The It's mail call this week on down these mean streets with two more letters addressed to Box 13.

That of course is the mailbox maintained by Mystery Writer Dan Holliday Holiday and it's all part of his unique

strategy to deal with Writers Block. Holiday runs an ad in the Star Times newspaper which

states, Adventure Wanted, will go any place, do anything, write Box 13.

And each week for 52 episodes, Holiday Ventured out in response to requests for help or offers of adventure.

Sometimes he came to the aid of an innocent person in trouble,

while other times he was set up as a patsy by a cunning criminal. But whatever the story, it always

meant that radio listeners were in for an exciting half hour. It's a concept that had been

tried a few years earlier on Let George do it.

But where George Valentine was a private detective by trade, Dan Holliday was a writer first

and foremost.

He used his experiences as an adventurer for hire as material for his detective

stories.

Holiday's Box 13 gig took him across town and around the world and he must have been paid very well by his publishers

because he never accepted a fee for his detective work.

Future Shane Star Alan Ladd played Dan Holl Holiday and the role gave him a chance to flex the muscles

he'd built as a lead in noir films like the Blue Dahlia and the Glass Key.

Ladd was heavily involved in Box 13.

Not only did he star, but he also produced the series through his Mayfair production company

and he contributed scripts to the program as well.

Sylvia Picker co-starred as Susie, Dan Holliday's scatter-brained but ever loyal secretary,

and the supporting castes included many of the West Coast radio actors we've heard so many times on the podcast, including Frank Lovejoy, Betty Luke Gerson, Gerald Moore, and Jack Webb.

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