President Franklin Roosevelt appoints a theatrical producer as the new Secretary of Amusement in order to cheer up an American public still suffering through the Depression. The new secretary soon runs afoul of political lobbyists out to destroy his department.
05-04-1934
1h 9m
THIS
HELLA
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Main Cast
Movie Details
Production Info
Director:
Hamilton MacFadden
Production:
Fox Film Corporation
Key Crew
Original Music Composer:
Arthur Lange
Art Direction:
Gordon Wiles
Producer:
Winfield R. Sheehan
Art Direction:
Russell Patterson
Story:
Will Rogers
Locations and Languages
Country:
US
Filming:
US
Languages:
en
Main Cast
Warner Baxter
Warner Leroy Baxter (March 29, 1889 – May 7, 1951) was an American film actor from the 1910s to the 1940s. Baxter became known for his role as The Cisco Kid in the 1928 film In Old Arizona for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor at the 2nd Academy Awards. He frequently played womanizing, charismatic Latin bandit types in westerns, and played The Cisco Kid or a similar character throughout the 1930s, but had a range of other roles throughout his career.
Lovely Madge Evans was the perennial nice girl in films of the 1930s. By then, she had been in front of the camera for many years, starting with Fairy Soap commercials at the age of two (she sat on a bar of soap holding a bunch of violets with the tag line reading "have you a little fairy in your home?"). 'Baby Madge' also lent her name to a children's hat company. In 1914, aged five, she was picked out by talent scouts to appear in the William Farnum movie The Sign of the Cross (1914), followed by The Seven Sisters (1915) with Marguerite Clark.
By the end of the following year, she had amassed some twenty film credits, appearing with such noted contemporary stars as Pauline Frederick or Alice Brady. All of her early films were made on the East Coast, at studios in Ft.Lee, New Jersey. In 1917 (aged eight), Madge made her Broadway debut in 'Peter Ibbetson' with John Barrymore and Lionel Barrymore. She resumed her stage career in 1926 as an ingenue with 'Daisy Mayme' and the following year appeared with Billie Burke in Noel Coward's costume drama 'The Marquise' (1927).
Her pleasing looks and personality soon attracted the attention of Hollywood and she was eventually signed by MGM in 1931. During the next decade, she appeared in several A-grade productions, notably as Lionel Barrymore's daughter in MGM's Dinner at Eight (1933) and as the dependable Agnes Wickfield in one of the best-ever filmed versions of David Copperfield (1935). She co-starred opposite James Cagney in the gangster movie The Mayor of Hell (1933), Spencer Tracy in The Show-Off (1934) and listened to Bing Crosby crooning the title song in Pennies from Heaven (1936). Madge received praise for her performance as the star of Beauty for Sale (1933) and The New York Times review of January 13 1934 described her acting in Fugitive Lovers (1934) (opposite Robert Montgomery ) as 'spontaneous and captivating'. Many of her 'typical American girl' roles did not allow her to express aspects of the greater acting range she undoubtedly possessed. Too often she was cast as the 'nice girl' - and those rarely make much of a dramatic impact. On the few occasions she was assigned the role of 'other woman' , such as the Helen Hayes-starrer What Every Woman Knows (1934), audiences found her character difficult to believe and disassociate from her all-round wholesome image. When her contract with MGM expired in 1937, Madge wound down her film career and, following her 1939 marriage, concentrated on being the wife of celebrated playwright Sidney Kingsley. She last appeared on stage in one of his plays, "The Patriots", in 1943.
James Dunn worked on the stage, in vaudeville and as an extra in silent movies before he was signed by Fox in 1931. His first movie with Fox was 1931's Sob Sister (1931). While at Fox, he appeared with Shirley Temple in her first three features: Baby Take a Bow (1934), Stand Up and Cheer! (1934) and Bright Eyes (1934). Dunn's screen character was usually the boy next door or the nice guy. In 1935 musicals at the new 20th Century-Fox were out and Dunn would move to the "B" list, from which he would never return. In The Payoff (1935) he plays the nice guy newspaper columnist whose wife ruins his career. By the late 1930s he was drinking heavily and become unemployable. He would appear in small roles in films during the early 1940s, but those parts were few. In 1945 he was able to make a comeback and win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945), but his rejuvenated career would not continue. By 1951 he would again be unemployed and bankrupt. Television would later supply some work and he would be a regular on the series It's a Great Life (1954).
Dunn was born 2 November 1901, New York City, New York, USA, and he died 1 September 1967, Santa Monica, California, USA (following abdominal surgery)
Shirley Temple Black (born Shirley Jane Temple; April 23, 1928 – February 10, 2014) was an American actress, singer, dancer, and diplomat, who was Hollywood's number-one box-office draw as a child actress from 1934 to 1938. Later, she was named United States Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia, and also served as Chief of Protocol of the United States.
Temple began her film career at the age of three in 1931. Two years later, she achieved international fame in Bright Eyes, a feature film produced especially for her talents. She received a special Juvenile Academy Award in February 1935 for her outstanding contribution as a juvenile performer in motion pictures during 1934. Film hits such as Curly Top and Heidi followed year after year during the mid- to late 1930s. Temple capitalized on licensed merchandise that featured her wholesome image; the merchandise included dolls, dishes, and clothing. Her box-office popularity waned as she reached adolescence. She appeared in 29 films from the ages of 3 to 10, but in only 14 films from the ages of 14 to 21. Temple retired from film in 1950 at the age of 22.
In 1958, Temple returned to show business with a two-season television anthology series of fairy tale adaptations. She made guest appearances on television shows in the early 1960s and filmed a sitcom pilot that was never released. She sat on the boards of corporations and organizations, including the Walt Disney Company, Del Monte Foods, and the National Wildlife Federation.
She began her diplomatic career in 1969, when she was appointed to represent the United States at a session of the United Nations General Assembly, where she worked at the U.S. Mission under Ambassador Charles W. Yost. In 1988, she published her autobiography, Child Star.
Temple was the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Kennedy Center Honors and a Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award. She is 18th on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest female American screen legends of classic Hollywood cinema.
[biography (excerpted) from Wikipedia]
Ralph Morgan (July 6, 1883 – June 11, 1956) was a Hollywood film, stage and character actor, and the older brother of Frank Morgan (who played the title role in The Wizard of Oz, 1939).
Description above from the Wikipedia article Ralph Morgan, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
John Nicholas 'Dick' Foran (June 18, 1910 – August 10, 1979) was an American actor, known for his performances in western musicals and for playing supporting roles in dramatic pictures.
Foran was still billed as Nick Foran when he signed a contract with Fox in 1934. In 1935, Foran, who stood 6-foot-2 and had red hair, was hired by Warner Bros. as a supporting actor, changing his first name to Dick. He would also croon when called upon in films such as Change of Heart (1934) with Janet Gaynor, made for Fox Film Corporation. His handsome appearance and good-natured personality made him a natural choice for the supporting cast. He first appeared as a singing cowboy in his first starring role, in Moonlight on the Prairie (1935). Other singing cowboy features included Song of the Saddle (1936), Guns of the Pecos (1937), Empty Holsters (1937) and Cowboy from Brooklyn (1938).
In 1938 Foran moved to Universal Studios, where he acted in many different genres of film from horror to comedies with Abbott and Costello such as Ride 'Em Cowboy (1942). In 1942, Foran starred as Lon Prentice in a 68-minute war support film, Private Buckaroo. Foran starred in The Petrified Forest (1936), The Sisters (1938), Rangers of Fortune (1940), The Mummy's Hand (1940) and Keep 'Em Flying (1941).
One of his last film roles was a small one in Donovan's Reef (1963), starring his longtime friend John Wayne. His final film appearance was as the prospector "Old Timer" in the sentimental film Brighty of the Grand Canyon (1967) with Joseph Cotten, Pat Conway and Karl Swenson
Description above from the Wikipedia article Dick Foran, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
William Nigel Ernle Bruce (4 February 1895 – 8 October 1953), best known as Nigel Bruce, was a British character actor on stage and screen. He was best known for his portrayal of Doctor Watson in a series of films and in the radio series The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (starring Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes). Bruce is also remembered for his roles in the Alfred Hitchcock films Rebecca and Suspicion.
Stepin Fetchit (1902–1985) was an American comedian and actor.
His Fetchit persona parlayed into a successful film career, eventually becoming the first black actor to become a millionaire. He was also the first black actor to receive screen credit.
Stepin Fetchit typical film persona and stage name have long been controversial, and seen as illustrative of negative stereotypes of Negroes. However, a newer interpretation of his film persona contends he was ultimately subversive of the status quo.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lynn Bari (born Margaret Schuyler Fisher, December 18, 1913 – November 20, 1989) was a film actress who specialized in playing sultry, statuesque man-killers in roughly 150 20th Century Fox films from the early 1930s through the 1940s.
Bari was one of 14 young women "launched on the trail of film stardom" August 6, 1935, when they each received a six-month contract with 20th Century Fox after spending 18 months in the company's training school. The contracts included a studio option for renewal for as long as seven years.
In most of her early films, Bari had uncredited parts usually playing receptionists or chorus girls. She struggled to find starring roles in films, but accepted any work she could get. Rare leading roles included China Girl (1942), Hello, Frisco, Hello (1943), and The Spiritualist (1948). In B movies, Lynn was usually cast as a villainess, notably Shock and Nocturne (both 1946). An exception was The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1944). During WWII, according to a survey taken of GIs, Bari was the second-most popular pinup girl after the much better-known Betty Grable.
Bari's film career fizzled out in the early 1950s as she was approaching her 40th birthday, although she continued to work at a more limited pace over the next two decades, now playing matronly characters rather than temptresses. She portrayed the mother of a suicidal teenager in a 1951 drama, On the Loose, plus a number of supporting parts.
Bari's last film appearance was as the mother of rebellious teenager Patty McCormack in The Young Runaways (1968) and her final TV appearances were in episodes of The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. and The FBI.
She quickly took up the rising medium of television during the '50s, which began when she starred in the live television sitcom Detective's Wife, which ran during the summer of 1950, and in Boss Lady
In 1955, Bari appeared in the episode "The Beautiful Miss X" of Rod Cameron's syndicated crime drama City Detective. In 1960, she played female bandit Belle Starr in the debut episode "Perilous Passage" of the NBC western series Overland Trail starring William Bendix and Doug McClure and with fellow guest star Robert J. Wilke as Cole Younger.
From July–September 1952, Bari starred in her own situation comedy, Boss Lady, a summer replacement for NBC's Fireside Theater. She portrayed Gwen F. Allen, the beautiful top executive of a construction firm. Not the least of her troubles in the role was being able to hire a general manager who did not fall in love with her.
Commenting on her "other woman" roles, Bari once said, "I seem to be a woman always with a gun in her purse. I'm terrified of guns. I go from one set to the other shooting people and stealing husbands!"
Jean Rogers, born Eleanor Dorothy Lovegren, was an American actress who starred in serial films in the 1930s and low–budget feature films in the 1940s as a leading lady. She is best remembered for playing Dale Arden in the science fiction serials Flash Gordon and Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars.
She graduated from Belmont High School, and had hoped to study art, but in 1933, she won a beauty contest sponsored by Paramount Pictures that led to her career in Hollywood. Rogers starred in several serials for Universal between 1935 and 1938, including Ace Drummond and Flash Gordon. Rogers was one of seven women chosen out of 2,700 passengers on excursion boats and ferries who were interviewed for roles in Eight Girls in a Boat. The group began work in Hollywood on September 3, 1933. By 1937, Rogers was the only one of the seven featured as an actress.
Rogers was assigned the role of Dale Arden in the first two Flash Gordon serials. Buster Crabbe and Rogers were cast as the hero and heroine in the first serial, Flash Gordon, and Rogers' beauty, long blonde hair, and revealing costumes endeared her to moviegoers. The evil ruler Ming the Merciless lusted after her, and Gordon was forced to rescue her from one situation after another. While filming the series in 1937, her costume caught fire and she suffered burns on her hands. Co-star Crabbe smothered the fire by wrapping a blanket on her.
In the first serial, Arden competed with Princess Aura for Gordon's attention. Rogers' character was fragile, small-chested, diminutive, and totally dependent on Gordon for her survival; Lawson's Princess Aura was domineering, independent, voluptuous, conniving, sly, ambitious, and determined to make Gordon her own. The competition for Gordon's attention is one of the highlights of the film. In Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars, the second serial, Rogers sported a totally different look. She had dark hair and wore the same modest costume in each episode. Rogers matured after the first serial, and no sexual overtones are seen in Trip to Mars. Rogers told writer Richard Lamparski that she was not eager to do the second serial and asked her studio to excuse her from the third.
Despite starring in serial films, Rogers felt she was not going to improve her career unless she could participate in feature films. She discovered that it was more tedious working in feature films. She played John Wayne's leading lady in the 1936 full-length motion picture Conflict and co-starred with Boris Karloff in the horror film Night Key the following year. During the 1940s, Rogers appeared solely in feature films, including The Man Who Wouldn't Talk with Lloyd Nolan, Viva Cisco Kid with Cesar Romero as the Cisco Kid, Design for Scandal with Rosalind Russell and Walter Pidgeon, Whistling in Brooklyn with Red Skelton, A Stranger in Town with Frank Morgan, Backlash, and Speed to Spare with Richard Arlen. Still, she was unhappy with the studios, possibly because she was relegated to B-movie productions on a lower salary. She decided to freelance with companies such as 20th Century Fox and MGM. Her last appearance was in a supporting role in the suspense film The Second Woman, made in 1950 by United Artists.
She died in Sherman Oaks in 1991 at the age of 74 following surgery. She was later cremated and her ashes returned to her family.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Morris Ankrum (born Morris Nussbaum, August 28, 1896 – September 2, 1964) was an American radio, television and film character actor.
Before signing with Paramount Pictures in the 1930s, Nussbaum had already changed his last name to Ankrum. Upon signing with the studio, he chose to use the name "Stephen Morris" before changing it to Morris Ankrum in 1939.
Ankrum's stern visage and sharply defined features helped cast him in supporting roles as stalwart authority figures, including scientists, military men (particularly army officers), judges and even psychiatrists in more than 150 films, mostly B movies. One standout role was in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's production of Tennessee Johnson (1942), a biographical film about Andrew Johnson, the 17th U.S. president. As Sen. Jefferson Davis, Ankrum movingly addresses the United States Senate upon his resignation to lead the Confederate States of America as that republic's first—and only—president. Ankrum's film career was extensive and spanned 30 years. His credits were largely concentrated in the western and science-fiction genres.
Ankrum appeared in such westerns as Ride 'Em Cowboy in 1942, Vera Cruz opposite Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster, Apache (1954), and Cattle Queen of Montana with Barbara Stanwyck and Ronald Reagan.
In the sci-fi genre, he appeared in Rocketship X-M (1950), Flight to Mars (1951), as a Martian, Red Planet Mars (1952), playing the United States Secretary of Defense; the cult classic Invaders From Mars (1953), playing a United States Army officer; and as an Army general in Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956). In 1957 he played a psychiatrist in the cult sci-fi classic Kronos and had military-officer roles in Beginning of the End and The Giant Claw.
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Ruth Clifford (February 17, 1900 – November 30, 1998) was an American actress of leading roles in silent films, whose career lasted from silent days into the television era. Clifford got work as an extra and began her career at 15 at Universal, in fairly substantial roles. She received her first film credit for her work in Behind the Lines (1916).
By her mid-twenties, she was playing leads and second leads, including the role of Abraham Lincoln's lost love, Ann Rutledge, in The Dramatic Life of Abraham Lincoln (1924). But sound pictures found her roles diminishing, and throughout the next three decades she played smaller and smaller parts.
She was a favorite of director John Ford (they played bridge together), who used her in eight films, but rarely in substantial roles. She was also, for a time, the voice of Walt Disney's Minnie Mouse and Daisy Duck.
Clifford's obituary in the Los Angeles Times noted that she "became a prime source for historians of the silent screen era".
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Edward Earle (16 July 1882 – 15 December 1972) was a Canadian-American stage, film and television actor. In a career which lasted from the early 1900s to 1966, he appeared in almost 400 films between 1914 and 1956. He was born in Toronto and died in Los Angeles, aged 90.
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Bess Flowers (November 23, 1898 – July 28, 1984) was an American actress. By some counts considered the most prolific actress in the history of Hollywood, she was known as "The Queen of the Hollywood Extras," appearing in over 700 movies in her 41 year career.
Born in Sherman, Texas, Flowers's film debut came in 1923, when she appeared in Hollywood. She made three films that year, and then began working extensively. Many of her appearances are uncredited, as she generally played non-speaking roles.
By the 1930s, Flowers was in constant demand. Her appearances ranged from Alfred Hitchcock and John Ford thrillers to comedic roles alongside of Charley Chase, the Three Stooges, Leon Errol, Edgar Kennedy, and Laurel and Hardy.
She appeared in the following five films which won the Academy Award for Best Picture: It Happened One Night, You Can't Take it with You, All About Eve, The Greatest Show on Earth, and Around the World in Eighty Days. In each of these movies, Flowers was uncredited. Including these five movies, she had appeared in twenty-three Best Picture nominees in total, making her the record holder for most appearances in films nominated for the award. Her last movie was Good Neighbor Sam in 1964.
Flowers's acting career was not confined to feature films. She was also seen in many episodic American TV series, such as I Love Lucy, notably in episodes, "Lucy Is Enceinte" (1952), "Ethel's Birthday" (1955), and "Lucy's Night in Town" (1957), where she is usually seen as a theatre patron.
Outside her acting career, in 1945, Bess Flowers helped to found the Screen Extras Guild (active: 1946-1992, then merged with SAG), where she served as one of its first vice-presidents and recording secretaries.
John Rummel Hamilton was an American actor, who played in many movies and television programs. He is probably best remembered for his role as the blustery newspaper editor Perry White for the 1950s television program “Adventures of Superman.”
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Aggie Herring (February 4, 1876 – October 28, 1939) was an American actress. She appeared in 119 films between 1915 and 1939. She was born in San Francisco, California and died in Santa Monica, California.
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Lila Lee (born Augusta Wilhelmena Fredericka Appel, July 25, 1905 – November 13, 1973) was a prominent screen actress, primarily a leading lady, of the silent film and early sound film eras.
In 1918, she was chosen for a film contract by Hollywood film mogul Jesse Lasky for Famous Players-Lasky Corporation, which later became Paramount Pictures. Her first feature, The Cruise of the Make-Believes, garnered the teenaged starlet much public acclaim and Lasky quickly sent Lee on an arduous publicity campaign. Critics lauded Lila for her wholesome persona and sympathetic character parts. Lee quickly rose to the ranks of leading lady and often starred opposite such matinee heavies as Conrad Nagel, Gloria Swanson, Wallace Reid, Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle, and Rudolph Valentino. Lee bore more than a slight resemblance to Ann Little, a former Paramount star and frequent Reid co-star who was leaving the film business and at this stage in her career an even stronger resemblance to Marguerite Clark.
In 1922 Lee was cast as Carmen in the enormously popular film Blood and Sand, opposite matinee idol Rudolph Valentino and silent screen vamp Nita Naldi; Lee subsequently won the first WAMPAS Baby Stars award that year. Lee continued to be a highly popular leading lady throughout the 1920s and made scores of critically praised and widely watched films.
As the Roaring Twenties drew to a close, Lee's popularity began to wane and Lee positioned herself for the transition to talkies. She is one of the few leading ladies of the silent screen whose popularity did not nosedive with the coming of sound. She went back to working with the major studios and appeared, most notably, in The Unholy Three, in 1930, opposite Lon Chaney Sr. in his only talkie. However, a series of bad career choices and bouts of recurring tuberculosis and alcoholism hindered further projects and Lee was relegated to taking parts in mostly grade B movies.
Lucien Lovell Littlefield (August 16, 1895 – June 4, 1960) was an American actor from the silent film era. Brother of 'Ralph Littlefield. He later made numerous cameo appearances on television series. He died of natural causes in 4 June 1960 (Hollywood, California, USA), and was buried in Glendale's Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery.
Wilbur Mack (born George Frear Runyon, 29 July 1873 – 13 March 1964) was an American film actor and early vaudeville performer from the 1920s through the 1960s. His film acting career began during the silent film era.
Montie Montana (born Owen Harlen Mickel; June 21, 1910 – May 20, 1998), was a rodeo trick rider, actor, stuntman and cowboy inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in 1994.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Montie Montana, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
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Edmund Mortimer (21 August 1874 – 21 May 1944) was an American actor and film director. He appeared in 251 films between 1913 and 1945. He also directed 23 films between 1918 and 1928. He was born in New York, New York and died in Los Angeles, California.
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Paul Stanton (1884-1955) was an American character actor and bit-part player in American films.
Originally from Illinois, he appeared in about 130 films between 1918 and 1952, mostly in supporting roles. He often portrayed authoritarian figures like judges, attorneys, managers, officials and doctors.
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Lurene Tuttle (August 29, 1907, Pleasant Lake, Indiana - May 28, 1986, Encino, California) was a character actress, who made transitions from vaudeville to radio, to films and television. Her most enduring impact was as one of network radio's most versatile actresses. Often appearing in 15 shows a week, comedies, dramas, thrillers, soap operas, and crime dramas, and she became known as the First Lady of Radio.
Heaven Only Knows (1947) was her first film. She went on to roles in other films such as Orson Welles's Macbeth (1948), Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948) and Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), as the wife of Sheriff Chambers. In Don't Bother to Knock (1952) she portrayed a mother who lets a disturbed Marilyn Monroe babysit her daughter. The next year she appeared again with Marilyn in Niagara, as Mrs. Kettering. She had a rare starring role in Ma Barker's Killer Brood (1960). She played Grandma Pusser in the original Walking Tall film trilogy, and also appeared in horror films such as The Manitou (1978), starring Tony Curtis. Her final film role was in the 1983 film Testament. Tuttle became a familiar face to millions of television viewers with more than 100 appearances from 1950 to 1986, often in the role of an inquisitive busybody. On television and in films, Tuttle streamlined herself into a pattern of roles between wise, loving wives/mothers or bristling matrons. She was familiar to the early television audience as wife/mother Lavinia (Vinnie) Day in Life with Father (1953–1955). Columnist Hedda Hopper called the selection of Leon Ames as Father and Tuttle as Mother "what I consider 22 carat casting with two all-Americans."
Description above from the Wikipedia article Lurene Tuttle, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Gayne Whitman (born Alfred D. Vosburgh; March 19, 1890 – August 31, 1958) was an American radio and film actor. He appeared in 213 films between 1904 and 1957. In some early films he was credited under his birth name. He was born in Chicago, Illinois.
As Alfred Vosburgh, he was the leading man in the film Princess of the Dark (1917). Soon after that, he changed his screen name to Alfred Whitman because "1917 was not a good time to have a German sounding name."
Beginning in 1921, Whitman acted at the Morosco Theater in Los Angeles. He returned to films in 1925 when he received a contract with Warner Bros.
On radio, Whitman played the title role in Chandu the Magician, was the narrator on Lassie and Strange as It Seems, and was an announcer on Paducah Plantation and other programs.
