Macdonald Carey starred on television for nearly 30 years in Days of Our Lives, and his voice still introduces each episode of the long-running soap opera. But before he was a daytime TV star, he played a detective in love in Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt and was one of Hollywood's B-movie kings. We'll hear him as a reporter searching for "The Missing Person" (originally aired on CBS on May 12, 1952). Plus, Carey stars as a New Orleans bar owner and boat captain in the drama series Jason and the Golden Fleece (originally aired on NBC on January 11, 1953).

At the height of his career, Francis X. Bushman received over one thousand fan letters a week and was hailed as the "king of the movies." Bushman was a screen idol of the silent film era and he starred in hundreds of films in the earliest years of Hollywood. We'll hear him narrate a tale of romance and murder from classic Tinseltown in "The City That Was" (an AFRS rebroadcast from November 17, 1957). Plus, we'll hear him as Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe in the radio mystery "The Shakespeare Folio" (originally aired on Mutual on November 30, 1945).

In this bonus episode, I'm sharing my favorite Suspense shows starring the great Edward G. Robinson. Best known for his tough guy turns in movies like Little Caesar and Key Largo, Robinson played against type to great effect on "radio's outstanding theater of thrills." We'll hear him as a man accused of his imaginary wife's murder in "My Wife, Geraldine" (originally aired on CBS on March 1, 1945). Then he plays both himself and a very starstruck fan in "The Man Who Wanted to Be Edward G. Robinson" (originally aired on CBS on September 30, 1948). Finally, Robinson is a man coerced into an insurance fraud in "You Can't Die Twice" (originally aired on CBS on March 31, 1949).

Before Humphrey Bogart played tortured writer Dix Steele on the big screen in In a Lonely Place, Robert Montgomery played the man with a deadly secret in an adaptation of the novel on Suspense. The actor and director of Lady in the Lake and Ride the Pink Horse is star, producer, and host of this sixty-minute version of Dorothy B. Hughes' novel (originally aired on CBS on March 6, 1948).

Lurene Tuttle was the "first lady of radio" and one of the most-heard women in America during the 1940s and 50s. No matter where you turned your dial, you'd probably hear her on the air. She was Sam Spade's secretary, the Great Gildersleeve's niece, and the mom of Red Skelton's "mean widdle kid" Junior, just to mention a few. We'll hear her in a pair of radio thrillers - first as a woman held hostage by a gunman waiting to kill her husband in "The Tip" (originally aired on CBS on July 6, 1954). Then, she co-stars with Rosalind Russell in "The Sisters," a dark tale of sibling rivalry (originally aired on CBS on December 9, 1948).

Agnes Moorehead contends with a shipwreck and armed robbers in two more old time radio thrillers starring "the first lady of Suspense." First, she stars in a tale pulled from the history books as a sea captain's wife who is marooned along with her husband and his crew in "The Wreck of the Maid of Athens" (originally aired on CBS on November 30, 1952). Then, she's trapped in a closed grocery store with a pair of gun-toting thieves who want to rob the safe and eliminate any witnesses in "Weekend Special - Death" (originally aired on CBS on May 24, 1954). 

We kick off 2023 with Frank Lovejoy, star of radio (Night Beat), screen (I Was a Communist for the FBI, In a Lonely Place), and television (Meet McGraw). He co-stars with his wife Joan Banks as a married pair of entertainers caught in the path of a hurricane in "The Storm" (originally aired on CBS on March 2, 1953). Then, he's trapped in a carnival fun house with a dead body in "The Giant of Thermopalye" (originally aired on CBS on May 3, 1954). Plus we'll hear Lovejoy in "The Hangtree Affair" from The Whistler (originally aired on CBS on December 19, 1948).

In our annual holiday bonus episode, we'll hear the film's original cast reunite for a radio recreation of It Happened on 5th Avenue. Charles Ruggles, Victor Moore, Gale Storm, and Don DeFore reprise their roles in this Christmas comedy about a hobo who makes his winter home in the New York mansion of the second richest man in the world, the evicted ex-GI who moves in, and the wealthy man's daughter who falls in with these friendly trespassers. This is an Armed Forces Radio Service rebroadcast of a show that originally aired on CBS on May 19, 1947.

Before she was ten years old, Evelyn Rudie earned an Emmy nomination for her performance as Eloise in a TV adaptation of Kay Thompson's classic children's book. She also made two appearances on Suspense, including a holiday offering from "radio's outstanding theater of thrills." We'll hear her as a little girl who wants a dog for Christmas in "Dog Star" (originally aired on CBS on December 22, 1957). Then, she's got a new imaginary friend and a new game in an adaptation of Ray Bradbury's "Zero Hour" (originally aired on CBS on May 18, 1958). Plus, as a bonus, we'll hear "The Cave," another Suspense Christmas story about two boys who discover a world of adventure when they go exploring on Christmas Day (originally aired on CBS on December 20, 1955).

The Oscar-winning star of The Lost Weekend takes center stage in this bonus episode as I share my favorite episodes of Suspense starring Hitchcock villain and Columbo killer Ray Milland. First, he's a cop who crosses the line in "Night Cry" (originally aired on CBS on October 7, 1948). Next, he lands in hot water when he leaves the house without so much as a nickel in "Chicken Feed" (originally aired on CBS on September 8, 1949). Then, Milland is a gumshoe in an adaptation of Raymond Chandler's "Pearls are a Nuisance" (originally aired on CBS on April 20, 1950). And finally, he's a juror who discovers a plan to swing the verdict in "After the Movies" (originally aired on CBS on December 7, 1950).