The The In the Hall of Fame of fictional attorneys, Earl Stanley Gardner's Perry Mason rules the roost.

But when it comes to going the extra mile for clients in and out of the courtroom,

Martha Ellis Bryant gives the good counselor at law a run for his money.

For almost two years on radio, Marty Bryant defended the wrongfully accused and fought for justice

on defense attorney.

Such a powerful character needed a powerful voice,

and Marty Bryant was brought to radio life

by a woman Orson Wells called The World's Greatest Living Radio actress, Mercedes-McCambridge.

McCambridge was already an Oscar winner by the time she came to radio on defense attorney, winning in 1949 for her performance

and all the Kings men. She was at the height of her film career when she was cast by producer

Don Sharp in this new series he was developing

about a female defense lawyer. Mercedes McCambridge had enjoyed early success

on radio and soap operas as well in supporting roles on

suspense and the shadow. She'd worked with Orson Wells on his Mercury Theater

broadcasts and she later played a small role in his classic film, Touch of Evil.

Defense attorney began as an audition program called The Defense Wrest, a script by a female writer, Cameron Blake, with a female lead character at a time

when neither was all that common.

Martha Ellis Bryant was a former district attorney who had entered private practice on the other side of the aisle.

Marty's boyfriend and occasional legman was newspaper reporter Judd Barnes, voiced by Howard Culver, who we heard as

Ellery Queen way back on episode 21 of the podcast.

Even with Judd's help, however, Marty usually tracked down witnesses herself and did most of the heavy lifting on her cases, often at great risk to her life.

The series was initially sold to NBC as a summer

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