Breaking Walls: The Podcast on the History of American Network Radio Broadcasting

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The February 17th, 1950 episode of Broadway is My Beat took Danny Clover to Greenwich Village.

By the early 1950s, the sound effects men working in radio had begun to refine their craft to a fine art. In September of 1987 Jack Kruschen and Shirley Mitchell were guests of Jim Bohannon on his radio show. They remembered some of those men.

The actor playing Camden Drake was Elliot Reid. Here he is speaking with Frank Bresee. Featured in this cast was Virginia Gregg. By 1950, she was one of the most versatile actresses on the air.

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The February 10th, 1950 episode of Broadway Is My Beat took Danny Clover to the wrestling matches in search of a missing woman. At that time New York City’s top wrestling promoter was Roderick James "Jess" McMahon. The patriarch of the McMahon wrestling family, Jess McMahon spent several decades as a sports promoter of all kinds, including professional wrestling matchmaking at Madison Square Garden.

Featured in this episode was Lawrence Dobkin. Years later, he remembered how he got into radio. Another famous featured character actor was Virginia Gregg.

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As Broadway Is My Beat was taking to the air on February 3rd, 1950, snow was on the ground. Three inches had fallen on the 1st.

That Friday, nuclear physicist Klaus Fuchs was arrested by agents of Scotland Yard. He was charged with providing American atomic bomb secrets to the Soviet Union. The next day, U.S. Army Lieutenant General Leslie R. Groves testified before a joint congressional committee that, as a result of the secrets Fuchs gave the U.S.S.R., the Soviets had begun development of both atomic and hydrogen bombs.

At the Cort Theatre In New York, Katharine Hepburn was starring in a production of Shakespeare’s comedy, As You Like It. Located at 138 West 48th Street, The Cort was renamed the James Earl Jones theatre in 2022.

Meanwhile The New York Daily News cover showed Ingrid Bergman, who’d just given birth to her son Robin Rossellini. The child was born out of wedlock. She filed for divorce from husband Dr. Peter Lindstrom, and shortly thereafter Stromboli premiered in American theaters. It was accompanied by a great deal of controversy from the affair between Bergman and director Roberto Rossellini. The pair would marry on May 24th, 1950.

The biggest international news was coming out of England where a general election was to be held on January 23rd. With that in mind, Elmo Roper took to the air on CBS’ The People Speak with more information.

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In November of 1949 Broadway is My Beat returned to the air on Saturday evenings. It remained there until late January of 1950. The show couldn’t find national sponsorship, though companies like Ford were buying single episode sponsorship to promote their products.

Beginning with the February 3rd, 1950 episode called “The Lieutenant Jimmy Hunt Murder Case,” the show moved to Friday evenings at 9:30PM eastern time.

Featured in this episode was Jeanette Nolan. She and her husband John McIntire were longtime friends of both Lewis and his second wife Mary Jane Croft.

Broadway is my Beat featured some of the best hollywood radio talent like Barney Phillips, Virginia Gregg, Tony Barrett, Herb Butterfield, Betty Lou Gerson, Hy Averback, Cathy Lewis, Harry Bartell, Lawrence Dobkin, Mary Jane Croft, and Herb Vigran.

Years later, Jack Kruschen remembered how many of them, including himself, often played more than one part on radio shows.

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Network radio opened 1949 fresh off its fourteenth consecutive year of record earnings. Total network revenue exceeded Two-hundred-ten million dollars.

Broadway Is My Beat first took to the air over CBS from New York on February 27th, 1949, It starred Anthony Ross and was directed by John Dietz. Dietz was a prolific radio man in the 1940s. He helped get Suspense off the ground and had success with New York-based shows like Casey, Crime Photographer.

Early CBS press material for the show told how “as a kid, Danny Clover sold papers and shined shoes along the Great White Way. He later walked the beat as a policeman and knows everything along Broadway—from pan handler to operatic prima donna—but he’s still sentimental. The street is forever a wonderland of glamor to him.”

CBS was in the middle of the “Packaged Program Initiative.” When head of CBS William Paley returned from World War II in 1946, he saw his network behind NBC in ratings, revenue, and star power. Paley decided to greenlight and cost-sustain shows in order to develop hits not controlled by advertising agencies. The gamble paid off.

By February of 1949 CBS had found success with sitcoms like My Friend Irma and Our Miss Brooks. The network was also using capital gains tax laws to sign production deals with stars like Jack Benny, George Burns, Gracie Allen, Red Skelton, and Bing Crosby. For a deep dive on this, please tune into Breaking Walls episodes 108 through 112.

Meanwhile, after fifteen weeks Broadway is My Beat was floundering. CBS was going to pull the plug at the end of May when NBC found its first post-talent raid hit. A new police procedural, Dragnet, launched on June 3rd, 1949. The brainchild of Jack Webb, it was unlike anything heard on the air at that point.

CBS brass decided to move Broadway is My Beat’s production to Hollywood.

Elliott Lewis was by then starring as Frankie Remley on The Phil Harris and Alice Faye Show and helping to edit scripts for Bill Spier on Suspense. With the urging of men like Spier and Bill Robson, Lewis was given the chance to direct the newly migrated series.

He was born in Manhattan on November 28th, 1917. He told Radio Life, “You should hear the city constantly. Even the people in New York are noisy.” Three soundmen were often needed to re-create that New York flavor.

Lewis immediately tabbed Morton Fine and David Friedkin to write the series. Here’s Morton Fine.

Lewis’ first episode came on Thursday, July 7th, 1949 when the repackaged Broadway is My Beat debuted as a summer replacement for The FBI In Peace And War. Larry Thor would star as Danny Clover. The change in tenor was immediately evident. Rounding out the regular cast was Charles Calvert as Tartaglia and Jack Kruschen doubling as both Sergeant Muggavan and Doctor Sinski.

The last episode of the seven week summer run was “The Val Dane Case,” airing on August 25th, 1949. By then the show had begun to hit its stride. Broadway is My Beat stretched for the poetic metaphor and if the tone was sometimes heavy and wordy, the scenes were gritty, and the crimes were less-than-glamorous.

After the initial summer run, the CBS network executives were happy with Elliott Lewis’ work and decided to bring the show back in the fall.

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Well we’ve reached the end of our look at Yours Truly Johnny Dollar and New York City in January of 1956. It would be impossible to tell a complete story on either subject within one episode. For more info on the history of Yours Truly Johnny Dollar, please tune into Breaking Walls episode 102. As far as New York City goes, don’t worry we’ll be staying right here in the next episode of Breaking Walls.

Next time on Breaking Walls, it’s February of 1950 and we’re following detective Danny Clover on his beat, from Times Square to Columbus Circle. It’s the gaudiest, the most violent, the lonesomest mile in the world.

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Despite a loyal audience, by January of 1956 it was clear that Yours Truly Johnny Dollar was failing to attract any kind of national sponsorship. The road to would have been difficult. Airing at 8:15PM weeknights on CBS radio, it was up against CBS’s own TV schedule, with Burns and Allen broadcast at 8PM eastern time on Mondays, The Phil Silvers Show on Tuesdays, Arthur Godfrey on Wednesdays, The Bob Cummings Show on Thursdays, and Mama on Fridays.

The serial format was great for character development, but it also meant audiences needed to tune into all five parts to know what was going on.

In April of 1956 Yours Truly Johnny Dollar was shifted to 9:15PM. By the summer CBS radio executives were looking to cut costs. Bob Bailey’s daughter Roberta remembered that time.

CBS aired these five-part episodes until November 2nd, 1956. The show moved to Sunday afternoons where it enjoyed continuous airtime in a half-hour time slot. Bob Bailey became the actor most closely associated with the Dollar character, keeping the title role until November of 1960. It was then that CBS decided to move all remaining dramatic productions with the exception of Gunsmoke to New York. Neither Jack Johnstone or Bob Bailey would move with the production.

The last Hollywood episode was appropriately entitled “The Empty Threat Matter.” It aired on November 27th, 1960. The trade papers made no mention of the production change.

On December 4th, 1960, New York’s version of Yours Truly Johnny Dollar took to the air starring Bob Readick, son of New York radio legend Frank Readick.

Former show director Jack Johnstone continued to write scripts, but Bob Readick had the unenviable task of following Bailey, who played Dollar in almost five-hundred episodes. Readick was replaced after just six months as of June 25th, 1961 by the final Johnny Dollar, Mandel Kramer. For Bob Bailey, the end of Dollar meant the end of his radio career.

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Lawrence Dobkin played several roles in “The Todd Matter,” including Bill Powers. He was a longtime member of AFRA.

Roberta Bailey-Goodwin remembered many of the actors that appeared with her father on Johnny Dollar.

Although not in this particular Dollar episode, Virginia Gregg was an oft-featured character actress and close friend of the Bailey family.

Shirley Mitchell, by then a radio legend, voiced Melva Charles.

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Production was done for these serial episodes of Yours Truly Johnny Dollar in a single day. Bob Bailey was paid three-hundred-dollars per week. Adjusted for inflation, a single week’s work on Dollar paid a little less than thirty-five-hundred dollars.

Between October of 1955 and November of 1956, fifty-five serials would air. To pen these scripts, Jack Johnstone tapped into his old writing mainstays.

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It’s 6PM on Wednesday, January 11th, 1956. I’m at Colbee’s Restaurant on the ground floor of the CBS headquarters at 485 Madison Avenue. I’m about to have a bite to eat with the man you just heard, Mandel Kramer.

Yesterday at Edwards Air Force Base in California, U.S. Air Force First Lt. Barty R. Brooks died in the crash of a F-100 Super Sabre. The accident was caught on film.

Word from Memphis is that young singer Elvis Presley recorded a new song called “Heartbreak Hotel.”

Today’s cover of The New York Daily News shows Grace Kelly in Monaco, but the interior pages talk about the rising problems in Vietnam. South Vietnam President Ngô Đình Diệm issued an ordinance giving his government almost unchecked power to deal with any opposition.

Meanwhile, the Soviet Union has approved technical specifications for an R-13 submarine-launched missile.

And earlier today, The 1956 Chevrolet Corvette was announced. It’ll cost three-thousand-one-hundred-twenty dollars. It features a new body, convertible top, optional power steering, optional hardtop, and rollup glass windows. The V6 option has been dropped in favor of either a two-hundred-ten or two-hundred-twenty horsepower V8 Engine. A 3-speed manual transmission is now standard.

The main national news is the debate on whether or not President Dwight D. Eisenhower will seek a second term.

After suffering a heart attack in September of 1955 Ike is still undeclared, meeting with an array of doctors to gauge whether the rigors of running for reelection will cause undue health issues. The United Press reported on Tuesday the 10th that sixty percent of the more than four hundred doctors polled felt that Dwight would be able to serve.

Perhaps some insight into Ike’s psyche was gleaned when on Monday, January 9th, he once again took over full White House duties, including naming Bernard M. Shanley Appointments Secretary.

Meanwhile, on NBC radio, Keys To The Capital is airing.