Wyllis Cooper
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Wyllis Cooper
Wyllis Oswald Cooper (January 26, 1899 – June 22, 1955) was an American writer and producer. He is best remembered for creating and writing the Golden Age of Radio, old time radio programs ''Lights Out (radio show), Lights Out'' (1934–1947) and ''Quiet, Please'' (1947–1949) Biography Born Willis Oswald Cooper in Pekin, Illinois, he attended Pekin High School, graduating in 1916. He soon joined the U.S. Cavalry where, achieving the rank of Sergeant, he spent time on the Mexico, Mexican border. In 1917, he became a part of the Signal Corps (United States Army), Signal Corps and was sent to France during World War I. While in France he was gassed at the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. He remained on active duty until 1919 when he left to become an advertising writer, though he maintained his reserve status. By the late 1920s he was writing advertising copy in Chicago and entered radio, writing scripts for the 1929–1931 NBC radio program ''Empire Builders (radio program) ...
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Radio Drama
Radio drama (or audio drama, audio play, radio play, radio theatre, or audio theatre) is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine the characters and story: "It is auditory in the physical dimension but equally powerful as a visual force in the psychological dimension." Radio drama includes plays specifically written for radio, docudrama, dramatized works of fiction, as well as plays originally written for the theatre, including musical theatre, and opera. Radio drama achieved widespread popularity within a decade of its initial development in the 1920s. By the 1940s, it was a leading international popular entertainment. With the advent of television in the 1950s radio drama began losing its audience. However, it remains popular in much of the world. Recordings of OTR ( old-time radio) survive today in the audio archives of collectors, libraries and museums, as well ...
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Black Museum
The Crime Museum is a collection of criminal memorabilia kept at New Scotland Yard, headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service in London, England. Known as the Black Museum until the early 21st century, the museum came into existence at Scotland Yard sometime in 1874, arising out of the collection of prisoners' property gathered as a result of the Forfeiture Act 1870 and intended as an aid to the police in their study of crime and criminals. Initially unofficial, it had become an official if private museum by 1875, with a police inspector and a police constable assigned to official duty there. Not open to the public, it was used as a teaching collection for police recruits and was only ever accessible by those involved in legal matters, royals and other VIPs. Now sited in the basement of the Curtis Green Building (the present New Scotland Yard), the museum remains closed to the public but can be visited by officers of the Metropolitan Police and any of the country's polic ...
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Whitehall 1212 (radio Show)
''Whitehall 1212'' was a weekly crime drama radio show in the United States that ran from November 18, 1951 until September 28, 1952. Its cases were taken from the files of New Scotland Yard's Black Museum. History ''Whitehall 1212'', named after the then famous telephone number of New Scotland Yard—the headquarters of the London Metropolitan Police Force—was written and directed by Wyllis Cooper and broadcast by NBC. It was hosted by Chief Superintendent John Davidson, curator of the Black Museum and it used many of the same cases chosen for the contemporary radio show ''The Black Museum'', and nearly mirrored its broadcast run. The two shows were different in the respect that while ''Whitehall 1212'' told the story of a case entirely from the point of view of the police starting from the crime scene, ''The Black Museum'' was more heavily dramatized and played out scenes of the actual murders and included scenes from the criminal's point of view. in the weekly introd ...
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American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) is an American commercial broadcast television network. It is the flagship property of the ABC Entertainment Group division of The Walt Disney Company. The network is headquartered in Burbank, California, on Riverside Drive, directly across the street from Walt Disney Studios and adjacent to the Roy E. Disney Animation Building. The network's secondary offices, and headquarters of its news division, are in New York City, at its broadcast center at 77 West 66th Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Since 2007, when ABC Radio (also known as Cumulus Media Networks) was sold to Citadel Broadcasting, ABC has reduced its broadcasting operations almost exclusively to television. It is the fifth-oldest major broadcasting network in the world and the youngest of the American Big Three television networks. The network is sometimes referred to as the Alphabet Network, as its initialism also represents the first three letters of the ...
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Mutual Broadcasting System
The Mutual Broadcasting System (commonly referred to simply as Mutual; sometimes referred to as MBS, Mutual Radio or the Mutual Radio Network) was an American commercial radio network in operation from 1934 to 1999. In the Old-time radio, golden age of U.S. radio drama, Mutual was best known as the original network home of ''Lone Ranger#Original radio series, The Lone Ranger'' and ''The Adventures of Superman (radio), The Adventures of Superman'' and as the long-time radio residence of ''The Shadow''. For many years, it was a national broadcaster for Major League Baseball on Mutual, Major League Baseball (including the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, All-Star Game and World Series), the National Football League, and Notre Dame Fighting Irish football. From the mid-1930s and until the retirement of the network in 1999, Mutual ran a highly respected news service accompanied by a variety of popular commentary shows. Mutual pioneered the nationwide late night call-in radio program ...
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Secretary Of War
The secretary of war was a member of the U.S. president's Cabinet, beginning with George Washington's administration. A similar position, called either "Secretary at War" or "Secretary of War", had been appointed to serve the Congress of the Confederation under the Articles of Confederation between 1781 and 1789. Benjamin Lincoln and later Henry Knox held the position. When Washington was inaugurated as the first President under the Constitution, he appointed Knox to continue serving as Secretary of War. The secretary of war was the head of the War Department. At first, he was responsible for all military affairs, including naval affairs. In 1798, the secretary of the Navy was created by statute, and the scope of responsibility for this office was reduced to the affairs of the United States Army. From 1886 onward, the secretary of war was in the line of succession to the presidency, after the vice president of the United States, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, ...
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World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, ma ...
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Mercury Theatre
The Mercury Theatre was an independent repertory theatre company founded in New York City in 1937 by Orson Welles and producer John Houseman. The company produced theatrical presentations, radio programs and motion pictures. The Mercury also released promptbooks and phonographic recordings of four Shakespeare works for use in schools. After a series of acclaimed Broadway productions, the Mercury Theatre progressed into its most popular incarnation as ''The Mercury Theatre on the Air''. The radio series included one of the most notable and infamous radio broadcasts of all time, "The War of the Worlds", broadcast October 30, 1938. The ''Mercury Theatre on the Air'' produced live radio dramas in 1938–1940 and again briefly in 1946. In addition to Welles, the Mercury players included Ray Collins, Joseph Cotten, George Coulouris, Martin Gabel, Norman Lloyd, Agnes Moorehead, Paul Stewart, and Everett Sloane. Much of the troupe would later appear in Welles's films at RKO, parti ...
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Orson Welles
George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, known for his innovative work in film, radio and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time. While in his 20s, Welles directed high-profile stage productions for the Federal Theatre Project, including an adaptation of ''Macbeth'' with an entirely African-American cast and the political musical '' The Cradle Will Rock''. In 1937, he and John Houseman founded the Mercury Theatre, an independent repertory theatre company that presented a series of productions on Broadway through 1941, including ''Caesar'' (1937), an adaptation of William Shakespeare's ''Julius Caesar''. In 1938, his radio anthology series ''The Mercury Theatre on the Air'' gave Welles the platform to find international fame as the director and narrator of a radio adaptation of H. G. Wells's novel ''The War of the Worlds'', which caused s ...
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The Campbell Playhouse (radio Series)
''The Campbell Playhouse'' (1938–1940) is a live CBS radio drama series directed by and starring Orson Welles. Produced by Welles and John Houseman, it was a sponsored continuation of ''The Mercury Theatre on the Air''. The series offered hour-long adaptations of classic plays and novels, as well as adaptations of popular motion pictures. When Welles left at the end of the second season, ''The Campbell Playhouse'' changed format as a 30-minute weekly series that ran for one season (1940–41). Production As a direct result of the front-page headlines Orson Welles generated with his 1938 Halloween production "The War of the Worlds", Campbell's Soup signed on as sponsor. ''The Mercury Theatre on the Air'' made its last broadcast December 4, 1938, and ''The Campbell Playhouse'' began December 9, 1938. The series made its debut with Welles's adaptation of ''Rebecca'', with guest stars Margaret Sullavan and Mildred Natwick. The radio drama was the first adaptation of the 1938 n ...
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