Edward K. Jewett (1904–1961) was an American
character actor
A character actor is a supporting actor who plays unusual, interesting, or eccentric characters.28 April 2013, The New York Acting SchoolTen Best Character Actors of All Time Retrieved 7 August 2014, "..a breed of actor who has the ability to b ...
. Jewett voiced characters, and served as an announcer on
NBC Radio
The National Broadcasting Company's NBC Radio Network (known as the NBC Red Network prior to 1942) was an American commercial radio network which was in operation from 1926 through 2004. Along with the NBC Blue Network it was one of the first t ...
,
CBS Radio
CBS Radio was a radio broadcasting company and radio network operator owned by CBS Corporation and founded in 1928, with consolidated radio station groups owned by CBS and Westinghouse Broadcasting/Group W since the 1920s, and Infinity Broadc ...
, and
Mutual Broadcasting during the
Golden Age of Radio
The Golden Age of Radio, also known as the old-time radio (OTR) era, was an era of radio in the United States where it was the dominant electronic home entertainment, entertainment medium. It began with the birth of commercial radio broadcastin ...
.
Early life and education
Jewett was born in
Yokohama
is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of To ...
, Japan in 1904. His father, John H. Jewett, worked in the Oriental
silk trade
The Silk Road () was a network of Eurasian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles), it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and reli ...
, and served as Denmark's consul to Yokohama.
Prince Valdemar, a friend of the Jewett family, named him to that post. Jewett grew up speaking both Japanese and Danish.
In 1910, Jewett moved to
Plainfield, New Jersey with his parents. He attended local elementary and middle schools up until the age of 14. Jewett graduated from the
Morristown School (now Morristown-Beard School) in
in 1922. He then earned his bachelor's degree at
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
in
Princeton, New Jersey
Princeton is a municipality with a borough form of government in Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton and Princeton Township, both of whi ...
.
During his school years, Jewett showed an interest in both
elocution
Elocution is the study of formal speaking in pronunciation, grammar, style, and tone as well as the idea and practice of effective speech and its forms. It stems from the idea that while communication is symbolic, sounds are final and compelli ...
and public speaking. He aimed to work as an actor or statesman. However, Jewett transitioned into the silk trade after college. While working in the family business, he gained an interest in radio announcing.
Radio career
Lacking a microphone, Jewett practiced announcing on the radio by using a tin can tied to a stick.
He joined the announcing staff at NBC in 1930 after passing their microphone exam. The exam required him to speak a tongue-twister without stammering or whistling: "The seething sea ceaseth and thus the seething sea sufficeth us." He also had to demonstrate fluency in a foreign language. (Jewett was fluent in Japanese from his childhood years.)
Jewett passed the test despite having had no previous announcing experiences. In the fall of 1930, he joined the nighttime announcing staff at NBC after working as a daytime announcer for four months. Two years later, NBC promoted Jewett to supervisor of nighttime announcing and director of operations. He served in that role until 1934.
Jewett achieved notoriety for voicing characters on the series ''
Cavalcade of America'' and ''
The March of Time''.
''Cavalcade of America'' was a
DuPont
DuPont de Nemours, Inc., commonly shortened to DuPont, is an American multinational chemical company first formed in 1802 by French-American chemist and industrialist Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours. The company played a major role in ...
-sponsored
anthology drama
An anthology series is a radio programming, radio, television program, television, video game or film series that spans different genres and presents a different story and a different set of characters in each different episode, Season (televis ...
series. ''The March of Time'' was the first dramatized newsreel to air on radio. The
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
-sponsored program re-enacted real news events with accompanying musical tunes and sound effects. Jewett also appeared on ''Jolly Bill and Jane'', ''Ellen Randolph'', ''
Chicago Theater of the Air
''Chicago Theater of the Air'' was a weekly American radio program that featured hour-long operettas & musical theater. It first ran locally in May 1940 on WGN radio in Chicago and then nationally as an unsponsored show on the Mutual Broadcasting ...
'', and G. E. Circle.
During the 1940s, he served as an announcer for
Robert Ripley's show ''
Believe It or Not
''Ripley's Believe It or Not!'' is an American franchise founded by Robert Ripley, which deals in bizarre events and items so strange and unusual that readers might question the claims. Originally a newspaper panel, the ''Believe It or Not'' feat ...
''. He also served as an announcer for ''
Let's Pretend
''Let's Pretend'', created and directed by Nila Mack, was a CBS radio series for children. Prior to being renamed ''Let's Pretend'', the program had a variety of titles and formats. In its most famous form, ''Let's Pretend'', the Peabody Award- ...
'', a children's show on CBS radio.
In 1931, Jewett served as one of the announcers of the
U.S. Army's mimic battle over
Manhattan Island
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
. The nationally broadcast mimic battle demonstrated what a war-time attack on
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
might look like. It involved 672 airplanes manned by 1,484 military personnel swooping over the city's skyscrapers. Jewett announced the mimic battle from a
transport plane. Later that year, he had a car accident while traveling to announce the departure of
Charles Lindbergh
Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974) was an American aviator, military officer, author, inventor, and activist. On May 20–21, 1927, Lindbergh made the first nonstop flight from New York City to Paris, a distance o ...
to Japan. The accident near
North Beach Airport in
Queens
Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...
put Jewett in the hospital.
Vocal impressions
During his career, Jewett's most known vocal impressions included those of:
* Kansas Governor
Alf Landon, the
1936 Republican Presidential Candidate
* Japanese Emperor
Hirohito
Emperor , commonly known in English-speaking countries by his personal name , was the 124th emperor of Japan, ruling from 25 December 1926 until his death in 1989. Hirohito and his wife, Empress Kōjun, had two sons and five daughters; he was ...
* British Prime Minister
Neville Chamberlain
Arthur Neville Chamberlain (; 18 March 18699 November 1940) was a British politician of the Conservative Party who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. He is best known for his foreign policy of appeasemen ...
* New York Governor
Alfred E. Smith
Alfred Emanuel Smith (December 30, 1873 – October 4, 1944) was an American politician who served four terms as Governor of New York and was the Democratic Party's candidate for president in 1928.
The son of an Irish-American mother and a Civ ...
, the
1928 Democratic Presidential Candidate
* U.S. Postmaster General
James Farley
* Journalist
Heywood Broun
Heywood Campbell Broun Jr. (; December 7, 1888 – December 18, 1939) was an American journalist. He worked as a sportswriter, newspaper columnist, and editor in New York City. He founded the American Newspaper Guild, later known as The Newspaper ...
* British Prime Minister
Stanley Baldwin
Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, (3 August 186714 December 1947) was a British Conservative Party politician who dominated the government of the United Kingdom between the world wars, serving as prime minister on three occasions, ...
* CBS CEO
William S. Paley
William Samuel Paley (September 28, 1901 – October 26, 1990) was an American businessman, primarily involved in the media, and best known as the chief executive who built the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) from a small radio network into o ...
* Conductor
Walter Damrosch
Walter Johannes Damrosch (January 30, 1862December 22, 1950) was a German-born American conductor and composer. He was the director of the New York Symphony Orchestra and conducted the world premiere performances of various works, including Ge ...
, the director of the
New York Symphony Orchestra
The New York Symphony Orchestra was founded as the New York Symphony Society in New York City by Leopold Damrosch in 1878. For many years it was a rival to the older Philharmonic Symphony Society of New York. It was supported by Andrew Carnegie, ...
*Author
Albert Payson Terhune
Family
Jewett married Grace Elizabeth Fisher, a violinist with the Parnassus Trio, in 1931. After she died from
polio
Poliomyelitis, commonly shortened to polio, is an infectious disease caused by the poliovirus. Approximately 70% of cases are asymptomatic; mild symptoms which can occur include sore throat and fever; in a proportion of cases more severe s ...
,
he married Winnefred Jewett. They had a daughter together, Priscilla.
Grace Elizabeth Fisher was the daughter of Alexander Sibbald Fisher and Sarah Murrey. see NYC marriage record.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jewett, Ted
American male radio actors
People from Yokohama
People from Plainfield, New Jersey
Princeton University alumni
1904 births
1961 deaths
Morristown-Beard School alumni