THE RADIO BROADCAST THAT SHOCKED AMERICA

Practical jokes are centuries old. Edgar Allan Poe pulled one off in a newspaper article about a daredevil balloonist who got blown off course in South Carolina and ended up in England three days later. Speaking of England, the folks across the pond have endured a good many as well, such as the story that claimed that Communists had taken over London. These and other examples of the "fake news" from yesteryear are discussed in the editorial for the November 19, 1938 issue of RADIO GUIDE. However, the main feature is concerned with one of the most infamous hoaxes in history: Orson Welles' live broadcast of martians invading Earth. Not only was it convincing, but it sent America into a countrywide panic.

The show was adapted from the science-fiction novel, THE WAR OF THE WORLDS by H. G. Wells first published in 1898. Like the book, it was also written as a first-person account, and scriptwriter Howard Koch imitated the first-person point of view to give what would be a live broadcast the element of verisimilitude.

Along with a few other actors, the 23-year-old Welles read his script over the airwaves of CBS Radio's "The Mercury Theatre on the Air" program on the evening of October 30, 1938. Before the show was over, panic had already spread and it took an apology from Wells the next morning to calm down a frightened populace. Moreover, in a likely move to avoid personal criticism and distance himself from the event, H. G. Wells himself was reported as saying he did not give his permission for his story to be used in a "news bulletin" format that would incite fear and panic.

Welles the morning after with the press.

So, just how convincing was this mother of all hoaxes? Read on, as the article discusses the incident, as well as Wells describing his thoughts on the hoodwinking of not only a radio audience, but an entire country. Also included is the complete script of the show.

[Thanks to Mr. Steve Green, our man in the U.K. for supplying WoM with this fantastic historical artifact.]

THIS IS SUSPENSE!

If actors thought they had tough work in Hollywood, they had no idea what it took to do a radio show in New York. Before television came and wiped out the industry, radio was king for decades and any family that could afford one, had one. A regular program could be found on any imaginable topic, including dramas, mysteries, Westerns, comedy, horror-- you name it, they had a show for it.

One of the most popular programs during the Golden Age of Radio (1920s-1950s) was SUSPENSE, a weekly drama from CBS Radio. It ran for over 900 episodes from June 17, 1942 until September 30, 1962. SUSPENSE was a high-quality production that featured a long list of popular Hollywood stars, including Orson Welles, James Stewart, Bette Davis and Cary Grant. The soundtrack was composed by Bernard "Psycho" Herrmann, who also scored a number of Hammer Films.

One of the most popular episodes was "Sorry, Wrong Number", broadcast on May 25, 1943 and starred Agnes Moorehead. It was re-broadcast seven more times over the years and Moorehead returned for each of them. The script was written by Lucille Fletcher, a Hollywood screenwriter, music librarian and copy editor. She was also the wife of Bernard Herrmann.

The pages below were generously supplied by "our man in the U.K.", journalist Steve Green.

Download and listen to over 400 remastered episodes of SUSPENSE HERE.

RADIO ALBUM (Winter 1949):

Here's a human interest feature on a young Orson Welles from RADIO ALBUM #1 (Spring 1942):

HORROR ON THE AIR!

For all his film acting credits, Boris Karloff insisted that true horror was best served over the radio. The question put to him by Gladys Hall, the author of this article from the June 1936 issue of RADIO STARS was this: "Do you believe horror can be done on the air? I mean, as effectively, as chillingly as the thrills and spine-shudders you give us on the screen?" Karloff replied: "More effectively. Why not? For isn't horror more horrible as an audible sensation, really? I mean, if you only hear a thing--a cry in the night, a moan, a wail--isn't it more horrible than if you can see what is making the moan or the wail or the scream?" Putting it in that context, it's hard to argue his point.

At the time of this interview, Karloff was living with his wife, Dorothy, at 2320 Bowmont Drive, in Coldwater Canyon above Beverly Hills and was a resident from about 1934 until 1945. He bought the property from former owner Katherine Hepburn, who is rumored to have sold it because she claimed it was haunted.

After moving from the East Coast, Hepburn moved into the home with her friend, Eve March and a housekeeper. In his book, "The Movieland Directory", E.J. Fleming writes: "One night March watched the door latch open and close by itself, and the next day Hepburn and March watched a ghostly man walk from the pool into the apartment, closing the door behind him."  The first time Hepburn’s younger brother Richard stayed overnight, he told her that a young man "stood over his bed all night staring down at him. He was too afraid to move until sunrise". One wonders who this apparition might have been since the house was built in 1927 and less than 10 years old at the time.

While Karloff lived there, he kept a barnyard of animals, including dogs, ducks, chickens, a cow and a 400-pound pig he affectionately called Violet. An avid gardener, he also maintained a well-kept rose garden where it is said that he scattered the ashes of a few friends. Without sounding too morbid, I suppose it would have been a good source of bone meal, which is one of the nutrients that roses thrive on. 

In his excellent book, "Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff: The Expanded Story of a Haunting Collaboration", noted horror historian Greg Mank wrote:

"For Karloff, home was his Mexican farmhouse — a bizarre aerie, high amidst the oak trees and honeysuckle of Coldwater Canyon, in the mountains above Beverly Hills.  Twenty-three twenty Bowmont Drive, with its pool and beautiful, rambling gardens, previously had been the address of Katharine Hepburn.  The actress sincerely believed a ghost haunted the house, moving the furniture, jiggling the latch on Ms. Hepburn’s bedroom door and looming over the guest bed — so terrifying Hepburn’s brother Richard that he couldn’t sleep ‘one single night’ during his visit.  After Kate’s friend Laura Harding tried to have her dogs ferret out the ghost — to no avail — Hepburn vacated, and Boris and Dorothy had moved into the haunted hacienda in the spring of 1934.  ‘We felt rather sorry for the ghost,’ said Laura Harding — after all, the spirit had likely met its match in the star who’d played Frankenstein’s Monster!  Perhaps Boris scared away the ghost, or maybe they were kindred spirits, for the star loved his ‘little farm'."

In this magazine interview, Karloff also had another surprising thing to say: "One of the future developments of radio may be to establish long-wave contact with--the world beyond." Read the article for him elaborating on the topic and more.

This is a partial list of radio shows Boris Karloff appeared on:

• Creeps By Night
• Info Please
• Inner Sanctum
• Jack Benny
• Kraft Music Hall
• Lights Out
• Master Storyteller
• Reader's Digest
• Spike Jones

TERROR ON THE AIR! THE WITCH'S TALE

It's almost impossible for people these days to think of a world without television. Time has grown distant enough to nearly forget that it's nickname "The Tube" was in reference to the cathode ray tube that projected "black and white" (and later, color) images on its phosphor screen. I remember one of our TVs seemed to have regular problems, so I'd accompany my Dad to the local supermarket and he'd test the vacuum tubes on this machine that could have come out of a Flash Gordon serial! Now, when our "televisions" go out, we simply trash (or hopefully recycle) them -- insert sad face here.

So, back in the "old days", for visual entertainment, people would go to the movies. Back then, you dropped a dime and saw a double-feature, along with cartoons, newsreels and sometimes even a live show before all the rest. Now you drop ten bucks for one movie and an endless string of "Coming Attractions" which is advertising, not additional entertainment.

Another huge draw for entertainment back then was the humble radio. It was not unusual for whole families to gather around in front of their Motorola, RCA, Philco or Westinghouse on any night of the week and listen to radio shows featuring every topic imaginable from comedies to westerns to drama to mystery, and yes -- horror.

The first of the outright horror programs was WOR in New York's THE WITCH'S TALE, created by Alonzo Deen Cole. Each episode was introduced by Old Nancy, the Witch of Salem, along with Satan, her black cat familiar.

The show became so popular that it was later pitched as a television series, but the idea died on the vine. Cole also managed to publish two issues of the pulp magazine THE WITCH'S TALES (November, December 1936) before it petered out for an unknown reason, likely poor distribution or too much for Cole to handle with his busy weekly schedule.

In 1998, Dunwich/Bookhunter Press, NY published the paperback THE WITCH'S TALE by Alonzo Deen Cole. Edited by David S. Siegel, it contained a bio of Cole and a history of the radio show. Included are many transcribed radio scripts for the show that anyone interested in THE WITCH'S TALE or old time radio in general will find interesting. The Dunwich publication is out of print, but Bear Manor Media re-issued it in 2011 and is still in print from them.

The Witch's Tale by Alonzo Deen Cole, Dunwich Press 1st edition, 1998.

Now, back in the 1990's until the early 2000's I got involved in independent, small-press publishing. I had also immersed myself in the works of H.P. Lovecraft and his circle of writers. As soon as I was able to prove that I was a descendant of Wilbur Whately, I was accepted as a member of Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi's amateur press association, THE ESOTERIC ORDER OF DAGON. During this same period, I produced several publications, beginning with BLACK LOTUS: THE MAGAZINE OF THE BEAUTIFUL AND STRANGE, inspired by another topic I was absorbed in, the 1890's fin de siècle Symbolist and Decadence literary and arts movement. Following that was the digest-sized LOVECRAFT'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE, inspired by the series of anthology digests edited by Robert A.W. Lowndes (MAGAZINE OF HORROR, STARTLING MYSTERY STORIES, et al) and titled after -- believe it or not -- ALFRED HITCHCOCK'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE. You can read the full story of these and the other magazines I published HERE as well as purchase a number of back issues that I recently discovered stored away.

Black Lotus cover by Donald Schank - Lovecraft's Weird Mysteries cover by Allen Koszowski

With issue #4 LOVECRAFT'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE was renamed LOVECRAFT'S WEIRD MYSTERIES. A feature in issue #6 was an article I wrote about THE WITCH'S TALE radio program, reprinted below.

Lovecraft’s Weird Mysteries

Vol. 1 No. 6

2003 (No month)

Pentagram Publications/L’Image Studios

Editor and Publisher: John Navroth

Cover: Allen Koszowski

Pages: 48

Cover price: $5.00

© 2003 by John Navroth

NOTE: The following text has been edited from the published copy.

Terror on the Air: The Witch's Tale

The golden age of radio was glorious indeed. Virtually any night of the week during the 1930's listeners could tune in to their favorite radio station and let their imaginations run wild, and, for a short while, forget Depression woes and the fear and anxiety of world war. One simply could not want from scores of subjects, as radio "theater plays" contained everything from drama, to adventure, to comedy, and, of course, mystery.

Listeners wanting their dose of spooky chills and thrills during those years were not disappointed with the likes of The Shadow, I Love A Mystery, Lights Out, The Hermit's Cave, The Mysterious Traveler-- and perhaps the most popular and longest running radio mystery -- Suspense, which featured some of the day's most noted actors and actresses.

However, those curious and hearty souls wishing for their mystery to be spiced up with the supernatural found the Golden Age airwaves lacking in what we know of today as horror. Sure, there were plenty of shows that contained a fair amount of creepy atmosphere and creaking floorboards, but the payoff was much like the weird menace pulps of the day -- there was usually an earthbound explanation for the so-called supernatural hauntings and spooks that had terrified audiences during the broadcast, and it was usually chalked up as a plain old murder mystery in the end.

But, on the night of May 28, 1931, at 10:15 EST, when radio station WOR of New York broadcast the first program of The Witch's Tale, radio mystery/horror programs, and horror in the media for that matter, would never be the same again.

The Witch's Tale was the brainchild of Alonzo Deen Cole. Deen Cole, as he was known by his friends, was born in St. Paul, Minnesota on February 22, 1897. His writing career began at the age of 11 (!) when he won first prize in a statewide competition at the 1908 Minnesota State Fair. When in High School Cole wrote, directed, and starred in several theatrical productions. At 16, he pursued an interest in drawing by enrolling at the Minnesota Academy of Arts. However, acting seemed to burn stronger in his blood and he gave up his career in art to continue his talent in acting, appearing in a number of stage plays until World War I, when he enlisted as a medic. After the war, he acted with other men in uniform in the Army's Entertainment Division.

In 1919, he struck out again in civilian life and began a career in the burgeoning radio industry. He appeared in a show called The Honeymooners, where he met his first wife, Marie O'Flynn. They appeared together in a radio serial, Darling and Deane, heard over New York's station WOR. During this period it seems he developed his idea for The Witch's Tale, for not long after Darling and Deane, The Witch's Tale premiered -- and was met with almost immediate acclaim by the tabloid press and local critics.

Alonzo Deen Cole, the first Nancy Adelaide Fitz-Allen, and Cole's wife, actress Marie O'Flynn,

Cole conceived, wrote, directed, and starred in every one of The Witch's' Tale's 332 live broadcasts (from 05/28/31 to 06/13/38). His wife, O'Flynn, and two other actors, Mark Smith and Alan Devitt completed the spartan cast. Each program was introduced by Old Nancy, The Witch of Salem, accompanied by her black cat, Satan. Nancy was originally played by 75-year-old Adelaide Fitz-Allen. When she died four years later, the role was won by 13-year-old Miriam Wolff, who had already had some radio experience playing witches on CBS's Let's. Pretend.

The programs ran thirty minutes in length, but an occasional two or three-parter would be produced. Most of the stories were originals of Cole's, but several classic authors were adapted by him for the shows, including Alexander Dumas, Theophile Gautier, Honor de Balzac, and Ambrose Bierce.

Anything could be found on The Witch's Tale, including werewolves, vampires, mad scientists, and other "mad beasts". These monsters, however, were not explained away as normal phenomena at the end of the show. These monsters were real monsters, which probably accounted for the wide listening audience, which grew with every episode.

The prolific Cole even wrote for other radio shows, including his tale, "The Gibbering Things" on The Shadow, one of the creepiest stories ever to be heard on Lamont Cranston's program. Cole also wrote for Weird Tales magazine (see back cover), and even came up with his own pulp magazine, entitled -- you guessed it! -- The Witch’s Tales subtitled "Weird, Dramatic and Supernatural Stories" (see inside back cover). Unfortunately, it only ran for two issues, which demand high collector's prices today.

LP of recordings from the original magnetic tapes/ Radiola, 1974.

The last live broadcast of The Witch's Tale was on June 13, 1938, but the show ran for six more years until Cole himself canceled it in 1945. He wrote for other radio shows for many years after that, including Gangbusters. He even tried shopping The Witch's Tale to television, but network producers did not seem interested. Alonzo Deen Cole died on March 31, 1971, at the age of 73.

The Witch's Tale was unique in the radio industry and was a great influence on later mystery programs, especially with the use of various mysterious sounding voice-overs from radio hosts to set the mood for each program's story to come. One can even speculate that it was Old Nancy, The Witch of Salem, who was the inspiration for The Old Witch, The Crypt-Keeper, and The Vault-Keeper, who introduced tales in William Gaines' EC line of horror comic books in the 1950's. Who would have known that a tough-sold radio program way back in 1931, conceived by a one-man show by the name of Alonzo Deen Cole, would be the benchmark of many horrors to come?

NOTE: Thanks to David S. Siegel, editor of "The Witch's Tale" (Necronomicon Press) for permission to reprint copyrighted material, including script excerpts and biographical information.

Script excerpt from "Mrs. Hawker's Will"

Air Date: Thursday, June 20, 1935

(Musical theme. . .)

Alonzo Deen Cole reads one of his hundreds of radio scripts on the air.

ANNOUNCER: Since the first long distant dawn of thought, man has peopled the night with terrors. Of the thousand shapes of fear his frightened eyes have seen in shadows, old Nancy and her black cat, Satan, have a thousand tales to tell. And they should know whereof they speak, for they -- so the credulous believe -- are themselves allied with the Powers of Darkness. If you are not afraid of ghostly things, come now to that ramshackle little house in ancient Salem where this strange pair reside, and hear with us another haunting mystery of the uncanny and weird.

(Music swells. . .wind whistles. . . Old Nancy and Satan give their introduction)

13-year-old Miriam Wolff, the second "Old" Nancy.

RYAN: I never expected a ghost--ghosts don't leave their hair behind.

RODNEY: I think that hair, and us waitin' here, is all bunk. Nothin' was in that room last night but poor Aunt Maggie--and nothin' could get in there now with us guardin' the only door--(Suddenly cries.) Ah--the crack of light's gone out!

RYAN: You keep back--I'm goin' in!

BABS: (From inside...screams in terror.)

RYAN: (As he crashes against the door, which slams open.) I'm comin', Miss Turner!

RODNEY: (Cries in terror.) Look--by the bed!!

RYAN: Good Lord!

RODNEY: It's covered with hair!!

RYAN: A hairy monster!!

BABS: (Frantic)Don't let it touch me again--don't let it--!!

RYAN: I won't!

(Two shots)

RODNEY: Shoot again! (Screams)Now it's comin' toward us!!!

RYAN: (As he empties his gun) I hit it--I hit it each time, but it doesn't drop!!

BABS: Bullets won't kill it--it's something unnatural--awful--dead!!!

The Witch's Tale - "Graveyard Mansion" (Airdate: March 6, 1938)

The Shadow - "The Gibbering Things" (Airdate: September 26, 1943)

RADIO THRILLS

Even though we are going forward with the new year, let's take a few minutes and turn back the clock to a time when computers and cell phones were non-existent to the general public. Instead, everyone relied on radio for their in-home entertainment. It's hard to believe, but most American families during the forties and fifties would huddle up to their Motorola's in the same way that families these days gather on the couch to watch a 4k Blu-ray movie on their 60-inch screen.

Extremely popular were radio shows featuring comedy, suspense, mystery and even horror. The Shadow became a top hit when the character made the jump from the pulps to radio, and SUSPENSE featured a slew of famous actors reading from the latest weekly script to thrill audiences. Like reading a book, radio encouraged people to use their imagination, which is why it has been dubbed "The Theater of the Mind".

Here are a few examples from the magazine, TUNE IN (March, 1946). While television was still being developed as popular entertainment, radio was still king.

Here is the famous SUSPENSE show featuring Agnes Moorehead in "Sorry, Wrong Number", which was adapted into a film starring Burt Lancaster and Barbara Stanwyck:

Here is The Shadow's first radio show from 1937:

There were a few radio horror shows, too. This one is an episode of THE WITCH'S TALE from 1934:

R.I.P. HILLY ROSE

Hilly Rose in 2008.

For over seventy years, Hilly Rose was a talk show radio personality. Reporting exclusively on everything from The Beatles to the UFO phenomenon, Mr. Rose was a pioneer of the AM Talk Show format. He passed away on December 27 at the age of 91.

Rose was inducted into the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame as a "Living Legend" pioneer broadcaster in 2016 after a long career covering pop culture and paranormal phenomena. He was at one time a host of the longtime radio program, Coast 2 Coast, as well as a contributor to FATE magazine.

He is survived by his wife Mary Shepper Rose and children Adam, Roger and Patricia. His oldest son, now deceased, was ABC-TV news anchor Judd Rose. He died of natural causes.