Interesting that this ad says "Witch's Tales."
From what I can tell, the radio program was called "The Witch's Tale," while the printed magazines were titled "The Witch's Tales."
Thursday, November 9, 2017
Saturday, November 4, 2017
Issue 2 of 2 of The Witch's Tales, December 1936
For more information, visit this previous entry - http://alonzodeencole.blogspot.com/2013/04/alonzo-deen-cole-and-witchs-tales.html
October 5, 2000 obituary for Miriam Wolfe
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/05/arts/miriam-wolfe-vocally-adroit-actress-78.html
Miriam Wolfe, Vocally Adroit Actress, 78
Miriam Wolfe, whose long acting career embraced radio, television and the theater, died on Sept. 29 at her home in Toronto. She was 78.
Ms. Wolfe played a wide variety of characters during her lifetime but was perhaps best known for her skill at conveying an assortment of wicked witches, evil queens and nasty stepmothers on programs like Nila Mack's ''Let's Pretend,'' a popular Saturday morning children's show on WCBS radio during the 1930's, 40's and early 50's. A demonic cackle Ms. Wolfe had mastered as a child sent chills over the airwaves, especially in Mutual
Network's radio serial ''The Witch's Tale.''
Born in Brooklyn, Ms. Wolfe made her acting debut at 4, reciting poems on ''The Uncle Gee Bee Kiddie Hour'' on WBGS radio, an early station in New York. In later years she played parts on ''Studio One'' and ''Ford Theater,'' working with the likes of Lucille Ball, Montgomery Clift and Ingrid Bergman. She also appeared on ''Mystery Hall,'' ''Casey, Crime Photographer'' and ''Suspense.'' In the 1950's, Ms. Wolfe joined ''The Rayburn & Finch Comedy Hour.'' She also acted on ''The Adventures of Popeye,'' playing Olive Oyl.
In 1956 Ms. Wolfe moved to Canada, where she married John Forrest Mackay Ross and went to work for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as an actor, writer and director. While there, she adapted, directed and played all the roles in a radio version of Paul Bowles's ''You Are Not I.'' She also appeared on Canadian television in shows like ''Wayne and Shuster.'' On many occasions, she continued to be heard but not seen as the dubbed-in voices of characters in films and cartoons.
Her theater work included the Broadway production of ''Make Momma Happy'' and a production of Tennessee Williams's ''Rose Tattoo'' in Hollywood. And she was the author of ''Listening to Language: The Sounds of English.''
She is survived by a son, Michael Ross, of Occidental, Calif.
Thursday, November 2, 2017
Eerie House Olde Tyme Radio #29 - Witch's Tales....two of 'em
Eerie House Olde Tyme Radio #29 - Witch's Tales....two of 'em
It's my own fault (and my regrettable loss!) that I wasn't part of this podcast. But that's what I get for not checking my ISOADC email for months on end and, in the process, missing an invitation to provide input. 😢
Wednesday, November 1, 2017
A photo of Cole from his Casey, Crime Photographer days
That's Cole behind the bar.
Again, I apologize for my long silence from this site.
Better late than never...from February 22, 2017...
Before
radio audiences eagerly anticipated each week the memorably unsettling sound of
a creaking door (on Inner Sanctum
Mysteries) or an ominous gong signaling that they should dim the lights (Lights Out), they had to tune
into The
Witch’s Tale for the proper raising of goosebumps. Tale was the true
granddaddy of radio horror, premiering over New York’s WOR on May 21, 1931 and
running until June 13, 1938. The creative mind behind this series—who
would later introduce radio listeners to the thrilling crime adventures of
“Flashgun Casey”—was born in St. Paul, Minnesota on this date in 1897: Alonzo
Deen Cole.
Young
Alonzo made the decision to be a writer at an early age, perhaps spurred on by
winning a statewide competition among Minnesota schoolchildren at the age
of 11. (He took first prize at the Minnesota State Fair for a
scenario he contributed to a military pageant.) In high school,
he kept in close contact with his creative muse by writing plays performed by
the school’s dramatic society—in addition, he directed and starred in those
same productions. He graduated from high school at the age of 16, and
took up study at the Minnesota Academy of Arts…this was soon discarded in
favor of his acting ambitions, and he found work with stock companies in
Minneapolis and St. Paul, eventually earning the princely salary of $15 a week.
World War
I interrupted Deen Cole’s acting career temporarily. He enlisted in the
Army as a medic and, after serving briefly in France,
he received a transfer to the Entertainment A.E.F. After the
Armistice, he was assigned to a repertoire company comprised of
actors in uniform. A return to civilian life in 1919 proved difficult for
Alonzo where acting was concerned; finding steady acting work was tough due to
the Equity strike. (Stage performers, led by Ed Wynn, had squared off
against producers and theatre owners for better wages and working
conditions.) However, he eventually secured a contract that ensured
him gainful employment in both vaudeville and legitimate theatre until the
stock market crash and the Depression. It was during this time that Deen
Cole met (and later married) an actress named Marie O’Flynn, who would become
his vaudeville partner.
Alonzo
and Marie also teamed up for a WOR daytime serial broadcast as Darling and Dearie, which ran for a little
over a year on the New York station. Deen Cole, a voracious reader and
efficacious raconteur, sold the station on the idea of doing a supernatural
horror series in the late evening hours as counterprogramming to the various
music broadcasts airing on rival stations. Both Alonzo and Marie would
perform the various male and female parts in his scripts on The Witch’s Tale. The role of
“Old Nancy,” the elderly, cackling witch who served as the series’ narrator,
was essayed by Adelaide Fitz-Allen…who was seventy-five at the time she
began playing the part before the microphone. The long
tradition of featuring a host-narrator for horror programs—think of the later
Raymond (Edward Johnson) on Inner Sanctum or The Mysterious Traveler (Maurice Tarplin),
for example—began on Tale. Nancy was also accompanied by a black cat named “Satan”
…with Deen Cole getting in touch with his feline side as the narrator’s
familiar
Not long
after its WOR debut, The Witch’s Tale was a solid hit with listeners and
critics. Dorothy Kardel of The New York Daily News gushed in a June 12,
1931 review: “Thrill seekers miss plenty when they fail to hear this new
dramatic series.” Even the death of Fitz-Allen (she passed away on
February 26, 1935, having never missed a performance) didn’t slow down
the series. After auditioning several contenders for
“Nancy,” Alonzo selected thirteen-year-old Miriam Wolff to continue as the cackling
host. (Wolff had previous appeared on the children’s series Let’s Pretend—in fact, it was the
creator of that program, Nila Mack, who recommended Miriam to Deen Cole as she
and Alonzo had formed a strong friendship during their years in
vaudeville.) Though The Witch’s Tale aired its final episode on June 13, 1938, Alonzo
Deen Cole recorded enough of the live broadcasts to ensure that the show lived
on in syndication for an additional six years. (Sadly, Deen Cole
destroyed his collection of recordings in 1961 after moving to California—he
didn’t think they had any commercial value.)
Alonzo
kept busy in radio after that, contributing scripts to such series as The Shadow and Gang Busters. In the summer
of 1943, he signed a contract with CBS to write, produce, and direct a
program based on a pulp magazine creation by George Harmon Coxe. The show
premiered on July 7, 1943 as Flash-Gun Casey and, though it
went by several names (Crime Photographer, Casey, Press Photographer, etc.), old-time radio fans know
it best as Casey,
Crime Photographer. The titular shutterbug (portrayed at various
times by Matt Crowley, Jim Backus, and Staats Cotsworth) worked for The Morning Express. When Casey
wasn’t plying his trade at crime scenes (where he would often find himself in
the role of amateur detective), he spent a copious amount of time at a
watering hole known as The Blue Note Café. There he would
hold forth with girlfriend Ann Williams (played by Jone Allison, Alice
Reinheart, Lesley Woods, Betty Furness, and Jan Miner), a reporter at the
paper, and bartender Ethelbert (John Gibson). The popular series was a
solid favorite with listeners until 1955.
Casey, Crime Photographer enjoyed a brief run
on television from 1951 to 1952, and Alonzo Deen Cole had
hopes that The Witch’s Tale could establish a beachhead on the small screen as
well. But a pilot (filmed in 1958) never got off the ground (Alonzo
admitted later that the cheapness of the production worked against its
favor). After a lifetime of writing for radio—he churned out 332 Witch’s Tale scripts, not to
mention the entirety of Casey, Crime Photographer (384 in all)—he had earned a
well-deserved vacation. What ultimately sidelined Deen Cole was a
diagnosis of a heart condition in 1962—and though he adopted a regimen of
proper medication and a salt-free diet, he finally succumbed to his heart
ailment in 1971 at the age of 73.
Not many
broadcasts of The
Witch’s Tale have endured for a new generation of old-time radio fans to
enjoy…but what have survived can be found in the Radio Spirits collection The Witch’s Tale, a 10-CD set with liner
notes by the late David S. Siegel. (David also edited a book
containing thirteen scripts — how appropriate — from the
series that’s well worth seeking out if you have time on your
lunch hour.) You can also find a classic Tale (“Rockabye Baby,”
from 1934) on our supernatural radio compendium Great Radio Horror. For those of you
who gravitate more to crime stories, our birthday celebrant’s other
series, Casey,
Crime Photographer, is well represented here with the sets Snapshots of Mystery and Blue Note.
The Witch's Tale (booklet from 1936)
I apologize for my long silence folks, but my search for Alonzo Deen Cole has continued. The attached booklet from 1936 was received in today's mail, so look for posts in the coming days featuring The Were-Wolf and Graveyard Mansion.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)