Getting their start in radio?

[Sunny]

I appear to have killed the last radio thread I posted in (Spooky Stuff...), but will that stop me from starting another? Not a chance!

As I listen to more and more shows, I begin recognizing names, and not only actors.

Gene Roddenberry wrote at least one episode of "Have Gun, Will Travel." He wrote for the TV show of the same name that predated the radio show.

The music for "Crime Classics," produced/directed by my favorite Elliott Lewis, was composed by Bernard Herrmann. Herrmann, of course, was the famous Alfred Hitchcock composer.

I've mentioned this one before: Blake Edwards, who went on to write The Great Race and Pink Panther screenplays, wrote most of the "Richard Diamond, Private Detective" scripts.

The writing team Morton Fine and David Friedkin wrote for a number of shows, including "Crime Classics," "Broadway Is My Beat," and "Bold Venture," which starred Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. They transferred into television, writing many "I Spy" episodes for one thing.

Who have you noticed, who went one to bigger and better things?

 

[LizzieMaine]

Excellent topic, Sunny!

I'd add practically the entire writing staffs of the various sitcoms of the sixties -- people like Paul Henning, Dick Chevillait, John Whedon, Bill Idelson, Jess Oppenheimer, Bob Ross, Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher -- who wrote for shows ranging from the various Lucy programs to the Dick Van Dyke Show to Leave it to Beaver to the various "rural" sitcoms all cut their teeth writing radio comedy in the forties, and you'll often find obvious traces of this in the strong emphasis on oddball characterization that turns up in so many of these shows.

 

[The Wolf]

Larry Gelbart known for "Your Show of Shows" and the series of "M*A*S*H*" started in radio advertising then radio shows.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0312205/bio

Sincerely,
The WOLF

 

[happyfilmluvguy]

Any others who got their start?

 

[broadway]

radio dramas again

it would be wonderful if radio again had great dramas
to replace some of the bad music you hear
and the boring talk show
nothing like great drama
let's hope for that.
but who would sponsor that
that would be a big, big problem.
money is always a problem.
so very sad.

 

[Pilgrim]

Gene Roddenberry wrote at least one episode of "Have Gun, Will Travel." He wrote for the TV show of the same name that predated the radio show.

A detail: the TV series Have Gun Will Travel (HGWT) ran from 1957-63. The radio show ran 1958-60 and was the ONLY case in which a program that originated on TV moved to radio; in all other cases, shows either originated on radio and moved to TV, or were TV-only.

John Dehner played the radio Paladin, and did an excellent job of it. Some of the radio scripts were taken directly from the TV programs.

Therefore, the radio show didn't pre-date the TV show; it ran contemporaneously with the second and third TV seasons. This was a unique situation in US radio and TV entertainment.

Picky, picky, picky.......

 

[Sunny]

A detail: the TV series Have Gun Will Travel (HGWT) ran from 1957-63. The radio show ran 1958-60 and was the ONLY case in which a program that originated on TV moved to radio; in all other cases, shows either originated on radio and moved to TV, or were TV-only.

John Dehner played the radio Paladin, and did an excellent job of it. Some of the radio scripts were taken directly from the TV programs.

Therefore, the radio show didn't pre-date the TV show; it ran contemporaneously with the second and third TV seasons. This was a unique situation in US radio and TV entertainment.

Picky, picky, picky.......

I should have been more precise. The start date of the television show predated the start date of the radio show. Yes, it was the only one that began on television before it began on radio.

I watched one of those presentations about old television shows, and I was struck by how many had moved from radio. I knew it was a good number, but there were many more than I realized.

 

[Fletch]

It was always my impression that radio comedy writers were a little more cosmopolitan group than early TV. TV recruited heavily from the Catskill resort scene, where radio people might have come from anywhere.

I always found it interesting that Richard Widmark came to the movies straight from radio in the 40s. (He'd been doing soaps like Big Sister.) How often did that happen?

 

[Harp]

I always found it interesting that Richard Widmark came to the movies straight from radio in the 40s. (He'd been doing soaps like Big Sister.) How often did that happen?

Or Yul Brenner's (CBS News Radio) flight to Broadway and Hollywood.