the role. And finally, over a period of time, The Ranger found his voice-hopefully, making the transition to a new Lone Ranger less evident. Brace Beemer expertly played the role for the run of the show except for one episode when he had laryngitis and I was called upon to give voice to The Lone Ranger.

Photo: Brace Beemer (The Lone Ranger) and Silver make a personal appearance.

I was an ardent Lone Ranger fan, never dreaming that sometime in the future I would be part of his adventures and that one day my children would hear my voice intoning the words, "A fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust, and a hearty Hi Yo Silver. The Lone Ranger."

I can best describe the impact and the lasting impression of the legendary masked man in this personal anecdote, which I assure you, actually occurred. It was a beautiful autumn afternoon. I was driving along the Long Island Expressway on my way to my ocean retreat far away from the turbulence of New York City. I was captured by the rainbow of color that flowed from October's brush and painted the landscape. The traffic was light, and my foot was unintentionally heavy on the accelerator. I was suddenly jolted out of my reverie by that all-too-familiar sound of a motorcycle, commandeered by one of New York's finest. The police officer signaled me to pull over, and as I came to a stop, a marvelous idea blossomed. My son was the proud owner of a "silver bullet," which, for some reason he had left in the glove compartment. As the officer approached me and asked for my license, I reached into the glove compartment and found the silver bullet. Quite nonchalantly, I handed it to the officer, saying, "Perhaps this will serve to identify me!" His reaction was totally unexpected. He, literally broke up with laughter and surprisingly turned the tables on me when he said, "Kemo Sabe .. .from now on don't travel with the speed of light." With that, he waved me on.

I'm forever grateful that I was among those fortunate enough to have been a part of radio's Golden Age. And I'm thrilled that many of those special on-the-air moments we created have been preserved.

Now, it's time to go back and let your imagination take you on an exciting journey with this roundup of legendary Western heroes. Return with them now to those thrilling days of yesteryear and enjoy, again, their daring escapades.

Those Thrilling Days of Yesteryear

If you listen hard, you can still hear the sounds: the thundering hoof beats of the great horse Silver, the jangle of spurs as Matt Dillon and Chester Proudfoot saunter down the boardwalks of Dodge City, the wheels of a stagecoach racing through a frontier wilderness, the hearty laugh of Hopalong Cassidy, and the melodic tones of the singing cowboys, Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. These were the sounds of the radio West.

The American West has captivated audiences around the world. The cowboys' exploits have thrilled legions of fans in print, film, radio, and television. Generations of Americans have enjoyed the adventures of Wyatt Earp, Buffalo Bill Cody, Wild Bill Hickok. Calamity Jane, Frank and Jesse James. the courageous young riders of the Pony Express. and great American Indian leaders like Cochise and Geronimo.

The West of our imaginations has lasted far longer than the genuine article. The great period of American western expansion was over in the space of a single human lifetime, but the myth of the West and frontier life is timeless, and its melodramatic appeal is universal.

Purple Prose and Cowboy Sideshows

During the 1800s thrill-starved Easterners read exciting tales of the West in novels like James Fenimore Cooper's The Pioneers and The Last of the Mohicans. They also followed the exploits of real-Iife Western legends in their daily newspapers and in cheaply printed dime novels.

In an 1865 editorial in his New York Tribune, Horace Greeley advised Easterners to "Go West. young man. and grow up with your country." One New Yorker who did so was Edward Zane Carroll Judson. who wrote dime novels under the pseudonym. Ned Buntline. On an 1869 trip to Nebraska. Judson met and interviewed an army scout named William Frederick Cody. The 23-year-old scout claimed to have worked as a wagon train drover and Pony Express rider before his sixteenth birthday. to have scouted with Kit Carson and Jim Bridger at Fort Laramie. and to have hunted Indians with Wild Bill Hickok. The loquacious Cody boasted of killing 69 buffalo in a single day. causing Judson to jokingly rechristen his leather-clad friend, "Buffalo Bill."

Returning to New York, Judson wrote Buffalo Bill, the King of the Bordermen, the first of nearly 1,000 dime novels based on the greatly fictionalized exploits of Buffalo Bill Cody. The novel, first serialized in Street & Smith's New York Weekly, recast the hard-drinking Cody as a champion of temperance, much to the amazement of the real Bill Cody. In Judson's stories, Buffalo Bill became "the most indestructible character in all fiction," and his mount became a wonder horse, who could "out-smell, out-see, and out-hear any living thing, be it man, dog or catamount," and who would retrieve his own saddle and bridle at the first suggestion of a scouting mission. Judson died in 1886, but the prolific Prentiss Ingraham would pound out another 121 dime novels about Buffalo Bill under the "Buntline" house name, while other pulp wordsmiths produced hundreds more.

The real-life Buffalo Bill enjoyed and capitalized upon his notoriety. He was elected to the Nebraska legislature in 1872 but soon resigned to make his stage debut, portraying himself in Buntline's Scouts of the Prairie, which opened at Chicago's Nixon Amphitheater on 18 December 1872 before moving on to thrill audiences in Boston and New York. New York critics praised Cody's stage presence while denouncing Buntline's play as "maundering imbecility" and "very poor slop." Nonetheless, Bill Cody. who loved the sound of applause. soon went on the road with his friend Wild Bill Hickok in a new melodrama. Scouts of the Plains.

Cody would tour the country for the next ten years, recreating his life story in a series of theatrical potboilers. In 1882 Cody was invited to organize a Fourth of July "Old Glory Blowout" by the citizenry of North Platte, Nebraska. The following year he went on the road with the first of his outdoor Wild West shows. Over the next 25 years, Cody's three-hour extravaganza was performed before more than five million people, in I ,000 cities in 12 countries. At its height, Buffalo Bill's Wild West show featured more than 500 horses and a cast of 300, including the great chief, Sitting Bull, and the sharpshooting Annie Oakley.

Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West shows promoted an idealized view of the West, featuring simple formulaic representations of good versus evil and civilization against savagery, portrayed with action and excitement. His legacy lived on in B-films, pulp Westerns, and radio melodramas.

Riders of the Silver Screen

The success of Buffalo Bill's Wild West show and the plethora of successful dime novels and Western pulp magazines was not lost on early moviemakers. Cowboys and sagebrush have been a Hollywood staple since the earliest days of the silent film. Thomas Edison's film company produced short films starring Buffalo Bill Cody and Annie Oakley during the 1890s, and other moviemakers soon jumped on the Western bandwagon. The first fully plotted Westerns, Kit Carson and The Pioneers, debuted in 1903 but were eclipsed by the runaway success of director Edwin S. Porter's The Great Train Robbery, filmed in New Jersey on a budget of less than $150 and distributed by Edison's production company. The eight-minute film-featuring an armed holdup, an action-filled chase on horseback, and a final blazing gunfight as good won out over evil-became the prototype for the B-Western.

In 1913 Buffalo Bill Cody returned to South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation to produce his own film version of the great Indian wars. He re-enacted his own escapades (like the Battle of Summit Springs) and famous military engagements like the Wounded Knee campaign. His co-stars included the infamous Indian fighter, 74-year-old General Nelson Miles, 300 real-Iife soldiers, and a small army of Sioux extras, many of them survivors of the real Indian wars. Cody's film, The Last Indian Battles, or From the Warpath to the Peace Pipe, was released in the following year. He then returned to his Wild West show, claiming that moviemaking was "harder to organize and run than three circuses." Also in 1914 Cecil B. DeMille directed the first feature-length Western, The Squaw Man; D. W. Griffith produced several sagebrush films; and William S. Hart starred in his first feature-length Western, The Bargain. Hart went on to become the biggest movie star of his era.

During the 1920s Tom Mix, Buck Jones, Harry Carey, and Hoot Gibson became major stars, as did Ken Maynard, Hollywood's first singing cowboy. Colonel Tim McCoy, an expert on Indian history, brought 500 Native Americans to Hollywood to perform in The Covered Wagon, and young director John Ford began leaving his indelible mark on Western films. A record 854 Westerns were released in 1921; and the Western would soon represent nearly a third of all films released in the country.

Sound came to Westerns in 1929, thrilling movie audiences with the sounds of gunshots and galloping hoofbeats. Overland Bound was the first Western "talkie" to be released and was soon followed by The Virginian, starring Gary Cooper. and The Big Trail, featuring the young John Wayne. Warner Baxter won the best actor Oscar for his portrayal of the Cisco Kid in the film In Old Arizona (1929), and Cimarron (1931) received the Academy Award for best picture.

Photo: The Lone Ranger Pulp Magazine

Writers of the Purple Page

Owen Wister's The Virginian was published in 1902 and became the first Western hardcover best-seller. According to author Frank Gruber, The Virginian took the Western out of the woodshed and put it in the parlor. Zane Grey's first Western was rejected, but his third would become an instant classic. Riders of the Purple Sage (1912) launched Grey's career as one of the most popular writers of all time and was filmed in 1925, starring Tom Mix. Grey's books have sold more than 50 million copies and more than 130 films have been adapted from his stories. The influence of Wister's story and Grey's many novels extended into the new pulp magazines, the descendants of the dime novels and the dominant format for popular fiction in the days before the paperback.

Photo: Hopalong Cassidy Pulp Magazine

Street & Smith's Western Story Magazine began in 1919, achieved a circulation of 300,000 during its first year, and went weekly. The pulp featured stories by Frederick Faust (writing as Max Brand), Fred Glidden (a.k.a. Luke Short), William Colt McDonald, W. C. Tuttle, and Walt Coburn, and set the style for American Western fiction for the next 30 years. Though pulp writers continued to romanticize the West, their stories demonstrated an attention to detail that dime-novel scribes had ignored. Argosy All-Story Magazine introduced Johnston McCulley's Zorro in "The Curse of Capistrano" (1919) and published Hopalong Cassidy stories by Clarence Mulford, a Maine native who pounded out Westerns for two decades without ever setting foot west of Bangor. A newsstand range war began with the proliferation of such Western pulps as Ranch Romances, Cowboy Stories, Lariat, Dime Western, Texas Rangers, Spicy Western, and The Lone Ranger.

"Action, action, action is the thing. So long as you keep your hero jumping through fiery hoops on every page you're all right. The basic formula I use is simple: good man turns bad, bad man turns good. Naturally, there is considerable variation on this theme," explained Frederick Faust. "There has to be a woman, but not much of a one. A good horse is much more important."

The Radio Frontier

Photo: Fran Striker created Covered Wagon Days and was the principal author of The Lone Ranger

Commercial radio broadcasting was the new frontier of the 1920s. David Sarnoff created the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) in 1926, followed two years later by William Paley's Columbia Network.

In 1930 a new series called Covered Wagon Days was broadcast over station WEBR in Buffalo, New York. The Western series was created and written by WEBR's studio manager, Fran Striker. Soon the 27-year-old writer/director began reselling his radio scripts to other stations across the country, receiving between two and eight dollars per station for the rebroadcast of his scripts. As his client list grew, Striker was eventually able to give up his WEBR staff job and devote all his time to writing. In 1932 Striker made the professional connections that would alter his future and that of radio Westerns when he sold his scripts of Warner Lester and Thrills of the Secret Service to Detroit station WXYZ.

Tales from Death Valley

"As the early morning bugle call of covered wagon trains fades away among the echoes, another true Death Valley Days story is presented for your entertainment by the Pacific Coast Borax Company, producers of that famous family of products -20 Mule Team Borax, 20 Mule Team Borax Soap Chips, and Boraxo. Well, Old Ranger, what's your story about tonight?"

Death Valley Days and the Old Ranger were the creations of Ruth Cornwall Woodman, a New York advertising copywriter who was given the assignment to create a new radio program set in the barren Death Valley region of California, the area where Borax was discovered. The Vassar graduate and lifelong New Yorker had little interest in the desert and its people before she was given the assignment, but within months was writing one of the best researched and most respected dramas of early radio. Though Woodman had never seen Death Valley when the series debuted on NBC on 30 September 1930, she would eventually spend two months each year on location, traveling with her guide Wash Cahill, a "grizzled desert rat," who spun wonderful yarns of the area and its people. Woodman spent much of her trips sifting through yellowing newspapers and museum collections while interviewing the residents of old-time mining towns like Panamint City.

The unrelated tales, based on real events and personages, were introduced by the fictitious Old Ranger, a composite character who appeared to have been on a first-name basis with the lawmen and desperados featured in Woodman's scripts. The Old Ranger was originally portrayed by Tim Frawley (Blue Coal's original "John Barclay" on the early Shadow broadcasts), then by Harry Humphrey and George Rand, and for most of the long run by Jack MacBryde, who had played supporting roles on the broadcasts since 1931.

Death Valley Days was heard for more than a decade on NBC, moved over to CBS in 1941, and continued on radio until 21 June 1945. The long-running television version, which began in 1952, was originally hosted by Stanley Andrews as the Old Ranger, and later by Ronald Reagan, Robert Taylor, Dale Robertson, and Merle Haggard.

Adventures on the Radio Ranch

Bobby Benson of the H-Bar-O began riding the airwaves on 17 October 1932 as a 15-minute serial. The title character was the 12-year-old owner of the H-Bar-O ranch, a none-too-subtle plug for the series's original sponsor, Heckers H-O Cereals. (Benson's radio ranch was renamed the B-Bar-B when Heckers dropped its sponsorship in 1936.) Richard Wanamaker portrayed Bobby during the first season, when the show originated from WGR in Buffalo, New York. Billy Halop of the Dead End Kids took over the title role when the production moved to CBS's New York studios, where he was supported by his sister Florence, future cowboy star Tex Ritter, and announcers Andre Baruch and Art Millet. The CBS series ended in 1936, but Bobby Benson returned to the airwaves on 21 June 1949 in a long-running Mutual series. "Here they come," proclaimed announcer "Cactus" Carl Warren in the series's famous opening. "They're riding fast and they're riding hard. It's time for excitement and adventure in the modern West with Bobby Benson and the B-Bar-B Riders. And out in front, astride his golden palomino, Amigo, it's the cowboy kid himself, Bobby Benson." Ivan Cury starred in the revived version until May 1951, when Clive Rice saddled up to portray Bobby Benson for the remainder of the series. Once, when Rice developed a nosebleed at the beginning of a program, his sister Rosemary stepped in and saved the day by grabbing his script and reading his lines without any of the listening audience being any the wiser. Don Knotts co-starred as handyman Windy Wales, teller of wild tales, during the entire run of the revived series, which finally rode into the radio sunset on 17 June 1956.

Who Was That Masked Man?

Photo: Ruth Dean Rickaby, John Todd (Tonto), Lee Allman, Malcolm McCoy Fred Reto, Earle Graser (The Lone Ranger) and director James Jewell

"Other rangers all dead. Tonto bury five men--make six grave. Crook think you die with others. You only ranger left. You Lone Ranger!" As the only survivor of the outlaw ambush that had killed his brother and fellow Texas Rangers, the Lone Ranger, who had been rescued by his childhood friend Tonto, rode off into legend. His fictional origin is known to millions of television and radio fans but wasn't fully developed until the fifteenth anniversary radio broadcast, barely a year before the Ranger and Tonto would surface again on early television screens in the first video Western. The character of the Lone Ranger was not so much created as it was evolved, eventually taking its place as one of the most recognizable icons in the history of American popular entertainment.

George Washington Trendle was searching for a new series that could turn around the fortunes of his failing Detroit station, WXYZ. He sought a dramatic program that could be produced without expensive stars, like their detective series, Warner Lester-Manhunter. "Cops and Robbers have always been box office," he told his business partner, "and I've been thinking of something else that always did well for us in the theaters. We never did bad business with a good Western. In fact, we did good business with bad Westerns." As the co-owner of a movie-theater chain, Trendle had enjoyed Douglas Fairbanks's portrayal of Zorro, the masked Robin Hood of old California, and the popular films of cowboy star Tom Mix. Trendle gathered his staff together to discuss the new series. "I see him as a sort of lone operator - he could even be a former Texas Ranger." WXYZ's dramatic director, James Jewell, suggested that the new character be called "The Lone Star Ranger." "Not bad," replied station manager Harold True, "But Zane Grey already had a book by that title. ..How about - The Lone Ranger?"

James Jewell hired Fran Striker to write the new series at $4 a script, and the 29-year-old writer adapted one of his earlier Covered Wagon Days scripts as the first Lone Ranger story. Trendle insisted that the hero speak perfect English and suggested that the Ranger be given a "beautiful, high stepping, big, white horse." Striker introduced the horse he named Silver in his second script and gave the Lone Ranger his trademark silver bullets, and James Jewell selected the William Tell Overture as the show's theme music. Tonto was added in the twelfth episode after Howard Pierce suggested giving the masked man an Indian partner. "An Indian character might be all right provided he doesn't take anything away from the Ranger," agreed Trendle. "Always remember - the Ranger is the hero."

The Lone Ranger's origins were a mystery during the early years of the broadcasts, and it was even hinted that the mask might actually cover the famous features of some legendary figure of the real West. The first version of the origin remained untold until the 1938 Republic movie serial starring Lee Powell, in which the Rangers were ambushed at Grant's Pass. Striker told a different version of the movie origin on the 13 October 1941 broadcast starring new Ranger Brace Beemer and later in a hardcover novel, in which the origin was finally set in Bryant's Gap. The following year Dan Reid was introduced in the Christmas show, giving the Lone Ranger a nephew and a great-nephew, Britt Reid, who was already carrying on the family crime-fighting business in WXYZ's modern day drama, The Green Hornet.

The Lone Ranger may have been created by committee, but it was the scripts of Fran Striker that lifted the character beyond the ordinary and into the stuff of legend. The series was an immediate hit, and 11,000 children and adults broke through police lines to get a glimpse of their hero in July 1934. In that same year WXYZ teamed with New York's WOR, Chicago's WGN, and Cincinnati's WLW to broadcast The Lone Ranger as the Quality Group, which soon grew into a fourth network, the Mutual Broadcasting Company. The Don Lee Pacific Coast Network began carrying the series in 1937, and two years later the Ranger programs went international with stations in Newfoundland, Hawaii, and New Zealand. Trendle and company had hoped to develop a popular children's radio program that could boost WXYZ's fortunes; they ended up creating a legend of mythic proportions.

George Seaton, the first actor to portray "the daring and resourceful masked rider of the plains," left the series after three months to pursue a career as a playwright and director, eventually writing and directing such films as Miracle on 34th Street and Airport His successor, a young drama student turned attorney, would be the voice of The Lone Ranger for the next eight years, until 8 April 1941. "Earle H. Graser was killed in an automobile wreck Tuesday morning but the rumor that the Lone Ranger is dead is unfounded," stated The New York Times in a moving editorial. "It was a man who died. ..he didn't take the Lone Ranger with him. The Lone Ranger doesn't die. ..his trusty steed waits to carry him on his errands across the face of the wondrous West where the air is crystal and virtue never lacks for reward. Listen! There is the beating of the hoofs as, in the nick of time, he swings into action. Ride, Tonto! Ride, Lone Ranger! Hi-yo, Silver!"

Lone Ranger announcer Brace Beemer was quickly moved into the title role, although WXYZ announcer Mike Wallace was briefly considered for the role. Beemer, substituting for the shorter Graser, had impersonated the Lone Ranger in public appearances since the earliest broadcasts and took the role to heart, portraying the masked man for the duration of the radio series. To a generation of radio listeners, Beemer was the Lone Ranger. John Todd, an aging Shakespearean actor who had toured the West in a frontier theater company, portrayed Tonto in nearly all the radio broadcasts. The role was briefly portrayed by the Indian actor Louis Morango, but Todd returned to the role when the college-educated Native American refused to speak Tonto's broken English dialect.

Harold True announced the early broadcasts. He was followed by Brace Beemer, Charles Wood, Harry Slagle, Harry Golder, Stan Dale, and the man whose voice would forever be associated with the classic opening, the great Fred Foy.

The Lone Ranger and Tonto rode the radio range for 23 years and more than 3,000 broadcasts, the longest run of any radio Western. The legend has been kept alive by the famous television series (starring Clayton Moore and John Hart as The Lone Ranger and the full-blooded Mohawk Jay Silverheels as Tonto), two animated television series (starring radio veterans Rye Billsbury and William Conrad), records, commercials, and feature films.

Straight Shooters

The audio adventures of movie legend Tom Mix were first heard over the NBC airwaves on 25 September 1933. One of the greatest juvenile adventure series in the history of broadcasting, The Tom Mix Ralston Straight Shooters program was initially based on the fictitious exploits of the most popular movie cowboy of the silent-film era. Mix made his movie debut in Ranch Life in the Great Southwest (1910) and went to work for Fox in 1918, starring in his own action-packed Westerns. By 1921 the Tom Mix Fan Club numbered more than 2 million members. Mix later starred in nine "talking" features for Universal and made his final film appearance in the 1935 Mascot serial, The Miracle Rider. He spent the remainder of his career touring with his Wild West Circus.

One of Tom Mix's many fans was William H. Danforth, head of the Ralston-Purina Company. According to radio historian Jim Harmon, "Danforth's devotion was known to Charles E. Claggett, a copywriter for the St. Louis-based Gardner Advertising Agency. He also knew from a survey of school children in the area that their favorite hero was still Tom Mix." The circus star was approached thus and signed an agreement permitting the use of his name and likeness in advertisements, and allowing himself to be impersonated on radio.

Artells Dickson impersonated Mix in the earliest broadcasts from New York, with Willard Waterman (later the voice of The Great Gildersleeve), Jack Holden (the announcer for The National Barn Dance), and Russell Thorson (the future star of I Love a Mystery), who portrayed the cowboy star when the series moved to Chicago. The Ranch Boys (with Curley Bradley as Pecos, along with Ken "Shorty" Carson and Jack Ross) sang the classic Ralston commercial and theme song:

Shre-dd-ed Ralston for your breakfast
Start the day off shinin' bright;
Gives you lots of cowboy energy,
With a flavor that's just right.
It's delicious and nutritious,
Bite-size and ready to eat.
Take a tip from Tom,
Go and tell your mom,
Shredded Ralston can't be beat!

The Tom Mix Ralston Straight Shooters left the NBC airwaves in the spring of 1942, returning in the summer of 1944 on the Mutual Network with Curley Bradley promoted from the ranks of the Ranch Boys into the title role. Bradley had appeared as a stunt rider in silent films opposite Buck Jones, Hoot Gibson, and the real-life Tom Mix; had performed on The Sons of the Pioneers's first record; and during his seven-year run as Pecos, had received more fan mail than any other member of the Tom Mix cast. Curley Bradley-supported by Leo Curley as Sheriff Mike Todd, Forrest Lewis as Wash, and veteran announcer Don Gordon-portrayed Tom Mix for the duration of the series and beyond. "They did a lot of them," remembers Jim Harmon, "nearly six years of daily shows, with no summer vacations-five days a week, fifty-two weeks a year."

Tom Mix rode the radio range until 31 December 1950, when Ralston dropped its sponsorship while the show was still experiencing its highest ratings ever. Although Curley Bradley would return a few months later in Mutual's The Singing Marshal and would eventually recreate his radio heroics in Curley Bradley's Trail of Mystery, a 1974 syndicated series produced by lifelong fan Jim Harmon, an era of childhood thrills came to an end with the final broadcast of The Tom Mix Ralston Straight Shooters. "The end-yet only the beginning, Mike," predicted the radio Tom Mix. "How many times will the figure of big, burly Mike Shaw stride across the imagination of some grown-up child?" As the series featuring Tom Mix and his friends ended, announcer Don Gordon proclaimed, "In the heart and the imagination of the world, Tom Mix rides on, and lives on, forever."

Back in the Saddle Again

Photo: Gene Autry and movie sidekick Smiley Burnette

Gene Autry's Melody Ranch rode onto the CBS airwaves on 31 December 1939 in a special "dress rehearsal" at the end of the final episode of Jesse Lasky's Gateway to Hollywood radio talent search. "Is there anyone of us who at some time or other in our lives has not secretly pictured himself as the knight in shining armor, astride a powerful charger, thundering through adventure and hardships to a romantic rescue?" asked announcer Ken Ellington in the 15-minute preview. "The American symbol of all these characters is the cowboy of our own Western plains and deserts who lives close to nature, relying more than any of us do today on himself alone and his ever-faithful horse. Our hero of Melody Ranch is Gene Autry, America's favorite singing cowboy, who is a symbol of the clean-thinking honesty and integrity of the American people. Gene has achieved success through his fine work in Republic Pictures. Millions of picture-goers know him and love him. ..Now meet the boss of our imaginary Melody Ranch, Gene Autry."

Gene Autry achieved his greatest fame in his Hollywood movies, but began his career as a prairie troubadour on records and radio. The first Melody Ranch broadcast told the story of his discovery in a telegraph office by radio great Will Rogers, who advised the young singer to try show business. Autry had been born on a small farm in Texas, and his mother had taught him to play the guitar. While still in high school, Autry had toured with the Field Brothers medicine show. After graduation, he took a job as a telegrapher with the St. Louis and Frisco Railroad. After meeting Will Rogers, Autry took advantage of vacation time and a free railroad pass to travel to New York to audition for record companies. In 1931 he co-wrote and recorded "That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine," which established young Autry as a hillbilly singer and earned him a top spot on Chicago radio station WLS. Autry was featured on The National Barn Dance from 1931 to 1934, billed as "Oklahoma's Singing Cowboy" on radio's most popular country music program. Sears owned WLS and promoted Autry's records, songbooks, and "Round-Up" guitars through their mail-order catalogs. Gene Autry's movie career began when he appeared with Ken Maynard in the film In Old Santa Fe (1934), which gained him starring roles in the serial Phantom Empire and the features Tumbling Tumbleweeds and Melody Trail. By 1937 Gene Autry was the number one Western film star, and his records sold in the millions.

Gene Autry's Melody Ranch ran for 16 years, always under the sponsorship of Wrigley's Gum, and featured an audience-pleasing combination of music, comedy, and melodrama. Autry joined the U.S. Army Air Corps on 1 August 1943, taking his oath of office on the air. He returned to the CBS airwaves in September 1945 in a 15-minute variety show before reviving Melody Ranch the following year. Autry began his television series in 1950 and rode both the radio and television ranges until 1956, strumming his guitar and singing the theme song that he had introduced in the 1939 movie, Rovin' Tumbleweeds:

I'm back in the saddle again,
Out where a friend is a friend,
Where the longhorn cattle feed
On the lowly jimson weed,
I'm back in the saddle again

"You Betchum, Red Ryder"

Fred Harmon's popular Red Ryder was launched as a Sunday comic strip on 6 November 1938, and was joined by a daily strip a few months later. Red Ryder owned a ranch near the town of Rimrock in the Painted Valley region of Colorado. Red ran the ranch with the help of his aunt, the Duchess; Buckskin, his sidekick; and Little Beaver, his Navajo ward. The most popular character in Western comic strips, Red Ryder also appeared in 27 films, a movie serial, dozens of comic books, and lent his name to the "Daisy Red Ryder B-B gun," eulogized as "the holy grail of Christmas presents" by radio humorist Jean Shepherd.

Red Ryder and his friends were featured on the airwaves of the Blue Network's West Coast stations on 3 February 1942, but their show was dropped three months later when The Lone Ranger moved from Mutual to the Blue Network. Mutual retaliated by picking up the Red Ryder program and running it head-to-head against radio's "daring and resourceful masked rider of the plains." Unbelievably, Red Ryder won the initial ratings range war, holding on to much of the audience the more established series had built up at Mutual. Western stars Reed Hadley and Carlton KaDell were radio's earliest Red Ryders, but Brooke Temple would play the two-fisted cowboy for most of the radio run. Little Beaver was portrayed by Tommy Cook, Frank Bresee, Henry Blair, and Johnny McGovern. Red Ryder rode the Mutual-Don Lee airwaves until 1949.

"Oh, Pancho!" "Oh, Ceesco!"

Photo: Jackson Beck starred as The Cisco Kid over the Mutual network

The Cisco Kid aired on the Mutual airwaves on 2 October 1942. Jackson Beck portrayed "0. Henry's beloved bad man who rides the romantic trail that leads sometimes to adventure, often to danger, but always to beautiful senoritas." Louis Sorin was his sidekick, Pancho. Mutual's "Robin Hood of the West" was a romantic rogue who ignored the chaste role models favored by The Lone Ranger and Gene Autry broadcasts. "Whenever I was about to kiss the girl, I would say 'Of all the senoritas I have ever known, you are the most beautiful. On my heart I swear it,' and the harp sounded a beautiful sweeping glissando," recalled Jackson Beck. The Cisco Kid broadcasts were backed by a full orchestra and a harp. "I loved the show. Duncan Renaldo made his first Cisco Kid movie while I was still doing the broadcast version," recalls the stocky radio actor. "As a joke I sent him an autographed picture of me as Cisco with the inscription "Don't Worry." Beck and Sorin played Cisco and Pancho for three seasons, ending their radio run on 14 February 1945. "Ceesco! The Sheriff, he ees getting closer!" Pancho's plaintive cry served as the new opening when The Cisco Kid returned to the airwaves two years later in a new version produced in Mutual's Don Lee Pacific Coast studios. Jack Mather and Harry Lang portrayed Cisco and Pancho in the revived series, which ran until 1956.

King of the Cowboys

Photo: Dale Evans, "the Queen of the West," co-starred with her husband "the King of the Cowboys,"

Roy Rogers rode onto the radio range on 21 November 1944, though he experienced a severe case of mike fright as he prepared for the first broadcast of his Mutual series. Surprisingly, Rogers never lost his uneasiness around microphones, even though he was a radio singer during much of his early career.

Born Leonard Slye in Cincinnati Ohio, the future "King of the Cowboys" had moved to California in the summer of 1931, where he worked as a truck driver and migrant farm worker until he won an amateur contest he had entered with his cousin. After an appearance on KMCS's Midnight Frolic program, he was invited to join the Rocky Mountaineers on Long Beach's KGER. Slye was uncomfortable singing by himself and convinced the instrumental group to add another singer for duets. Rogers ran an advertisement in the Los Angeles Herold seeking a "Yodeler. ..Tenor preferred," and Bob Nolan soon joined Rogers for harmonies. Later, joined by Tim Spencer, the trio moved on to Hollywood's KFWB, where they first performed as The Sons of the Pioneers.

In 1935 Gene Autry starred in his first feature, "Tumbling Tumbleweeds," with a title song by Bob Nolan and The Sons of the Pioneers singing backup. Autry's success inspired Slye to try out when Republic held auditions for a new singing cowboy. When Autry quit in a salary dispute, Republic signed the young singer, changed his name to Roy Rogers, and cast him in Under Western Stars in a role originally written for Autry. Goodyear sponsored The Roy Rogers Show during its first season, when the series featured the Sons of the Pioneers, songstress Pat Friday, and announcer Verne Smith. After a year's hiatus, the series returned on NBC sponsored by Miles Laboratories, then returned to Mutual in 1948 for sponsor Quaker Oats. Rogers's future wife Dale Evans (the "Queen of the West") and his movie sidekick George "Gabby" Hayes joined the cast in 1946, with the Riders of the Purple Sage providing the musical numbers. Pat Brady became Rogers's new comedic sidekick when Hayes left in 1951 to star in his own Mutual series, The Gabby Hayes Show. During the 1950s melodramatic thrillers starring Rogers, Dale, Trigger, Pat Brady, and the dog Bullet were featured on both the radio series and a new television version. The Roy Rogers Show rode into the radio sunset on 21 July 1955, closing with Royand Dale's now famous theme song: Happy trails to you Until we meet again

High-Flying Cowboy

Sky King flew onto the radio airwaves on 28 October 1946 and remained aloft for seven seasons. The series featured the adventures of Schuyler King, a former Navy pilot turned rancher, who flew into aerial adventures in his prop plane, the Songbird, and his jet, the Black Arrow. Sky King was portrayed by Roy Engel during the first season, and later by Jack Lester, Earl Nightingale, and Carlton KaDell. His adventures were shared by his niece Penny (played by Beryl Vaughn and Beverly Younger) and his nephew Clipper (Johnny Coons and Jack Bivens). Cliff Soubier portrayed Jim Bell, the foreman of King's Flying Crown ranch. Sky King's radio exploits were introduced first by announcer Mike Wallace and later by Pierre Andre. The series was created by Robert M. Bum and Willfred G. Moore-actual pilots who had previously worked on other high-flying radio series, including the Air Adventures of Jimmie Allen, Captain Midnight, and Hop Harrigan, America's Ace of the Airways.

Frontier Adventure

Death Valley Days ended its long radio run in 1945 and was replaced by a new Western that featured the adventures of a modern-day lawman, Sheriff Mark Chase. Death Valley Sheriff was sponsored by Pacific Borax and opened with the same bugle call that had introduced the earlier Death Valley Days. Sheriff Chase was played first by Robert Haag and later by Donald Briggs.

Straight Arrow shot onto the Don Lee Pacific Coast Network on 6 May 1948, expanding to the entire Mutual network nine months later. Howard Culver portrayed Steve Adams, a young Comanche who had been raised by white settlers. "To friends and neighbors alike, Steve Adams appeared to be nothing more than the young owner of the Broken Bow cattle spread," explained announcer Frank Bingham. "But when danger threatened innocent people, and when evildoers plotted against justice, then Steve Adams, rancher, disappeared. And in his place came a mysterious, stalwart Indian, wearing the dress and war paint of a Comanche, riding the great golden palomino Fury. Galloping out of the darkness to take up the cause of law and order throughout the West comes the legendary figure of Straight Arrow." The series was created and written by Sheldon Stark, who had previously written some of The Lone Ranger broadcasts.

Zane Grey was the brand name in Western fiction in the early 20th century; his Riders of the Purple Sage is considered one of the finest Western novels ever written. Grey wrote 56 Western novels, 46 of which were made into motion pictures. On 11 September 1947 The Zane Grey Show debuted on Mutual. It starred Vic Perrin (and later Don MacLaughlin) as Pony Express rider Tex Thorne in tales of "the old West, rugged frontier of a young nation, where strong men lived by the strong law of personal justice."

Hopalong Cassidy rode onto the Mutual radio range on the first day of 1950, after television showings of his earlier films had created a national sensation. William Boyd recreated his movie role as Hoppy, a character originally created by Clarence Mulford in a series of novels featuring the Bar 20 Ranch. Mulford's original stories portrayed Bill Cassidy as a belching, hard-drinking frontiersman, whose right leg had been injured in a gunfight, earning him the moniker "Hopalong." As portrayed by Boyd, Hopalong was a straight-shootin' teetotaler, a gallant knight atop his white horse Topper. The 1950s Hoppy boom created a merchandising bonanza that reportedly brought in $70 million a year, and Time magazine reported that the demand for Hopalong Cassidy shirts and pants had created a national shortage of black dye.

Wild Bill Hickok debuted on 31 December 1951. The Mutual series was sponsored by Kellogg's and starred Guy Madison as James Butler Hickok, "the bravest, fightingest U.S. Marshal in the whole West." Andy Devine provided comic relief as Hickok's sidekick, Jingles P. Jones {"Hey, Wild Bill, wait for me"). Madison and Devine played their radio roles for five seasons, with a television version filmed concurrently and outlasting the radio series by two years. "It had a very simple format; lots of action and comedy," recalled Madison years later. "We wanted to show a bit of the West and with Andy, add some comedy."

The Adult Westerns

Through most of the Golden Age of radio, Western programs had been aimed at the same juvenile audiences that were thrilled each Saturday afternoon at the latest B-picture horse operas. Mature Western themes were explored on Death Valley Days and occasionally on The Lux Radio Theatre, Columbia Workshop, and NBC Theatre. Host Cecil B. DeMille reunited members of his original movie cast of The Plainsman for a 1937 presentation of The Lux Radio Theatre (included in this collection). Cornel Wilde and Gale Gordon starred in "The Mark of Zorro" on the 17 February 1946 broadcast of CBS's Hollywood Startime, recreating the movie roles of Tyrone Power and Basil Rathbone. In 1949 The NBC Theatre presented The Screen Director's Assignment production of "Stagecoach" (included in this collection). john Ford directed the radio version of his Western classic, with john Wayne recreating the role that had made him a star.

Most adult Westerns on radio had been adaptations of major Hollywood film productions cast with big-name movie stars. That changed with the debut of Escape in 1947. One of the finest shows on the airwaves, Escape presented "Wild Jack Rhett" in 1950 (included in this collection), produced and directed by Norman Macdonnell and adapted for radio by John Meston from the original story by Earnest Haycox, author of the classic Western, "Stagecoach to Lordsburg." Macdonnell and Mesto continued to collaborate, creating a Western drama titled "Pagasa" for the CBS series, Romance, with William Conrad heard in the main role of Jeff Spain.

Meanwhile, CBS founder and chairman William S. Paley, an ardent fan of radio's The Adventures of Philip Marlowe, suggested that his programmers develop a hard-boiled Western similar to the popular detective drama. Harry Ackerman, CBS's West Coast vice president of programming, was given the job of developing a "Philip Marlowe of the early West." While pitching their adult Western to CBS, Macdonnell and Meston first learned that CBS had already prepared two acetate audition disks for a proposed series. The first, recorded on II June 1949, starred Rye Billsbury in "Mark Dillon Goes to Gouge Eye." The same story was redone a month later with Howard Culver essaying the title role. When William Robson's Operation Underground was canceled, Norman Macdonnell was given one week to develop what was to become radio's finest Western series.

Gunsmoke

Photo: Howard McNear as Doc, William Conrad as Matt Dillon, Georgia Ellis as Kitty and Parley Baer as Chester

"The fictionalized story of the violence that moved West with young America and the story of a man who moved with it" was first heard over the CBS airwaves on 26 April 1952. "Around Dodge City and the territories on West, there's just one way to handle the killers and the spoilers," explained announcer George Walsh in the series's classic introduction. "That's with a U.S. Marshal and the smell of - Gunsmoke."

The new series starred Escape's host William Conrad as "Matt Dillon, United States Marshal, the first man they look for and the last they want to meet." Dillon was the law in Dodge City, Kansas, "the Gomorrah of the West," a position that exposed him to the worst sides of human nature. "It's a chancy job," Dillon explained each week, "and it makes a man watchful, and a little lonely." When Matt got too lonely, he dropped in to see the owner of the Long Branch Saloon. "Kitty is just someone Matt has to visit every once in a while," Norman Macdonnell told Time magazine in 1953. "We never say it, but Kitty is a prostitute, plain and simple."

"Matt Dillon is neither hero nor villain, but a human being," Conrad told an interviewer. "The best of us are sometimes ashamed of our thoughts, and there are times when the worst of us can be proud of our deeds. Matt Dillon is no different. He's a law-enforcement officer who doesn't like killings. He hates the thought of bloodshed. He's underpaid, never liked the job, but knows it has to be done."

"Dodge at that time was the wildest town in America," recalled scriptwriter John Meston. "Homicidal psychopaths gathered along the frontier and had themselves a real circus with little or nothing to stop them from happily mowing one another down." Dillon's Dodge City was populated by saloon girls who enjoyed goading men into gunning each other down, East Coast journalists willing to create Indian wars for the sake of a story, and businessmen who valued profits above other men's lives. Even Matt's friend Doc Adams looked forward with morbid glee to Dillon's next gunfight and the fees he would collect as the town mortician.

Due to Macdonnell's brilliant direction and the most realistic sound effects on radio - courtesy of Tom Hanley, Ray Kemper, and Bill James-Gunsmoke possessed an air of realism never before heard on radio Westerns. Macdonnell explained that "if we had to walk Matt from his office to the Long Branch, we'd walk him to the door, open the door, close the door, cross the boardwalk, clop, clop, clop, up onto the other boardwalk, clunk, clunk, in the swinging door, bang, bang, bang. You'd hear the boots and spurs come in, and then everybody would sort of quiet down. And you'd let that run for eight, ten, fifteen seconds, and you could just see Matt come up and stop at the bar. Well, they'd never done this before on radio; so it was a great picture painted right before your ears. .. And he wouldn't have said a word."

William Conrad was supported by one of the finest casts in the history of radio. Parley Baer co-starred as deputy Chester Proudfoot, with Georgia Ellis as saloon owner Kitty Russell, and Howard McNear as Doc Adams. Harry Bartell, Virginia Gregg, John Dehner, Herb Ellis, Vic Perrin, Lawrence Dobkin, Sam Edwards, and Ben Wright were frequently heard in supporting roles. "Gunsmoke was like one big family-a happy family. I have never had the joy we had in any other enterprise I've been involved with," recalled Conrad. "Basically it was a labor of love with everybody concerned," adds Parley Baer. "I never quite felt about any other show. ..like I did about Gunsmoke."

Riders of the Radio Range

Photo: John Dehner starred as reporter J. B. Kendall on Frontier Gentleman and the man called Paladin on Have Gun, Will Travel.

The critical and commercial success of Gunsmoke paved the way for other adult radio Westerns, programs that had more in common with films like High Noon and Shone, and the classic pulp Westerns of Ernest Haycox and Louis L'Amour than the juvenile "horse operas" of the past.

Jimmy Stewart came to the NBC range in The Six Shooter, written by Frank Burt. "The man in the saddle is angular and long-legged; his skin is sun-dyed brown," explained announcer Hal Gibney. "The gun in his holster is grey steel and rainbow mother of pearl...People call them both-The Six Shooter." Stewart portrayed frontier drifter Britt Ponset, an easy-going maverick who inadvertently kept blundering into trouble. The transcribed series ran for only one season, beginning 20 September 1953, and was directed by Jack Johnstone, one of the pioneers of radio drama.

Produced and directed by Gunsmoke's Norman Macdonnell, Fort Laramie debuted over the CBS airwaves on 22 January 1956. Raymond Burr starred as Captain Lee Quince in "tales of the dark and tragic ground of the wild frontier, the saga of fighting men who rode the rim of empire." Burr was supported by Jack Moyles as Major Daggett and Gunsmoke regulars Harry Bartell, Vic Perrin, and Howard McNear. The series featured the same quality of stories and sound effects as Gunsmoke but lacked the melodramatic gunplay of Macdonnell's more popular Western. "But it's a matter of record that in all the years the cavalry was stationed at Fort Laramie, only four troopers died of gunshot wounds." The soldiers' real enemies were "the rugged uncharted country, the heat, the cold, disease, boredom and, perhaps last of all, hostile Indians." Taps blew for Fort Laramie after a too-short, single-season run, but Raymond Burr became a major star the following year as television's Perry Mason.

Frontier Gentleman, starring John Dehner as J. B. Kendall in "an Englishman's account of life and death in the West, came to CBS on 9 February 1958. As a reporter for the London Times, he writes his colorful and unusual accounts. But as a man with a gun, he lives and becomes a part of the violent years in the new territories." Frontier Gentleman was the creation of producer/director Antony Ellis and utilized the same talented radio professionals as Gunsmoke. One of the finest Western dramas ever produced, the show lasted only one season, ending 16 November 1958. But Dehner would ride into another Western series the following week.

From Television to Radio

Have Gun, Will Travel read the business card of the man called Paladin. John Dehner returned to the CBS airwaves on 23 November 1958, portraying the soldier of fortune originated a year earlier by Richard Boone in the popular television series. Dehner was ably supported by Ben Wright as Heyboy.

The man known only as Paladin was a hired gun, performing his good deeds because they paid for his lavish life-style. The West Point graduate, who quoted from the classics and dined on gourmet meals, lived extravagantly at San Francisco's swank Carlton Hotel. Former radio writers Herb Meadow and Sam Rolfe created Have Gun, Will Travel, which galloped into the ranks of television's top five series during its first season and encouraged CBS to bring Paladin's adventures to radio the following fall.

The television show outlasted the radio series by three seasons, but it was the radio version that provided a final denouement for the saga of one of the most fascinating figures in Western drama. Have Gun, Will Travel ended its radio run on 27 November 1958, with Paladin journeying to Boston to claim a $100,000 inheritance. John Dunning noted that "It was an unusual finish to an unusual series - the cowboy riding east into the sunrise."

The Last Roundup

The bugle had sounded, and the Golden Age of radio was coming to an end. One by one the great radio dramas bit the dust, dry-gulched by the new medium of television. Many of the finest radio Westerns had already moved on to the greener pastures of video. By the 1958 television season, viewers could choose from a roster of 37 Western series. Gunsmoke would run for 20 years on television, longer than any other prime-time dramatic series. Matt Dillon continued to keep law and order in Dodge City until the final days of radio drama, riding into the sunset on 18 June 1961. Where had the radio Westerns gone?
They went that-a-way.

-Anthony Tollin-

Sources for the Information in This Booklet

The SPERDVAC Radiogram. The Society to Preserve and Encourage Radio Drama, Variety and Comedy, Los Angeles.
Barabas, SuzAnne and Gabor. Gunsmoke: A Complete History. McFarland, 1990.
Buxton, Frank and Bill Owen. The Big Broadcast Viking, 1972.
Cusic, Don. Cowboys and the Wild West: An A-Z Guide from the Chisholm Trail to the Silver Screen. Facts on File, 1994.
Dinan, John A. The Pulp Western. Borgo Press, 1983.
Dunning, John. Tune in Yesterday. Prentice-Hall, 1976.
French, Jack. "Bobby Benson: An Update." NARA News, Fall 1994.
French, Jack. "Fort Laramie." Radio Recall, August 1996.
Goulart, Ron. Cheap Thrills; An Informal History of the Pulp Magazine. Arlington House, 1972.
Harmon, Jim. Radio Mystery and Adventure and Its Appearances in Film, Television, and Other Media. McFarland, 1992.
Hickerson, Jay. The Ultimate History of Network Radio Programming. Hamden, Conn., 1992.
Holland, Dave. From Out of the Past: A Pictorial History of The Lone Ranger. Holland House, 1988.
O'Neil, Paul. The Old West: The End and the Myth. Time-Life Books, 1979.
Osgood,Dick. WYXIE Wonderland (An Unauthorized 50-Year Diary of WXYZ Detroit).
Bowling Green University and Popular Press, 1981.
Rothel, David. Who Was That Masked Man? A. S Barnes, 1976.
Striker, Fran, Jr. His Typewriter Grew Spurs ...A biography of Fran Striker-Writer. Questco, 1983.
Yoggy, Gary. Riding the Video Range: The Rise and Fall of Westerns on Television. McFarland, 1995.
Interviews with Jackson Beck and Dick Osgood.
The Billy Rose Theater Collection at the New York Library of the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center.
The Buffalo Evening News.
The Sanctum Productions Radio Archives.
Jay Hickerson and the Friends of Old-Time Radio.
Dan Haefele and John Gassman of SPERDVAC.
Harry Bartell, Paul Becton, John Dandola, Fred Shay and Fran Striker, Jr.

About the Author

Anthony Tollin co-authored The Shadow Scrapbook (Harcourt. 1979) with Walter B. Gibson and narrated the recent GAA audio documentary, Voices from the Shadows. He has produced numerous radio cast reunions and seminars during the past 15 years. As an authority on broadcasting, he has been interviewed by the New York Times, CBS, NBC, the Mutual radio network, the Associated Press, and Entertainment Tonight. Tollin has traveled extensively through the West, visiting the sites of the great Indian battles and old frontier towns like Deadwood, Cody, Cheyenne, Tombstone, and Dodge City.

Credits - Radio Spirits

Carl Amari, Executive Producer
Vincent Amari, Assistant
Joel Bogart, Illustrator
Melina Carollo, Assistant
Fred Foy, Writer (foreword)
Larry Gassman, Research Assistant
Craig Harding, Audio Restoration/Mastering Engineer
Karyn Johnson, Assistant
Vicki Kelly, Art Director
Dennis Levin, Project Development/Licensing
Doug McKnight, Librarian
William Nadel, Research Assistant
Pam Randall, Package Designer
Anthony Tollin, Writer
Christina Vrba, Project Manager

Credits - Smithsonian Institution

Bruce Talbot, Executive Producer, Collection of Recordings
Jenelle Walthour, Text Editor
Special thanks to John and Larry Gassman and Martin Halperin.

Copyrights