Stars On Suspense (old Time Radio)

We take a break from “radio’s outstanding theater of thrills” to salute the late legend of Hollywood, Doris Day. The Oscar-nominee, box office star, recording sensation, and animal activist passed away at age 97. We’ll hear a pair of episodes from The Doris Day Show, her musical radio program. Ms. Day sings along with special guests Danny Thomas (in an episode originally aired on CBS on March 28, 1952) and Gordon MacRae and Mary Wickes (originally aired on CBS on May 9, 1952).

Marie Wilson was best known for her radio, TV, and film work as the ditzy, scatterbrained sweetheart Irma Peterson in My Friend Irma. She played to her comedy strengths in her only appearance on Suspense – the lighthearted caper “Star Over Hong Kong” (originally aired on CBS on February 22, 1959). We’ll also hear her in her signature role in an episode of My Friend Irma (originally aired on CBS on May 3, 1948).

In Casablanca as resistance leader Victor Lazlo, Paul Henreid rallies a crowd to drown out the Nazis with a spirited rendition of “La Marseillaise.” But in his two visits to Suspense, he played a pair of men with murder on their minds and diabolical plans. We’ll hear him in “The Angel of Death” (originally aired on CBS on January 3, 1946) and “No More Alice” (originally aired on CBS on March 14, 1946).

Oscar-winning star and Batman villain Anne Baxter makes her final visit to the podcast in “The Thirteenth Sound,” a Suspense story from April 26, 1951. We’ll also hear her as she recreates her big screen, award-nominated performance from All About Eve on the Lux Radio Theatre (originally aired on CBS on October 1, 1951).

Over the course of a nearly sixty-year career that spanned two continents, Charles Boyer was one of the screen’s most popular stars. The French actor was acclaimed for his romantic leading roles, but he could also be a memorable villain – like when he played Ingrid Bergman’s manipulative husband in Gaslight. We’ll hear the four-time Oscar nominee in a pair of tales from Suspense: “The Case of Henri Vibard” (originally aired on CBS on June 8, 1950) and “Another Man’s Poison” (originally aired on CBS on May 17, 1951).

Fred MacMurray leaves flying cars and Flubber behind for his third and final appearance on Suspense. We’ll hear the star in “The Great Train Robbery” (originally aired on CBS on April 13, 1953) – a story that finds MacMurray more in Double Indemnity than Disney territory. Then, MacMurray co-stars with Irene Dunne in an episode from Bright Star, their syndicated newspaper comedy-drama series.

One of the earliest winners of the "Triple Crown" of acting, Thomas Mitchell was an always-welcome presence in some of the greatest movies of old Hollywood. Whether he was the bumbling but lovable Uncle Billy in It's a Wonderful Life or the drunk Doc Boone in Stagecoach, Mitchell is always a treat to watch with an impish charm to his performances. He sheds that friendly nature for his two visits to Suspense: "Case History of Edgar Lowndes" (originally aired on CBS on June 8, 1944) and "John Barbie and Son" (originally aired on CBS on February 22, 1945).

For his third and fourth visits to Suspense, James Mason played two criminals who feel the pressure of the law closing in on them. In two different tales, the star of North by Northwest and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea proves once again that the wages of sin is death. First, he’s “The Greatest Thief in the World” (originally aired on CBS on June 21, 1951). Then, he recreates his film role in an adaptation of Carol Reed’s 1947 classic noir film Odd Man Out (originally aired on CBS on February 11, 1952).

Sometimes the stars who appeared on Suspense were up and comers in Hollywood, and they made their visits to “radio’s outstanding theater of thrills” before their big breaks or signature roles. Our leading men this week would go on to find big fame on the small screen in the 1960s. We’ll hear Robert Wagner –before It Takes a Thief and long before Hart to Hart – in “Listen, Young Lovers” (originally aired on CBS on May 31, 1954). Then, DeForest Kelley – several years before he boarded the USS Enterprise – in “Flesh Peddler” (an AFRS rebroadcast of an episode from August 4, 1957).

Oscar-winner Ray Milland makes two more visits to “radio’s outstanding theater of thrills” as two men in two very different but equally desperate situations. First, the star of The Lost Weekend is a man whose wife has been kidnapped in “After the Movies” (originally aired on CBS on December 7, 1950). Then, he stars in a story pulled from the history books - a tense confrontation between the British and Chinese - in “The Log of the Marne” (originally aired on CBS on October 22, 1951).

Vincent Price delivers a pair of terrifically unhinged performances in two more tales well calculated to keep you in Suspense. The star of House on Haunted Hill and The Tingler plays an axe murderer reliving his crime in “Present Tense” (originally aired on CBS on March 3, 1957). Then, Price stars as an actor who hopes to give his best performance - and get away with murder - in “Rave Notice” (originally aired on CBS on June 1, 1958).

Four-time Oscar nominee Barbara Stanwyck was one of the biggest stars of Hollywood, dazzling audiences with her dynamic turns in Double Indemnity, Stella Dallas, and more. We’ll hear Stanwyck in her one and only Suspense appearance - “The Wages of Sin” (originally aired on CBS on October 19, 1950). Then, she stars in a radio recreation of a big screen adaptation of one of the most famous Suspense shows of all time - “Sorry, Wrong Number” (originally aired on The Lux Radio Theatre on January 9, 1950).

Oscar-winner Ronald Colman was a radio fixture as Jack Benny’s long-suffering neighbor and a college president in The Halls of Ivy, but he could also be heard in tales of terror on Suspense. We’ll hear Colman in an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Dunwich Horror” (an Armed Forces Radio rebroadcast of an episode from November 1, 1945) and in “The Noose of Coincidence” (originally aired on CBS on April 7, 1949).

Whether he was a thorn in the side of The Absent Minded Professor or reluctantly destroying Coke machines in Dr. Strangelove, Keenan Wynn was always a welcome presence on screen. We’ll hear the character actor in two of his visits to “radio’s outstanding theater of thrills” - “The Walls Came Tumbling Down” (originally aired on CBS on June 29, 1944) and “I Had an Alibi” (originally aired on CBS on January 4, 1945).

Charles Laughton plays two very different - but equally disturbed - men in these installments of “radio’s outstanding theater of thrills.” The star of Witness for the Prosecution and Mutiny on the Bounty is “An Honest Man” (originally aired on CBS on August 5, 1948) and the infamous English executioner “Jack Ketch” (originally aired on CBS on September 22, 1952).

After she worked on radio as a child actor, Joan Lorring broke out in movies at age 19 with an Oscar-nominated turn in The Corn is Green. It was one of many successes she’d have in a career that took her to the big and small screens as well as the Broadway stage. We’ll hear her in two old time radio tales of Suspense: “A Man in the House” (originally aired on CBS on August 2, 1945) and “The Great Horrell” (originally aired on CBS on August 22, 1946).

Oscar-nominated actor Richard Widmark brings more of his unique intensity to Suspense as he stars in a pair of dramas pitting man against nature. We’ll hear him in “The Track of the Cat” (originally aired on CBS on February 18, 1952) and “How Long is the Night?” (originally aired on CBS on October 13, 1952).

Oscar and Tony-winning actor Jose Ferrer came to Suspense before he made his Hollywood debut when he was the toast of the Great White Way for his performance as Cyrano. He brought his stage actor’s intensity to his only performance on radio’s outstanding theater of thrills - an adaptation of Poe’s “The Pit and the Pendulum” (originally aired on CBS on November 28, 1947). We’ll also hear the star as detective Philo Vance in “The Case of the Strange Music” (originally aired on NBC on August 9, 1945).

Feisty, fiercely independent Maureen O'Hara - the red-headed Irish-American leading lady of old Hollywood - made only one visit to "radio's outstanding theater of thrills," but it's a great episode that finds her playing a strong woman stepping up to track down a killer. It's "The White Rose Murders" (originally aired on CBS on July 6, 1943). Then she recreates her screen role from How Green Was My Valley in a broadcast from the Gulf Screen Guild Theatre (originally aired on CBS on March 22, 1942).

Joseph Cotten - hero of The Third Man and heel of Shadow of a Doubt - is back for two more visits to "radio's outstanding theater of thrills." He stars as a director caught up in a real-life mystery in "Sneak Preview" (originally aired on CBS on March 23, 1944) and as a convict who assumes the identity of a dead reverend in "Beyond Good and Evil" (originally aired on CBS on October 11, 1945).