The This week we're paying a belated birthday tribute to one of my favorite old-time

radio actors Howard Duff. Though he enjoyed a long career on television and in

films some of his best work came on radio, including

his definitive performance as one of fiction's best-known private eyes.

Duff was born November 24th, 1913 in Bremerton, Washington. He worked in the Seattle

theater scene, but his stage career was cut short when World War II broke out.

Duff entered the Army Air Corps and he was assigned to the Armed Forces radio service where he worked as an announcer.

He could be heard as the host and narrator of the Mystery Playhouse, introducing programs from the states like

Mr and Mrs North and the Adventures of Charlie Chan.

Tonight, the Mystery Playhouse is proud to play host to an ardent stamp collector, a proud and loving father, and master detective, the incomparable Charlie Chan.

The record of Mr. Chan's achievements in crime. comparable Charlie Chan.

The record of Mr. Chan's achievements in crime detection, you know, is equaled only by his reputation as a family man, a role he much prefers by the way.

However hard Charlie is tried he's never been able completely to retire and live the life of a simple home-loving man. Take

for instance one night when he was seated in the living room pouring over his beloved stamp collection.

His daughter Rose was writing a letter to her boyfriend overseas with the Navy and Tommy his number one son was expected home from a war

When Duff got out of the service he got back in to show business he co-starred with

Bert Lancaster in brute force and he made appearances on suspense and the Whistler.

But in 1946, he won his breakout role when he donned the trench code and fedora of Dachel Hammett's Sam Spade.

On the heels of the success of the film adaptations of Hammett's The Thin Man and the Maltese

Falcon, the latter which starred Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade, producers were interested

in bringing Dashlhammets detectives to radio.

William Spear, the producer and director hailed as the Hitchcock of the air,

...