December 20 Radio History

Bob Hope

➦In 1920..English-born comedian Leslie Townes Hope became an American citizen. He had lived in the US since 1908 and became one of that nation’s true ambassadors for show business and charity. We say, “Thanks for the memory,” to Bob Hope.

Hope's career in broadcasting began on radio in 1934. His first regular series for NBC Radio was the Woodbury Soap Hour in 1937, a 26-week contract. A year later, The Pepsodent Show Starring Bob Hope began, and Hope signed a ten-year contract with the show's sponsor, Lever Brothers. Hope hired eight writers and paid them out of his salary of $2,500 a week. The original staff included Mel Shavelson, Norman Panama, Jack Rose, Sherwood Schwartz, and Schwartz's brother Al. The writing staff eventually grew to fifteen.  The show became the top radio program in the country. Regulars on the series included Jerry Colonna and Barbara Jo Allen as spinster Vera Vague. Hope continued his lucrative career in radio through to the 1950s, when radio's popularity was overshadowed by television.

Charita Bauer

➦In 1922...radio/TV actress Charita Bauer was born in Newark.  While she had participated in 2,000 dramatic radio broadcasts by 1944, her most memorable role was as the soap opera Guiding Light’s Bert Bauer for 35 years, first on radio & later television.  She died of complications from diabetes Feb. 28 1985 at age 62.

➦In 1939...Radio Australia began its overseas short-wave service.



➦In 1957...Elvis Presley received his draft notice from the U.S. Army. He immediately applied for, and was granted, a 60-day deferment that allowed him to complete the filming of "King Creole."

➦In 1971...Talk show host Larry King was arrested in Miami on charges of grand larceny. He'd accepted money on a promise of influence he couldn't deliver, and didn't have the money to pay it back. The charges were eventually dropped because the statute of limitations ran out. King pled guilty to passing a bad check, however, and was out of radio for three years.

Foster Brooks

➦In 2001...comedian Foster Brooks, known for his “Lovable Lush” fake drunk act, died in Encino, Calif. of heart failure at age 89.  He had been a regular on the Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts, Match Game PM, and just about every TV talk show.  His career started in radio, notably with WHAS-AM in Louisville. He was a staff announcer, and his deep baritone voice was also well-suited for singing. Brooks gained fame for his reporting of the Ohio River flood of 1937, where he was featured on emergency broadcasts by WHAS and also WSM-AM from Nashville, Tennessee. In 1952, Brooks appeared on local TV in a short-lived spoof of Gene Autry and his "Singing Cowboys".  He later worked in local broadcasting as a radio and TV personality in Buffalo and Rochester, New York, before moving to the West Coast to launch a career as a stand-up comic and character actor.

➦In 2002...WRAL Mix 101.5 FM became the first licensed commercial radio station on the east coast to broadcast in HD Radio.

Les Tremayne

➦In 2003...Les Tremayne died. Tremayne was a leading man during Radio's Golden Era.  On radio during the 1930s and 1940s, Tremayne was heard in as many as 45 shows a week. Replacing Don Ameche, he starred in The First Nighter Program from 1936 to 1942. He starred in The Adventures of the Thin Man and The Romance of Helen Trent during the 1940s. He also starred in the title role in The Falcon, and played detective Pat Abbott in The Abbott Mysteries in 1946–47.

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Tremayne was married four times. He did a morning talk show: The Tremaynes with his second wife, Alice Reinhardt. When Tremayne died in 2003, he was married to his fourth wife, Joan.  Tremayne was once named one of the three most distinctive voices on American radio. The other two were Bing Crosby and President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

➦In 2014…Longtime Nashville radio and television personality (WSM-AM, WSM-TV, WKRN-TV) Teddy Bart died at age 78.

Teddy Bart

Bart was the personality on several shows during his career, including long-running hits such as the "Waking Crew" on WSM 650 AM radio, the "Noon Show" and "Teddy Bart's Nashville" on WSM-TV, and "Teddy Bart's Round Table" with co-host Karlen Evins on a number of radio stations. He was also a news anchor for WKRN-TV.

"It was like Johnny Carson asking you to be on his show," said David Ewing, a lawyer and Nashville historian who was on "Round Table" several times. Local politicans and business leaders tuned into the show, and guests would often have messages waiting for them when they got back to work after an appearance, Ewing said.

The shows tackled local news and issues with lively yet civil debate.

Bart's legacy in Nashville loomed large in the broadcast community even after he retired, and he was inducted into the Tennessee Radio Hall of Fame in May 2014.