Breaking Walls

Hal Peary was born Harrold José de Faria to Portuguese parents on July 25th, 1908. He was fourteen when, in January of 1923, he made his radio debut on KZM in Oakland.

By the late 1920s he was working for NBC in San Francisco. Migrating to Chicago in 1937, he soon became one of radio’s insiders, gaining a reputation as a top utility man.

In 1937 he joined the cast of Fibber McGee and Molly playing every kind of bit part imaginable.

In the late 1930s, Peary approached McGee’s head writer Don Quinn with an idea for a recurring role. He wanted to play a pompous windbag who himself ran the biggest bluff in Wistful Vista. He thought it would be the perfect foil for McGee.

Quinn was the kind of man who innately understood how to write for radio. For Quinn it was simply a matter of creating Throckmorton Gildersleeve, moving him to 83 Wistful Vista, and letting the fur fly.

Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve’s first appearance was on September 26th, 1939. Quinn knew the value of sarcasm in comedy. It was also later revealed that Gildersleeve’s middle name was “Philharmonic.”

By 1941 the character proved so popular that it was decided to spin Gildersleeve off into its own show. An audition was recorded on May 16th. Peary’s last regular appearance on Fibber McGee and Molly was on June 24th in a memorable scene. McGee and Molly are headed to Hollywood for the summer.

Oddly enough by the time they got back, it was Gildersleeve who’d permanently departed from Wistful Vista. Tragically, Gildersleeve’s sister and brother-in-law were killed in a car accident and he needed to go to Summerfield to oversee their estate and raise his orphaned niece and nephew, Marjorie and Leroy Forrester.

He left on August 8th, 1941, creating with him a new American concept: the sitcom spinoff. The show premiered at 2:30PM Pacific Time over KFI in Los Angeles, and at 6:30PM Eastern Time over WEAF in New York.

Kraft would sponsor the series. They signed on for thirty-nine weeks over twenty-eight NBC Red Network stations.

Gildersleeve’s first head writer was Leonard Levinson. The character’s long-running feud with Judge Hooker began right from this first train ride. Music was done by William Randolph’s orchestra. Cecil Underwood produced the show and Jim Bannon announced.

Radio legend Frank Nelson, then on twenty-nine, provided multiple supporting parts in this episode. Walter Tetley played Leroy and Lurene Tuttle played Marjorie.

In Breaking Walls episode 148 we spend February of 1944 with America’s top comedian, Bob Hope, as he whisks himself around the country, entertaining troops and broadcasting to the masses.

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Highlights:

• Leslie Townes Hope’s Rise to Stardom

• Broadway and Early Radio Shows

• The Big Broadcast of 1938

• The Pepsodent Program

• Early February 1944 World War II News

• NBC Dominates Tuesday Nights in 1944

• Bob with Guest Ginger Rogers

• The 4th War Bond Drive

• Command Performance with Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, and Judy Garland

• Mid February World News Roundup

• Bob with Guest Bing Crosby

• Bob with Guest Carole Landis

• News as we Leave February

• Bob Gets Sick, Is Honored by The Academy

• Looking Ahead to March with The Great GIldersleeve

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The reading material used in today’s episode was:

• On The Air — By John Dunning

• Bob Hope: The Road Well-Traveled — By Lawrence J. Quirk

• The Spirit of Bob Hope: One Hundred Years, One Million Laughs — By Richard Grudens

• Network Radio Ratings — By Jim Ramsburg

• Bob Hope: The Road from Eltham — By Charles Thompson

As well as articles from:

• Aces of World War II

• Broadcasting Magazine

• The Military Times

• Radio Daily

• The Seattle Times

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On the interview front:

• Bob Hope was with both Dick Cavett in 1972 and Johnny Carson in 1974.

• Ken Carpenter, Jim Jordan, Hariet Nelson, Wendell Niles, Hal Peary, and Lurene Tuttle spoke with Chuck Schaden. Hear these chats at Speakingofradio.com

• Jim Jordan also spoke to Dick Bertel and Ed Corcoran for WTIC’s The Golden Age of Radio. Hear these interviews at Goldenage-WTIC.org

• Red Skelton spoke with Merv Griffin in 1975

• Bing Crosby spoke with Same Time, Same Station

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Selected music featured in today’s episode was:

• Thanks For the Memory — By Bob Hope and Shirley Ross

• Ghost Bus Tours — By George Fenton

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A special thank you to Ted Davenport, Jerry Haendiges, and Gordon Skene.

For Ted go to RadioMemories.com, for Jerry, visit OTRSite.com, and for Gordon, please go to PastDaily.com.

An extra special thanks to Doug Hopkinson who provided the Bob Hope episode with Bing Crosby that aired February 15th, 1944.

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Thank you to:

Tony Adams

Steven Allmon

Orson Orsen Chandler

Phil Erickson

Gerrit Lane

Jessica Hanna

Perri Harper

Thomas M. Joyce

Ryan Kramer

Earl Millard

Gary Mollica

Barry Nadler

Christian Neuhaus

Ray Shaw

Filipe A Silva

John Williams

Jim W.

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WallBreakers Links:

Patreon - patreon.com/thewallbreakers

Social Media - @TheWallBreakers

Well, that brings our look at Bob Hope’s career in February of 1944 to a close. We’ll be staying in 1944 the remainder of the year and next month we’ll spend March 1944 with a program considered to be the first spin-off in sitcom history.

Next time on Breaking Walls we spotlight Hal Peary and The Great Gildersleeve, which between February and March of 1944 pulled a rating of nineteen points, making it the most-listened to show airing at 6:30PM in radio history.

The reading material used in today’s episode was:

• On The Air — By John Dunning

• Bob Hope: The Road Well-Traveled — By Lawrence J. Quirk

• The Spirit of Bob Hope: One Hundred Years, One Million Laughs — By Richard Grudens

• Network Radio Ratings — By Jim Ramsburg

• Bob Hope: The Road from Eltham — By Charles Thompson

As well as articles from:

• Aces of World War II

• Broadcasting Magazine

• The Military Times

• Radio Daily

• The Seattle Times

——————————

On the interview front:

• Bob Hope was with both Dick Cavett in 1972 and Johnny Carson in 1974.

• Ken Carpenter, Jim Jordan, Hariet Nelson, Wendell Niles, Hal Peary, and Lurene Tuttle spoke with Chuck Schaden. Hear these chats at Speakingofradio.com

• Jim Jordan also spoke to Dick Bertel and Ed Corcoran for WTIC’s The Golden Age of Radio. Hear these interviews at Goldenage-WTIC.org

• Red Skelton spoke with Merv Griffin in 1975

• Bing Crosby spoke with Same Time, Same Station

——————————

Selected music featured in today’s episode was:

• Thanks For the Memory — By Bob Hope and Shirley Ross

• Ghost Bus Tours — By George Fenton

——————————

A special thank you to Ted Davenport, Jerry Haendiges, and Gordon Skene.

For Ted go to RadioMemories.com, for Jerry, visit OTRSite.com, and for Gordon, please go to PastDaily.com.

An extra special thanks to Doug Hopkinson who provided the Bob Hope episode with Bing Crosby that aired February 15th, 1944.

——————————

Thank you to:

Tony Adams

Steven Allmon

Orson Orsen Chandler

Phil Erickson

Gerrit Lane

Jessica Hanna

Perri Harper

Thomas M. Joyce

Ryan Kramer

Earl Millard

Gary Mollica

Barry Nadler

Christian Neuhaus

Ray Shaw

Filipe A Silva

John Williams

Jim W.

——————————

WallBreakers Links:

Patreon - patreon.com/thewallbreakers

Social Media - @TheWallBreakers

On February 29th, 1944 Bob Hope was supposed to be in Mobile, Alabama for the first leg of a tour. He was unfortunately grounded by a cold. Instead, he broadcast his portion of the show from Hollywood, while the cast broadcast from Mobile.

Once able to travel, Hope met his crew in transit, but not before being given a special award for his many services to the Academy at the March 2nd, 1944 Oscars.

The Hope show’s itinerary included the Annual White House Correspondents dinner for President Roosevelt on March 4th. On March 7th, the cast would be in Miami; On March 14th in Jacksonville; On March 21st in Macon, Georgia; On March 25th a special from the Cleveland Canteen; and on March 28th, they’d be in Colorado Springs.

On Friday February 25th, 1944 "Big Week," the allies six-day strategic bombing campaign against the Third Reich ended with a successful bombing of German cities Rostock and Augsburg, as well as several Dutch cities near the German border. Unfortunately, many civilians were killed or left homeless. The Germans also lost more than three-hundred-fifty aircrafts, and most importantly, more than one-hundred pilots.

Meanwhile two large Japanese ships were torpedoed, killing five-thousand Japanese soldiers, but also thirty-five hundred Japanese laborers and hundreds of allied POWs.

On Saturday the 26th, more than six-hundred Soviet bombers raided Helsinki. That day at 1:45 PM, NBC’s War Telescope signed on at 1:45PM eastern time.

With the U.S. congress squabbling, Europe looked on.

On Sunday February 27th, The U.S. Office of Strategic Services began Operation Ginny I with the objective of blowing up railway tunnels in Italy to cut German lines of communication. The mission failed when the OSS team landed in the wrong place and couldn’t locate the tunnel.

That same day, the Soviets massacred more than seven-hundred villagers in Chechnya they deemed non transportable.

On Monday the 28th, the German 14th Army mounted new attacks against the U.S. VI Corps at Anzio, while also massacring roughly one thousand ethnic Poles in the village of Huta Pieniacka.

Although the tide of war was slowly turning, there were atrocities and accidents on both sides, and neither the Allies or the Axis was fighting a pristine campaign.

Regardless, Europe understood that in a post war world, if victory was achieved, the U.S. needed to be a main part of whatever League of Nations could be built after, while the U.S. didn’t yet fully grasp just how much responsibility the country would have in rebuilding Europe.

On Tuesday February 22nd, 1944 The Bob Hope Show took to the air with a special broadcast for the Coast Guard. The guest was Carole Landis.

Hope’s radio cast from this era is his most famous. Along with Jerry Colona and songstress Frances Langford, the squeaky, man-crazed Vera Vague, voiced by Barbara Jo Allen was tremendous. Blanche Stewart and Elvia Allman played high-society nitwits Brenda and Cobina, modeled after real-life socialites Brenda Frazier and Cobina Wright Jr. Wright filed suit but settled, Hope remembered, when he invited her on the show as a guest.

Wendell Niles was often Hope’s announcer for Pepsodent.

On February 15th, 1944 Bob Hope broadcast his program from Santa Ana’s Classification Center. His guest of honor was none other than good friend Bing Crosby.

In February of 1944 Frances Langford was twenty-eight years old. She grew up in Florida, and originally trained as an opera singer. A tonsillectomy changed her range and she instead shifted her vocal approach to a more contemporary big band, popular music style.

As a teenager, cigar manufacturer Eli Witt heard her sing at an American Legion party and hired her to sing on a local radio show he sponsored.

In 1931 Langford moved to Hollywood, appearing on Louella Parsons' radio show. She was soon heard by Rudy Vallée, and in 1935 she made her film debut in Every Night at Eight. That year she became a regular performer on Dick Powell's radio show, which Bob Hope joined in 1937.

When The Pepsodent Program launched in 1938 she began a long term engagement with Hope.

In February of 1944 Hope, Crosby, and Dorothy Lamour were wrapping filming of Road To Utopia, the fourth in their series of Road To films.

Written by Melvin Frank and Norman Panama, the film is about two vaudeville performers at the turn of the twentieth century who go to Alaska to make their fortune. Along the way they find a map to a secret gold mine.

While shooting wrapped in 1944, the film wasn’t released until February 27th, 1946. Its screenplay was nominated for an Academy Award the next year.

The week of February 13th, 1944 began with the Allies raiding Hong Kong and giving supplies to French resistance fighters.

The next day a British submarine sank a German u-boat in a rare Pacific theater battle involving Germans.

On Tuesday the 15th, the Soviets began their first offensive in the Battle of Narva while a Japanese cruiser was torpedoed by a U.S. submarine.

By the middle of the week the Battle of the Korsun–Cherkassy Pocket ended in a Soviet victory with German forces fleeing for their lives, while American forces launched Operation Hailstone, a massive attack against a Japanese naval and air base in the Caroline Islands.

As that was happening the U.S. scored an important victory against Japan in The Battle of Karavia Bay.

Simultaneously, eight-hundred allied planes raided Berlin. The Germans would counter two days later by shelling London in the heaviest bombing of the British capital since 1941.

This helped lead to NBC’s War Telescope news program on Saturday February 19th, entitled “Britain is a Fortress.” It took to the air at 1:45PM from WEAF in New York.

The lieutenant Elmer Peterson interviewed was James Forrest Luma, born on August 27th, 1922 in Helena, Montana. At eighteen he was too young to enter flight training for the U.S., so he signed up for the Royal Canadian Air Force and was sent to England.

A month after this broadcast, Lieutenant Luma was involved with only one other pilot in an air raid that saw three German planes shot down and seventeen others retreat in flames.

Overall, he shot down five enemy planes in combat and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his efforts. Later this year, he was transferred to a U.S. Army Air Forces Squadron, serving until July of 1945.

James Luma lived to be ninety-six, passing away February 4th, 2019, just shy of seventy-five years to the date of giving this interview to Elmer Peterson.

The day after this broadcast, The Allies launched "Big Week", a six-day strategic bombing campaign against the Third Reich, while Erwin Rommel completed a four-day inspection tour of Germany's Atlantic Wall which stretched from Southern France all the way to Northern Norway.

He reported to Hitler that the German coastal defenses were up to all requirements, but the Germans knew that the day of a full scale western European invasion by the allied powers was coming.

On Saturday February 12th, 1944, Ken Carpenter was announcer for a Command Performance guest-starring Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, and Judy Garland. Hope had just co-hosted, with Bing Crosby, a pro-amateur golf charity event.

Bob Hope did his first remote broadcast from March Field on May 6th, 1941. Initially reluctant to leave the studio, the roar of laughter and applause from that first crowd was so loud, he would recall, that he “got goose pimples” during the broadcast. He was hooked.

He spent most of the next seven years on the road, broadcasting from bases, camps, and hospitals. The cast was put on alert, ready to go at the drop of a hat.

Frances Langford was given 24-hour notice to “hop a bomber” for Alaska in 1943. They hit one-hundred camps that year, in addition to their weekly radio show. They also went to Europe, doing a show at Messina just after the enemy had fled the town and was still bombarding the area with its artillery.

This year, 1944, on a trip to the South Pacific, Hope’s plane had to make a crash landing in Australia. John Steinbeck wrote of Hope, “It is impossible to see how he can do so much, can cover so much ground, can work so hard, and can be so effective.”

Newsweek called it “the biggest entertainment giveaway in history.” Many times Hope appeared on Command Performance, broadcast over the Armed Forces Radio Service.

Ken Carpenter recalled those shows.

After Bob Hope’s program signed off at 10:30PM eastern war time, The Red Skelton Show signed on. It debuted on Tuesday October 7th, 1941. By February of 1944 it was pulling a rating of 29.9. Ozzie and Harriet Nelson were heavily featured.

Skelton was so supercharged that he couldn’t do a pre-show warm up. It left his audience exhausted and practically catatonic during the main show. So Skelton reversed the formula and gave his fans an after-show. Among his peers it was considered the hottest comedy act in town.

Lurene Tuttle, who later appeared with Ozzie and Harriet on their own show, also starred on The Red Skelton Show.

For three seasons Skelton’s popularity soared, but then he got divorced and lost his marriage deferment. The army drafted Skelton in 1944. MGM and radio sponsor Raleigh Cigarettes tried to help with no avail. The Draft Board also turned down his request to join the Special Services branch for entertainers.

Skelton’s last radio program was on D-Day, June 6th, 1944. The next day he was formally inducted as a private. Without its star, the program was discontinued until he could come back from the war.

Words at War was an anthology of war stories, “told by the men and women who have seen them happen.” It was produced in cooperation with the Council on Books in Wartime, promising “stories of the battlefronts, of behind-the scenes diplomacy, of underground warfare, of the home front, of action on the seas.” Each show was to be “a living record of this war and the things for which we fight.”

First taking to the air on June 24th, 1943 from New York, it was praised by Variety as “one of the most outstanding programs in radio”; by the New York Times as the “boldest, hardest-hitting program of 1944”; and by Newsweek as “one of the best contributions to serious commercial radio in many a year.”

Despite airing at 11:30PM on Tuesdays, Words at War stimulated conversation and controversy throughout its two-year run.

On Tuesday, February 8th 1944 a story on George Washington Carver was broadcast.

When Words At War signed off at midnight, NBC broadcast a ninety minute program for the fourth war bond drive. It was part of an extended effort to raise funds. The night prior at midnight, Ben Grauer hosted this show over NBC.