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Joseph Cheshire Cotten Jr. was an American film, stage, radio and television actor. Cotten achieved prominence on Broadway, starring in the original stage productions of The Philadelphia Story (1939) and Sabrina Fair (1953). He then gained worldwide fame for his collaborations with Orson Welles on three films, Citizen Kane (1941), The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), and Journey into Fear (1943), which Cotten starred in and for which he was also credited with the screenplay.
George Orson Welles was an American director, actor, writer, producer, and magician who is remembered for his innovative work in film, radio, and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time.
The year 1953 in television involved some significant events. Below is a list of television-related events during 1953.
The Campbell Playhouse (1938–1940) is a live CBS radio drama series directed by and starring Orson Welles. Produced by Welles and John Houseman, it was a sponsored continuation of The Mercury Theatre on the Air. The series offered hour-long adaptations of classic plays and novels, as well as adaptations of popular motion pictures.
The Mercury Theatre was an independent repertory theatre company founded in New York City in 1937 by Orson Welles and producer John Houseman. The company produced theatrical presentations, radio programs and motion pictures. The Mercury also released promptbooks and phonographic recordings of four Shakespeare works for use in schools.
Lux Radio Theatre, sometimes spelled Lux Radio Theater, a classic radio anthology series, was broadcast on the NBC Blue Network (1934–35) ; CBS Radio network (1935–54), and NBC Radio (1954–55). Initially, the series adapted Broadway plays during its first two seasons before it began adapting films. These hour-long radio programs were performed live before studio audiences. The series became the most popular dramatic anthology series on radio, broadcast for more than 20 years and continued on television as the Lux Video Theatre through most of the 1950s. The primary sponsor of the show was Unilever through its Lux Soap brand.
Ray Bidwell Collins was an American character actor in stock and Broadway theatre, radio, films, and television. With 900 stage roles to his credit, he became one of the most successful actors in the developing field of radio drama. A friend and associate of Orson Welles for many years, Collins went to Hollywood with the Mercury Theatre company and made his feature-film debut in Citizen Kane (1941), as Kane's political rival. Collins appeared in more than 75 films and had one of his best-remembered roles on television, as Los Angeles homicide detective Lieutenant Arthur Tragg in the CBS-TV series Perry Mason.
An anthology series is a written series, radio, television, film, or video game series that presents a different story and a different set of characters in each different episode, season, segment, or short. These usually have a different cast in each episode, but several series in the past, such as Four Star Playhouse, employed a permanent troupe of character actors who would appear in a different drama each week. Some anthology series, such as Studio One, began on radio and then expanded to television.
Studio One is an American anthology drama television series that was adapted from a radio series. It was created in 1947 by Canadian director Fletcher Markle, who came to CBS from the CBC. It premiered on November 7, 1948, and ended on September 29, 1958, with a total of 467 episodes over the course of 10 seasons.
Twentieth Century is a 1932 play by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur based on the unproduced play Napoleon of Broadway by Charles B. Millholland, inspired by his experience working for the eccentric Broadway impresario David Belasco.
Norman Nathan Lloyd was an American actor, producer, director, and centenarian with a career in entertainment spanning nearly a century. He worked in every major facet of the industry, including theatre, radio, television, and film, with a career that started in 1923. Lloyd's final film, Trainwreck, was released in 2015, after he turned 100. Lloyd remains the longest-lived male actor from Classic Hollywood.
Ford Theatre, spelled Ford Theater for the original radio version and known, in full, as The Ford Television Theatre for the TV version, is a radio and television anthology series broadcast in the United States in the 1940s and 1950s. At various times the television series appeared on all three major television networks, while the radio version was broadcast on two separate networks and on two separate coasts. Ford Theatre was named for its sponsor, the Ford Motor Company, which had an earlier success with its concert music series, The Ford Sunday Evening Hour (1934–42).
Cavalcade of America is an anthology drama series that was sponsored by the DuPont Company, although it occasionally presented musicals, such as an adaptation of Show Boat, and condensed biographies of popular composers. It was initially broadcast on radio from 1935 to 1953, and on television from 1952 to 1957. Originally on CBS, the series pioneered the use of anthology drama for company audio advertising.
The Fountain of Youth is a 1956 television pilot directed by Orson Welles for a proposed Desilu Productions anthology series that was never produced. Based on a short story by John Collier, the short film narrated onscreen by Welles stars Dan Tobin, Joi Lansing and Rick Jason. The Fountain of Youth was televised once, on September 16, 1958, on NBC's Colgate Theatre. It received the prestigious Peabody Award for 1958, the only unsold television pilot ever to be so honored.
Howard Irving Smith was an American character actor with a 50-year career in vaudeville, theatre, radio, films and television. In 1938, he performed in Orson Welles's short-lived stage production and once-lost film, Too Much Johnson, and in the celebrated radio production, "The War of the Worlds". He portrayed Charley in the original Broadway production of Death of a Salesman and recreated the role in the 1951 film version. On television, Smith portrayed the gruff Harvey Griffin in the situation comedy, Hazel.
This is a comprehensive listing of the radio programs made by Orson Welles. Welles was often uncredited for his work, particularly in the years 1934–1937, and he apparently kept no record of his broadcasts.
Radio is what I love most of all. The wonderful excitement of what could happen in live radio, when everything that could go wrong did go wrong. I was making a couple of thousand a week, scampering in ambulances from studio to studio, and committing much of what I made to support the Mercury. I wouldn't want to return to those frenetic 20-hour working day years, but I miss them because they are so irredeemably gone.
The Mercury Theatre on the Air is a radio series of live radio dramas created and hosted by Orson Welles. The weekly hour-long show presented classic literary works performed by Welles's celebrated Mercury Theatre repertory company, with music composed or arranged by Bernard Herrmann. The series began July 11, 1938, as a sustaining program on the CBS Radio network, airing Mondays at 9 pm ET. On September 11, the show moved to Sundays at 8 pm.
The Mercury Summer Theatre of the Air (1946) is a CBS radio drama series produced, directed by and starring Orson Welles. It was a short-lived summer radio series sponsored by Pabst Blue Ribbon, on Friday evenings at 10 p.m. ET lasting 15 episodes. It harked back to Welles's earlier The Mercury Theatre on the Air (1938) and its successor, The Campbell Playhouse, but was not able to replicate its success. The series offered 30-minute adaptations of classic plays and novels, plus some adaptations of popular motion pictures, whereas the original had offered more depth in its 60-minute running time. Although the Mercury Theatre troupe had disbanded when Welles was fired from RKO studios in 1942 and the Mercury players were dismissed with him, this radio series offered a reunion of many Mercury personnel, including Richard Wilson and composer Bernard Herrmann, as well as familiar actors such as Agnes Moorehead and William Alland.
ABC Mystery Theater, also known as just simply Mystery Theater or Mystery Theatre, was an American radio anthology, crime and mystery series from the 1950s. The program starred originally, actor Robert Carroll in the title role of Inspector Mark Saber, a British detective from the Homicide Squad then by actor Les Damon for seasons two and three. The program also centered on Saber's assistant Sgt. Tim Maloney, originally portrayed by character actor James Westerfield for the first half of season one, actor Douglas Chandler for the second half of season one and finally by character actor Walter Burke for seasons two and three.
The Campbell Playhouse may refer to:
References
- ↑ "The Mercury Theatre of the Air". mercurytheatre.info. Retrieved October 25, 2014.
- ↑ "My old time radio shows Campbell Playhouse". myoldradio.com. Archived from the original on October 26, 2014. Retrieved October 25, 2014.
- ↑ "Campbell Playhouse". Orson Welles. Retrieved October 25, 2014.
