The One of the most popular fictional private eyes of all time, Michael Shane has been seen in several

incarnations since his debut. He's been a happy-go-lucky married man, a grim widower, a brainy sleuth, and a brawling hard-boiled gumshoe.

The character shifted over the course of novels written by Davis Dresser and his two major radio shows were similarly divided.

We've already heard an episode starring Jeff Chandler as Shane in a show that cranked the hard-boiled tendencies of the character up to 11.

Today, we'll hear one of his earlier radio adventures, one that presented a softer side of the detective.

Michael Shane made his first appearance in the 1939 novel, dividend on death,

written by Davis Dresser under the pen name of Brett Halliday.

In the earliest novels, Shane's partner in crime solving was his wife, Phyllis. Eventually, Dresser found it limiting to have Shane married, and he struggled to find things for Phyllis to do in the stories.

He killed off Mrs. Shane in the 1943 novel, Blood on the Black Market.

This book marked a shift in tone for the series, and the books lost some of their lighter comedic elements.

Dresser wrote 50 Shane novels before he farmed out the holiday pen name for 27 more written by Robert Terrell. In all, nearly 100 novels and 300 short stories

starring Michael Shane were written by writers using the Brett Holiday Credit. In 1940, Lloyd Nolan starred in Michael

Shane Private Detective, the first of seven Shane B movies filmed by

20th century Fox.

Shane, as played by Nolan, was cocky and had an eye for the ladies.

He even nearly got hitched in 1941's Dressed to Kill.

Fox dropped the series, but it was picked up for an additional five movies by

producers releasing corporation. Hugh Beaumont, who was then a few years away from playing

Ward Cleaver, played Shane in those films between 1946 and 1947.

In between the film runs of Nolan and Beaumont, Michael Shane came to radio. In 1944, Wally Mayer became the first Radio Shane in a West Coast mutual series that aired from October 1944 to September 1946.

Later, the series went nationwide over the Mutual Network

for another 15 episodes from October 46 to January 1947.

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