The This week on down These Mean Streets, we're hearing again from actor Jack Webb.

He's no stranger to this show.

We've heard him in four different radio series before, but today we're honoring his birthday,

with an hour of his legendary radio performances.

Jack Webb was born April 2nd, 1920 in Santa Monica, California and grew up as an altar boy with a love for jazz music.

Following a discharge from the Army in World War II, he found a job as an announcer on San Francisco's ABC affiliate

KGO. It was here where Webb honed his talents as an actor, writer, and director, and he developed a keen interest in authenticity in his art.

In 1948, he played a police crime lab technician in the film He Walked by Night, and he struck up a friendship with the film's

police technical advisor, Sergeant Marty Wynne. They discussed how police work was usually

depicted in an unrealistic light, and Webb saw an opportunity for a dramatic

series that accurately showed the ins and outs of crime detection.

That series became Dragnet, a long-running hit on both radio and television.

It forever changed the face of the police procedural, and it cemented Webb's reputation

as a creative force and developer of programming in Hollywood.

As Sergeant Joe Friday, Webb led a cast of seasoned radio professionals

and stories taken from actual LAPD case files.

And now we'll hear Jack Webb as Joe Friday in one of those cases,

The Big Elevator, originally aired on NBC on April 24, 1952.

The script was by James Moser, and Webb directed the episode.

Featured in the cast, Star Martin Mil Milner as Friday's partner Bill Lockwood and Vic Perrin. The The story you are about to hear is true. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Fatima cigarettes, best of all, king-sized cigarettes brings you dragnet on both radio and

television. You're a detective sergeant, you're assigned a homicide detail. You're a detective sergeant, you're assigned a homicide detail.

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