Welcome to Down These Mean Streets, bringing old time radio detective. This week we're no longer

a boys club as we welcome our first female sloothed to the show. She's San Francisco-based

Private Eye Candy Mattson, one of the most famous lady detectives from the Golden Age of Radio.

Candy Mattson was a production of husband and wife duo Monte and Natalie Masters. Both actors,

Monte Masters eventually turned his eye towards writing and directing, and in

1948 he created a radio detective series with the plan to star as the title character.

The series might have been just another post-war P.I.

But Natalie Master's mother suggested that the character be reworked as a female detective and for Natalie to play the role instead of her husband.

Monte took his mother-in-law's advice, handing the starring role over to his wife while he focused on writing and directing the series.

The character was retooled as a former actress turned private detective.

Candy was no damsel in distress.

She tackled cases that frequently put her in danger and that often left the police stumped.

She flirted and fenced with Lieutenant Ray Mallard of the police department, and she had an occasional side kick, professional photographer Rembrandt Watson. Candy Mattson was as smart and as quick with a quip as any of her male counterparts and her

Telegraph Hill penthouse was almost certainly the nicest digs any radio detective maintained.

An audition show was recorded on April 4, 1949, along with Natalie Masters as Candy, the cast

included Henry Leff as Candy's

and police department FOIL, Lieutenant Mallard,

Master's uncle, Nathaniel Fisher Thomas Jr.

played Candy's friend and sidekick Rembrandt Watson, performing under his stage name of

Jack Thomas. The show premiered on NBC on June 30, 1949, with the first phone call coming into Candyie's number, Yukon 2-201809.

The series ran for 94 episodes until May 21st, 1951,

when a lack of sponsorship did the program in.

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