LOUISE BEAVERS, ROBERT MONTGOMERY, BETTE DAVIS, GEORGE MURPHY,BASIL RATHBONE & FRANK CAPRA APPEARING ON AN EARLY SCREEN GUILD SHOW.
ACTS OF CHARITY
Unique among all Network Radio programs, the Screen Guild series - The Screen Guild Show, The Screen Guild Theater and The Screen Guild Players - all had one basic purpose in its 13 year run: to raise money for a specific charity, the Motion Picture Relief Fund.
Founded in 1920 by movie pioneers Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin and D.W. Griffith, the Fund began as just a set of coin boxes placed at the studios where workers could leave spare change for those in the film industry who had fallen on hard times. (1)
It was incorporated as the Motion Picture Relief Fund in 1921 with United Artists executive Joseph Schenck as its President, Mary Pickford as Vice President and Father Neal Dodd as Secretary.(2) When the Depression hit and needs became more critical in 1932, Pickford devised the Payroll Pledge Plan - enlisting film actors and technicians earning above $200 a week to donate one-half of one percent of their pay to the Fund, which gave it a steady cash flow.
But more - much more - was needed for the long-range plan of Fund President Jean Hersholt who wanted to create a retirement and medical facility for elderly and indigent film industry veterans, the Motion Picture Country House & Hospital in suburban Los Angeles.
Music Corporation of America co-founder Jules Stein came up with the multi-million dollar idea in 1938 that helped make Hersholt’s dream come true - an idea that only a high-powered talent agency like Stein’s MCA could pull off. It involved creating a weekly radio show starring Hollywood’s biggest names and donating their performance fees over to the Fund.
While Stein’s idea was taking shape, Gulf Oil’s Gulf Headliners, hosted by comedian Phil Baker since the death of Will Rogers in 1935, was in its final months. It had remained a top rated show in the three ensuing seasons, reaching the Annual Top Ten in 1936-37 and becoming CBS’s highest rated Sunday night show in 1937-38. But Baker was restless and headed for the new Dole Pineapple show, Honolulu Bound, in January,1939. (3) Both Gulf and CBS were primed for Stein’s pitch.
First called Gulf’s Screen Guild Show when it premiered over 61 CBS stations at 7:30 ET on January 8,1939, (also posted below), the debut was an all-star revue with Jack Benny, Judy Garland, Joan Crawford, Reginald Gardner and host George Murphy. The opener was followed by a musical comedy with Loretta Young, Fred Astaire and Herbert Marshall, then a light drama with Bette Davis, Robert Montgomery and Basil Rathbone. The three shows turned in a promising first month rating of 13.7. But listeners didn’t know what to expect from week to week and steadily drifted away. Ratings sank to single digits in April and to an alarming low of 6.8 in June.
When the show returned from its summer hiatus in September actor Roger Pryor had taken over as host while producer Bill Lawrence began tapping into popular films to adapt with their original stars for the re-titled Gulf Screen Guild Theater.
The first program of that series, The Shop Around The Corner with James Stewart, Margaret Sullivan and Frank Morgan from September 29, 1940, was introduced by Jean Hersholt who acknowledged the program’s importance to the Motion Picture Relief Fund. The move away from original material and into popular movie material helped Screen Guild Theater boost its ratings 30% during its second season and another 20% in 1940-41 to peak at 15.3 which placed it 15th in the Annual Top 50 rankings of all prime time programs. For example, posted is Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday from March 30, 1941, which illustrates the clever talents of writers Bill Hampton and Harry Kronman who were responsible for most of the program’s condensations of full length movies into brief minute radio adaptations.
America’s entry into World War II caused Gulf to cancel Screen Guild Theater in April, 1942, after 113 performances which had raised a total of $800,000 for the Motion Picture Relief Fund. A crowd of 3,000 celebrated the dedication of the Motion Picture Country House’s first building in suburban Woodland Hills on September 27th and in less than a month they would have something else to celebrate…
After Gulf Oil dropped Screen Guild Theater sponsorship, MCA re-entered the picture to help CBS land a new benefactor for its favorite charity. They knew where to look.
Chicago cosmetics manufacturer Lady Esther had built its brand with Network Radio - most importantly the CBS half-hour on Monday following Lux Radio Theater at 10:00 ET, established since 1933 as home of The Lady Esther Serenade with sweet dance bands appealing to women. (See The Waltz King and Guy Lombardo on this site.)
Trying something new in 1941, Lady Esther replaced Lombardo’s Royal Canadians with Orson Welles’ Mercury Theater, a Top 15 show over its 26 week run. When Welles left, the time period reverted back to the Lady Esther Serenades of Freddy Martin’s orchestra and ratings dropped. Lady Esther was looking for a replacement and Hollywood was looking good;
The Lady Esther Screen Guild Players hit the air in a big way on October 19, 1942, with its adaptation that summer’s blockbuster, the three-month old Yankee Doodle Dandy, starring James Cagney, Joan Leslie, Walter Huston and Jeanne Cagney, (also posted below). The new series was hosted by the classic announcer who would become closely associated with the show’s greatest success over the next five seasons, Truman Bradley. (4)
Scheduling Screen Guild Players’ 22 minute movie adaptations on Monday nights immediately following Lux Radio Theater’s 45 minute movie adaptations would appear to be overkill - but not for movie-crazy America of the 1940’s. In its first season following Lux, 1942-43, Screen Guild's ratings shot up over 50% to 19.7, establishing it as Monday’s second most popular program behind Lux - a position it would hold for five consecutive seasons.
Recognizing the similarity in their shows’ formats, Lux and Screen Guild producers coordinated their schedules to encourage variety and avoid repetition between the back-to-back programs, so listeners seldom heard two heavy dramas or two light comedies on the same Monday night. Six additional programs from the Lady Esther Screen Guild Players series are posted below illustrate this variety and the caliber of stars the program attracted.:
They Got Me Covered - Bob Hope & Dorothy Lamour - February 15, 1943
For Me & My Gal - Judy Garland, Gene Kelly & Dick Powell - March 22, 1943
Casablanca - Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman & Paul Henreid - April 26, 1943
Whistling In Dixie - Red Skelton, Claire Trevor &, Virginia Grey - May 17, 1943
Sweethearts - Nelson Eddy & Jeanette McDonald - March 25, 1946
The Philadelphia Story- Cary Grant & Katherine Hepburn - March 17, 1947
Ratings reflected the steady popularity of Screen Guild shadowing that of Lux by a usual spread of only two to four rating points and culminating in three consecutive Top Ten seasons beginning in 1944-45. Unfortunately, the tandem was broken up in the fall of 1947 when Lady Esther dropped Screen Guild’s sponsorship and Lever Brothers took over its timeslot for the new one-joke sitcom, My Friend Irma. R.J. Reynolds picked up Screen Guild Players for Camel Cigarettes and moved it ahead half an hour to 10:30, hoping that most Lux listeners would hold over through Irma for Screen Guild as they had when the two shows were adjacent. They didn’t.
In 1946-47 when the two shows were back to back, Lux turned in a 21.9 season rating to Screen Guild’s 20.0. During the explosive 1947-48 season when most programs enjoyed record high ratings, Lux soared to 31.2 while Screen Guild sank to its Monday night low of 18.9 - from tenth to 20th in the season rankings. Meanwhile, its replacement at 10:00, My Friend Irma, scored a 22.2 season rating, which would be an all time high for the sitcom‘s six year run.
The first show of the Screen Guild Players’ series for Camels from October 6, 1947 - The Bells of St. Mary’s with Bing Crosby & Ingrid Bergman - is posted below. In his introductory remarks, Motion Picture Relief Fund President Jean Hersholt promises bright things ahead for the program. He was probably unaware of the programming politics involving Reynolds and its William Esty agency that had shifted Camels’ resident quizmaster, Bob Hawk, from his five year run on CBS to NBC’s Thursday night schedule to fill the hole left by Abbott & Costello’s departure.
Monday’s Top 30 Bob Hawk Show had fallen out of the Top 50 in its move to NBC and Hawk wanted to return to CBS. It was a simple matter to swap time periods between Hawk and the Screen Guild program for the 1948-49 season. When the season was over Hawk returned to 26th in the annual ratings while, Screen Guild Players lost 42% of its audience and sank to 59th.
The next season was even worse. Reynolds moved Screen Guild to its fourth timeslot in four years - Thursday at 9:00 on NBC. Its season ratings sank to an all-time low of 8.9 and the tobacco manufacturer cancelled. The show was on the ropes when ABC picked it up in the fall of 1950 and expanded it to an hour as the showcase of its Thursday night schedule at 8:00 ET. For the first time it was sustaining and unrated which was just as well - it was opposite The FBI In Peace & War on CBS and NBC’s Aldrich Family which combined for a 19.3 rating, leaving little left over for Screen Guild. Finally, the show was given a short, sustaining three-month encore mini-season in the spring of 1952 on CBS, where it all began 14 years earlier.
But how did it really end?
Roller coaster ratings and rankings aside, it was never forgotten by those countless performers who participated in the Screen Guild’s 527 broadcasts over 13+ seasons that their mission was to contribute their talents to the Motion Picture Relief Fund and Jean Hersholt’s dream project of a Country House & Hospital for the less fortunate. When it was all over and the contributions were tallied, they totaled $5.3 Million.
Mission accomplished!
1) The Motion Picture Relief Fund is now the Motion Picture & Television Fund with assets over $180 Million.
2) Neal Dodd, the "Padre of Hollywood", founded historic St. Mary’s of The Angels Anglican Church in 1918. He became the first clergyman to join the Screen Actors Guild in 1920. International Movie Data Base credits Dodd with 51 screen appearances - all as a clergyman or justice of the peace. Dodd donated all of his performance earnings to charity.
3) The move was a mistake for Phil Baker whose Sunday Gulf Headliners rating of 16.4 fell to a dismal 7.6 with Honolulu Bound on the CBS Saturday schedule before It was cancelled after 26 weeks. He rebounded into the Annual Top 20 in 1942 for five seasons with Take It Or Leave It.
4) Ironically, Truman Bradley died in 1974 at the Motion Picture Relief Fund’s Country House & Hospital.
Copyright © 2015 Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com
Unique among all Network Radio programs, the Screen Guild series - The Screen Guild Show, The Screen Guild Theater and The Screen Guild Players - all had one basic purpose in its 13 year run: to raise money for a specific charity, the Motion Picture Relief Fund.
Founded in 1920 by movie pioneers Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin and D.W. Griffith, the Fund began as just a set of coin boxes placed at the studios where workers could leave spare change for those in the film industry who had fallen on hard times. (1)
It was incorporated as the Motion Picture Relief Fund in 1921 with United Artists executive Joseph Schenck as its President, Mary Pickford as Vice President and Father Neal Dodd as Secretary.(2) When the Depression hit and needs became more critical in 1932, Pickford devised the Payroll Pledge Plan - enlisting film actors and technicians earning above $200 a week to donate one-half of one percent of their pay to the Fund, which gave it a steady cash flow.
But more - much more - was needed for the long-range plan of Fund President Jean Hersholt who wanted to create a retirement and medical facility for elderly and indigent film industry veterans, the Motion Picture Country House & Hospital in suburban Los Angeles.
Music Corporation of America co-founder Jules Stein came up with the multi-million dollar idea in 1938 that helped make Hersholt’s dream come true - an idea that only a high-powered talent agency like Stein’s MCA could pull off. It involved creating a weekly radio show starring Hollywood’s biggest names and donating their performance fees over to the Fund.
While Stein’s idea was taking shape, Gulf Oil’s Gulf Headliners, hosted by comedian Phil Baker since the death of Will Rogers in 1935, was in its final months. It had remained a top rated show in the three ensuing seasons, reaching the Annual Top Ten in 1936-37 and becoming CBS’s highest rated Sunday night show in 1937-38. But Baker was restless and headed for the new Dole Pineapple show, Honolulu Bound, in January,1939. (3) Both Gulf and CBS were primed for Stein’s pitch.
First called Gulf’s Screen Guild Show when it premiered over 61 CBS stations at 7:30 ET on January 8,1939, (also posted below), the debut was an all-star revue with Jack Benny, Judy Garland, Joan Crawford, Reginald Gardner and host George Murphy. The opener was followed by a musical comedy with Loretta Young, Fred Astaire and Herbert Marshall, then a light drama with Bette Davis, Robert Montgomery and Basil Rathbone. The three shows turned in a promising first month rating of 13.7. But listeners didn’t know what to expect from week to week and steadily drifted away. Ratings sank to single digits in April and to an alarming low of 6.8 in June.
When the show returned from its summer hiatus in September actor Roger Pryor had taken over as host while producer Bill Lawrence began tapping into popular films to adapt with their original stars for the re-titled Gulf Screen Guild Theater.
The first program of that series, The Shop Around The Corner with James Stewart, Margaret Sullivan and Frank Morgan from September 29, 1940, was introduced by Jean Hersholt who acknowledged the program’s importance to the Motion Picture Relief Fund. The move away from original material and into popular movie material helped Screen Guild Theater boost its ratings 30% during its second season and another 20% in 1940-41 to peak at 15.3 which placed it 15th in the Annual Top 50 rankings of all prime time programs. For example, posted is Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday from March 30, 1941, which illustrates the clever talents of writers Bill Hampton and Harry Kronman who were responsible for most of the program’s condensations of full length movies into brief minute radio adaptations.
America’s entry into World War II caused Gulf to cancel Screen Guild Theater in April, 1942, after 113 performances which had raised a total of $800,000 for the Motion Picture Relief Fund. A crowd of 3,000 celebrated the dedication of the Motion Picture Country House’s first building in suburban Woodland Hills on September 27th and in less than a month they would have something else to celebrate…
After Gulf Oil dropped Screen Guild Theater sponsorship, MCA re-entered the picture to help CBS land a new benefactor for its favorite charity. They knew where to look.
Chicago cosmetics manufacturer Lady Esther had built its brand with Network Radio - most importantly the CBS half-hour on Monday following Lux Radio Theater at 10:00 ET, established since 1933 as home of The Lady Esther Serenade with sweet dance bands appealing to women. (See The Waltz King and Guy Lombardo on this site.)
Trying something new in 1941, Lady Esther replaced Lombardo’s Royal Canadians with Orson Welles’ Mercury Theater, a Top 15 show over its 26 week run. When Welles left, the time period reverted back to the Lady Esther Serenades of Freddy Martin’s orchestra and ratings dropped. Lady Esther was looking for a replacement and Hollywood was looking good;
The Lady Esther Screen Guild Players hit the air in a big way on October 19, 1942, with its adaptation that summer’s blockbuster, the three-month old Yankee Doodle Dandy, starring James Cagney, Joan Leslie, Walter Huston and Jeanne Cagney, (also posted below). The new series was hosted by the classic announcer who would become closely associated with the show’s greatest success over the next five seasons, Truman Bradley. (4)
Scheduling Screen Guild Players’ 22 minute movie adaptations on Monday nights immediately following Lux Radio Theater’s 45 minute movie adaptations would appear to be overkill - but not for movie-crazy America of the 1940’s. In its first season following Lux, 1942-43, Screen Guild's ratings shot up over 50% to 19.7, establishing it as Monday’s second most popular program behind Lux - a position it would hold for five consecutive seasons.
Recognizing the similarity in their shows’ formats, Lux and Screen Guild producers coordinated their schedules to encourage variety and avoid repetition between the back-to-back programs, so listeners seldom heard two heavy dramas or two light comedies on the same Monday night. Six additional programs from the Lady Esther Screen Guild Players series are posted below illustrate this variety and the caliber of stars the program attracted.:
They Got Me Covered - Bob Hope & Dorothy Lamour - February 15, 1943
For Me & My Gal - Judy Garland, Gene Kelly & Dick Powell - March 22, 1943
Casablanca - Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman & Paul Henreid - April 26, 1943
Whistling In Dixie - Red Skelton, Claire Trevor &, Virginia Grey - May 17, 1943
Sweethearts - Nelson Eddy & Jeanette McDonald - March 25, 1946
The Philadelphia Story- Cary Grant & Katherine Hepburn - March 17, 1947
Ratings reflected the steady popularity of Screen Guild shadowing that of Lux by a usual spread of only two to four rating points and culminating in three consecutive Top Ten seasons beginning in 1944-45. Unfortunately, the tandem was broken up in the fall of 1947 when Lady Esther dropped Screen Guild’s sponsorship and Lever Brothers took over its timeslot for the new one-joke sitcom, My Friend Irma. R.J. Reynolds picked up Screen Guild Players for Camel Cigarettes and moved it ahead half an hour to 10:30, hoping that most Lux listeners would hold over through Irma for Screen Guild as they had when the two shows were adjacent. They didn’t.
In 1946-47 when the two shows were back to back, Lux turned in a 21.9 season rating to Screen Guild’s 20.0. During the explosive 1947-48 season when most programs enjoyed record high ratings, Lux soared to 31.2 while Screen Guild sank to its Monday night low of 18.9 - from tenth to 20th in the season rankings. Meanwhile, its replacement at 10:00, My Friend Irma, scored a 22.2 season rating, which would be an all time high for the sitcom‘s six year run.
The first show of the Screen Guild Players’ series for Camels from October 6, 1947 - The Bells of St. Mary’s with Bing Crosby & Ingrid Bergman - is posted below. In his introductory remarks, Motion Picture Relief Fund President Jean Hersholt promises bright things ahead for the program. He was probably unaware of the programming politics involving Reynolds and its William Esty agency that had shifted Camels’ resident quizmaster, Bob Hawk, from his five year run on CBS to NBC’s Thursday night schedule to fill the hole left by Abbott & Costello’s departure.
Monday’s Top 30 Bob Hawk Show had fallen out of the Top 50 in its move to NBC and Hawk wanted to return to CBS. It was a simple matter to swap time periods between Hawk and the Screen Guild program for the 1948-49 season. When the season was over Hawk returned to 26th in the annual ratings while, Screen Guild Players lost 42% of its audience and sank to 59th.
The next season was even worse. Reynolds moved Screen Guild to its fourth timeslot in four years - Thursday at 9:00 on NBC. Its season ratings sank to an all-time low of 8.9 and the tobacco manufacturer cancelled. The show was on the ropes when ABC picked it up in the fall of 1950 and expanded it to an hour as the showcase of its Thursday night schedule at 8:00 ET. For the first time it was sustaining and unrated which was just as well - it was opposite The FBI In Peace & War on CBS and NBC’s Aldrich Family which combined for a 19.3 rating, leaving little left over for Screen Guild. Finally, the show was given a short, sustaining three-month encore mini-season in the spring of 1952 on CBS, where it all began 14 years earlier.
But how did it really end?
Roller coaster ratings and rankings aside, it was never forgotten by those countless performers who participated in the Screen Guild’s 527 broadcasts over 13+ seasons that their mission was to contribute their talents to the Motion Picture Relief Fund and Jean Hersholt’s dream project of a Country House & Hospital for the less fortunate. When it was all over and the contributions were tallied, they totaled $5.3 Million.
Mission accomplished!
1) The Motion Picture Relief Fund is now the Motion Picture & Television Fund with assets over $180 Million.
2) Neal Dodd, the "Padre of Hollywood", founded historic St. Mary’s of The Angels Anglican Church in 1918. He became the first clergyman to join the Screen Actors Guild in 1920. International Movie Data Base credits Dodd with 51 screen appearances - all as a clergyman or justice of the peace. Dodd donated all of his performance earnings to charity.
3) The move was a mistake for Phil Baker whose Sunday Gulf Headliners rating of 16.4 fell to a dismal 7.6 with Honolulu Bound on the CBS Saturday schedule before It was cancelled after 26 weeks. He rebounded into the Annual Top 20 in 1942 for five seasons with Take It Or Leave It.
4) Ironically, Truman Bradley died in 1974 at the Motion Picture Relief Fund’s Country House & Hospital.
Copyright © 2015 Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com
| screen_guild_jan_08_1939.mp3 |
| screen_guild_march_30_1941.mp3 |
| screen_guild_10-19-42.mp3 |
| screen_guild_feb_15_1943.mp3 |
| screen_guild_mar_22_1943.mp3 |
| screen_guild_apr_26_1943.mp3 |
| screen_guild_may_17_1943.mp3 |
| screen_guild_mar_25_1946.mp3 |
| screen_guild_mar_17_1947.mp3 |
| screen_guild__oct_06_1947.mp3 |