The Same Lack of Subject, Continued: The Way It Was, 12 May

Not that 12 Mays are any better than 11 Mays for old-time radio history. So what can you do but relax and just listen . . . ?

CHANNEL SURFING

1946: CAIRO---The Alley demimonde ponder Coney Island, and sleepless Fred (Allen)---driven to a night's sleep in a theatrical hotel, after being kept awake by Oscar Levant's "Cannibal Symphony"---ends up puzzled when guest Sydney Greenstreet, whose room adjoins his, has come all the way to New York to commit suicide, on tonight's edition of The Fred Allen Show. (Original broadcast: NBC; rebroadcast: Armed Forces Radio Service.)

Claghorn: Kenny Delmar. Titus: Parker Fenelly. Mrs. Nussbaum: Minerva Pious. Falstaff: Alan Reed. Music: Al Goodman Orchestra, the Five DeMarco Sisters. (Note: This AFRS rebroadcast splices Tommy Dorsey's hit recording of Sy Oliver's "Well, Git It!" near the beginning of the broadcast, just after Kenny Delmar's opening, ending just before Fred Allen's opening routine.) Writers: Fred Allen, Nat Hiken, possibly Larry Marks.

1948: EARLY GOLF---Assuming Ethel (Peg Lynch) can wake him at all, that's why Albert (Alan Bunce) wanted to get up early in the first place, until half a sleepless night, anyway, on tonight's edition of Ethel & Albert. (ABC.)

Suzy: Madeleine Pierce. Aunt Eva: Margaret Hamilton. Writer: Peg Lynch.

PREMIERING TODAY . . .

1892---John Barclay (singer/actor: Palmolive Beauty Box Theater; The Guiding Light), Blethlingly, Surrey, U.K.
1894---Leora Thatcher (actress: The Right to Happiness), Logan Utah.
1901---Whitey Ford* (as Benjamin Francis Ford; comedian, "The Duke of Paducah": Grand Ole Opry; Plantation Party), De Soto, Missouri; Scrappy Lambert (as Harold Lambert; singer, The Smith Brothers: Trade and Mark; Town Hall Tonight), New Brunswick.
1902---Philip Wylie (writer: This is War; The Sportsman's Club; Tomorrow; Lux Radio Theater), Beverly, Massachussetts.
1907---Katharine Hepburn (actress: Lux Radio Theater), Hartford, Connecticut.
1910---Gordon Jenkins (conductor/arranger/composer: Everythign for the Boys; The Bob Burns Show), Webster Groves, Missouri.
1914---Howard K. Smith (news reporter/anchor/commentator: CBS World News Today; CBS World News Roundup; Howard K. Smith News), Ferriday, Louisiana.
1924---Tony Hancock (comedian: Hancock's Half Hour), Birmingham, U.K.
1927---Suzanne Dalbert (actress: Command Performance; George Fisher Interviews the Stars), Paris.

*---Not to be confused with baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Whitey Ford, born in 1928 as Edward Charles Ford in Astoria, Queens, New York City.---JK.