Radio History: September 22

➦In 1899...Lee DeForest sought employment with Marconi. Lee DeForest de Forest (August 26, 1873 – June 30, 1961) was an American inventor with over 180 patents to his credit. He named himself the "Father of Radio," with this famous quote, "I discovered an Invisible Empire of the Air, intangible, yet solid as granite."

Lee de Forest

In 1906 de Forest invented the Audion, the first triode vacuum tube and the first electrical device which could amplify a weak electrical signal and make it stronger. The Audion, and vacuum tubes developed from it, founded the field of electronics and dominated it for forty years, making radio broadcasting, television, and long-distance telephone service possible, among many other applications. For this reason de Forest has been called one of the fathers of the "electronic age".

He is also credited with one of the principal inventions that brought sound to motion pictures.

De Forest was a charter member of the Institute of Radio Engineers. DeVry University was originally named De Forest Training School by its founder Dr. Herman A. De Vry, who was a friend and colleague of de Forest.

➦In 1899...Hanley Stafford born (Died September 9, 1968) He was an actor principally on radio.

Hanley Stafford

He is remembered best for playing Lancelot Higgins on The Baby Snooks Show. Stafford also assumed the role of Mr. Dithers, the boss of Dagwood Bumstead on the Blondie radio program. He is commemorated by a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

After emigrating to the US in his twenties he became active in radio acting, appearing in show on KFWB, L-A. Beginning in 1937 he became widely known as Lancelot Higgins (“Daddy”) in Fannie Brice’s radio skit, ‘Baby Snooks,’ and as Dagwood’s boss Mr.Dithers on the radio version of the comic strip ‘Blondie.’

Stafford emigrated from England to Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1911. He enlisted in the 43rd Battalion of the Canadian Scottish Infantry in 1915, was wounded in the Third Battle of Yprès in 1916 and returned to England in 1918. Until 1924 he toured Canada in drama productions and landed in Los Angeles that year. He played in stock for eight years and then in tent shows. He was appearing on KFWB radio in Los Angeles by April 1932 then went to Phoenix to manage a stock company, the Delmas-Lawless Players, before returning to Los Angeles to resume stage and radio work the following August.

➦In 1927...NBC Radio's sportscaster Graham McNamee called the famous “Long count” championship fight in which Jack Dempsey lost the heavyweight boxing title to Gene Tunney. He was featured on the cover of the October 3, 1927 issue of Time magazine

➦In 1943...singer Kate Smith ended her War Bond radio appeal. She had been on the air for 13 continuous hours and collected $39 million in bond pledges.

Kate Smith

Smith was a major star of radio, usually backed by Jack Miller's Orchestra. She began with her twice-a-week NBC series, Kate Smith Sings (quickly expanded to six shows a week), followed by a series of shows for CBS: Kate Smith and Her Swanee Music (1931–33), sponsored by La Palina Cigars; The Kate Smith Matinee (1934–35); The Kate Smith New Star Revue (1934–35); Kate Smith's Coffee Time (1935–36), sponsored by A&P; and The Kate Smith A&P Bandwagon (1936–37).

The Kate Smith Hour was a leading radio variety show, offering comedy, music and drama with appearances by top personalities of films and theater for eight years (1937–45).

The show's resident comics, Abbott and Costello and Henny Youngman, introduced their comedy to a nationwide radio audience aboard her show, while a series of sketches based on the Broadway production of the same name led to The Aldrich Family as separate hit series in its own right in 1940.

➦In 1957...the CBS Radio Workshop ended after 18 months of what the critics said was ingenious radio programming. The CBS Radio Workshop was an experimental dramatic radio anthology series that aired starting January 27, 1956.

➦In 1988...103.5 WQHT and 97.1 WYNY switched frequencies in New York City.

➦In 1989...Irving Berlin, one of the greatest songwriters in American history, whose "White Christmas" is one of the top-selling singles of all-time, died in his sleep at the age of 101 in New York City.

Irving Berlin

Berlin composed some 1,500 songs -- including favorites like "God Bless America" and "White Christmas" -- 19 Broadway musicals, and 18 movie scores.

"God Bless Ameria" was also written by Berlin in 1918, he filed it away until 1938, when Kate Smith's manager asked Berlin if he had a patriotic song Smith might sing to mark the 20th anniversary of Armistice Day, celebrating the end of World War I. According to author Sheryl Kaskowitz, who wrote a book about the history of the song, not only was Smith looking for a song to remember veterans of that war, but she was also hoping that there would not be another war, seeing that hostilities and war "tensions in Europe were escalating." It was "a simple plea for divine protection in a dark time—a plangent anthem in just 40 words," adds film writer Richard Corliss.

Berlin's daughter, Mary Ellen Berlin-Barrett, states that the song was actually "very personal" for her father, and was intended as an expression of his deep gratitude to the nation for merely "allowing" him, an immigrant raised in poverty, to become a successful songwriter.

➦In 2003...Alexander Gordon Jump died (Born - April 1, 1932). He was best known as the clueless radio station manager Arthur "Big Guy" Carlson in the TV series WKRP in Cincinnati and the incompetent "Chief of Police Tinkler" in the sitcom Soap.

He also played the "Maytag Repairman" in commercials for Maytag brand appliances, from 1989 until his retirement from the role in July 2003.

➦In 2004…CBS-owned TV stations were fined a total of $550,000 by the Federal Communications Commission for showing Janet Jackson's exposed right breast during the Super Bowl halftime show. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit later voided the fine ruling that the broadcast was legal under the FCC's then-current policy of allowing "fleeting" indecency on the airwaves.

➦In 2011...Radio personality Charles "Chuck" Collier died of a heart attack (Born - May 6, 1947). He was best known for his many years at WGAR-AM and WGAR-FM in Cleveland, OH.

Chuck Collier

He began his broadcasting career shortly after college, bouncing between jobs in Cincinnati, Dayton, and New York City. He came to Cleveland in 1970, where he worked for WGAR 1220 AM, and later its sister station, WGAR 99.5 FM. He served the latter part of his tenure as music director/afternoon drive DJ.

➦In 2012...Howard H. Scott died at age 92 in Reading, PA.  He was a sound engineer and producer credited with helping to develop the LP as part of a team at CBS Laboratories headed by Peter Goldmark.  He also won a Grammy Award for Classical Album of the Year for producing Ives' Symphony No. 1 in collaboration with conductor Morton Gould.

Debby Boone is 67

🎂HAPPY BIRTHDAYS:

• Singer-dancer Toni Basil is 80. 
• Actor Paul Le Mat (“American Graffiti”) is 78. 
• Singer David Coverdale (Whitesnake, Deep Purple) is 72. 
• Actor Shari Belafonte is 69. 
• Singer Debby Boone is 67. 
• Country singer June Forester of The Forester Sisters is 67. 
• Singer Nick Cave is 66. 
• Actor Lynn Herring (“General Hospital”) is 66. 
• Singer Johnette Napolitano of Concrete Blonde is 66. 
• Singer Joan Jett is 65. 
• Opera singer Andrea Bocelli is 65. 
• Actor Scott Baio is 63. 
• Actor Catherine Oxenberg (“Dynasty”) is 62. 
• Actor Bonnie Hunt is 62. 
• Actor Rob Stone (“Mr. Belvedere”) is 61. 
• Actor Dan Bucatinsky (“24: Legacy”) is 58. 
• Bassist-guitarist Dave Hernandez (The Shins) is 53. 
• Rapper Mystikal is 53. 
• Singer Big Rube of Society of Soul is 52. 
• Actor James Hillier (“The Crown”) is 50. 
• Actor Mireille Enos (“World War Z”) is 48. 
• Actor Daniella Alonso (“Revolution,” ″Friday Night Lights”) is 45. 
• Actor Michael Graziadei (“The Young and the Restless”) is 44. 
• Actor Ashley Eckstein (“That’s So Raven,” “Sofia the First”) is 42. 
• Actor Katie Lowes (“Scandal”) is 41. 
• Bassist Will Farquarson of Bastille is 40. 
• Actor Tatiana Maslany (“She-Hulk: Attorney at Law,” “Orphan Black”) is 38. 
• Actor Ukweli Roach (“Blindspot”) is 37. 
• Actor Tom Felton (“Harry Potter” films) is 36. 
• Actor Teyonah Parris (“Mad Men”) is 36.

✞REMEMBRANCES

• In 1987..Dan Rowan, American comedian (Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In), dies at 65
• In 1989..Irving Berlin, Russian-American composer and lyricist considered one of the greatest songwriters in history ("Always"; "God Bless America"; "White Christmas"; "Cheek To Cheek"), dies at 101
• In 1999..George C. Scott, American actor (Dr. Strangelove), dies of a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm at 71
• In 2003..Gordon Jump, American actor (WKRP in Cincinnati - "Arthur Carlson"; Growing Pains - "Ed"; Maytag Repairman), dies of pulmonary fibrosis at 71
• In 2015..Yogi Berra, American Baseball HOF catcher, coach and manager (18 x MLB All-Star; 13 x World Series; NY Yankees; AL MVP 1951, 54, 55), and Purple Heart recipient, dies at 90
• In 2021..Jay Sandrich, American Emmy Award-winning television director (The Mary Tyler Moore Show; Soap; The Cosby Show), dies at 89
• In 2022..2022 John Hartman, American rock drummer (Doobie Brothers, 1970–79 & 1987–92 - "China Grove"), dies at 72