“Good ol’ radio – I still think it’s the finest medium in show business” declared Tommy Cook to an interviewer documenting early radio. Of course we would have to agree with him. It was in 1939 that Tommy did his first radio show. It was a show for Arch Oboler, who Tommy considers the finest writer, producer, director in the history of the medium. Oboler had become famous in Chicago for the horror series Lights Out, a series he wrote and produced from 1936 to 1939 after taking over from Wyllis Cooper. “When Oboler left Lights Out he headed for California to produce programs of eloquent writings” said Cook who was about 8 or 9 years old when he got that first radio gig with Oboler in the series Arch Oboler’s Plays. A couple of month’s prior to his appearance on the show, Tommy’s mother had seen an article in a magazine announcing free auditions at NBC. His mom cut it out and mailed it in to NBC and shortly thereafter Tommy got an audition with the NBC Artists service, which was the network’s in house talent agency. When Oboler was casting one of the plays for his new series, the head of the Artists Service remembered Tommy and called him in to audition for Arch. Tommy was hired and he went on the air. Tommy believes that he ultimately got the role only because he had the youngest sounding voice. Oboler called him in again to audition for Arch Oboler’s Plays for the part of a German refugee boy. At the audition Tommy mimicked some German accent that he must have heard and once again Oboler gave him the role. “Evidently accents came easy to me” says Cook. From then on Oboler began using him regularly in small parts here and there until the series folded in March of 1940. However, in October of that same year, Everyman’s Theater premiered on NBC. This was a new sustaining series that Arch Oboler would write, produce and direct. It was on this new series that Tommy would receive his first starring role on radio. The play was titled Problem Papa and would feature the talents of Howard Duff and Mercedes McCambridge as his father and mother. Arch was originally planning on hiring a young actor back in Chicago in the role but was encouraged by Alla Nazimova ( a legendary Russian actress who had immigrated to the United States) to use Tommy instead. Ms. Nazimova had taken notice of Tommy when they had worked together previously in an Oboler radio play. Prior to this starring role on radio, Tommy had appeared as Little Beaver in the 12 part Republic movie serial The Adventures of Red Ryder. Interestingly enough this lead to his playing the role on radio when the series began broadcasting on the Blue Network in 1942. He would continue as Little Beaver for four years. Beginning in 1943 and continuing until 1946 he would also play Alexander in the Blondie radio show on CBS and in the mid 40s he was hired to play Junior on the Life of Riley taking over from Conrad Binyon. William Bendix starred as Riley with Paula Winslow as Peg. Sharon Douglas played Babs until Barbara Eiler assumed the role in 1947.
Tommy was quite a busy actor running from show to show back in those heydays of radio. It’s a situation not so very different from his experience at SHOWCASE each year. Being such a versatile actor, Tommy is very much in demand for SHOWCASE productions that are performed throughout the weekend. Every director at the event wants to cast Tommy who ends up booked back to back in several shows throughout the day. You can usually find him running from rehearsal to performance and back to rehearsal and so on. It’s so reminiscent of those bygone days of radio.
We’ll certainly be looking forward to seeing Tommy again when he returns to appear at the 2022 Showcase – October 20-23.
