James Stewart, Ruby Keeler & Al Jolson and Cary Grant star in Lux Radio Theater productions.
LUX ... PRESENTS HOLLYWOOD!
One word best describes what listeners wanted most from Network Radio during its Golden Age - escape.
It’s what they wanted from the movies, too - escape from the hard times of the Depression, the frequently heartbreaking days of World War II and the stressful period of readjustment after the war.
And if that’s what Depression, Wartime and Postwar America wanted, the networks and movie studios were more than happy to provide it in double barreled doses.
The collaboration between radio and film was a win-win situation for everyone involved that began when movies first learned to talk. The studios sold tickets to fans who wanted to see their radio favorites on the screen, the networks and sponsors got free publicity for their programs and the stars were rewarded with additional income and fame for what was often relatively easy work.
But in several cases the relationship between radio and movies went far deeper than what was obvious to the average listener or ticket buyer.
Cross-ownership of broadcasting and motion picture interests goes back to the days before sound was common in movies. None was stronger than the NBC/RKO tie which began in 1928 when Radio Corporation of America, (RCA), merged with Boston millionaire Joseph Kennedy’s Film Booking Offices of America, (FBO), and his recently acquired Keith-Albee-Orpheum chain of 161 theaters. Together they created RKO, (Radio-Keith-Orpheum), Radio Pictures.
The redundancy of “Radio” in the studio’s name and its logo of a stylized radio tower atop a spinning globe indicate who called the shots at RKO. RCA’s autocratic CEO, David Sarnoff, engineered the merger with Kennedy to further his company’s sound-on-film technology, Photophone.
The string of RKO films with NBC personalities began immediately with 1929’s The Vagabond Lover, starring the network’s Thursday night crooning sensation, Rudy Vallee.
Within three years Sarnoff had installed “his man”, NBC’s first president, Merlin Deac Aylesworth, as CEO and chairman of RKO. To Aylesworth’s credit, he held the post for five years during which time RKO established itself as a major studio with such hits as King Kong, The Informer, Of Human Bondage, and four of the classic Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers musicals.
RCA kept its stake in RKO until the mid-1940’s by which time dozens of NBC stars had paraded before the studio’s cameras. Kay Kyser, Fibber McGee & Molly, Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy, Lum & Abner, were certain and repeated box office winners for the studio.
Other film studios also capitalized on the popularity of Network Radio’s leading programs and personalities. Among the many were Columbia‘s Blondie and Crime Doctor series, Universal’s Sherlock Holmes mysteries and Abbott & Costello comedies, Republic‘s Gene Autry westerns and Judy Canova’s rustic musicals, MGM’s Aldrich Family series and Monogram’s low -budget quickies based on the “invisible” Shadow.
A briefer network-studio coalition was formed in 1929 when Paramount Pictures bought 49% of the temporarily strapped CBS for $5.0 Million. Although shrewd CBS chairman Bill Paley bought the shares back for a million dollars less three years later when his network was financially flush and Paramount was struggling, the association gave CBS a foothold in the film capital and enabled Paley to attract Bing Crosby and Kate Smith to his network with the promise of Paramount screen tests.
Pre-dating and outlasting these network-movie studio affiliations were the acquisitions of two major market radio stations by movie studios.
Warner Brothers, pioneers of the Vitaphone synchronized disc sound system for movies, entered radio in February, 1925, by purchasing KWBC in Los Angeles.. Buying the station was Sam Warner’s idea to advertise the studio’s films. He sold the idea to his brothers - Abe, Harry and Jack - with less effort than he had in convincing them that sound was the future for movies.
A new call sign, KFWB, was issued to the station by the Commerce Department and the facility was moved to the Warner studio lot on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Harry Warner’s granddaughter and biographer, Cass Warner Sperling, writes that family patriarch Ben Warner visited the new station and said that given his sons’ fiercely competitive reputation, KFWB meant “Keep Fighting, Warner Brothers!” The station remained under Warner ownership for 25 years, providing a continual publicity platform for the studio’s stars to plug their pictures.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer parent, Loews, Inc., bought Long Island’s WHN in July, 1923, and moved the station to Loew’s State Theater in Manhattan’s Times Square. The station was continually promoted in MGM films and the tie became more obvious in September, 1948, when WHN’s call sign was changed to WMGM, “The Station of The Stars.”
MGM used the station to pilot transcribed programs based on its successful movie series, Dr. Kildare, The Hardy Family, and The Adventures of Maisie, with the intent of syndicating them. The studio also produced The MGM Musical Comedy Theater, hour-long adaptations of Metro musicals featuring the studio’s contract players. But attempts to sell the recorded shows in syndication failed and they were relegated to Mutual for limited, low-rated network runs. Loews owned the radio station for 39 years, selling it in 1962 to chain operator Storer Broadcasting who rechristened it WHN.
MGM had greater success with Good News, NBC’s Thursday night variety series that began in the 1937-38 season and ran for three highly rated years sponsored by General Foods’ Maxwell House Coffee. The program was an hour-long mix of short radio adaptations of MGM films, interviews with the stars and comic bits from host Frank Morgan and Fanny Brice’s Baby Snooks. MGM got what it wanted from Good News, three seasons of virtually free Network Radio publicity. (See Good News and Baby Snooks on this site.)
When it comes to publicity, however, no program could touch Lux Radio Theater. For that matter, no program dominated its night of broadcast or its timeslot like Lux Radio Theater, Network Radio’s most popular dramatic series. But it wasn’t always that way…
Lux premiered on Blue at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, October 14, 1934, hosted by John Anthony as Douglass Garrick promising radio adaptations of the most popular plays and movies. Its initial production was the Academy Award nominated Seventh Heaven starring Miriam Hopkins. That was followed with What Every Woman Knows and the film’s star, Helen Hayes. A number of movie names appeared on the show during that first season - Walter Huston, Ruth Chatterton, James Cagney, Leslie Howard, Billie Burke, Conrad Nagel, Robert Montgomery and Loretta Young, to name a few.
Audiences responded to Lux Radio Theater's matinees and it pulled a respectable 14.4 Crossley rating which would have placed it 40th among the nighttime programs. The rating was excellent for a daytime show - but not good enough for Lever Brothers and its agency J. Walter Thompson. They wanted an undisputed hit and were determined to get it.
The first move was to nighttime. A permanent home was found for the show on the CBS schedule Mondays at 9:00 p.m. The final Sunday afternoon broadcast on Blue was a June 30, 1935, adaptation of the stage and movie hit, Elmer The Great, with comedian Joe E. Brown recreating his title role. Its first production after the shift to CBS prime time a month later was far from auspicious - Helen Hayes starring in Bunty Pulls The Strings - adapted from a 1921 silent film.
Monthly ratings for that first season on CBS swung wildly through the teens - 19.6 to 10.8 - finally averaging at 14.6 for the season which was enough to win the night - but not enough to please the client or agency. (1)
The solution was obvious to Danny Danker, J. Walter Thompson’s 33 year old man on the West Coast: Move the show to Hollywood, then obtain the most attractive properties to adapt to radio and the hottest stars to perform them. Finally, produce the package to Network Radio’s highest standards. He warned that his plan would cost money - as much as $20,000 a week - but that was the price to buy attention and respect in Hollywood.
Above all, Danker insisted on a host who personified the dignity and prestige of Hollywood and determined that legendary 54 year old producer-director Cecil B. DeMille was his man. Danker spent most of the spring preparing his concept for broadcast - first, signing DeMille for $2,000 a week, then convincing the studios to get behind his effort.
On May 25, 1936, the melodrama East Is West starring Fay Bainter and Leo Carrillo became the last program in the New York series. May’s rating was a mediocre 12.6.
One week later, on June 1st, announcer Melville Ruick was first heard to say, “LUX…presents Hollywood!” and the premiere broadcast from the Music Box Theater at Hollywood & Vine was underway with Clark Gable and Marlene Dietrich in The Legionnaire & The Lady, based on the 1930 film Morocco.
Lux followed-up in succeeding weeks with William Powell and Myrna Loy recreating their movie roles as Nick & Nora Charles in The Thin Man and Burlesque starring Al Jolson and his wife, Ruby Keeler. Ratings increased nearly 30% in the month when radio listenershjp traditionally declined for the summer and Danker knew he had a winner.
Before the summer was over Al Jolson made an encore Lux appearance in The Jazz Singer, leading a parade of appearances from Joan Crawford, Franchot Tone, Claudette Colbert, Marion Davies, Jack Oakie, Lionel Barrymore, Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray and George Raft.
By the time the 1936-37 season opened in September, the show was already a favorite with listeners. Its ratings jumped 44% to 21.0 for the season, vaulting it into fourth place behind Jack Benny, Eddie Cantor and Major Bowes. Lux Radio Theater would never again drop out of the Annual Top Ten or finish below eighth place - a claim none of the other three could make.
Cecil B. DeMille was introduced at the beginning of every episode of Lux Radio Theater as, “Your producer,” implying that he was the creative genius behind the show. It was an illusion that fan magazines furthered, but it was just that - an illusion. DeMille was actually a very well paid front man for the program whose real duties included nothing more than reading scripted introductions to each act and commercial-laden interviews with the stars near the end of each show.
The real producer who determined Lux Radio Theater’s content and performers was Danny Danker whose name could open any door in Hollywood. Condensing and adapting the screenplays to radio was the job of George Wells and Sanford Barnett. Directors through the years were Tony Stanford, Frank Woodruff, Fred MacKaye and Earl Ebi. For 25 years Louis Silver was Lux’s music director, creating each week’s bridges and directing the 25 piece orchestra. In all, approximately 50 actors, musicians and technicians were involved in each broadcast.
As John Dunning reports in On The Air, each show was a five day commitment beginning with a table reading of the script on Thursday, more rehearsals all day Friday, run-throughs with sound effects on Saturday and readings on Sunday with sound effects and orchestra. The first dress rehearsal on Monday morning was recorded for the director’s final critique. A final dress rehearsal was held with an audience at 4:30 and the broadcast aired live at 6:00 p.m. Pacific Time. (2)
Danny Danker created a well-oiled ratings machine in Lux Radio Theater. The show continued along in the Annual Top Ten through the 1943-44 season, although trouble was looming and tragedy was lurking.
Trouble came in the form of Proposition 12, a ballot proposal that threatened unions by making California a “right to work” state. AFRA assessed its members one dollar each to fight the measure but DeMille, no fan of unions, refused to contribute to a cause in which he didn’t believe. What’s more, he wouldn’t let CBS or Lever Brothers pay the dollar for him. When the season ended the question was headed for court - could DeMille defy AFRA or could the union expel him and force him off the air?
Tragedy struck when Danny Danker died suddenly of a heart attack two days after the season’s final broadcast - ironically, a performance of It Happened Tomorrow. He was 41 years old.
Faced with the loss of their leader and the possible loss of their show’s host, Danker’s staff hit the deck running on September 5th with Jeanette McDonald and Nelson Eddy in the evergreen operetta Maytime and followed that up with duo performances by Orson Welles & Rita Hayworth, William Powell & Olivia deHavilland and Jack Carson & Lucille Ball.
When the courts ruled against DeMille and he left the show on January 22, 1945, the staff responded with a string of would-be replacements introduced each week as "Your guest producer". Among them were Lionel Barrymore, Otto Kruger, Donald Crisp, Brian Aherne, Walter Huston, Thomas Mitchell, Edward G. Robinson, Preston Sturgis, Hal Wallis, Mark Hellinger and Hunt Stromberg,
Despite the loss of Danker and DeMille the show’s ratings hardly budged and its ranking improved from sixth to third place. Nevertheless, when the 1945-46 season opened, Lux Radio Theater was still without a permanent host.
Finally on November 12, 1945, film director William Keighley was introduced as “Your new producer.” The 56 year old Keighley didn’t have DeMille’s name but his Warner Brothers credentials included G-Men, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Each Dawn I Die, The Bride Came C.O.D., George Washington Slept Here and The Man Who Came To Dinner. He was respected in the movie industry and projected class on the air.
Ratings for Lux Radio Theater after Keighley’s arrival can only be described as unusual - although crazy would seem more appropriate. Network Radio Ratings, 1932-1953 tells us that the season averages for 1945-46 and 1946-47 were identical - 21.9 for both ten month periods, a mathematical improbability to say the least.
Then came 1947-48 when Lux jumped a whopping 9.3 points, a surge of 42%, and became America’s highest rated program. The show hit its all-time monthly high in February, 1948, registering a 38.5 Nielsen rating which represented over 13.8 Million homes and 34.5 Million listeners. (3)
Lux Radio Theater remained in first place for the next four seasons. Other programs attempted to emulate its format and success - most notably Screen Guild Theater aka Screen Guild Players which rode Lux’s coattails on the CBS Monday night schedule for six seasons, three in the Annual Top Ten.
But nothing could match the most popular dramatic program of Network Radio’s Golden Age - the vision of a young advertising man that firmly bonded radio and motion pictures in the minds of the American public for 17 years.
Below are the ten episodes of Lux Radio Theater’s adaptations of Academy Award winning films. Simply click on the year.
1933: Cavalcade (Herbert Marshall & Madeline Carroll)
1934: It Happened One Night (Clark Gable & Claudette Colbert)
1937: The Life of Emile Zola (Paul Muni)
1938: You Can’t Take It With You with Edward Arnold, Fay Wray & Robert Cummings)
1940: Rebecca with Vivian Leigh & Laurence Olivier
1941: How Green Was My Valley (Walter Pidgeon, Donald Crisp & Maureen O’Hara)
1942: Mrs. Miniver (Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon & Susan Peters)
1943: Casablanca (Alan Ladd, Hedy Lamarr & John Loder)
1947: Gentleman’s Agreement (Gregory Peck & Anne Baxter)
1950: All About Eve (Bette Davis & Anne Baxter)
(1) 1936-37 was the first of 17 consecutive Monday night wins for Lux Radio Theater.
(2) Lux Radio Theater was not rebroadcast at a later hour for West Coast audiences.
(3) The features attracting Lux’s record breaking ratings in February, 1948, were Mother Wore Tights with Betty Grable & Dan Dailey, Lady In The Lake with Robert Montgomery & Audrey Totter, The Jolson Story with Al Jolson and T-Men with Dennis O’Keefe & Gail Patrick.
Copyright © 2015 Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com
LUX ... PRESENTS HOLLYWOOD!
One word best describes what listeners wanted most from Network Radio during its Golden Age - escape.
It’s what they wanted from the movies, too - escape from the hard times of the Depression, the frequently heartbreaking days of World War II and the stressful period of readjustment after the war.
And if that’s what Depression, Wartime and Postwar America wanted, the networks and movie studios were more than happy to provide it in double barreled doses.
The collaboration between radio and film was a win-win situation for everyone involved that began when movies first learned to talk. The studios sold tickets to fans who wanted to see their radio favorites on the screen, the networks and sponsors got free publicity for their programs and the stars were rewarded with additional income and fame for what was often relatively easy work.
But in several cases the relationship between radio and movies went far deeper than what was obvious to the average listener or ticket buyer.
Cross-ownership of broadcasting and motion picture interests goes back to the days before sound was common in movies. None was stronger than the NBC/RKO tie which began in 1928 when Radio Corporation of America, (RCA), merged with Boston millionaire Joseph Kennedy’s Film Booking Offices of America, (FBO), and his recently acquired Keith-Albee-Orpheum chain of 161 theaters. Together they created RKO, (Radio-Keith-Orpheum), Radio Pictures.
The redundancy of “Radio” in the studio’s name and its logo of a stylized radio tower atop a spinning globe indicate who called the shots at RKO. RCA’s autocratic CEO, David Sarnoff, engineered the merger with Kennedy to further his company’s sound-on-film technology, Photophone.
The string of RKO films with NBC personalities began immediately with 1929’s The Vagabond Lover, starring the network’s Thursday night crooning sensation, Rudy Vallee.
Within three years Sarnoff had installed “his man”, NBC’s first president, Merlin Deac Aylesworth, as CEO and chairman of RKO. To Aylesworth’s credit, he held the post for five years during which time RKO established itself as a major studio with such hits as King Kong, The Informer, Of Human Bondage, and four of the classic Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers musicals.
RCA kept its stake in RKO until the mid-1940’s by which time dozens of NBC stars had paraded before the studio’s cameras. Kay Kyser, Fibber McGee & Molly, Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy, Lum & Abner, were certain and repeated box office winners for the studio.
Other film studios also capitalized on the popularity of Network Radio’s leading programs and personalities. Among the many were Columbia‘s Blondie and Crime Doctor series, Universal’s Sherlock Holmes mysteries and Abbott & Costello comedies, Republic‘s Gene Autry westerns and Judy Canova’s rustic musicals, MGM’s Aldrich Family series and Monogram’s low -budget quickies based on the “invisible” Shadow.
A briefer network-studio coalition was formed in 1929 when Paramount Pictures bought 49% of the temporarily strapped CBS for $5.0 Million. Although shrewd CBS chairman Bill Paley bought the shares back for a million dollars less three years later when his network was financially flush and Paramount was struggling, the association gave CBS a foothold in the film capital and enabled Paley to attract Bing Crosby and Kate Smith to his network with the promise of Paramount screen tests.
Pre-dating and outlasting these network-movie studio affiliations were the acquisitions of two major market radio stations by movie studios.
Warner Brothers, pioneers of the Vitaphone synchronized disc sound system for movies, entered radio in February, 1925, by purchasing KWBC in Los Angeles.. Buying the station was Sam Warner’s idea to advertise the studio’s films. He sold the idea to his brothers - Abe, Harry and Jack - with less effort than he had in convincing them that sound was the future for movies.
A new call sign, KFWB, was issued to the station by the Commerce Department and the facility was moved to the Warner studio lot on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Harry Warner’s granddaughter and biographer, Cass Warner Sperling, writes that family patriarch Ben Warner visited the new station and said that given his sons’ fiercely competitive reputation, KFWB meant “Keep Fighting, Warner Brothers!” The station remained under Warner ownership for 25 years, providing a continual publicity platform for the studio’s stars to plug their pictures.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer parent, Loews, Inc., bought Long Island’s WHN in July, 1923, and moved the station to Loew’s State Theater in Manhattan’s Times Square. The station was continually promoted in MGM films and the tie became more obvious in September, 1948, when WHN’s call sign was changed to WMGM, “The Station of The Stars.”
MGM used the station to pilot transcribed programs based on its successful movie series, Dr. Kildare, The Hardy Family, and The Adventures of Maisie, with the intent of syndicating them. The studio also produced The MGM Musical Comedy Theater, hour-long adaptations of Metro musicals featuring the studio’s contract players. But attempts to sell the recorded shows in syndication failed and they were relegated to Mutual for limited, low-rated network runs. Loews owned the radio station for 39 years, selling it in 1962 to chain operator Storer Broadcasting who rechristened it WHN.
MGM had greater success with Good News, NBC’s Thursday night variety series that began in the 1937-38 season and ran for three highly rated years sponsored by General Foods’ Maxwell House Coffee. The program was an hour-long mix of short radio adaptations of MGM films, interviews with the stars and comic bits from host Frank Morgan and Fanny Brice’s Baby Snooks. MGM got what it wanted from Good News, three seasons of virtually free Network Radio publicity. (See Good News and Baby Snooks on this site.)
When it comes to publicity, however, no program could touch Lux Radio Theater. For that matter, no program dominated its night of broadcast or its timeslot like Lux Radio Theater, Network Radio’s most popular dramatic series. But it wasn’t always that way…
Lux premiered on Blue at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, October 14, 1934, hosted by John Anthony as Douglass Garrick promising radio adaptations of the most popular plays and movies. Its initial production was the Academy Award nominated Seventh Heaven starring Miriam Hopkins. That was followed with What Every Woman Knows and the film’s star, Helen Hayes. A number of movie names appeared on the show during that first season - Walter Huston, Ruth Chatterton, James Cagney, Leslie Howard, Billie Burke, Conrad Nagel, Robert Montgomery and Loretta Young, to name a few.
Audiences responded to Lux Radio Theater's matinees and it pulled a respectable 14.4 Crossley rating which would have placed it 40th among the nighttime programs. The rating was excellent for a daytime show - but not good enough for Lever Brothers and its agency J. Walter Thompson. They wanted an undisputed hit and were determined to get it.
The first move was to nighttime. A permanent home was found for the show on the CBS schedule Mondays at 9:00 p.m. The final Sunday afternoon broadcast on Blue was a June 30, 1935, adaptation of the stage and movie hit, Elmer The Great, with comedian Joe E. Brown recreating his title role. Its first production after the shift to CBS prime time a month later was far from auspicious - Helen Hayes starring in Bunty Pulls The Strings - adapted from a 1921 silent film.
Monthly ratings for that first season on CBS swung wildly through the teens - 19.6 to 10.8 - finally averaging at 14.6 for the season which was enough to win the night - but not enough to please the client or agency. (1)
The solution was obvious to Danny Danker, J. Walter Thompson’s 33 year old man on the West Coast: Move the show to Hollywood, then obtain the most attractive properties to adapt to radio and the hottest stars to perform them. Finally, produce the package to Network Radio’s highest standards. He warned that his plan would cost money - as much as $20,000 a week - but that was the price to buy attention and respect in Hollywood.
Above all, Danker insisted on a host who personified the dignity and prestige of Hollywood and determined that legendary 54 year old producer-director Cecil B. DeMille was his man. Danker spent most of the spring preparing his concept for broadcast - first, signing DeMille for $2,000 a week, then convincing the studios to get behind his effort.
On May 25, 1936, the melodrama East Is West starring Fay Bainter and Leo Carrillo became the last program in the New York series. May’s rating was a mediocre 12.6.
One week later, on June 1st, announcer Melville Ruick was first heard to say, “LUX…presents Hollywood!” and the premiere broadcast from the Music Box Theater at Hollywood & Vine was underway with Clark Gable and Marlene Dietrich in The Legionnaire & The Lady, based on the 1930 film Morocco.
Lux followed-up in succeeding weeks with William Powell and Myrna Loy recreating their movie roles as Nick & Nora Charles in The Thin Man and Burlesque starring Al Jolson and his wife, Ruby Keeler. Ratings increased nearly 30% in the month when radio listenershjp traditionally declined for the summer and Danker knew he had a winner.
Before the summer was over Al Jolson made an encore Lux appearance in The Jazz Singer, leading a parade of appearances from Joan Crawford, Franchot Tone, Claudette Colbert, Marion Davies, Jack Oakie, Lionel Barrymore, Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray and George Raft.
By the time the 1936-37 season opened in September, the show was already a favorite with listeners. Its ratings jumped 44% to 21.0 for the season, vaulting it into fourth place behind Jack Benny, Eddie Cantor and Major Bowes. Lux Radio Theater would never again drop out of the Annual Top Ten or finish below eighth place - a claim none of the other three could make.
Cecil B. DeMille was introduced at the beginning of every episode of Lux Radio Theater as, “Your producer,” implying that he was the creative genius behind the show. It was an illusion that fan magazines furthered, but it was just that - an illusion. DeMille was actually a very well paid front man for the program whose real duties included nothing more than reading scripted introductions to each act and commercial-laden interviews with the stars near the end of each show.
The real producer who determined Lux Radio Theater’s content and performers was Danny Danker whose name could open any door in Hollywood. Condensing and adapting the screenplays to radio was the job of George Wells and Sanford Barnett. Directors through the years were Tony Stanford, Frank Woodruff, Fred MacKaye and Earl Ebi. For 25 years Louis Silver was Lux’s music director, creating each week’s bridges and directing the 25 piece orchestra. In all, approximately 50 actors, musicians and technicians were involved in each broadcast.
As John Dunning reports in On The Air, each show was a five day commitment beginning with a table reading of the script on Thursday, more rehearsals all day Friday, run-throughs with sound effects on Saturday and readings on Sunday with sound effects and orchestra. The first dress rehearsal on Monday morning was recorded for the director’s final critique. A final dress rehearsal was held with an audience at 4:30 and the broadcast aired live at 6:00 p.m. Pacific Time. (2)
Danny Danker created a well-oiled ratings machine in Lux Radio Theater. The show continued along in the Annual Top Ten through the 1943-44 season, although trouble was looming and tragedy was lurking.
Trouble came in the form of Proposition 12, a ballot proposal that threatened unions by making California a “right to work” state. AFRA assessed its members one dollar each to fight the measure but DeMille, no fan of unions, refused to contribute to a cause in which he didn’t believe. What’s more, he wouldn’t let CBS or Lever Brothers pay the dollar for him. When the season ended the question was headed for court - could DeMille defy AFRA or could the union expel him and force him off the air?
Tragedy struck when Danny Danker died suddenly of a heart attack two days after the season’s final broadcast - ironically, a performance of It Happened Tomorrow. He was 41 years old.
Faced with the loss of their leader and the possible loss of their show’s host, Danker’s staff hit the deck running on September 5th with Jeanette McDonald and Nelson Eddy in the evergreen operetta Maytime and followed that up with duo performances by Orson Welles & Rita Hayworth, William Powell & Olivia deHavilland and Jack Carson & Lucille Ball.
When the courts ruled against DeMille and he left the show on January 22, 1945, the staff responded with a string of would-be replacements introduced each week as "Your guest producer". Among them were Lionel Barrymore, Otto Kruger, Donald Crisp, Brian Aherne, Walter Huston, Thomas Mitchell, Edward G. Robinson, Preston Sturgis, Hal Wallis, Mark Hellinger and Hunt Stromberg,
Despite the loss of Danker and DeMille the show’s ratings hardly budged and its ranking improved from sixth to third place. Nevertheless, when the 1945-46 season opened, Lux Radio Theater was still without a permanent host.
Finally on November 12, 1945, film director William Keighley was introduced as “Your new producer.” The 56 year old Keighley didn’t have DeMille’s name but his Warner Brothers credentials included G-Men, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Each Dawn I Die, The Bride Came C.O.D., George Washington Slept Here and The Man Who Came To Dinner. He was respected in the movie industry and projected class on the air.
Ratings for Lux Radio Theater after Keighley’s arrival can only be described as unusual - although crazy would seem more appropriate. Network Radio Ratings, 1932-1953 tells us that the season averages for 1945-46 and 1946-47 were identical - 21.9 for both ten month periods, a mathematical improbability to say the least.
Then came 1947-48 when Lux jumped a whopping 9.3 points, a surge of 42%, and became America’s highest rated program. The show hit its all-time monthly high in February, 1948, registering a 38.5 Nielsen rating which represented over 13.8 Million homes and 34.5 Million listeners. (3)
Lux Radio Theater remained in first place for the next four seasons. Other programs attempted to emulate its format and success - most notably Screen Guild Theater aka Screen Guild Players which rode Lux’s coattails on the CBS Monday night schedule for six seasons, three in the Annual Top Ten.
But nothing could match the most popular dramatic program of Network Radio’s Golden Age - the vision of a young advertising man that firmly bonded radio and motion pictures in the minds of the American public for 17 years.
Below are the ten episodes of Lux Radio Theater’s adaptations of Academy Award winning films. Simply click on the year.
1933: Cavalcade (Herbert Marshall & Madeline Carroll)
1934: It Happened One Night (Clark Gable & Claudette Colbert)
1937: The Life of Emile Zola (Paul Muni)
1938: You Can’t Take It With You with Edward Arnold, Fay Wray & Robert Cummings)
1940: Rebecca with Vivian Leigh & Laurence Olivier
1941: How Green Was My Valley (Walter Pidgeon, Donald Crisp & Maureen O’Hara)
1942: Mrs. Miniver (Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon & Susan Peters)
1943: Casablanca (Alan Ladd, Hedy Lamarr & John Loder)
1947: Gentleman’s Agreement (Gregory Peck & Anne Baxter)
1950: All About Eve (Bette Davis & Anne Baxter)
(1) 1936-37 was the first of 17 consecutive Monday night wins for Lux Radio Theater.
(2) Lux Radio Theater was not rebroadcast at a later hour for West Coast audiences.
(3) The features attracting Lux’s record breaking ratings in February, 1948, were Mother Wore Tights with Betty Grable & Dan Dailey, Lady In The Lake with Robert Montgomery & Audrey Totter, The Jolson Story with Al Jolson and T-Men with Dennis O’Keefe & Gail Patrick.
Copyright © 2015 Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com
| lux_theater_cavalcade.mp3 |
| lux_theater_____it_happened_one_night.mp3 |
| lux_theater___the_life_of_emile_zola.mp3 |
| lux_theater__you_can't_take_it_with_you.mp3 |
| lux_theater_rebecca.mp3 |
| lux_theater___how_green_was_my_valley.mp3 |
| lux_theater__mrs_miniver.mp3 |
| lux_theater__casablanca.mp3 |
| lux_theater_gentleman's_agreement.mp3 |
| lux_theater__all_about_eve.mp3 |