SELDOM SEEN DICK KOLLMAR - "BOSTON BLACKIE" FOR OVER 200 EPISODES.
THE MANY LIVES OF BOSTON BLACKIE
Jack Boyle was a struggling author in 1913 San Francisco. The 34year old newspaper reporter was struggling to support his drug habit to which he freely admitted, having written an autobiography detailing his problem, Confessions of An Opium Eater. But supporting his habit led to petty crimes and a sentence in San Quentin prison.
And that’s where Boyle, under the pen-name, No.6066 , published his first Boston Blackie adventure in The American Magazine of July, 1914. After four short stories about his hero - a clever reformed jewel thief turned private eye - in The American that year, Boyle moved to Redbook magazine for four years in 1919, turning out 19 Boston Blackie mysteries stories under his real name.
The content and popularity of the magazine stories led to a string of eleven silent motion pictures starring nine different actors, including Lionel Barrymore, from 1919 to 1927, Jack Boyle died in 1928, but his prison-born character was just resting before an even bigger comeback.
Harry Cohen's Columbia Pictures revived the character 13 years later and released Meet Boston Blackie on February 20, 1941, four days after the 40th birthday of its lead, veteran actor Chester Morris who was appearing in his 56th film. Morris had the right balance of charm, good humor and rugged masculinity to carry the Blackie role over 13 sequels until 1949. All of the films featured rugged Richard Lane as Blackie’s nemesis, Police Inspector Farraday and all but two had character actor George E. Stone as Blackie’s sidekick, The Runt. (1)
The popularity of the first six Boston Blackie films’ caught the attention of broadcasting transcription-syndication producer, Fred Ziv. Ziv bought radio and television rights to the colorful character in early 1944, then turned around and sold a Boston Blackie radio series starring Morris and Lane to the Ruthrauff & Ryan ad agency for Lever Brothers’ Rinso as a the 13-week summer replacement for Amos & Andy on NBC Friday nights at 10:00 beginning on June 23, 1944. (See Fred Ziv- King of Syndication).
It was the first radio series that popularized Horatio Black’s, (Boston Blackie’s), motto: “Enemy to those who make him an enemy, friend to those who have no friend.”
Variety reviewed the episode from July 7, 1944 in this manner: “This Fred Ziv package is half-hour melodrama stanza patterned after film series starring Chester Morris in the lead and a welcome addition for listeners who go for this brand of melos and whodunits. Stanza heard Friday (7) carried on friendly feud between Blackie and Inspector Farraday. Safe has been cracked and funds of a recent benefit for serviceman’s canteen have been stolen. When police arrive, the find Shorty, pal of Blackie, out cold and naturally suspect that Blackie was the robber. Latter is apprehended and asks for time to unravel the mystery and clear himself. He finally pins it on the social register aunt of gal in charge of benefit who hi-jacked 20-G’s to pay off a blackmailer. Farraday is disappointed and non-plussed and Blackie is free to cavort in next week’s episode.
“Chester Morris gives a good account as Blackie. Richard Lane gives good support as Farraday. Others are good in respective roles.”
Farraday’s frustrated pursuit of Blackie is the continuing theme throughout the film and radio series and writers made sure it never got old. Blackie’s freshman summer series paid off with a low weekly production cost of $2,500 and an 8.2 average rating against the much more expensive Jimmy Durante & Garry Moore Show on CBS and Gillette’s weekly boxing show on Mutual. In the episode posted from July 14,1944, a famous emerald is stolen and Blackie is naturally Farraday’s first suspect.
The 13-week NBC series ran out on September 15th and Fred Ziv wanted to continue with Chester Morris as his star via syndication and at transcription acting rates, not expensive network fees, Ziv also wanted to produce the syndicated Boston Blackie in New York City, not Hollywood. Both terms were impossible for Morris, so the two parted friends and Ziv began looking for a new actor to take over the role.
He found his new Boston Blackie at of all places, 50,000 watt WOR/New York City preparing to take-over a "breakfast table" talk show.
Dick Kollmar, 38, was a veteran radio and stage producer and performer. He had sold WOR on the idea of he and his wife, nationally syndicated newspaper columnist, Dorothy Killgallen, replacing the station’s longtime morning stars, Ed & Pegeen Fitzgerald, who were jumping ship to WJZ.
Kollmar and Killgallen began their daily 40-minute Breakfast With Dorothy & Dick on WOR every Monday through Saturday from their Manhattan apartment at 8:15 a.m. on April 16, 1945. On Sundays they added Brunch With Dorothy & Dick on WOR from 10:30 to 11:00 a.m. Variety greeted their debut with promise: “Dorothy and Dick have pleasant deliveries and maintain a pleasant attitude throughout. Program seems destined to be a money-maker for all concerned for presumably it will sell merchandise. It will undoubtedly serve as top-notch entertainment for many,”
It didn’t take long for the Broadway columnist and her actor husband to prove the trade paper correct. Their sold-out daily chat became one of America’s most popular single-station programs, reaching a reported 20 Million listeners a week and earning the Kollmar’s an reported $75,000 a year. The morning show ran on WOR for one month short of 18 years, until March 21, 1963. (2)
Dick Kollmar began his 200 episode run as Ziv’s syndicated Boston Blackie on WOR the previous week at 10:00 p.m. on April 11, 1945. Although Variety found fault with the interruptions and lengths of its local sponsor's beer commercials on WOR, Kollmar and cast were praised: “…As dramatized by one of the best AFRA casts in NY, the program aired impressively. Dick Kollmar’s performance as Blackie, a role played by Chester Morris both in pix and on the air last summer was uneven, but able support by Maurice Tarplin, Frank Lovejoy and Leslie Woods helped matters considerably. However, Kollmar will get better as time goes on. Jeanne Harrison’s direction of a good script by Ken Lyons and Ralph Rosenberg otherwise gave the stanza a hypo. Musical background by organist Hank Sylvern enhanced the continuity of the whodunit.” (3)
Sylvern’s organ comes on loud and clear in the earliest Ziv episode available for listening, April 25, 1945. The Boston Blackie theme, full of stings, occupies the first 40 seconds of the program to allow for local announcements before launching directly into the drama. (4) Additional programs from July 9, 1945 and May 14, 1946 justify Variety’s conviction that Dick Kollmar would improve with age in the title role.
Ziv converted from disc to tape recording in 1947 and the improvement in sound quality is obvious in the episodes from October 22, 1947 and December 22, 1948. By the time of the final episode in this profile, May 11, 1949, it was difficult to tell Dick Kollmar from Chester Morris and the technical quality of Ziv‘s recorded programs from NBC‘s 1944 live productions of Boston Blackie.
Production of the transcribed radio series ended in October, 1950. But Ziv followed in 1951 with a successful television variation of the private eye ‘s adventures that starred Kent Taylor as Boston Blackie for 58 syndicated half-hours,
Ironically, the two actors who gained the most fame portraying Jack Boyle’s Boston Blackie, Chester Morris and Dick Kollmar, were both found dead in their sleep within four months of each other. Morris was discovered in a New Hope, Pennsylvania hotel room while touring as Captain Queeg in The Caine Mutiny Court Martial on September 11, 1970.
Kolmar ‘s body was found in his New York City apartment on January 7, 1971.
Chester Morris was 69. Richard Kollmar was 60. Boston Blackie was 57.
(1) In his 60’s two decades later, Dick Lane became popular on Los Angeles local prime time television as the colorful voice of weekly wrestling matches and Roller Games from the Olympic Auitorium. Polish born George E. Stone compiled 188 television and film credits from 1927 to 1963.
(2) The Kollmars were married in 1940 and had three children. The union lasted 25 years until Killgallen’s death in 1965. A sample of Breakfast With Dorothy & Dick featuring their guests, Leo Durocher & Laraine Day, is posted from May 9, 1947. (Visitors are cautioned of several short periods of dead air in this 38 minute recording.)
(3) Gold Time Radio’s post, Fred Ziv - King of Syndication, tells us that when Kollmar replaced Chester Morris as Blackie and Maurice Tarplin took Dick Lane’s role as inspector Farraday, weekly production costs were trimmed by $1,500.
(4) The average dramatic length of the Ziv productions was 26:30 which allowed three minutes for local commercials.
Copyright © 2020, Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com
Jack Boyle was a struggling author in 1913 San Francisco. The 34year old newspaper reporter was struggling to support his drug habit to which he freely admitted, having written an autobiography detailing his problem, Confessions of An Opium Eater. But supporting his habit led to petty crimes and a sentence in San Quentin prison.
And that’s where Boyle, under the pen-name, No.6066 , published his first Boston Blackie adventure in The American Magazine of July, 1914. After four short stories about his hero - a clever reformed jewel thief turned private eye - in The American that year, Boyle moved to Redbook magazine for four years in 1919, turning out 19 Boston Blackie mysteries stories under his real name.
The content and popularity of the magazine stories led to a string of eleven silent motion pictures starring nine different actors, including Lionel Barrymore, from 1919 to 1927, Jack Boyle died in 1928, but his prison-born character was just resting before an even bigger comeback.
Harry Cohen's Columbia Pictures revived the character 13 years later and released Meet Boston Blackie on February 20, 1941, four days after the 40th birthday of its lead, veteran actor Chester Morris who was appearing in his 56th film. Morris had the right balance of charm, good humor and rugged masculinity to carry the Blackie role over 13 sequels until 1949. All of the films featured rugged Richard Lane as Blackie’s nemesis, Police Inspector Farraday and all but two had character actor George E. Stone as Blackie’s sidekick, The Runt. (1)
The popularity of the first six Boston Blackie films’ caught the attention of broadcasting transcription-syndication producer, Fred Ziv. Ziv bought radio and television rights to the colorful character in early 1944, then turned around and sold a Boston Blackie radio series starring Morris and Lane to the Ruthrauff & Ryan ad agency for Lever Brothers’ Rinso as a the 13-week summer replacement for Amos & Andy on NBC Friday nights at 10:00 beginning on June 23, 1944. (See Fred Ziv- King of Syndication).
It was the first radio series that popularized Horatio Black’s, (Boston Blackie’s), motto: “Enemy to those who make him an enemy, friend to those who have no friend.”
Variety reviewed the episode from July 7, 1944 in this manner: “This Fred Ziv package is half-hour melodrama stanza patterned after film series starring Chester Morris in the lead and a welcome addition for listeners who go for this brand of melos and whodunits. Stanza heard Friday (7) carried on friendly feud between Blackie and Inspector Farraday. Safe has been cracked and funds of a recent benefit for serviceman’s canteen have been stolen. When police arrive, the find Shorty, pal of Blackie, out cold and naturally suspect that Blackie was the robber. Latter is apprehended and asks for time to unravel the mystery and clear himself. He finally pins it on the social register aunt of gal in charge of benefit who hi-jacked 20-G’s to pay off a blackmailer. Farraday is disappointed and non-plussed and Blackie is free to cavort in next week’s episode.
“Chester Morris gives a good account as Blackie. Richard Lane gives good support as Farraday. Others are good in respective roles.”
Farraday’s frustrated pursuit of Blackie is the continuing theme throughout the film and radio series and writers made sure it never got old. Blackie’s freshman summer series paid off with a low weekly production cost of $2,500 and an 8.2 average rating against the much more expensive Jimmy Durante & Garry Moore Show on CBS and Gillette’s weekly boxing show on Mutual. In the episode posted from July 14,1944, a famous emerald is stolen and Blackie is naturally Farraday’s first suspect.
The 13-week NBC series ran out on September 15th and Fred Ziv wanted to continue with Chester Morris as his star via syndication and at transcription acting rates, not expensive network fees, Ziv also wanted to produce the syndicated Boston Blackie in New York City, not Hollywood. Both terms were impossible for Morris, so the two parted friends and Ziv began looking for a new actor to take over the role.
He found his new Boston Blackie at of all places, 50,000 watt WOR/New York City preparing to take-over a "breakfast table" talk show.
Dick Kollmar, 38, was a veteran radio and stage producer and performer. He had sold WOR on the idea of he and his wife, nationally syndicated newspaper columnist, Dorothy Killgallen, replacing the station’s longtime morning stars, Ed & Pegeen Fitzgerald, who were jumping ship to WJZ.
Kollmar and Killgallen began their daily 40-minute Breakfast With Dorothy & Dick on WOR every Monday through Saturday from their Manhattan apartment at 8:15 a.m. on April 16, 1945. On Sundays they added Brunch With Dorothy & Dick on WOR from 10:30 to 11:00 a.m. Variety greeted their debut with promise: “Dorothy and Dick have pleasant deliveries and maintain a pleasant attitude throughout. Program seems destined to be a money-maker for all concerned for presumably it will sell merchandise. It will undoubtedly serve as top-notch entertainment for many,”
It didn’t take long for the Broadway columnist and her actor husband to prove the trade paper correct. Their sold-out daily chat became one of America’s most popular single-station programs, reaching a reported 20 Million listeners a week and earning the Kollmar’s an reported $75,000 a year. The morning show ran on WOR for one month short of 18 years, until March 21, 1963. (2)
Dick Kollmar began his 200 episode run as Ziv’s syndicated Boston Blackie on WOR the previous week at 10:00 p.m. on April 11, 1945. Although Variety found fault with the interruptions and lengths of its local sponsor's beer commercials on WOR, Kollmar and cast were praised: “…As dramatized by one of the best AFRA casts in NY, the program aired impressively. Dick Kollmar’s performance as Blackie, a role played by Chester Morris both in pix and on the air last summer was uneven, but able support by Maurice Tarplin, Frank Lovejoy and Leslie Woods helped matters considerably. However, Kollmar will get better as time goes on. Jeanne Harrison’s direction of a good script by Ken Lyons and Ralph Rosenberg otherwise gave the stanza a hypo. Musical background by organist Hank Sylvern enhanced the continuity of the whodunit.” (3)
Sylvern’s organ comes on loud and clear in the earliest Ziv episode available for listening, April 25, 1945. The Boston Blackie theme, full of stings, occupies the first 40 seconds of the program to allow for local announcements before launching directly into the drama. (4) Additional programs from July 9, 1945 and May 14, 1946 justify Variety’s conviction that Dick Kollmar would improve with age in the title role.
Ziv converted from disc to tape recording in 1947 and the improvement in sound quality is obvious in the episodes from October 22, 1947 and December 22, 1948. By the time of the final episode in this profile, May 11, 1949, it was difficult to tell Dick Kollmar from Chester Morris and the technical quality of Ziv‘s recorded programs from NBC‘s 1944 live productions of Boston Blackie.
Production of the transcribed radio series ended in October, 1950. But Ziv followed in 1951 with a successful television variation of the private eye ‘s adventures that starred Kent Taylor as Boston Blackie for 58 syndicated half-hours,
Ironically, the two actors who gained the most fame portraying Jack Boyle’s Boston Blackie, Chester Morris and Dick Kollmar, were both found dead in their sleep within four months of each other. Morris was discovered in a New Hope, Pennsylvania hotel room while touring as Captain Queeg in The Caine Mutiny Court Martial on September 11, 1970.
Kolmar ‘s body was found in his New York City apartment on January 7, 1971.
Chester Morris was 69. Richard Kollmar was 60. Boston Blackie was 57.
(1) In his 60’s two decades later, Dick Lane became popular on Los Angeles local prime time television as the colorful voice of weekly wrestling matches and Roller Games from the Olympic Auitorium. Polish born George E. Stone compiled 188 television and film credits from 1927 to 1963.
(2) The Kollmars were married in 1940 and had three children. The union lasted 25 years until Killgallen’s death in 1965. A sample of Breakfast With Dorothy & Dick featuring their guests, Leo Durocher & Laraine Day, is posted from May 9, 1947. (Visitors are cautioned of several short periods of dead air in this 38 minute recording.)
(3) Gold Time Radio’s post, Fred Ziv - King of Syndication, tells us that when Kollmar replaced Chester Morris as Blackie and Maurice Tarplin took Dick Lane’s role as inspector Farraday, weekly production costs were trimmed by $1,500.
(4) The average dramatic length of the Ziv productions was 26:30 which allowed three minutes for local commercials.
Copyright © 2020, Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com