Episode 464 – Dear John (The Judge, Frontier Gentleman, Have Gun - Will Travel, & The Whistler)

Down These Mean Streets (Old Time Radio Detectives)

Jack Mooney

Arts, Performing Arts, Tv & Film

4.5 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 28 November 2021

⏱️ 116 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We're saluting John Dehner - the Disney animator and award-winning radio news editor who became one of the radio era's best actors and a great big and small screen character actor from the 50s to the 80s. He found his biggest radio fame in a pair of westerns - Frontier Gentleman and Have Gun - Will Travel - but he was heard all over the dial in everything from Escape to Family Theatre. We'll hear him in the audition recording for The Judge, where he plays a retired judge and unofficial police consultant (recorded March 13, 1952). Then, he's English reporter J.B. Kendall in "Kendall for the Defense" from Frontier Gentleman (originally aired on CBS on April 13, 1958) and the man called Paladin in "The Wager" from Have Gun - Will Travel (originally aired on CBS on July 26, 1959). Finally, Dehner plays an embezzler who may turn to murder in "Rebound" from The Whistler (originally aired on CBS on June 11, 1950).

Transcript

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0:00.0	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.
0:07.0	The story you are about to hear is true, only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.
0:18.0	The Adventures of Sam Spade Detective.
0:22.0	The Adventures of the Saints starring Vincent Prize
0:25.4	Bob Bailey in the exciting adventures of the man with the action-packed expense account
0:30.6	America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator.
0:33.0	Yours truly, Johnny Deller. And the Hello and
0:58.0	welcome to Down These Mean Streets and more old-time radio mysteries and the sloths that solved them.
1:06.5	This week we're saluting one of the best actors of the radio era.
1:11.1	Born November 23rd, 1915, John Dana is best known for his starring roles in a pair of radio
1:19.4	Westerns. But he appeared all over the dial from the mid 40s through the late 50s and for decades
1:27.1	after that on the big and small screens. Dana worked as a Disney animator and he shared a Peabody award for radio news
1:36.6	coverage before he broke into radio acting. He started appearing in shows
1:42.0	originating from the stations where he worked as a news editor,
1:46.0	and those performances led to a career that stretched to almost the end of the Golden Age of radio. With a rich baritone voice,
1:55.2	Dana was perfectly suited to give life to villains, military men, and politicians.
2:00.8	But he could play everyone from heroes to villains to authoritarians to meek cowards.
2:08.8	Dana was heard regularly on escape and suspense.
2:12.4	In the late 50s, he'd also contribute scripts to both of those programs.
2:17.6	Elsewhere Dana was heard on Johnny Dollar, Philip Marlow, Richard Diamond, and the Whistler.
2:23.6	But Westerns gave Dana his best remembered radio roles, even though he sought to avoid
2:30.0	being typecast in the genre. He turned down the roles of Matt Dylan on
	...

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