----- Original Message -----
From: Jack Bivans
To: Don Frey
Sent: Friday, November 01, 2002 10:03 AM
Subject: Radio Days #2
It was nice hearing from you last week. Where did you live in Evanston for so many years? I lived near Elmwood and Dobson just north of Howard St. and a block east of Ridge with my first wife from 1949 to 1958. She had lived with her family at 2243 Orrington and was a graduate of Northwestern. I went to NU for three and a half years after my time in the Air Corps during WWII.
Jack and Jill Players in Chicago was a heady experience. I soon learned how much I didn't know about acting. The school was owned by Marie Agnes Foley, a patient and kind Irish Catholic single woman of about 50 years old. Miss Foley had four teachers specializing in different aspects of theatre and radio art. There were approximately 125 students attending classes on different days after school, with about 60 of us there at any one time, ranging in age from three or four years old to about sixteen. All the younger students had their Mothers in tow who would sit in a room together and compare notes about what their children were doing professionally. It was a very nice place, with a small stage and several rooms where different classes were held by the teachers. Tuition was $25 a month.
I was immediately cast in a children's play called "Cinderella and Her Cat". I played the cat and had no lines, just jumping around, being petted by Cinderella and meowing from under her table. But the surprising thing to my Mother and me was that Miss Foley rented out the Civic Theatre in Chicago's Civic Opera House building where performances of the J&J plays were given on Saturday afternoons, each play running for four weeks. The shows were advertised in the newspapers and generally had from two to three hundred paid attendees of kids and their parents who took them to see the shows. This was another way Miss Foley earned money while giving her students stage acting instruction and live experience in front of an audience. The plays were rehearsed at J&J and the costumes were sewed by our Mothers for these non-paid performances. Miss Foley personally taught stage acting and produced the shows, teaching us how to move on a stage without turning our back to the audience, the art of upstaging other actors, how to take the key light for your lines, projecting our voices to the balcony and the art of stage makeup (which in those days was done with a set of grease sticks and powder our parents had to buy). Evenings at home, in addition to grammar school homework, my Mother would drill me on learning my lines for the current Civic Theatre play we were doing. I loved it!
Other classes it was mandatory for we students to attend included diction, sight reading (training in the ability to be handed a cold script never seen before and begin reading it aloud with feeling without fluffing a line), how to distinguish between important words or lines that were necessary to moving the plot along with emphasis and lines that were "throwaways", just in the story for fillers and relatively unimportant. In other words, to sound like people talk.
These classes and others were taught by professional actors and singers who were in the stage or radio shows of Chicago during those days, and they taught us well. I soon found out many of my fellow students were also professionals working on radio soap operas, kid shows and nighttime dramatic shows originating from the city with several of them earning more than $100 weekly. That was really big money during those days. I was 12 years old by then and I wanted to be like them.
Next week I'll tell you about my break into the professional acting world. This is enough for now, Don.
Best regards' Jack
----- ----- Original Message -----
From: Jack Bivans
To: Don Frey
Sent: Saturday, November 09, 2002 10:50 AM
Subject: Radio Days #3
Dear Don,
I enjoyed hearing about your time in Evanston and your parents. Winifred Ward was a well respected professor at Northwestern when I went to the School of Speech during the years after the war. You mentioned Van Heflin being a student at Yale when your mother was there. He was one of my favorite film actors! Billy Idelson, who played the part of Rush, the boy on Vic and Sade, was a good friend of mine and a very nice guy. Although I don't remember him from Jack & Jill, we became friends from my days of working on shows on NBC where his show originated from the 19th floor of the Merchandise Mart . When he was about to go into the service, Charlie Urquhardt, the director of Vic and Sade during those days, held auditions of juveniles to replace Billy on the show and I won the part. But when Charlie asked me what my draft status was, I had to tell him I had enlisted in the Air Corps and would be called to active duty in six months. That ended my consideration for the part of Rush and another younger boy was selected.
During the first week of March 1939, my mother and I were talking with Miss Foley about a costume for an upcoming Civic Theatre production. It was late in the afternoon, around 6pm, and my mother and I were the only two people left at J&J when Miss Foley's phone rang. She answered while we were standing beside her desk and we could immediately see she was distressed. We heard her say, " I'm terribly sorry Mr. Wallace. I can't imagine where he is! Don't worry, I have another boy here who'll do a fine job for you and I'll send him right over. He'll be there in fifteen minutes." She hung up the phone and turned to me.
Miss Foley explained that a boy she had supplied for a recording job hadn"t shown up and that she was going to send me to replace him. She said, "Do you have a pencil?' I said "No."
She handed me a sharpened yellow pencil and told me how to mark the script I would be handed by Mr. Wallace. Then she turned to my mother and told her to take me in a cab over to World Broadcasting, a recording studio in those days at the corner of Ohio and DeWitt.
Miss Foley told me how far to stand from the mike and cautioned me to speak quietly and not project like I had been taught for stage productions. If my mother or I were asked to see my union card or Social Security card, Miss Foley told us to say they were at home and the information would be called into Mr. Wallace's office tomorrow. Then she told my mother to keep me out of school the next day and take me to AFRA (American Federation of Radio Artists) and join the union. Also, get me a Social Security card. Finally, she handed my mother what turned out to be a contract giving J&J 10% of my earnings as my agent for the next three years and told my mother to have my father and her sign it and drop it off at J&J the next day. We want out and caught a cab to World Broadcasting.
When I got to the studio, Mr. Wallace gave me a script and I marked the part of "Boy". The announcer for the one minute spot was Franklin McCormick and there was an adult actor who played my father. The spot was for the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad and I played this boy who was taken by his father to Yellowstone Park to see Old Faithful blow its geyser. When the sound man played the loud eruption, I had to say, "Gee Dad, there she blows!" That was all. Just five words and I did it with enthusiasm. A star was born.
I'll pick this up next time, Don.
Best regards,
Jack
----- Original Message -----
From: Jack Bivans
To: Don Frey
Sent: Saturday, November 16, 2002 3:07 PM
Subject: Radio Days #4
Dear Don,
I haven't seen the 19th floor of the Merchandise Mart since, at least, 1960 so I have no idea what may be located there now since NBC built and moved into their own building on north Columbus Drive adjacent to the north side of the Chicago River. In fact, when I go into the city every few months, I'm always amazed at all the new buildings I haven't noticed before.
Frank McCormick became a friend of mine after WWII. At that time, as you know, he was a staff announcer on WGN radio and was well known for his nightly long-form music and conversation program. During those years he was also in demand as a Chicago freelance announcer. One of the shows he was doing in those days was "Jack Armstrong" as the spokesperson for Wheaties, the sponsor of the program. One day, when I was leaving my car in a lot behind the Wrigley building, I bumped into Frank and he asked me if I had brought home a parachute after my two year stint in the Air Corps. He owned a small plane during those days and was looking for a chute. I told him I did have my service chute and he could have it. He wanted to pay me for it but I gave it to him as a gift a few weeks later. About a month after that when I ran into him again he said he couldn't get the chute repacked because it was such a new, quick- release, over- water model and had not yet been released by the government for private use. We continued our friendship thru the years until I went straight and got out of acting and went to work at a job.
After doing my first professional work on that Chicago & Northwestern spot during the first week of March 1939, the only other paid job I got that entire year was another spot for the railroad a few months later when Mr. Wallace hired me again thru Miss Foley. During the rest of that year, I continued my classes at J&J and, as one of Miss Foley's contract kids, was sent on a variety of auditions for radio parts in soap operas but I always lost to other kids in her stable who were better. For example, say, the director of "Backstage Wife" would call Miss Foley and say, " I've got a part coming into the show for a 13 year old blind boy. I don't know how long the part will run, but the writer tells me the kid will be involved for at least 8 weeks. I'd like to hold auditions on Tuesday afternoon, so please send over six or eight boys who can sound like they're 13." Miss Foley was known in those days as having the clearing house for talented kid actors, and was supplying 90% of all juvenile and ingénue actors who were under contract to her. Those were tearful days for me, losing one audition after another. `But Miss Foley kept counseling my mother and me, offering words of encouragement and advice.
By 1940, when I was still 14, I finally snagged a small, short-running part on "Painted Dreams", which boosted my self confidence and I was off and running doing mostly commercials, like kids in the Ovaltine spots on "Little Orphan Annie", which Pierre Andre announced. Later that same year, after I had turned 15, I auditioned for the leading part on what was to become a weekly, nighttime one- hour show originating from the WGN audience studio on Michigan Avenue and broadcast to the 500 plus stations of the Mutual Network. The show was called "The Adventures of Lew Loyal" and I was chosen to play Lew. The show started a few weeks later in conjunction with a new daily Chicago Tribune comic strip of the same name and the full publicity resources of that paper were put behind the show and the strip. It was broadcast every Friday night from the stage of that huge studio, with Robert Trendler and his 36 piece orchestra playing the opening and closing theme and transitions between scenes. There were always around 600 screaming kids (many were Tribune carriers) in the audience and we actors were dressed in formal wear. My folks bought me my first tux for it. America was on the verge of entering the European war and "Lew Loyal" was about spies and other axis characters. My girlfriend in the story was "Betsy True" and we were on adventures with "Uncle Mack" who was with the FBI, played by Bret Morrison, a gifted actor who also played "The Shadow".
It was the Chicago Tribune publicity department, under orders from Robert R. McCormick, the paper's owner, that put me on the Chicago radio map as a player. With columns about the show and photos of me in conjunction with it, the radio directors in the city soon became aware of me as I won more and more of their auditions. The "Lew Loyal" show lasted six months, to just before we entered World War II, but I was being called regularly for shows and there were no more tears.
More next time, Don.
Best regards,
Jack
----- Original Message -----
From: Jack Bivans
To: Don Frey
Sent: Saturday, November 23, 2002 11:58 AM
Subject: Radio Days #5
Dear Don,
When I graduated from grammar school in 1940, a few months before my 14th birthday in August, my mother took me to Senn High School to register as a student beginning that Fall. My mother and I explained to Senn's principal that I was a radio actor and would have to be excused from school on an irregular basis to do occasional shows. Senn would hear none of that, telling us that the Chicago public school system would not permit such absenteeism. Next, we tried St. Gregory's high school, figuring the Nuns would be more lenient. They weren't. When we explained this problem to Miss Foley, she said to take me to Mundelein Cathedral High School located at State and Wabash in Chicago, a short distance from Jack & Jill.
Miss Foley explained that the Nuns over there were used to working schedules around child actors saying, "That's where the kids go that come into town with a Broadway show touring company such as Life With Father, Lute Song and The Man Who Came To Dinner. They'll work with your schedule." And they did. It was not unusual for me to hear a page to report to the Mother Superior's office. When I got there Sr. Adolina would say, for example, "Your Mother just called and you're to be at NBC for an audition at 1pm. Do you have cab fare?" If I didn't, she'd reach into her cassock and pull out a few dollars for a taxi. I'd pay her back the next time I'd be there, which would sometimes be several days later if I got involved in making a sales training Film up at Wilding Films on Argyle Street in Rogers Park. The only school deal was that my folks and I knew I'd have to make up any missed school work. Mornings my mother would drive me to the head end of the bus stop on Howard St. and I'd catch the double-deck Outer Drive Ltd. at 7am to go to Mundelein Cathedral High. It was a terrific life!
I first met Fern Persons when I was 16. She was a well-known star of many different soap operas and nighttime shows originating from Chicago. By that time, I also had many show credits, including a five day a week contract part as the boy on Capt. Midnight. That show originated from the Blue Network then, from the 19th floor of the Merchandise Mart. One of Fern's many shows was a soap named "Helpmate" in which she played the lead. I auditioned for and got a part of a teenager in the story that was the boyfriend of Fern's daughter in the series. We went on NBC's Red Network early in the morning, around 9:15am. I split rehearsal time with another show I was on in an adjacent studio, "Road Of Life", that was broadcast at 9am. In Road, I played a cracked voice kid called Donald Duzum in the commercials for a soap called Duz and doubled in another part I played for a while as Junior Stephenson, Jim Brent's adopted son. Then I'd go to school until 2pm , unless my mother called, when I'd head back to the Mart for Capt. Midnight's rehearsal.
Thru the years, Fern and I worked many shows together, some as her son and, in others, as her husband when I got older. Incidentally, Fern called me last Wednesday night. As a co-chairperson of AFTRA's Senior Committee, she was trying to line up senior guests that had worked in Chicago radio during those early years. Milt Rosenberg was going to devote his nightly WGN radio two-hour interview show to the early days of radio originating from the city.
I had to pass on the interview for the same reason she did. Neither of us see well enough to drive long distances at night. I suppose she found others for the show which was broadcast last night, Friday, November 22nd from 9 to 11pm. No, I didn't hear it. I was toes up! I told Fern we were corresponding via e-mail and she volunteered that you had been kind enough to send her a show she had been on with Raymond Massey. She said she was going to send you a few more "Unshackled" CD's.
Don, I once calculated that I had done around 10,000 network radio broadcasts during 62 years, frequently being heard on as many as five different programs fed thru four networks beamed over 800 stations each day. Among them were "Houseboat Hannah", "The Guiding Light", "Romance of Helen Trent", "Ma Perkins" (in which I played Ma's Nephew, Junior Fitz, for several years), "Uncle Walter's Doghouse", "Hot Copy", "Author's Playhouse", "The Shadow", The Hermit", "Crime Files of Flammond", " Meet The Meeks", "The First Line", "America In The Air", "Sky King" (in which I played Clipper King, Sky's Nephew, for five years after Capt. Midnight's eight year run), and Arch Obler's "Lights Out".
When I was on Capt. Midnight, Ovaltine had not yet started marketing the drink during the summer months. They only thought of it as a cold weather beverage. Therefore, they'd drop Midnight during the summer by putting the show on hiatus for 13 weeks. That's when my friend Jim Jewell, who wrote and produced "Jack Armstrong", would hire me for his show. During the 39 weeks of Midnight we were in conflict with Armstrong on airtime.
I could keep going on this, Don, but I think this is enough for my one-finger, hunt and peck typing for today.
Best regards,
Jack
----- Original Message -----
From: Jack Bivans
To: Don Frey
Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2003 2:32 PM
Subject: Radio Days
Dear Don,
I'm glad you enjoyed my reminiscences about the old radio days in Chicago. In answer to your questions, although I have personally not returned to the studio locations of NBC when it occupied the 19th and 20th floors of the Merchandise Mart, I've been told that those areas now house offices. Same with the 11th floor of the Tribune Building where WGN had some of its studios located in those days. Why don't you take an elevator ride to those places the next time you're in Chicago? If you let me know when your coming, I'll ride with you!
Regarding WBBM, during those days they were located on the 1st and 2nd floors of the Wrigley Building's north tower. Their main audience studio was located on the 1st floor starting about half way back and running to the rear of the building on the south side of the elevator corridor. It seated about 300-350 people with a large stage in the front end. The control room was built above the audience on the 2nd floor, from where it had access, like a pier jutting out over the first 10 rows of the seating down below. This studio housed shows like "The First Nighter", "The Brewster Boy", "The Whistler" and Glenn Miller's nightly traveling Chesterfield show when it was in town. There were other audience shows that I've forgotten. Two other smaller studios were also located on the 1st floor on the north side of the elevator corridor. They were the originating point for soap operas such as "Ma Perkins", for one of its two daily broadcasts ( the 'BBM show was a CBS repeat of the first daily airing earlier on NBC with the same cast ). Boy, that was a good show to work because it paid we actors for the two daily shows we did on two different networks! I had a good run as Ma's grandson, Junior Fitz, for several months before I was called to active duty with the Air Force. It cost Oxydol a bundle during the 20 years they sponsored the show, but it paid them dividends!
There were also 1 and two hour weekend patriotic shows that originated from these studios, "America In The Air", "The First Line" and others. The director of those shows gave all actors that went into the Service a standing call to just show up at his studio when we were home on leave and he'd give us part of one of the lines of another actor on the show so we could make $80 for our appearance in the cast. That was his way of helping Servicemen and women make a few bucks. The sponsor, Wrigley's Gum, didn't mind the director padding the cast because they didn't have hardly any gum to sell in America. Practically all the gum made was scooped up by contract with the government for the Service people all over the world.
The 2nd floor of the Wrigley Building was occupied by all the WBBM executive offices, including Frank and Les Atlas who owned WBBM during those days before they sold out to CBS. (They had a fetish about women with red hair and only hired red haired, good looking babes for their reception desks). Les Atlas had a large yacht named "Sis" berthed in Lake Michigan at Belmont Harbor and he was fond of taking a few of the red heads out for a several hour afternoon "cruise". Some people were heard to say, " I hope she can walk on water to get home!" There were also three studios on that floor that housed soap operas I worked on such as "Step Mother" and others. But the real fun was watching which red head was going to be initiated that day.
Well, friend, you asked me a few simple questions and I wrote an epistle. Until next time,
Best regards,
Jack
----- Original Message -----
From: Jim Widner
To: jbivans@wi.rr.com
Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2006 8:16 PM
Subject: Captain Midnight Question
Hi Jack,
I haven't spoken to you in a long time. I am the guy who has the web
site and you graciously sent me photos that I included on the site, etc.
Anyway, I have a question I was wondering if you can answer:
When you broadcast Captain Midnight, was it at the WGN studios?
Would you happen to know if the Skelley Oil version was also done at the
WGN studios? The Skelley version was syndicated to a regional market
and prepared in Chicago. I am not sure if it was actually transcribed at
WGN and that is one of the things I am trying to find out.
Thanks, and I hope things are well for you.
Jim Widner
Webmaster
Radio Days
http://www.otr.com
Re: Captain Midnight Question
Jim,
Nice to hear from you! No, when Skelly Oil sponsored the 15 minute show for syndication it was recorded on 16 inch glass discs at a studio in an office building on LaSalle Street and Wacker Drive. The name of the ad agency in those days was Blackett, Sample & Hummert, primarily owned by Frank and Anne Hummert who were noted soap opera writers of their day.
Then, when Ovaltine became the sponsor and they put it on the radio network for coast-to-coast broadcast, it was aired live in the midwest time zone at 5:30pm on the NBC owned Blue Network from the 19th floor of their studios in the Merchandise Mart. When I joined the cast as "Chuck Ramsey" in 1942 that's where it originated daily, Monday thru Friday. However, the U.S. Government, after several years of ongoing litigation, made NBC sell their Blue Network because it was a "monopoly to own two networks". ( NBC owned the Blue and Red Networks) . That's when Ovaltine moved the show to the Mutual Broadcasting Network (MBS) to keep the same broadcast time period. At that time is when WGN became the origination point because they were the MBS affiliate in Chicago.
At the age of 17, I had enlisted in the Army Air Corps and was called to active duty in 1943 after I had turned 18 when the show was still on the Blue Network. When I returned from the war in 1946, and resumed my role on Midnight, it had moved to WGN for MBS Network origination in their studios then located on the 11th floor of the Tribune building at 5:30pm daily which Ovaltine insisted upon. The ad agency was then Hill Blackett. "Tom Mix" aired right after Midnight from studios across the hall from us.
Hope this clears things up for you.
Best regards,
Jack
----- Original Message -----
From: Jack Bivans
To: Jim Widner
Sent: Thursday, September 28, 2006 9:28 AM
Subject: Regarding "Captain Midnight"
Jim,
I forgot to mention that when NBC was forced to sell their Blue Network it was bought by a new firm called American Broadcasting Company which was the big time beginning of ABC. NBC dropped the "Red Network" designation for their one remaining network after the sale of Blue and just called it NBC. They continued broadcasting from the 19th and 20th floors of the Merchandise Mart until they constructed their own new Chicago building several years ago at Lake Shore Drive and the Chicago River.
Jack
----- Original Message -----
From: Jim Widner
To: Jack Bivans
Sent: Friday, September 29, 2006 7:43 PM
Subject: Re: Regarding "Captain Midnight"
Thanks again for your help. One more question: did you ever perform
opposite Bill Bouchey on Capt. Midnight? I don't have you working on
the show at the same time. And further verification for me would be to
ask if Kirby Hawkes directed the show while you portraying Chuck.
Reason for the question is that there is a photo which I had identified
as Hawkes, You and Prentiss. But someone told me it wasn't Prentiss but
rather Bouchey. It could look like Bouchey, but I don't think it is.
The photo can be found at http://www.otr.com/cm_cast.shtml
It is opposite some pics you had sent to me. It looks like you in the photo.
By the way, if you are interested, I was finally able to id some of the
other Chuck Ramsey actors during the Skelly years: Jules Getlin
(1938-1939), Dolph Nelson (1939-1940), Billy Rose (1940-1942). So if
that photo isn't you (or Johnny Coons) then it has to be one of them.
But the photo also shows the Mutual logo on the mic, so that is why I
believe it is you.
Thanks for the help.
Jim
----- Original Message -----
From: Jack Bivans
To: Jim Widner
Sent: Saturday, September 30, 2006 9:08 AM
Subject: Capt. Midnight
Jim,
The only other actor I recognized from those photos on your site was Dolf Nelson, a nice guy who was a fringe actor I knew because he dated a friend of mine who played the lead girl on Jack Armstrong. Her name was Sarah Jane Wells and I'd run into them occasionally at places on Rush Street or at The Actor's Club. The last time I saw Dolf was in Hollywood
after the war. He was a gofer for John Goodell, the M.C. for a big network game show. I was on the coast doing an industrial film and we had lunch together at the Brown Derby.
Don Gordon and his wife and I were friends for years. You probably know that he was the announcer for Ralston Cereal, sponsors of Tom Mix for many years. I saw him almost daily because Mix aired across the hall from Midnight on the 11th floor of the Tribune building and we'd swap stories
during rehearsal breaks. I'd also occasionally run into Don at the Boul Mich bar across Michigan Avenue from the Tribune for many years after both of our shows silently died.
Regarding Binyon's comment about Prentiss' mustache, he's wrong again.. Like a lot of guys, there was a period when Ed started to grow one. He kept it until his wife, Ivah, told him that was enough. After doing
almost 10,000 broadcasts during a 17 year span, I don't recall ever meeting Conrad Binyon but I must say he apparently set himself up as the Chicago early radio guru. Was he an actor?
Best,
Jack
----- Original Message -----
From: Jim Widner
To: Jack Bivans
Sent: Saturday, September 30, 2006 8:14 AM
Subject: Re: "Capt. Midnight"
Thanks, once again and I will make the corrections. Don Gordon was, for (as far as I have found, so far) the announcer for the Skelly run of Captain Midnight. As you mention he was replaced by Pierre Andre when the Wander Company took over sponsorship of the series with its Ovaltine product.
I suppose you didn't recognize any of those other Skelly actors by any chance from your time in Chicago? Dolph Nelson, Jules Getlin? I was able to find that info from Newspaper archives, but I haven't been able to find any more info on those two actors.
It was Binyon, as I recall, who told me the photo was Bouchey. He claimed that Prentiss never had a mustache as did Bouchey.
Thanks.
Jim
Jack Bivans wrote:
Jim,
Here are your answers for the questions posed in your email of yesterday on this subject.
Bill Bouchey played the part of Capt. Midnight during the time it was sponsored by Skelly Oil in Syndication. I never worked with him on the Network version sponsored by Ovaltine. Once it moved out of syndication to the NBC Blue Network for coast-to-coast daily airing, the story line of the show was reformatted with Ed Prentiss playing the title role. The director, Alan Wallace, hired me to replace Billy Rose when he was drafted into the service in early 1942. Marilou Neumayer played Joyce and Hugh Studebaker, a wonderful guy and excellent actor played Ichabod Mudd. The four of us were the regular cast.
When I was about to be called to active duty on Feb.3, 1943 in what was then called the Army Air Corps, I recommended to Alan Wallace that he replace me in the cast with my good friend Johnny Coons who wasn't eligible for service due to medical problems. Johnny returned the favor by resigning his Midnight role as Chuck Ramsey the day I was discharged on April 6, 1946 and I resumed the role. The show had moved to Mutual Broadcasting System (MBS) by then and originated from WGN studios in the Tribune Building because WGN was the Chicago affiliate of MBS. Alan Wallace was gone as the director and, in his place, was an Englishman named Kirby Hawks, with whom I got along famously. In fact, I named my first born son "Kirby". Whoever (Connrad Binyon?)told you that was Bouchey in the photo with Hawkes and me has to be senile or have terrible eyesight. It's Ed Prentiss. You can change the Photo credit back to Ed, deleting Bouchey.
Hawkes directed the show until Ovaltine dropped their sponsorship and it went off the air for good in the summer of 1949. By that time my friend Johnny Coons had been working as Clipper King, the boy lead on a relatively new kid's adventure radio show called Sky King (also aired daily over WGN's MBS affiliation). About six months later, in early 1950, Johnny resigned that role to start an NBC-TV Chicago originated daily 1 hour tv show called "Uncle Johnny Coons" which became a big hit with the kids and ran for several years. When Johnny resigned his radio role on Sky King he suggested to the director, Roy Windsor, to replace him as Clipper King with me and Windsor did. Johnny reciprocated the favor I did for him in 1943 by recommending him for my role on Capt. Midnight.
My five years on Sky King, until it folded in favor of a television version shot in Hollywood with a younger and thinner cast, were among the highlights of my life. Earl Nightingale played Sky, I played his nephew Clipper King, Beryl Vaughn (Ken Nordine's wife) played Sky's niece, Penny King, and Cliff Soubier played Jim Bell, the comedy relief who most always stepped on a twig making a noise just as we were sneaking up on the villain. Mike Wallace was the announcer for Derby Food's Peter Pan Peanut Butter. Mike and I became fast friends working together every day for five years. He was at my wedding with his wife at the time, Buff Cobb.
Speaking of announcers, I notice you 've displayed a photo of Don Gordon under that title courtesy of Conrad Binyon. Was Don the announcer for the Capt. Midnight syndicated show? Ovaltine was in love with Pierre Andre and always had him do their commercials both on the Blue Network and for years on MBS.
Thanks for writing, Jim. If you have more questions, don't hesitate to ask.
Best regards,
Jack
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