Hollywood Star Playhouse

The radio series, Hollywood Star Playhouse was a dramatic anthology series that was well performed and written and lasted for three years – 1950-1953 over three networks.

Hollywood Star Playhouse was suspenseful and the plays were original and attracted some of the most popular stars of the era, including Deborah Kerr, Jimmy Stewart and Victor Mature.  The shows written by Maurice Zimm and Milton Geiger were written specifically for the starring players and lasted thirty minutes with a musical score by Jeff Alexander.

The sponsors commercials run by CBS (1950/04/23-1951/07/23) featured Bromo Seltzer – the ‘talking train’ – and even they were entertaining. 

The ABC network run premièred on 26th July 1951 with I'm A Coward starring Barbara Stanwyck.

NBS took over the show from 24th February 1952 and ran it for the following year with Bakers of America, best known for their Sunbeam bread, as sponsors.

When James Stewart played in the thirty minute version of the play, The Six Shooter, on the 13th April 1952 the NBC network decided to make it into a spin off series starring James Stewart as Brit Ponsett. 

One lost episode of Hollywood Star Playhouse featured Marilyn Monroe in her radio debut on 7th December 1952. She stared in a repeat performance of Statement In Full which originally featured Joan Crawford. 

The entire run was produced and directed by Jack Johnstone and I believe there are at least 30 episodes available to listen to today out of a broadcast of around 140 episodes.

Introduced as tales of mystery, thrills, suspense and adventure this is certainly what they are and I have yet to be disappointed by one of these dramas

Happy listening my friends,