Description
Cowles Education Corporation, Published 1968. Hardcover, ix + 226 pp.; 24 cm; First Edition; illustrated with black-and-white photographs throughout.
Rare, out-of-print & unusual books · Since 1997
112
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Catalog notes
Condition & notes
In Very Good condition with a Very Good dust jacket. Light blue cloth-covered boards with dark blue lettering on spine; mild shelf wear to covers. Binding tight. Pages clean and unmarked. Cream pictorial dust jacket designed by Lawrence Ratzkin, with stylized blue microphone graphic and pink bubble outlines on front, has a few small nicks and light creasing to edges, mild shelf wear with some light soiling, and is price clipped. Now in an archival quality (removable) Brodart cover.The behind-the-microphone autobiography of Mary Jane Higby (1915-1986), a daytime radio star who performed on nearly fifty soap operas during what Higby calls the Golden Age of Radio. Best known as the lead in "When a Girl Marries" for eighteen years (a tear-jerker with a nationwide audience of seven million emotion-racked listeners), Higby chronicles the era from the early days through the medium's late-1950s decline, drawing on her own memory and that of friends and colleagues including Don Ameche, the Marx Brothers, Edward Everett Horton, Fred Allen, Bing Crosby, Eddie Cantor, and Orson Welles, among many others. Beyond the memoir, Higby surveys the radio industry as a whole, including censorship by sponsors, the connivings of tight-fisted admen, and the role and rising influence of program ratings. Dedicated to the memory of Kenneth MacGregor (1904-1968). Part of the book was first published in P.S. magazine.Contents: Foreword; The Early Daze; Are Your Loved Ones Suffering from Seepage?; The Grim Reapers and the Round Robin; Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Stars; The Living End; The Gay Ad-libbers; The End of the Ice Age; Flop Sweat; The Black Hole of Calcutta; 'Tis a Pity She's a Bore; The Show Must Go On, and On and On; The Sprained Little Pinky; Rinso, What?; Who's Who in the Zoo; The Infernal Triangle; I Hit the Fan!; Help Stamp Out TV!; When a Girl Commutes; Bibliography.