Lux Radio Theater
After writing about Cecil B DeMille last week, I began listening to a few more of his works on radio. Among these were lots more Lux Radio Theater shows, which I've been adding to the existing collection on RUSC over the past few days.
One of the most impressive, dramatic shows in radio, Lux Radio Theater, grew to be one of the most important radio shows. It had everything – big stars, fat budget and critical acclaim. Cecil B. DeMille opened the show each week with a God-like voice booming “Greetings from Hollywood, ladies and gentlemen.” People had to sit up and take notice.
Lux Radio Theater was a drama based on popular movies of the era. It began its broadcast from New York on October 14th, 1934 on the Blue Network and ran a full hour on Sundays. Later, the show was moved to Hollywood. Besides Cecil B. DeMille, the show was hosted by other greats such as Lionel Barrymore, Walter Huston, Irving Pichel, William Keighley (1945-1952) and Irving Cummings (1952-1955).
The popular radio show’s cast were also mega stars of the time – Clark Gable, Bette Davis, Gary Cooper and Spencer Tracy, to name a few. Supporting roles were cast with names such as Frank Nelson, Lou Merrill and Jeff Chandler. When the show first arrived in Hollywood, Marlene Dietrich and Clark Gable were two of the first actors among many and drew an audience estimated to be as many as 40 million people.
This super-sized radio show’s first episode was Seventh Heaven, starring Miriam Hopkins however the earliest available recording to listen to today is Dulcy, which was broadcast on 28th October 1935. The premise of the producers of Lux Radio Theater was, “Buy the rights to a fine play, hire the biggest names available, and hope the public will listen.” They were only partially right.
Although Lux Radio Theater was successful on a colossal plane, it remained less demanding (and the pay was higher) for actors to secure parts on shows such as The Rudy Vallee Hour or Shell Chateau. Leslie Howard was one of the top actors that had to be tricked into performing on the show. A scout from the show grabbed his suitcases while he was waiting for a taxi and led him to a car where Howard was told that he was going to act for Lux the next night.
In 1936 Lever Brothers decided that the future of the show was in California after the success of Hollywood Hotel and proceeded to move the entire production to Hollywood. That move immediately propelled Lux Radio Theater to the top echelons of radio shows with DeMille as its extravagantly-paid announcer.
At first, Lux’s transition director, Tony Stanford had little problems working with top stars. He noted that they were a bit intimidated by radio, so they took his direction amiably. Later, Stanford’s successor, Frank Woodruff, had another experience. The super stars on the show constantly demanded much and were known to often break out in temper tantrums.
Interesting trivia about Lux Radio Theater includes estimates that the show employed over 496 stars, 1,467 supporting actors and went through 52,000 pages of script during its run.
Happy listening my friends,
