>> During the heyday of radio... >> I'm not going to buy a television set. [ Laughter ] >> I wanted to be a free agent, a free soul. >> That's radio producer Himan Brown, and this is "Audio Maverick," a celebration of his life and work. >> The story of Mr. Ace and his wife, Jane. >> Come in.
>> In our last episode, we toured the rich country of Golden Age radio, the amazing array of programs that made their way into America's living rooms and parlors and boardinghouses each night... and some of the imaginative people who created them. And now we want to know about Himan Brown's continuing place in this world. I'm Margot Avery. Stay tuned. >> The door is open. Welcome. [ Man singing indistinctly ] ♪♪ >> By the mid-1930s, Himan Brown was no longer a striver.
And his career began to take a different shape. In 1937, his long partnership with the Hummert Agency and his friend Anne Ashenhurst came to an end. The company was diversifying and wanted Brown as a salaried employee. He declined and went on to create independent relationships with other agencies and networks, and by going his own way, Brown matured as a producer and director and enriched his portfolio, which already included shows such as "Dick Tracy," "David Harum," and "John's Other Wife."
>> And now for the dramatic story of "John's Other Wife." Elizabeth, the young wife of handsome 35-year-old John Perry is going to have a baby and has been told by Dr. Ferguson that she must not shoulder any worries. But the worries have come thick and fast. >> He was a show-making machine. One show after the other, he came up with a concept, sold the idea to an agency, then helped get it realized. And Brown was always on the lookout for new, potentially lucrative projects.
He enjoyed creating synergy between commercial clients' goals and a concept that would achieve them. >> I have never sat down and written a complete script. I'm much happier plotting and figuring on characters and so on.
>> Here's an example. [ Bell clangs, ship horn blows ] The Coward Shoe Company, which had started in New York in the 19th century, had its own pirate ship moored on the Hudson at 129th Street, and they had a gimmick -- Buy a pair of shoes and get a ticket on board, where you could meet Captain Tom. When they wanted to expand into broadcast, Brown created "Captain Tom and the Pirate Ship" -- three episodes a week based on the actual log that kids saw on the ship. [ Bird squawks ]
Shoes and ships and sealing wax -- Brown had the power to see almost anything in terms of radio. Brown said often that he made most of his creative decisions by following his intuition. And he gave "Captain Tom" to a struggling writer, Frank Loesser. >> Who had never written a script in his life, but was a good writer. Was starving. And he always said that I took him off the streets and got him into a hotel with "Captain Tom."
>> ♪ Oh, I believe in you ♪ >> Loesser went on to write music and lyrics for hit musicals, including "Guys and Dolls" and "How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying." >> ♪ Oh, I believe in you ♪ >> And Brown really did believe in them. As a performer, producer, and later director, he was the product of nerve and native talent, rather than formal training, and he could sense the potential in others.
Not all of Brown's hires were rescues, but he was proud of being able to offer opportunities to artists in a challenging period. Not only writers, but also actors. >> ♪ Say, buddy, can you spare a dime? ♪ ♪♪ >> The Works Progress Administration was President Franklin Roosevelt's economic stimulus program to offset job loss during the Depression. It helped to maintain live theater, but Brown could offer more for radio work.
>> The actor, who was getting, like, $27 to $32 a week, something like that, for an entire week of work, could earn that much with me on one broadcast... so that I became a golden grail for all the actors. >> That was in part because of his particular mission -- to fill the airwaves with engaging, audience-building programs. >> Timing, tastes, a particular moment -- They're so valuable in our business. >> And usually, Brown was right on trend.
He had an impressive portfolio of crime and spy thrillers -- a mainstay of Golden Age programming. In addition to Dick Tracy, he had the rights to English properties, including Bulldog Drummond, a gentleman adventurer... >> And in addition, an important envelope will arrive with the first mail. >> No, Captain Drummond, you're wrong. I know you're wrong. Steve would... >> ...and Leslie Charteris' elusive Saint.
>> There are only two reasons dames got for leaning against a guy. The other one is, they want to pick his pocket. >> Pick his... Well, I'll be. >> That's what she did, in a way. >> But what she stole wasn't money. It was my revolver. [ Dramatic music plays ] >> Brown also invested in suave detectives on our side of the pond, including Dashiell Hammett's Nick Charles, or the Thin Man.
It's tempting to imagine Brown in conversation with these polished-but- ruthless characters at some swank nightclub or saloon. When talking about his early life, Brown often refers to himself as a gawky kid, but publicity stills from this later period show us a relaxed and elegant man worthy of his own circle of imaginary characters. Brown was also ahead of his time. As early as 1935, he introduced "Hilda Hope" -- name intentional -- a series that featured a woman doctor.
>> I always believed in women in the professions without women's lib, without anybody prodding me. >> Of course, as a producer, he realized the narrative potential of medical drama. >> It's a wonderful, wonderful world for storytelling, of course. >> And Brown makes the point that these programs weren't just procedurals with stethoscopes. In the show, Dr. Hope addressed some specific medical crisis, but there was always more.
>> In those days, we were very Freudian, psychiatrically-oriented because you can't always go with operations and you can't always go with diseases. You went with these emotional conflicts which came out of the whole world of psychiatric development, which was literally in its beginnings in those days. And I like to feel that we were pioneering in many, many ways, that I was. >> They were.
This approach anticipated medical dramas from "Dr. Kildare," to "St. Elsewhere," "ER," and beyond. And 1937 saw the first appearance of one of Brown's most enduring characters, Joyce Jordan. >> Why don't you marry me and give this all up? >> No, Henry. I'm -- I'm not ready to marry anyone...yet. You may as well get used to the idea. At the moment, all that interests me is becoming the best doctor that I can possibly be.
If you don't mind, I'd... >> There's no way in a brief appreciation to do justice to the scope of Brown's work, his dozens of imaginary lives and worlds. Many were polished versions of formulas that have become familiar to us, but some pushed boundaries and had strong sonic signatures. [ Suspenseful music plays ] [ Door creaking ] No. Not you. You're in the next episode, about sound design. I mean like his wonderfully conceived show "Grand Central Station."
As Brown tells it, the show's beginnings were conventional enough. CBS had been pitching a half-hour radio slot to one of its advertisers, but the buyer responsible for investing in new broadcast products wasn't biting. So they sent Brown, a proven and persuasive packager, to see if he could broker a deal. And as usual with him, the encounter moved from commerce to a meeting of imaginations. The agency rep didn't want a traditional soap or serial with the same characters.
Instead, he wanted to think up a setting for the show that could feature a different story each week. >> It was a potpourri. It could almost include anything. And in talking, I evolved the idea -- I must say, along with him, also -- of using a terminal, which I then called "the crossroads of a million private lives." Those were my words. And we agreed to use Grand Central Station. Of course, Grand Central Station is a very, very dull place sound-wise.
>> Not in the imagination of Himan Brown. [ Train whistle blowing ] >> From New York, Pillsbury's Best Enriched Flour brings you [Echoing] "Grand Central Station." [ Train whistle blowing ] >> The roaring steam engine that Brown imagined as the show's opening was from Santa Fe and recorded on location especially for him. After the show launched in 1937, he got letters telling him how wrong he was, how the actual trains glided electrically under Park Avenue.
>> But the sound was what conquered, and people finally, eventually had to accept it. >> And those million private lives? They could be anything. >> After the train from Albany pulled in, no one, not a single person, actually saw the young man with soft brown hair and soft brown eyes come through the gate. Still unseen, he walked the length of the great waiting room, now strangely tranquil as travel ebbs on Christmas Eve.
Quietly, he goes out the door, down the street, and then up the broad marble stairs of the hospital. >> Perhaps the thing that made Brown one of the greatest producers of his time was his ability to sense the moment and respond to it with stories. When America emerged from the Great Depression and when it went to war in 1941, Brown's stories and characters did, too. "David Harum" became "David Harum's Victory Garden." "Joyce Jordan's" plots centered on families and the war effort.
And the spies and detectives? >> Many of the mysteries involved spies and war things completely. You did do a certain amount of escapist stuff, but you did have to work the war effort in. >> [ German accent ] If you do not meet them, if they fail to receive this fuel... >> Goodbye, U-boat, huh? >> [ German accent ] Yes. But also... >> Huh? >> [ German accent ] ...goodbye, Fraulein. >> It was a very, very vital part of all the dramas that we did.
You couldn't avoid it. It dominated our lives. >> And, of course, it wasn't only the plots and characters who had to alter. The war also meant that many of the young men who worked with Brown were drafted into the military. >> You had to do a lot of jiggling and juggling as the actors came and went through the war effort. But very often, you'd just substitute an actor and start playing the part and the audience understood all of this.
>> We think of contemporary media as the arena of meta performances -- dissolving fourth walls, pushing boundaries. But here, in the midst of the comforting, escapist radio world, there was a two-way street that recognized exactly what audiences understood about the fictional worlds they entered, and exactly how to accept the places where the real world became a force to be reckoned with. Brown was not content to simply tweak his existing shows in support of the war effort.
More was required -- some deeper response to what was happening and what it represented. In 1938, with the Nazi presence spreading across Eastern Europe, he privately funded a series called "Main Street, U.S.A.," a title he borrowed from Sinclair Lewis. It wasn't a show about war, but about what was being fought for. >> To show the impact of what was going on in Europe could be here, and that we were sleeping, and that we should wake up to this.
And we did it dramatically with -- with stories that related to people, to families, to small towns, and so on. >> This is America, a town of a few thousand, in a region of wheat and corn and dairies and little groves. The town is, in our tale, called Gopher Prairie, Minnesota, but its main street is the continuation of main streets everywhere.
The story would be the same in Ohio or Montana, in Kansas, or Kentucky, or Illinois, and not very differently would it be told in Upstate New York or in the Carolina Hills. Main Street is the climax of civilization.
>> Once the U.S. had entered the war, private propagandizing wasn't allowed, so Brown turned his profits over to the American Red Cross and embarked on a similar show for the U.S. government -- "Green Valley, U.S.A.," with characters voicing information and emotions the government wanted people to hear.
>> It was a total community of several hundred people whom I could draw on to do a government directive on writing to your boy in the Army, on conserving fuel, on creating a Victory Garden, on the need for nurses, on the need for general people in the Army, and so on. ♪♪ >> So a propaganda show. But after the war, Brown repackaged the show as a half-hour series with a different mission.
"A new effort had to be made to start life over," he said, "and we really had a great opportunity to inspire people." Brown was also picked by Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau to create special programs to support the war effort and war bonds, and he joined the Writers' War Board -- a group that helped guide the ways in which writers would reflect the war. Through this group, he met mystery novelist Rex Stout and was able to add "Nero Wolfe" to his portfolio
of mystery radio programs. >> Who is this? Who wants to speak to Mr. Wolfe? >> Nobody. >> Nobody? >> I said that. Hang up. It's late and it's too cold. And even if it weren't, I would not consider for one moment moving from this room. >> Please, Mr. Wolfe, I can't hear a thing this old gentleman's saying. >> Does it matter? You heard what I said. No. >> Post-war, Brown put these same skills to work reflecting the creation of the State of Israel.
He was a founding member of the United Jewish Appeal and convinced his colleagues, who wanted to use radio to broadcast speeches, that drama could be a more effective way to tell the story of the Jewish people -- both the horrors and their vision for the future. >> Drama would say much more. We did intensely exciting dramas which pointed up the Jewish cause and the Jewish side, the Holocaust, all that went on during the war years. >> During the war, networks continued to program.
Even though the commercial sponsorship model was pretty much suspended in the face of so much uncertainty, the value of continuity and the solace of familiar programs was understood. >> There's a big band concert and bond rally scheduled at the Wistful Vista Auditorium tonight, and when you see who's muscled in as director of the whole thing, you can understand the derivation of the word "auditorium" -- from "audi," meaning "listen," and "toro," meaning "bull." [ Laughter ]
Yes, it's himself, of "Fibber McGee and Molly." [ Applause ] >> And as Brown points out, there was going to be an economy afterwards. Post-war, Brown enjoyed another decade of programming and prosperity, but already television was beginning to change the game.
>> This is Station W2XK, experimental transmitter of the National Broadcasting... >> Broadcast television technology had actually been established in 1928, and once again, David Sarnoff, the RCA mogul who profited from the early days of broadcast, led the charge. But it wasn't until household penetration of television sets in the 1950s that entertainment broadcasting began to migrate and abandon the model that had defined Himan Brown's life for over 30 years.
>> From Hollywood... >> Faster than a speeding bullet... >> Lucy, I got to be at a television rehearsal in half an hour. Is my breakfast ready? >> In 1939, it seemed possible that the world might end. By 1959, the world that mattered most to Brown seemed at the verge of extinction. The journey of Brown's successful series "Joyce Jordan" was emblematic. She passed from agency to agency, finally winding up with Procter & Gamble, where she got a promotion.
>> We're going to change the title. She no longer will be Joyce Jordan, Girl Interne. Nine years, you know, an intern. My God, how stupid. She's now going to be Joyce Jordan, M.D. >> But TV soaps were already taking over the territory, and there was a suggestion that Jordan should join their ranks. Brown passed. >> And I simply would not go into soap opera with Joyce Jordan. How silly. What a powerful, powerful character.
>> He remained his own man and had his last broadcast hurrah with format-breaking "NBC Radio Theater." It was an hour-long series to counteract the migration of serials and soap operas to television. >> To make it really outstanding, I got Madeleine Carroll for Monday, Don Ameche for Tuesday, Celeste Holm for Wednesday, Eddie Albert for Thursday, and Friday I had visiting stars, all kinds of different people.
>> The "NBC Radio Theater," a complete hour of drama every day, Monday through Friday, starring Eddie Albert, Lee Bowman, Madeleine Carroll, Gloria DeHaven and today, starring Celeste Holm in "The Believers." >> For the longest time, I fought against this fear my mother had pushed into me, and a year ago, I had the courage to leave her, to come into the city to work. Oh, that day is branded in my mind. >> Anne, dear, this is foolish.
>> It's no use, Mother. I've made up my mind. >> "NBC Radio Theater" survived for three years. >> '59, that was the death knell. Everything went off radio in the way of drama. >> We end this episode with a cliffhanger, that reliable narrative device perfected in the golden age of radio. What will happen to a creative innovator with boundless energy when his medium disappears? But don't touch that dial.
First, we're going to meet a different Himan Brown, the man behind the curtain, the director and sound designer. [ Creaking ] Yes, and you. Up next, Episode 6, "Pay Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain." This is "Audio Maverick," and I'm Margot Avery. Stay tuned. "Audio Maverick" is produced and directed by Sarah Montague, who also writes the scripts. Our executive producers are Melina Brown and Sarah Montague. CUNY TV's executive director is Chiqui Cartagena.
The director of production is Susan Iger, and Deborah Labadie is CUNY TV's chief operating officer. The associate producer for "Audio Maverick" is Corinne Wallace, and our audio production intern is Lucia Funaro. "Audio Maverick" is narrated by Margot Avery. Our technical team at CUNY includes senior audio engineer Richard Kim and audio engineer and program mix engineer Lisa Gosselin. Our staff photographer is Laura Fuchs. Our archivists are David Rice and Catriona Schlosser.
Our closed caption coordinator is Amy Monte, and the script editor is Allison Behringer. Our theme was composed by Allison Leyton-Brown. Sound design and final mixing are by John DeLore and Bart Warshaw. Multitude Productions handles our publicity and marketing. "Audio Maverick" is a production of CUNY TV.