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Minerva Pious
Minerva Pious (March 5, 1903 – March 16, 1979) was an American radio, television and film actress. She was best known as the malaprop-prone Pansy Nussbaum in Fred Allen's famous "Allen's Alley" current-events skits. In his book, ''Treadmill to Oblivion'', Allen called Pious "the most accomplished woman dialectitian ever to appear in radio." Early years Minnie Pious, as she was originally known, was born in Odessa, Russian Empire, and moved to the United States with her parents when she was 2 years old, becoming a U.S. citizen in 1918 through her naturalized citizen father. She attended high school in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where she was active in the Players Club dramatic organization. An article in the December 6, 1919 issue of the ''Bridgeport Telegram'' reported "Miss Minerva Pious delighted the school with her dramatic reading" and added "Miss Pious has given very many successful story readings through the past year and will continue the community work." Pious's excel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charlie Cantor
Charles Cantor (September 4, 1898–September 11, 1966) was an American radio and TV actor. Cantor was known for his frequent appearances on radio, sometimes, totaling 40 shows a week, during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. Cantor also appeared in nearly 30 television shows between 1951 and 1965. Cantor's most notable roles on radio were those of Socrates Mulligan on the "Allen's Alley" segments of ''The Fred Allen Show'', Clifton Finnegan on ''Duffy's Tavern'' and as Logan Jerkfinkel on ''The Jack Benny Program''. Cantor also was the second of three actors to portray Abie Levy's father Solomon Levy on ''Abie's Irish Rose#Radio, Abie's Irish Rose''. Cantor was not related to comedian Eddie Cantor (whose real last name was Itzkowitz and only used Cantor as a pseudonym, stage surname). However, his brother was actor Nat Cantor. Radio Cantor first stepped onto the radio scene in 1921 as an actor for a local program at WEPN (AM)#WHN, WHN in New York City. From there, Cantor's radio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tallulah Bankhead
Tallulah Brockman Bankhead (January 31, 1902 – December 12, 1968) was an American actress. Primarily an actress of the stage, Bankhead also appeared in several prominent films including an award-winning performance in Alfred Hitchcock's '' Lifeboat'' (1944). She also had a brief but successful career on radio and made appearances on television. In all, Bankhead amassed nearly 300 film, stage, television and radio roles during her career. She was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1972 and the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame in 1981. Bankhead was a member of the Bankhead and Brockman family, a prominent Alabama political family. Her grandfather and her uncle were U.S. senators, and her father was Speaker of the House of Representatives. Bankhead's support of liberal causes, including the budding civil rights movement, brought her into public conflict with her family and southern contemporaries, who championed white supremacy and racial segregation. She also sup ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soap Opera
A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored by soap manufacturers.Bowles, p. 118. The term was preceded by " horse opera", a derogatory term for low-budget Westerns. BBC Radio's ''The Archers'', first broadcast in 1950, is the world's longest-running radio soap opera. The longest-running current television soap is ''Coronation Street'', which was first broadcast on ITV in 1960, with the record for the longest running soap opera in history being held by '' Guiding Light'', which began on radio in 1937, transitioned to television in 1952, and ended in 2009. A crucial element that defines the soap opera is the open-ended serial nature of the narrative, with stories spanning several episodes. One of the defining features that makes a television program a soap opera, according to Albe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Goldbergs (broadcast Series)
''The Goldbergs'' is a comedy-drama broadcast from 1929 to 1946 on American radio, and from 1949 to 1956 on American television. It was adapted into a 1948 play, ''Me and Molly''; a 1950 film '' The Goldbergs'', and a 1973 Broadway musical, '' Molly''. It also briefly spun off a comic strip from June 8, 1944, to December 21, 1945, with art by Irwin Hasen, a comic book artist who worked on various DC comics titles and would later do the ''Dondi'' comic strip. Radio The program was devised by writer-actress Gertrude Berg in 1928 and sold to the NBC radio network the following year. It was a domestic comedy featuring the home life of a Jewish family, supposedly located at 1038 East Tremont Avenue in the Bronx. In addition to writing the scripts and directing each episode, Berg starred as bighearted, lovingly meddlesome, and somewhat stereotypical Jewish matriarch Molly Goldberg. The show began as a portrait of Jewish tenement life before later evoking such growing pains as mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bob Hope
Leslie Townes "Bob" Hope (May 29, 1903 – July 27, 2003) was a British-American comedian, vaudevillian, actor, singer and dancer. With a career that spanned nearly 80 years, Hope appeared in Bob Hope filmography, more than 70 short and feature films, with 54 feature films with Hope as star, including a series of seven ''Road to ...'' musical comedy films with Bing Crosby as Hope's Billing (performing arts), top-billed partner. In addition to hosting the Academy Awards show 19 times, List of Academy Awards ceremonies#Multiple ceremonies hosted, more than any other host, Hope appeared in many stage productions and television roles and wrote 14 books. The song "Thanks for the Memory" was his signature tune. Hope was born in the Eltham, London, Eltham district of southeast London, he arrived in the United States with his family at the age of four, and grew up near Cleveland, Ohio. After a brief career as a Boxer (boxing), boxer in the late 1910s, Hope began his career in sh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ed Wynn
Isaiah Edwin Leopold (November 9, 1886 – June 19, 1966), better known as Ed Wynn, was an American actor and comedian. He was noted for his ''Perfect Fool'' comedy character, his pioneering radio show of the 1930s, and his later career as a dramatic actor.Obituary '' Variety'', June 22, 1966, page 71. Background Wynn was born Isaiah Edwin Leopold in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to a Jewish family. His father, Joseph, a milliner, was born in Bohemia. His mother, Minnie Greenberg, of Romanian and Turkish ancestry, came from Istanbul. Wynn attended Central High School in Philadelphia until age 15. He ran away from home in his teens, worked as a hat salesman and as a utility boy, and eventually adapted his middle name "Edwin" into his new stage name, "Ed Wynn", to save his family the embarrassment of having a lowly comedian as a relative. Career Wynn began his career in vaudeville in 1903 and was a star of the ''Ziegfeld Follies'' starting in 1914. During ''The Follies of 1915'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kate Smith
Kathryn Elizabeth Smith (May 1, 1907 – June 17, 1986) was an American contralto. Referred to as The First Lady of Radio, Smith is well known for her renditions of Irving Berlin's "God Bless America" & "When The Moon Comes Over The Mountain". In more recent times, she has also been associated with controversial songs containing racially insensitive themes and undertones. She had a radio, television, and recording career spanning five decades, which reached its pinnacle in the 1940s. She became known as The Songbird of the South because of her tremendous popularity during World War II. Early life She was born on May 1, 1907, in Greenville, Virginia, to Charlotte 'Lottie' Yarnell (''née'' Hanby) and William Herman Smith, growing up in Washington, D.C. Her father owned the Capitol News Company, distributing newspapers and magazines in the greater D.C. area. She was the youngest of three daughters, the middle child dying in infancy. She failed to talk until she was four years old ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Columbia Workshop
''Columbia Workshop'' was a radio series that aired on the Columbia Broadcasting System from 1936 to 1943, returning in 1946–47. Irving Reis The series began as the idea of Irving Reis. Reis had begun his radio career as an engineer and developed a fascination with the possibilities of the relatively new medium. His idea was to use experimental modes of narrative to enhance the way a narrative was conveyed over the radio. Reis had isolated attempts to experiment on the radio: Before the ''Columbia Workshops debut, he had directed at least a few radio dramas. For Reis, the ''Columbia Workshop'' was a platform for developing new techniques for presentation on radio as noted in the debut broadcast: :The ''Columbia Workshop'' dedicates itself to the purposes of familiarizing you with the story behind radio, both in broadcasting, as well as in aviation, shipping, communication and pathology, and to experiment in new techniques with a hope of discovering or evolving new and better f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Norman Corwin
Norman Lewis Corwin (May 3, 1910 – October 18, 2011) was an American writer, screenwriter, producer, essayist and teacher of journalism and writing. His earliest and biggest successes were in the writing and directing of radio drama during the 1930s and 1940s. Corwin was among the first producers to regularly use entertainmenteven light entertainmentto tackle serious social issues. In this area, he was a peer of Orson Welles and William N. Robson, and an inspiration to other later radio/TV writers such as Rod Serling, Gene Roddenberry, Norman Lear, J. Michael Straczynski and Yuri Rasovsky. His work was very influential on successful creative and performing artists, including Ray Bradbury, Charles Kuralt, The Firesign Theatre, Robert Altman, and Robin Williams among many others. He was born to Samuel and Rose Corwin in Boston, Massachusetts. A major figure during the Golden Age of Radio, his work was very influential both at the time and later. He has been called "The Grand Ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Duffy's Tavern
''Duffy's Tavern'' is an American radio situation comedy that ran for a decade on several networks ( CBS, 1941–42; NBC-Blue Network, 1942–44; and NBC, 1944–51), concluding with the December 28, 1951, broadcast. The program often featured celebrity guest stars but always hooked them around the misadventures of Archie, the tavern's manager, portrayed by Ed Gardner. Archie was prone to involvement in get-rich-quick schemes and romantic missteps, and constantly communicated with malaprops and mixed metaphors. Gardner had performed the character of Archie, talking about Duffy's Tavern, as early as November 9, 1939, when he appeared on NBC's ''Good News of 1940''. Characters and story In the early 1940s, Gardner worked as a director, writer, and producer for radio programs. In 1941, he created a character for ''This Is New York'', a program that he was producing. The character, which Gardner played, became Archie of ''Duffy's Tavern''. In the familiar opening, " When Irish ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Jack Benny Program
''The Jack Benny Program'', starring Jack Benny, is a radio-TV comedy series that ran for more than three decades and is generally regarded as a high-water mark in 20th century American comedy. He played one role throughout his radio and television careers, a caricature of himself as a minimally talented musician and penny pincher who was the butt of all the jokes. Producer Hilliard Marks was the brother of Benny's wife Mary Livingstone. Format On both television and radio, ''The Jack Benny Program'' used a loose show-within-a-show format, wherein the main characters were playing versions of themselves. The show often broke the fourth wall, with the characters interacting with the audience and commenting on the program and its advertisements. In his first years on radio (c. 1932–1935), Jack Benny followed the format of many other radio comedians, standing at the microphone, telling jokes and stories, and introducing band numbers. As the characters of Jack and his cast becam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Malapropism
A malapropism (also called a malaprop, acyrologia, or Dogberryism) is the mistaken use of an incorrect word in place of a word with a similar sound, resulting in a nonsensical, sometimes humorous utterance. An example is the statement attributed to baseball player Yogi Berra, regarding switchhitters, "He hits from both sides of the plate. He's amphibious." Malapropisms often occur as errors in natural speech and are sometimes the subject of media attention, especially when made by politicians or other prominent individuals. Philosopher Donald Davidson has said that malapropisms show the complex process through which the brain translates thoughts into language. Humorous malapropisms are the type that attract the most attention and commentary, but bland malapropisms are common in speech and writing. Etymology The word "malapropism" (and its earlier form, "malaprop") comes from a character named "Mrs. Malaprop" in Richard Brinsley Sheridan's 1775 play ''The Rivals''. Mrs. Malapro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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