Paul Frees

Voice and character actor, Paul Frees, was born in 1920 in Chicago with the name, Solomon Hersh Frees. His voice was unusual and propelled him to success in unusual roles in many radio shows and movies.

Frees began working in radio in 1942, but was shortly drafted for the fighting during World War II. He was wounded in action during the D-Day battle in Normandy and returned to the U.S.A. to recover from his wounds. He took advantage of the G.I. Bill by attending the Chouinard Art Institute, but dropped out to enter into radio again.

Armchair Adventures was a dramatic anthology broadcast in 1952 by CBS and cast Paul in the starring role of The Player, a one-man show. California Caravan, a docu-drama that took place on the West Coast also cast Paul Frees along with other stars such as Virginia Gregg, John Dehner and Johnny McGovern.

The radio series, Escape cast Frees frequently in their leading roles and he also took William Conrad’s place often as the opening announcer of Suspense, a 1940s radio show. Gunsmoke was another part that Frees played – impersonating Howard McNear – who played the part as Doc Adams.

Frees worked for several major studios and broadcasting companies during his career in radio, unlike most voice actors, including Walt Disney, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Walter Lantz Studios. He was a popular voice actor and well respected by all studios.

The Silent Men, an NBC dramatic intrigue series, first broadcast in 1951, cast Paul in supporting roles along with other radio greats such as Lou Merrill, Raymond Burr, Lurene Tuttle and John Dehner. Frees also played roles with Guy Madison and Andy Devine in the highly popular western adventure show, Wild Bill Hickock.

Nightbeat, an adventure drama, used Frees’ powerful voice in their highly popular series that also starred Frank Lovejoy as Randy Stone and Joan Banks, Tony Barrett and Stacy Harris in supporting roles. Nightbeat was based on people facing dire predicaments in their lives and the background theme was the newspaper, The Chicago Star.

Frees’ career spanned the most popular days of radio and he was highly active in his career until he died in 1986 at the age of 66 years old. He was well known in radio circles as the man with a thousand voices.

A power search on RUSC for Paul Frees results in 147 appearances and I will be adding some more series featuring him throughout the coming week.

Happy listening my friends,