Eleanor Audley

Eleanor Zellman, better known as Eleanor Audley, was an American voice, radio, and television actress, known for voicing Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty and Lady Tremaine, the evil stepmother in Cinderella, the two famous villains in Disney animated films. She also voiced Madame Leota in the Disneyland attraction "The Haunted Mansion."

Eleanor Audley was born on November 19th, 1905 as Eleanor Zellman. She grew up in New Jersey, and at about 12 years old her family moved to New York City. It was the perfect location to launch her career in entertainment, where she began on Broadway. Her first ever role was the “Guest of the Hotel” in Howdy, King in December 1926. That show ran for a month and had 40 performances. She continued on Broadway all the way through to 1944, starring in shows such as On Call, Pigeons and People, Thunder on the Left, Kill that Story, Ladies’ Money, Susan and God, and In Bed We Cry. Her longest running role was Charlotte Marley in Susan and God.

After Eleanor’s career on Broadway, she began making appearances on radio shows. This is where her recognizable voice really started to become synonymous to her. One of her most famous roles was on a radio sitcom called My Favorite Husband that starred Lucille Ball and Richard Denning. The radio show ran from 1948 to 1951, with Eleanor starring as the mother-in-law, Mrs. Cooper, in a few episodes. She also starred in Father Knows Best, another radio sitcom that aired on NBC every Thursday night in the 1950s. She played the neighbor, Mrs. Smith.

Eleanor soon after began her work in film, with her first role in The Story of Molly X in 1949. She had already begun to make a name for herself in the industry, and was soon casted to be the evil stepmother in Disney’s newest animated film, Cinderella, in 1950. Disney animator Andreas Deja speaks about how she was the perfect fit for the role in the documentary From Rags to Riches: The Making of Cinderella.

Eleanor not only served as the voice of Lady Tremaine, but was also the live action reference model for her as well. In certain photos of Audley you can see the great similarities the 2 have. Frank Thomas was the supervising animator for the character of the Step-Mother, Lady Tremaine, in Cinderella. He recalls their time working together on the project, as he modelled the majority of the look of the character after Audley. The look and the voice together just made sense.

After her successful time at Disney working on Cinderella, she was then cast as the villain again in Disney’s next princess film, Sleeping Beauty. According to the 1997 VHS documentary of the making of Sleeping Beauty, it is said that Walt personally suggested Eleanor for the role. It’s been said that she initially turned down the role due to having tuberculosis at the time of the offer, but luckily was able to recover before having to record. The lead animator for Maleficent, Disney Legend Marc Davis, worked closely with Eleanor as he wanted to model the facial features after her as well, similarly to Lady Tremaine. He got the idea for the cape and horns from different historical religious texts he studied.

Her experience on radio sitcoms and films then translated into her getting roles on television sitcoms through the 1950s to the 1970s. Her first television appearance was on The Mickey Rooney Show as Bessie, which was actually the pilot episode of the series in 1954. She continued to play supporting characters on other successful TV shows such as I Love Lucy (1957), The Millionaire (1958), The Twilight Zone (1960), The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961), and Green Acres (1965). Audley continued to appear on television shows all the way up until 1970, her last series being My Three Sons.

She appeared in both versions of Father Knows Best, on radio (in the recurring role of neighbor Mrs. Elizabeth Smith), and in other roles.

She also participated in Romance, Escape, Suspense, Lux Radio Theatre, The Story of Dr. Kildare, The Railroad Hour, and Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar. She appeared as Mrs. Humphrey in All That Heaven Allows.

She also appeared in two episodes of the television series The Beverly Hillbillies as Millicent Schuyler-Potts, the strict headmistress of Potts School, where Jethro Bodine enters the 5th grade.

Other television appearances included Carlton Murdock in the series Honey West, starring Anne Francis and John Ericson, and Agnes Wilton in the television series Richard Diamond, starring David Janssen.

He died on November 25, 1991, due to respiratory failure, at age 86.

Father Knows Best

Father Knows Best is an American television series that aired in 203 25-minute episodes in black and white, created by writer Ed James in the 1940s, and aired on radio from 1949 to 1954 and on television from 1954 to 1960. It portrayed life in a middle-class American household, centered around the Anderson family in Springfield.

It was created by writer Ed James, who made an audition disc on December 20, 1948. On the audition disc, the father is known as Jim Henderson rather than Jim Anderson. Eight months later, the series began August 25, 1949, on NBC Radio. Set in the Midwest, it starred Robert Young as General Insurance agent Jim Anderson. His wife Margaret was first portrayed by June Whitley and later by Jean Vander Pyl. The Anderson children were Betty (Rhoda Williams), Bud (Ted Donaldson) and Kathy (Norma Jean Nillson). Others in the cast were Eleanor Audley, Herb Vigran and Sam Edwards. Sponsored by General Foods, the series was heard Thursday evenings on NBC until November 19, 1953.

It starred actor Robert Young as Jim Anderson, a kindly father in a happy family; his wife, Margaret, played by Jane Wyatt, and their three children: Betty (Elinor Donahue), Bud (Billy Gray), and Kathy (Lauren Chapin).

Jane Wyatt won the Emmy for Best Actress three consecutive years (1958, 1959, 1960) for her work on the series, while Robert Young won the Emmy for Best Actor two consecutive years (1957 and 1958).

The family comedy revolves around the dilemmas, problems, and concerns of a typical middle-class family's daily life and the way resourceful father Jim Anderson confronts and resolves them, weighing the consensus of his wife, Margaret, who possesses a great deal of common sense. The children know that whenever they need support, advice, or anything else, they can count on their father, because "Daddy knows best."

Characters: 

Jim Anderson (197 episodes, 1954-1960): The father, played by Robert Young.
Margaret Anderson (196 episodes, 1954-1960): The mother, played by Jane Wyatt.
Betty (192 episodes, 1954-1960): The eldest daughter, played by Elinor Donahue.
Bud (196 episodes, 1954-1960): The middle child, played by Billy Gray.
Kathy (196 episodes, 1954-1960): The youngest daughter, played by Lauren Chapin.

Matt Groening, the creator of The Simpsons, revealed that, of all the Springfields in the United States, the one that inspired him to be the city where the dysfunctional family lives is in Oregon and he also chose that city because his father liked watching the series Father Knows Best.

While the show is often regarded as an example of the conservative and paternalistic nature of American family life in the 1950s, it is also cited as an overly rosy portrayal of American family life.

A feature-length live-action movie remake starring Tim Allen was announced by Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies for theatrical release in 2008.

Frederick William Ziv

Frederick William Ziv was born on August 17, 1905. He was an American broadcasting producer and syndicator who was considered as the father of television first-run syndication and once operated the nation's largest independent television production company. An obituary in The Cincinnati Enquirer noted that Ziv "was known throughout the television industry for pioneering production, sales, promotion and marketing of TV series."

Frederick Ziv was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, to William and Rose Ziv. His parents were Jewish immigrants: his father William, a manufacturer of button holes for overalls, came to the US in 1884 from Kelm, Lithuania and his mother Rose from Bessarabia three years later. He had a sister named Irma. He graduated from Hughes High School.

He earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1928, however, Ziv did not practice law, but instead opened an advertising agency. His birth city, Cincinnati, was an important center for radio in the 1920s. The nation's largest radio sponsor, Procter & Gamble, and one of its most powerful radio stations, WLW, were based there. Ziv and writer John L. Sinn, who later became his business partner and son-in-law, founded the Frederic W. Ziv Company (also given as Frederick W. Ziv Company) that produced syndicated radio and television programs in the United States. Horace Newcomb's Encyclopedia of Television described the company as "by 1948, the largest packager and syndicator of radio programs" and later "the most prolific producer of programming for the first-run syndication market during the 1950s. They produced pre-recorded radio shows such as Boston Blackie and The Cisco Kid and occasionally bought old shows for new syndicated rerun broadcast. The best known was the serial comedy Easy Aces in 1945.

Ziv sold his company to United Artists in 1959 for $20 million. He later taught for 22 years at the University of Cincinnati-College Conservatory of Music, which presents an award for broadcasting achievement in his name each year.

By the 1950s, Ziv's company was the largest privately owned TV film firm in the industry, with nearly 2,000 employees worldwide.

Ziv died at the age of 96 on October 13, 2001. He was survived by a son and a daughter.
He is buried in the United Jewish Cemetery in his city, Cincinnati, Ohio.

Bold Venture

Bold Venture is the radio adventure series starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall that originally aired in 1951-52. Bogart plays hotel and boat owner Slate Shannon, and Bacall plays his ward, Sailor Duval. The two often became entangled in tight situations when hiring their services to shady characters.

Salty seadog Slate Shannon (Bogart) owns a Cuban hotel sheltering an assortment of treasure hunters, revolutionaries and other shady characters. With his sidekick and ward, the sultry Sailor Duval (Bacall), tagging along, he encounters modern-day pirates and other tough situations while navigating the waters around Havana. Aboard his boat, the Bold Venture, Slate and Sailor experience "adventure, intrigue, mystery and romance in the sultry settings of tropical Havana and the mysterious islands of the Caribbean."

Calypso singer King Moses (Jester Hairston) provided musical bridges by threading plot situations into the lyrics of his songs. Music by David Rose. Beginning March 26, 1951, the Frederic W. Ziv Company syndicated 78 episodes. Other sources claim that the 78 episodes include reruns, and that there were only around 30 episodes. Heard on 423 stations, the 30-minute series earned $4000 weekly for Bogart and Bacall.

Fredric Ziv, a syndicated transcribed program producer, presented Bogart and Bacall with an offer, "just record your lines and we'll do the rest". Beginning in March 1951, the Frederic W. Ziv Company syndicated 78 episodes via electrical transcription. Heard on 423 stations, the 30-minute series earned $5,000 weekly for Bogart and Bacall. 

All of Frederic Ziv's 40+ radio series (some 10,000 radio programs), including all 78 episodes of Bold Venture, were donated by the Ziv Estate to Media Heritage and exclusively licensed to Carl Amari who successfully launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds necessary to professionally transfer the complete run of Bold Venture. Soon, all 78 episodes will be available, including 18 "lost" Bold Venture episodes which have not been heard in more than 70 years. 

A definitive collection of all 78 Bold Venture episodes, which will include a detailed historical booklet, will be available beginning in 2024 through Amari's company.

Bold Venture is also a 30-minute American adventure television series syndicated in 1959. It was based on the radio series.

Carlton E. Morse

 

The title of the series Adventures by Morse refers to the writer and director of the show, Carlton E. Morse. There were 52 episodes of this thirty-minute adventure series featuring a San Francisco detective, Captain Bart Friday, and his sidekick, Skip Turner. Captain Friday and Skip roamed the world together seeking danger and solving mysteries. 

Carlton E. Morse was born on June 4th, 1901, in Jennings, Louisiana. At the time of his birth, his parents, George and Ora Morse (Ora Anna Phyllis Grubb) never had an inkling that their little boy would grow up to become a writer. Carlton was the oldest of six children. As with most parents, George and Ora assumed that "Carl," as they so called him during his youth, was just an average boy growing up to find his fortune, and possibly marry the woman of his dreams. But in 1906, the family was forced to move to west, to the booming town of San Francisco, California, where George and Ora hoped to raise their children in a more strict, conventional home life. Years later, the family would move north where help was needed on a fruit and dairy ranch in Talent, Oregon. 

"At the tender age of five I enticed my father and mother away from their rice fields and oil wells near Jennings, Louisiana, not too distant from the rough, tough, roistering elements of the Texas Panhandle," recalled Morse. "It was then I brought them through the perils of the turn-of-the-century rail transportation to the virgin farm lands of the Rogue River country in Southern Oregon. The trials and tribulations of this memorable trek were manifold. A few instances of our misadventures may be imagined when I make it clear that my father in early married life was a reluctant man with money, which though negligible, he had come by the hard way. The idea of adding a gratuity, more vulgarly known as a tip, to a service charge revolted him right down to the tendrils of his grassroots. Once in a generous moment he expansively left four pennies for a large colored waiter, and only was saved from outright mayhem with a most odious looking straightedge razor by throwing my innocent young body in my father's arms and crying out, Brutalize me if you will, but save my dear papa.

He attended Ashland, Oregon High School beginning in 1915; two years later the family left Oregon and moved to a twenty acre ranch in the Carmichael district of Sacramento, California. Carlton's brother, Wilbur, would eventually practice law there and his older brother, Melvin, would sell insurance. Morse's father became the Superintendent of the now-defunct National Rice Mills of Northern Sacramento. Carlton wanted to go out on his own and make a living for himself. From time to time, he helped unload rice for his father. 

At Sacramento High School, Morse played on the basketball team and was on the staff of the school paper. He graduated in 1919. After high school he attended Sacramento Junior College and played on its basketball team also. In 1922, Carlton E. Morse was twenty-one years old. In that same year he enrolled at the University of California at Berkeley, where he once recalled having heard President Wilson speak. The students knew Morse as a guy with a sly sense of humor. 

At the University of California at Berkeley, he was exposed to drama classes and writing courses, that became the inspiration for a career in journalism. According to "many" sources it was here during drama classes that Morse made life-long friends with students who would later star in One Man's Family and I Love A Mystery, including Michael Raffetto, Barton Yarborough, and J. Anthony Smythe. 

About 1990, Morse told ILAM fan Jim Harmon in a face to face conversation that newspaper stories about his being friends with his future actors at the University were not true. He had met Raffetto, Yarborough and the rest when they "walked through the door" to audition for his early radio dramas like House of Myths. 

Carlton's journalism career was jumpy, to say the least. He was supposed to graduate with the Class of 1923 at the University of California but never did. But as Morse explained, "On my second year I got thrown out because I flunked military. On those days it was right after the first World War and everybody was coming back from Europe and here I was, a little country boy, never wore a uniform (always wore overalls) and so I got thrown out of the University. I went up to Sacramento where my folks were living and got my first job writing for the Sacramento Union." He began at the bottom floor, as a newspaper reporter for the Union from 1920 to 1922, covering radio and police news. 

"Now I reached out into wider fields, namely 'The Press'," recalled Morse. "I was kindly received, but miserably paid, receiving the munificent sum of twelve dollars a week, that is on the weeks where there was money left over after the printers and the managing and city editors had got theirs. However I was not pleased being quite away that this same sheet, the Sacramento Union, had pandered to the geniuses of both Brett Harte and Mark Twain. Perhaps I was even working at the very desk and with the very typewriter these two stalwarts had used for some of their masterpieces. This might well have been, for both were of vintage stock, the desk on weary and trembling legs and the typewriter wrote with all the keys only when laid upon its left side. I understand that since, and perhaps because of, my days of service there the Sacramento Union has flourished. I always am glad to lay the magic touch on any institution which is tolerably responsive." 

Discouraged with his meager pay, Morse went to work for the copy desk at the San Francisco Chronicle, where he remained until 1925. It was five years of hard work that finally paid off, when he acquired the position of a columnist at the San Francisco Illustrated Daily Herald (1925-27), and it was this position with which he established his writing style. From 1927 to 1928 he wrote for the Seattle (Washington) Times, and from 1928 to 1929 he wrote columns for the San Francisco Bulletin. 

Author's note: Morse wrote columns for numerous West Coast newspapers during the twenties, including the Portland Oregonian, the San Francisco Illustrated Daily Herald and the Vancouver Columbian. One source reports that he wrote for the Vanderbilt Arrow, but I have yet to find any documents proving this; if he did that must have been a very short stint. 

Biographical trivia – Morse was a Republican, a member of the Bohemian Club, San Francisco Food and Wine Society, and the Hollywood Lakeside Golf Club. 

It was this last job as a columnist that providence rewarded Carlton for all his hard work. While working at the Bulletin, he met Patricia Pattison De Ball, who would become his first wife on September 23, 1928. Months later, the Bulletin was bought out by the San Francisco Call to become part of the expanding Hearst Empire and Carlton, along with other employees, found he was no longer needed. Working at the Bulletin also gave him the advantage of reading the new employment ads, before the public caught wind of such notices. One of these said advertisements, listed job openings of scriptwriters for radio serials at the National Broadcasting Company. 

Morse later recalled: "From the Union I invaded the editorial rooms of the now-defunct San Francisco Call, the San Francisco Bulletin, the Vanderbilt Herald and the still thriving Chronicle. From this pinnacle of forty dollars a week on the rim of the copy desk, I transferred my subtle touch and driving energies to the Seattle Times. But with all, my deepest instincts were suggesting that the day and era of the metropolitan press, as a great mass communication medium and a voice of the people, was drawing to a close. With this thought in September of 1929, the very month of the Great Crash, I dug myself a nice little foothold with the National Broadcasting Company, then entrenched in several floors of the Hunter-Dillion Building, at a hundred and eleven Sutter Street, San Francisco." 

Soon after being hired by N.B.C, Morse began writing a series of scripts entitled One Man's Family. The story of how that radio program became successful is another story, but needless to say, Morse later went on to create numerous radio programs including I Love A Mystery, Adventures By Morse, I Love Adventure, Split Second Tales, Pigskin Romances, The House of Myths, and many other radio programs. 

In 1966, the Pacific Pioneer Broadcasters (PPB) was founded to preserve the memory of West Coast broadcasting in the "golden age" of radio. Over 10,000 individual scripts are housed at the Thousand Oaks Library, which were previously housed for many years at the PPB headquarters in the Washington Mutual Building at Sunset and Vine in California. The American Radio Archive, established in 1984 by the Thousand Oaks Library Foundation, presently houses a large collection of radio scripts to I Love A Mystery, including I Love Adventure, Adventures By Morse, One Man's Family and His Honor the Barber. Stanford University – the same Stanford which Claudia and Cliff attended in the television version of One Man's Family – houses the largest collection of Morse material. 

To be honored with a star on the world's most famous sidewalk, is a tribute as coveted and sought after as any of the entertainment industry's equally prestigious awards – including the Oscar, Emmy, Grammy, Golden Mike or Tony. And, because it recognizes a life-long contribution of both public and peer appreciation, it is an honor uniquely in a class by itself. The Walk of Fame is a permanent monument of the past, as well as the present. Envisioned in 1958 as a lasting tribute to the personalities who helped make Hollywood the most famous community in the world, the Walk continues today as a superior asset to the city, perpetuating the aura that has made the name "Hollywood" synonymous with glamour. The Walk remains one of Hollywood's most widely visited tourist attractions. Carlton E. Morse was honored with a star of his own, in front of 6445 Hollywood Blvd. 

In the introduction to the short story compilation Beyond the Gates of Dream, published in 1969, author Lin Carter recalled how the radio program I Love A Mystery inspired him as a youth to write fantasy stories. The book was the production of that inspiration. In 1945, Brett Halliday wrote a short story entitled "Murder with Music" and in the story is a brief mention of I Love A Mystery being aired over the radio – part of an alibi for murder. In the 1994 film Radioland Murders, the opening began with short sound snippets of various radio programs including the classic signature theme for I Love A Mystery. 

Noted author William Goldman featured a character named Doc in his novel Marathon Man (1974). In chapter nineteen, the nicknamed was explained: ". and 'Doc' was our name. From I Love A Mystery. That was his favorite. He was always going on about Jack, Doc and Reggie, and for a while I called him Reggie but he said, 'No, I'd rather be Doc,' so that was it." 

On Monday, May 24, 1993, at the age of 91, Carlton E. Morse died of natural causes. His family was with him. He was survived by his second wife, Millie, of Carmichael, California; a daughter, Noel Canfield of Fair Oaks, California; two brothers, Wilmer and Harry, and two sisters, Lucille Chastine and Anne Morse, all from the Sacramento area. His memorial service was held in Los Angeles, California with several members of the One Man's Family cast in attendance. According to Morse's obituary as reported in the June 14, 1993 issue of Variety, and the May 28, 1993 issue of the New York Times, Morse had at one time, worked on plans to revive I Love A Mystery. 

Some time before his passing, Morse wrote an epitaph for himself. "When I am gone think this of me: He truly was what he seemed to be."

Adventures by Morse

From January 16, 1939 to January 26, 1952, stories from the pen of Carlton E. Morse graced the airwaves: Adventures by Morse.

This series takes its place alongside I Love a Mystery, One Man's Family and other works by prolific author Carlton E. Morse. Produced after I Love a Mystery, this transcribed and syndicated show continued the earlier program's preoccupation with the eerie and the exotic.

Adventures by Morse is a syndicated adventure series produced, written and directed by Carlton E. Morse in the mid-1940s, shortly after NBC canceled his I Love a Mystery series. Morse produced 52 episodes of the program, each 30 minutes long.

Captain Bart Friday and his trusted companion Skip Turner ranged throughout the world in their quest for dangerous challenges to overcome. Undaunted by Nazis, murderers, vampires, deadly serpents, zombies and disciples of the dark arts they made their way through story lines with such titles as "Land of the Living Dead" and "Cobra King Strikes Back." John Dunning notes in On the Air that "there was usually a near-rational explanation" for the events that took place. Seldom did it come, however, until the listener's imagination had been enthralled by instances of the dreadful and even unthinkable.

All told, there were eight serials comprised of a total of fifty-two episodes, each thirty minutes in length. They originally aired in syndication for a year beginning in October, 1944. All have been preserved in high quality sound for those enticed by the show's signature opening to enter a world of "high adventure," "the stealth of intrigue" and "blood and thunder."

The series consisted of eight serials that ran from October 26, 1944 to October 18, 1945. The first serial, "City of the Dead", consisted of ten episodes. The second serial was done in three episodes. The remainder of the series alternated between ten and three 30-minute episodes.

The adventures cover the world as well as the world of adventure. They take place on a South Pacific island, South America, Cambodia, and South Carolina plus other locations. They deal with murder, espionage, Nazi secret bases, kidnappers, voodoo and even snake worshipers. If you're looking for adventure, you'll find it in this old time radio show.

Beyond Midnight

 

Beyond Midnight was a 30-minute radio mystery program and radio horror anthology series that ran from 1968 to 1970 on Springbok Radio. The program "was a replacement series for SF'68. Michael McCabe served as producer, and adapted stories for both series. Unlike its sci-fi predecessor, Beyond Midnight served up stories with a supernatural bent." The show was sponsored by Biotex and futured the tagline "Just Soak, Just Soak, Just Soak in Biotex."

 

This series was produced in South Africa. It was a replacement for another series McCabe produced, called SF68. That series adapted famous Sci-fi stories to radio, and it seems to have been the place where McCabe honed his craft. The subject matter to Beyond Midnight was more horror oriented, including madness, murder, and supernatural sleuths! What survives today doesn't involve a horror host per se, but a few include framing narration (by someone involved in the plot) while others just start up the story with no announcer or lead-in whatsoever. So it's possible regular host or announcer was left off the recordings.

 

There is no much more information about this radio show, though its number of chapters is about 70.