Radio History: January 25

➦In 1910...Actress/dancer/radio personality Portland Hoffa was born in Portland, Oregon. After beginning a career in vaudeville she became known nationally as Fred Allen‘s wife and performing partner on his network radio series (1932-49). She died of natural causes on Christmas Day 1995 at age 85.

NY Times headline 1915

➦In 1915...Alexander Graham Bell in New York spoke to his assistant Thomas Watson in San Francisco, inaugurating America’s first transcontinental telephone service.

Lead paragraph of Times story

➦In 1916...radio/TV script writer Les Crutchfield was born. He became a prolific writer for Gunsmoke on both radio and television and wrote frequently for the CBS radio shows, Suspense, Escape, Yours Truly Johnny Dollar, Romance and Fort Laramie, popular during the 1940s and 50s. He died while still quite young Oct. 6 1966 at age 50.

➦In 1919...Radio, TV newsman Edwin Newman was born. He died August 13, 2010 at 91.

➦In 1920...radio/TV announcer Roy Rowan was born in Paw Paw, Michigan. He is best remembered as the warm-up guy and announcer for all of Lucille Ball’s TV shows over two decades, but is also fondly recalled as the announcer for “People Are Funny” and especially “Gunsmoke” on radio, and “I Married Joan,” “Rawhide,” “Simon and Simon,” “Magnum, P.I.,” “The Lonesome Dove” miniseries and “Dallas” on television. He died of heart failure May 10 1998 at age 78.

➦In 1937... the first 15-minute broadcast of the daytime serial “The Guiding Light” aired on NBC Radio; it holds the record as the longest-running story line in soap opera history. The show remained on radio until 1956. “The Guiding Light” began its long run on CBS-TV in 1952, and signed off for the last time in 2009.

➦In 1944...a black maid named Beulah (played by a white man, Marlin Hunt) joined the “Fibber McGee and Molly” radio show for the first time. A spinoff show, “Beulah”, became a radio series in 1945. But it didn’t last long .. Hurt died a year later.

➦In 1961... just five days after his inauguration President John F. Kennedy held his first press conference at The White House. It was the first such event to be broadcast live on radio & TV.

➦In 1964...the Beatles reached the #1 spot on North American music charts, as their hit single, “I Want to Hold Your Hand”, grabbed the top position in “Cash Box” magazine.

➦In 1999…Radio, TV announcer/radio newsman Ted Mallie died at age 74.

Mallie started at WOR-Mutual Radio in New York in the mid-1940s. There, he announced on such programs as John Steele, Adventurer and I Love a Mystery. He is perhaps better-known to old-time radio buffs, however, as the final announcer for The Shadow during its last two seasons (1953–1954) on the air.

Following the end of WOR's affiliation with Mutual in 1959, Mallie remained with the station as announcer, handling such duties for, and occasionally serving as newsman on, the Long John Nebel and Jean Shepherd shows. After WOR's FM outlet (now WRKS-FM) launched its progressive rock format on July 30, 1966, he even served a spell as a disc jockey for a time, due to a strike by its regular disc jockeys that lasted until October of that year.

Not long afterward, Mallie gravitated towards the station's TV outlet (now WWOR-TV), where he handled station identifications, promos, bumpers and program introductions, most notably for their long-running Million Dollar Movie and horror-movie series Fright Night. By the time Channel 9 moved its studios to Secaucus, New Jersey in 1986, three years after they transferred their city of license there, he and Phil Tonken were the last of the WOR radio announcers from the old-time radio era to still be employed at the station. His last major announcing duties for channel 9 included handling voice-overs for the children's show Steampipe Alley, and announcing for The Richard Bey Show.

Mallie's announcing career at WWOR ended in 1994.

Dinah Manoff is 68

🎂HAPPY BIRTHDAYS:

• Country singer Claude Gray is 92. 
• Actor Leigh Taylor-Young (“Peyton Place,” ″Soylent Green”) is 79. 
• Actor Dinah Manoff (film’s “Grease,” TV’s “Empty Nest”) is 68. 
• Actor Jenifer Lewis (“The Preacher’s Wife”, “The PJ’s”) is 67. 
• Drummer Mike Burch of River Road is 58. 
• Singer Kina (Brownstone) is 55. 
• Actor-TV personality China Kantner is 53. 
• Actor Ana Ortiz (“Devious Maids,” ″Ugly Betty”) is 53. 
• Drummer Joe Sirois of Mighty Mighty Bosstones is 52. 
• Guitarist Matt Odmark of Jars of Clay is 50. 
• Actor Mia Kirshner (“The L Word,” “24”) is 49. 
• Actor Christine Lakin (“Family Guy,” “Step By Step”) is 45. 
• Singer Alicia Keys is 44. 
• Actor Michael Trevino (“The Vampire Diaries”) is 39. 
• Bassist Calum Hood of 5 Seconds to Summer is 28. 
• Actor Olivia Edward (“Better Things”) is 17.

✞REMEMBRANCES

• In 1947..Al Capone, Gangster (Chicago bootlegging), dies of a stroke complicated by pneumonia after suffering from late-stage syphilis of neurosyphilis at 48
• In 1990..Ava Gardner, Actress (Barefoot Contessa, On the Beach), dies of pneumonia at 67
• In 2017..Mary Tyler Moore, Emmy Award-winning actress (The Dick Van Dyke Show - "Laura"; The Mary Tyler Moore Show; Ordinary People), dies at 80
• In 2023..Cindy Williams, American actress (Laverne & Shirley - "Shirley; American Graffiti), dies at 75