Current print subscribers can create a free account by clicking here
Otherwise, follow the link below to join.
To Our Valued Readers –
Visitors to our website will be limited to five stories per month unless they opt to subscribe. The five stories do not include our exclusive content written by our journalists.
For $6.99, less than 20 cents a day, digital subscribers will receive unlimited access to YourValley.net, including exclusive content from our newsroom and access to our Daily Independent e-edition.
Our commitment to balanced, fair reporting and local coverage provides insight and perspective not found anywhere else.
Your financial commitment will help to preserve the kind of honest journalism produced by our reporters and editors. We trust you agree that independent journalism is an essential component of our democracy. Please click here to subscribe.
Need to set up your free e-Newspaper all-access account? click here.
Non-subscribers
Click here to see your options for becoming a subscriber.
Register to comment
Click here create a free account for posting comments.
Note that free accounts do not include access to premium content on this site.
I am anchor
Golden Age of Radio in Fountain Hills welcomes ‘The Life of Riley’
Circa 1940s-’50s American radio situation comedy series directed by Irving Brecher
Metro Creative
The Golden Age of Radio meets Feb. 1, at 1 p.m. in the Fountain Hills Community Center.
Posted
The Golden Age of Radio presents “The Life of Riley” program at its meeting on Thursday, Feb. 1, at 1 p.m. in the Fountain Hills Community Center.
“The Life of Riley” radio program originally aired on the NBC Blue Network (which later became ABC) from Jan. 16, 1944, to July 8, 1945, according to a press release written by Bill Whittaker.
Afterward, the program was heard on the regular NBC network where it was broadcast from Sept. 8, 1945, to June 29, 1951.
Irving Brecher originally pitched the radio series for his friend Groucho Marx, Whittaker said.
Radio historian Gerald Nachman quotes Brecher as stating, “He was a Brooklyn guy and there was something about him. I thought, ‘This guy could play it.’
“He’d made a few films, like ‘Lifeboat,’ but he was not a name. So, I took, ‘The Flotsam Family’ script, revised it, made it a Brooklyn family, took out the flippancies and made it more meat-and-potatoes, and thought of a new title, ‘The Life of Riley.’
“(William) Bendix’s delivery and the spin he put on his lines made it work.”
In the reworked script, Brecher cast Bendix in the title role of the blundering Chester A. Riley, a wing riveter at the fictional Cunningham Aircraft plant in California.
Bendix’s delivery and the spin he put on his lines made it work, Whittaker reiterated. His frequent exclamation of indignation, “What a revoltin’ development this is,” became one of the most famous catchphrases of the 1940s, Whittaker said.
Many classic radio programs such as these are contained in the Golden Age of Radio’s Bruce Florence Library, an extensive collection of timeless broadcasts on records, cassette tapes and CDs.
Membership in the Community Center is required to attend Golden Age of Radio meetings.
For more information, contact Bill Whittaker at 480-837-7961 or the Community Center at 480-816-5200.
From the twilight of the Jazz Age to the dawn of the Space Age, The Golden Age of Radio celebrates the reign of the first electronic medium, the then-modern miracle that brought news, entertainment and information into homes throughout a significant period of history.
