Get this and get it straight.

Crime is a suckers road,

and those who travel it wind up in the gut of the prison of the grave.

The story you are about to hear is true, only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.

The Adventures of Sam Spade Detective.

The Adventures of the Saints starring Vincent Prize.

Bob Bailey in the exciting adventures of the man with the action-packed expense account.

America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator.

Yours truly, Johnny Deller. And the Hello and welcome to Down These Means Streets, a weekly roundup of the detectives and crime fighters from the Golden Age of Radio.

This week we're saluting Bob Bailey, the actor who brought two old-time radio gumshoes to life.

Private-Eyed George Valentine and let George do it, and America's fabulous

freelance insurance investigator, Johnny Dollar.

It's the role of Dollar for which Bailey is arguably most celebrated.

Nothing against George Valentine, but Bailey's five-year run as Dollar

contains some of the best radio drama ever produced, the five-part serialized stories that played

out every weeknight. If you're a listener of the podcast, you know that I'm a huge fan of these shows end of Bailey's

performance and today we'll hear him in one of those five-part Johnny Dollar

Adventures. Born June 13th, 1913, Bob Bailey's is a name that should be better known.

Unfortunately, unlike his contemporaries Gerald Moore and Howard Duff, Bailey didn't have a big career outside of radio, largely because of his struggles with alcoholism.

There were a few performances on TV in the 1950s and early 1960s,

and he had a part in Don Siegel's big screen adaptation of The lineup,

a movie that's finally making its way to Blu-ray this fall.

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