Arch Oboler
Encyclopedia
Lights Out (radio show)
Lights Out is an extremely popular American old-time radio program, an early example of a network series devoted mostly to horror and the supernatural, predating Suspense and Inner Sanctum...
, and his work in radio remains the outstanding period of his career. Praised as one of broadcasting's top talents, he is regarded today as a key innovator of radio drama. Radio historian John Dunning
John Dunning
John Dunning may refer to:* John Dunning , American writer of detective fiction* John Dunning * John Harry Dunning , British economist* John Dunning , American film editor...
wrote, "Few people were ambivalent when it came to Arch Oboler. He was one of those intense personalities who are liked and disliked with equal fire."
Early life
Oboler was born in ChicagoChicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, to Leon Oboler and Clara Oboler, Jewish immigrants from Riga, Latvia. Oboler's family was poor, though cultured. He grew up a voracious reader and discerning music appreciator, listening to the likes of violinist Fritz Kreisler
Fritz Kreisler
Friedrich "Fritz" Kreisler was an Austrian-born violinist and composer. One of the most famous violin masters of his or any other day, he was known for his sweet tone and expressive phrasing. Like many great violinists of his generation, he produced a characteristic sound which was immediately...
and the great soprano Amelita Galli-Curci
Amelita Galli-Curci
Amelita Galli-Curci was an Italian operatic soprano. She was one of the best-known coloratura singers of the early 20th century with her gramophone records selling in large numbers.-Early life:...
. A precocious child, Oboler was ten years old when he sold his first short story, about the adventures of an amorous dinosaur. He continued to write pulp fiction throughout his teen years. He was a fine boxer and very nearly a Golden Gloves
Golden Gloves
The Golden Gloves is the name given to annual competitions for amateur boxing in the United States. The Golden Gloves is often the term used to refer to the National Golden Gloves competition, but it also can represent several other amateur tournaments, including regional golden gloves...
champion. Oboler briefly attended the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
, but his confrontational personality got him expelled. The exact details are unclear, but it appears that Oboler told one of his professors that he had no idea what he was talking about. After that incident, Oboler pursued writing pulp fiction full time.
Early radio career
Oboler entered radio because he believed that it had great unrealized potential for telling stories with ideas. He thought that the medium was being wasted on soap operas. In 1933, he wrote a spec script called Futuristics, which satirized the world of the present in light of the future. NBC bought Oboler's script and broadcast it as part of a dedicatory program to NBCNBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
's new futuristic headquarters in New York City, Radio City
Radio City
Radio City can refer to several things:* Radio City , 1974 album by Big Star* Radio City * Radio City 96.7, an independent radio station in Liverpool** Radio City Tower, a radio and observation tower in Liverpool...
. The broadcast was a success, but it set the stage for Oboler's future run-ins with broadcasters. In the play, one of Oboler's characters lampoons the slogan of American Tobacco. At that time in broadcasting history, making fun of commercials was still taboo.
From 1933 to 1936, Oboler wrote potboilers for programs such as Grand Hotel
Grand Hotel
Grand hotel is a term for a large and luxurious hotel, especially one built in a traditional architectural style. More specifically,Grand Hotel may refer to:- Europe :* Grand Hotel Esplanade, Berlin, Germany* Grand Hotel , England...
and Welch's Presents Irene Rich
Irene Rich
Irene Rich was an American actress who worked in both silent films and talkies.-Career:Born Irene Luther in Buffalo, New York, Rich worked for Will Rogers, who used her in eight pictures, including Water Water Everywhere , The Strange Boarder , Jes' Call Me Jim , Boys Will Be Boys and The Ropin'...
. Things changed in 1936, when radio's leading impresario Rudy Vallée
Rudy Vallée
Rudy Vallée was an American singer, actor, bandleader, and entertainer.-Early life:Born Hubert Prior Vallée in Island Pond, Vermont, the son of Charles Alphonse and Catherine Lynch Vallée...
used a short radio playlet of Oboler's titled Rich Kid. The success of Rich Kid landed Oboler a lucrative 52-week stint writing plays for Don Ameche
Don Ameche
Don Ameche was an Academy Award winning American actor with a career spanning almost sixty years.-Personal life:...
for The Chase and Sanborn Hour
The Chase and Sanborn Hour
The Chase and Sanborn Hour was the umbrella title for a series of US comedy and variety radio shows, sponsored by Standard Brands' Chase and Sanborn Coffee, usually airing Sundays on NBC from 8pm to 9pm during the years 1929 to 1948....
. During this time, Oboler wrote a number of idea plays and some were aired, in shortened form, onto The Rudy Vallée Show
The Fleischmann's Yeast Hour
The Fleischmann's Yeast Hour was a pioneering musical variety radio program broadcast on NBC from 1929 to 1936, when it became The Royal Gelatin Hour, continuing until 1939...
and The Magic Key of RCA
The Magic Key of RCA
The Magic Key of RCA was an American variety radio show that featured an unusually large and broad range of entertainment stars and other noted personalities...
.
Lights Out, Part I
Wyllis CooperWyllis Cooper
Wyllis Oswald Cooper was an American writer and producer.He is best remembered for creating and writing the old time radio programs Lights Out and Quiet, Please -Biography:...
created Lights Out in 1934. The program aired at midnight and was notorious for its horrific violence. In 1936, Cooper left the program for Hollywood. NBC gave Arch Oboler the opportunity to take over the series and make it his own. He was unenthusiastic at first, "a weekly horror play that went on at Tuesday midnight to the somber introduction of 12 doleful chimes, was not exactly my idea of a writing Shangri-La...". But, Oboler soon realized that the midnight time slot and the lack of a sponsor gave him the freedom to experiment with both story content and style. Although NBC maintained strict neutrality regarding Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, Oboler smuggled anti-fascist messages onto the program. Additionally, he used stream-of-consciousness techniques that were often deemed too esoteric for commercial audiences.
Oboler caused controversy with his very first play for the series, Burial Services. The ending of the play, in which a young girl is buried alive with no hope of rescue, was too much for audiences. Letters of protest poured into NBC. After this incident, Oboler toned down the realistic terror in his horror plays in favor of the fantastic. Perhaps the best remembered story from this series of Lights Out is Chicken Heart. In that story, the tiny heart of a chicken, kept alive in a Petri dish in a lab, grows exponentially until it covers the entire earth. Oboler was very innovative with sound effects, and the insistent beating heart creates much of the terror in the broadcast. The story made such an impression on a young Bill Cosby
Bill Cosby
William Henry "Bill" Cosby, Jr. is an American comedian, actor, author, television producer, educator, musician and activist. A veteran stand-up performer, he got his start at various clubs, then landed a starring role in the 1960s action show, I Spy. He later starred in his own series, the...
that he created a memorable comic routine around his childhood memories of Chicken Heart; Stephen King
Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...
also singles out Chicken Heart as a memorable episode in his discussion of horror radio in the book Danse Macabre. Another well remembered story is The Dark, about a malevolent fog that turns people inside out. This story also features memorable sound effects. Like Chicken Heart, The Dark was also parodied, this time by The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
on a "Tree House of Horror" Halloween special.
Oboler tired of Lights Out because he wanted to write realistic plays about Fascism. "I found myself wanting the dimensions of that half hour on the air expanded to take in the actual horror of a world facing, with half-shut eyes, the fascistic Frankenstein
Frankenstein
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel about a failed experiment that produced a monster, written by Mary Shelley, with inserts of poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley started writing the story when she was eighteen, and the novel was published when she was twenty-one. The first...
's monster moving over Europe.".
Your Hollywood Parade and The Mae West Incident
Around the time that Oboler was writing for Lights Out, he was invited to Hollywood to write sketches for the Lucky Strikes sponsored Your Hollywood Parade. The show featured such guest stars as Dick PowellDick Powell
Richard Ewing "Dick" Powell was an American singer, actor, producer, director and studio boss.Despite the same last name he was not related to William Powell, Eleanor Powell or Jane Powell.-Biography:...
, Bob Hope
Bob Hope
Bob Hope, KBE, KCSG, KSS was a British-born American comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in radio, television and movies. He was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO shows entertaining American military personnel...
, Edward G. Robinson
Edward G. Robinson
Edward G. Robinson was a Romanian-born American actor. A popular star during Hollywood's Golden Age, he is best remembered for his roles as gangsters, such as Rico in his star-making film Little Caesar and as Rocco in Key Largo...
, Gary Cooper
Gary Cooper
Frank James Cooper, known professionally as Gary Cooper, was an American film actor. He was renowned for his quiet, understated acting style and his stoic, but at times intense screen persona, which was particularly well suited to the many Westerns he made...
, and many others. After a frustrating encounter with Gary Cooper
Gary Cooper
Frank James Cooper, known professionally as Gary Cooper, was an American film actor. He was renowned for his quiet, understated acting style and his stoic, but at times intense screen persona, which was particularly well suited to the many Westerns he made...
, Oboler decided that he would need to direct his plays in addition to writing them.
Arch Oboler caused more controversy with his script contribution to the 12 December 1937 edition of The Chase and Sanborn Hour
The Chase and Sanborn Hour
The Chase and Sanborn Hour was the umbrella title for a series of US comedy and variety radio shows, sponsored by Standard Brands' Chase and Sanborn Coffee, usually airing Sundays on NBC from 8pm to 9pm during the years 1929 to 1948....
. In Oboler's sketch, host Don Ameche
Don Ameche
Don Ameche was an Academy Award winning American actor with a career spanning almost sixty years.-Personal life:...
and guest Mae West
Mae West
Mae West was an American actress, playwright, screenwriter and sex symbol whose entertainment career spanned seven decades....
portrayed a slightly bawdy Adam and Eve, satirizing the Biblical tale of the Garden of Eden. On the surface, the sketch did not feature much more than West's customary suggestive double-entendres, and today it seems quite tame. But in 1937, that sketch and a subsequent routine featuring West trading suggestive quips with Edgar Bergen
Edgar Bergen
Edgar John Bergen was an American actor and radio performer, best known as a ventriloquist.-Early life:...
's dummy Charlie McCarthy cause a furor that resulted in West being banned from broadcasting and from being mentioned at all on NBC programming for 15 years. The timing may have been a contributing factor, according to radio historian Gerald S. Nachman in Raised on Radio: "The sketch resulted in letters from outraged listeners and decency groups... What upset churchgoing listeners wasn't the Biblical parody so much as the fact that it had the bad luck to air on a Sunday show."
Arch Oboler's Plays, Part I
In 1939, with his own money, Oboler recorded an audition record of his play The Ugliest Man In the World, from which he hoped to launch a new radio series of idea plays. He brought the recording to his network, NBC. At the time, NBC was looking to launch an experimental radio series to rival CBSCBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
's Columbia Workshop
Columbia Workshop
Columbia Workshop was a radio series that aired on the Columbia Broadcasting System from 1936 to 1943, returning in 1946-47.-Irving Reis:...
. NBC was also looking for a radio writer and director to rival CBS's Norman Corwin. NBC gave Oboler his own series, without a sponsor and with complete creative control. It was NBC that named the series Arch Oboler's Plays. It was an almost unheard of honor. The time slot was less auspicious, the series occupied the Sunday 7-7:30 period opposite Jack Benny
Jack Benny
Jack Benny was an American comedian, vaudevillian, and actor for radio, television, and film...
. An impressive roster of actors worked for scale to appear in Oboler's plays, actors such as Bette Davis
Bette Davis
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...
, Ronald Colman
Ronald Colman
Ronald Charles Colman was an English actor.-Early years:He was born in Richmond, Surrey, England, the second son and fourth child of Charles Colman and his wife Marjory Read Fraser. His siblings included Eric, Edith, and Marjorie. He was educated at boarding school in Littlehampton, where he...
, Edmond O'Brien
Edmond O'Brien
Edmond O'Brien was an American actor who is perhaps best remembered for his role in D.O.A. and his Oscar winning role in The Barefoot Contessa...
, Elsa Lanchester
Elsa Lanchester
Elsa Sullivan Lanchester was an English-American character actress with a long career in theatre, film and television....
, James Cagney
James Cagney
James Francis Cagney, Jr. was an American actor, first on stage, then in film, where he had his greatest impact. Although he won acclaim and major awards for a wide variety of performances, he is best remembered for playing "tough guys." In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him eighth...
. Perhaps the most memorable broadcast was Oboler's adaptation of Dalton Trumbo
Dalton Trumbo
James Dalton Trumbo was an American screenwriter and novelist, and one of the Hollywood Ten, a group of film professionals who refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947 during the committee's investigation of Communist influences in the motion picture industry...
's Johny Got His Gun, starring James Cagney. The harrowing story of John Bonham, a World War I casualty with no limbs, eyes, ears, or mouth, was particularly suited to radio. Oboler created striking sound effects for the play, including the eerie vibration of bed springs, which Joe Bonham learns to recognize as the movement of people entering and exiting his hospital room.
Oboler's series was so successful that it attracted the sponsorship of Proctor and Gamble. The new series was titled Everyman's Theatre. Everyman's Theatre was essentially Arch Oboler's Plays with commercial sponsorship. The series ran from 1940 to early 1941. Oboler lost patience with the series because of the middle commercial interruption that came during his plays. After the series ended, it took almost a year before Oboler's services were called on again.
Plays For Americans
After Pearl HarborPearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor, known to Hawaiians as Puuloa, is a lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet...
, Oboler's anti-Fascist plays—once shunned by corporate radio sponsors—were now in demand. Oboler's new series was titled Plays For Americans, its purpose was to "stimulate the American people to the importance of the war effort by indirection rather than by direct appeal." Oboler's Plays For Americans is World War II propaganda in half hour radio drama form, each story teaches a lesson about war time responsibility. Oboler's shows for this series were as star studded as his last series. James Stewart
James Stewart
James Stewart was a Hollywood movie actor and USAF brigadier general.James Stewart may also refer to:-Noblemen:*James Stewart, 5th High Steward of Scotland*James Stewart, the Black Knight of Lorn James Stewart (1908–1997) was a Hollywood movie actor and USAF brigadier general.James Stewart...
starred in Letter At Midnight, the story of a wealthy young man's conversion from isolationist to soldier. Bette Davis
Bette Davis
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...
starred in Adolf and Mrs. Runyon, a fantasy-comedy where Hitler finds himself magically transported into the back seat of an irate war bride. The program's life was cut short because of comments that Oboler made at the Radio Institute at Ohio State. Oboler was adamant that WWII propaganda should instill hatred of the enemy in the listener. To some at the Institute, it sounded like Oboler was advocating the same kind of racial hatred that Axis was advocating. Father Edward J. Flanagan rebuked Oboler and remarked that America did not need its own Goebbels
Goebbels
Goebbels, alternatively Göbbels, is a common surname in the western areas of Germany. It is probably derived from the Old Low German word gibbler, meaning brewer...
. Oboler enlisted the help of Eddie Cantor
Eddie Cantor
Eddie Cantor was an American "illustrated song" performer, comedian, dancer, singer, actor and songwriter...
to get another propaganda series on the air, but Cantor's efforts were of no avail.
Light's Out Part II
Oboler generously wrote Plays For Americans for no fee. He decided that in order "to go on writing plays which contained some level of maturity and usefulness, [he] had to find a way to make money quickly...a sponsor was quickly procured to pay me well for a revival of Lights Out". Oboler's new series carried the introduction for which it is best remembered, the sound of chimes behind announcer Frank Martin intoning"Lights out, everybody! We bring you stories of the supernatural and the supernormal, dramatizing the fantasies and the mysteries of the unknown. We tell you this calmly, but sincerely, so if you wish to avoid the tension of these plays we advise you to turn off your radio now."
This series of Lights Out differs from its predecessors in that it contains overt anti-Nazi messages. For instance, in Execution a Nazi commandant's efforts to kill the leader of a French resistance movement are frustrated by the continual regeneration of the leader. Most of these Lights Out broadcasts are remakes of Oboler's first Lights Out series. Almost all of these broadcasts are saved, whereas only three broadcasts remain of the earlier Lights Out.
To the President
At the same time that Oboler wrote Lights Out, he started a new series of propaganda plays titled To the President. "The plays used the device of a citizen speaking to the President; each drama concerned itself with the particular problem of that week in the war." Like Plays For Americans, To the President had a star studded cast including actors such as Fred MacMurrayFred MacMurray
Frederick Martin "Fred" MacMurray was an American actor who appeared in more than 100 movies and a successful television series during a career that spanned nearly a half-century, from 1930 to the 1970s....
, Claude Rains
Claude Rains
Claude Rains was an English stage and film actor whose career spanned 66 years. He was known for many roles in Hollywood films, among them the title role in The Invisible Man , a corrupt senator in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington , Mr...
, and Harry Carey
Harry Carey
Harry Carey was an American actor and one of silent film's earliest superstars. He was the father of Harry Carey Jr., who was also a prominent actor.-Early life and career:...
.
Free World Theatre
Oboler's next series was the ambitious Free World Theater. Oboler produced and directed all nineteen of the propaganda radio plays of this series, and wrote two of the plays. The published book of these plays features a forward by none other than Thomas MannThomas Mann
Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...
.
Everything For the Boys
Oboler next worked with Ronald ColmanRonald Colman
Ronald Charles Colman was an English actor.-Early years:He was born in Richmond, Surrey, England, the second son and fourth child of Charles Colman and his wife Marjory Read Fraser. His siblings included Eric, Edith, and Marjorie. He was educated at boarding school in Littlehampton, where he...
on a propaganda series the featured Colman as the lead in adaptations of popular novels and plays. Colman and Oboler did not get along. Additionally, Oboler chafed at the commercial interruptions of his plays. The series was an expensive disaster.
Arch Oboler's Plays, Series II
Oboler's second series of Arch Oboler's Plays was broadcast over the Mutual Broadcasting Company. It aired without commercial interruption, and featured a mixture of idea and propaganda plays.Films
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
, as in this commentary by Marty Baumann:
His screen credits include Escape (1940) and On Our Merry Way
On Our Merry Way
On Our Merry Way is an American comedy film, produced by Benedict Bogeaus and Burgess Meredith, and released by United Artists. At the time of its release, King Vidor and Leslie Fenton were credited with its direction, although the DVD lists John Huston and George Stevens, who assisted with one of...
(1948). By 1945, he moved into directing with Bewitched and Strange Holiday, followed by the post-apocalyptic Five
Five (1951 film)
Five is a post-apocalyptic science fiction film produced, directed and written by Arch Oboler. The title refers to the number of survivors of an atomic bomb disaster that wipes out the rest of the human race...
(1951), filmed at his own Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...
-designed house.
Oboler made film history with the 3-D film
3-D film
A 3-D film or S3D film is a motion picture that enhances the illusion of depth perception...
effects in Bwana Devil
Bwana Devil
Bwana Devil is a 1952 drama based on the true story of the Tsavo maneaters. It was written, directed, and produced by Arch Oboler, and is considered the first color, American 3-D feature. It started the 3-D boom in the U.S. film making industry from 1952 to 1954...
(1952). The Twonky
The Twonky
The Twonky is a 1953 comedy-science fiction film, written and directed by Arch Oboler and starring Hans Conried. The script was based on the short story "The Twonky", written by Henry Kuttner and C.L...
(1953) was adapted from the Lewis Padgett
Lewis Padgett
Lewis Padgett was the joint pseudonym of the science fiction authors and spouses Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore, taken from their mothers' maiden names. They also used the pseudonyms Lawrence O'Donnell and C. H...
short story in the September, 1942, issue of Astounding Science Fiction
Analog Science Fiction and Fact
Analog Science Fiction and Fact is an American science fiction magazine. As of 2011, it is the longest running continuously published magazine of that genre...
. Oboler returned to films with another 3-D feature, The Bubble
The Bubble (1966 film)
The Bubble is a 1966 American science fiction film, filmed in 3D. It was written and directed by Arch Oboler, and starred Michael Cole and Deborah Walley. Its other titles were Fantastic Invasion of Planet Earth and The Zoo...
, in 1966.
According to a retrospective article at mondo-video.com, many writers and dramatic artists, including Rod Serling
Rod Serling
Rodman Edward "Rod" Serling was an American screenwriter, novelist, television producer, and narrator best known for his live television dramas of the 1950s and his science fiction anthology TV series, The Twilight Zone. Serling was active in politics, both on and off the screen and helped form...
, Francois Truffaut
François Truffaut
François Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
and Don Coscarelli
Don Coscarelli
Don Coscarelli is an American film director, producer and screenwriter best known for horror films. His credits include the Phantasm series, The Beastmaster, and Bubba Ho-Tep.-Biography:...
have claimed Oboler's films and radio work as significant influences.
Broadway
Sidney LumetSidney Lumet
Sidney Lumet was an American director, producer and screenwriter with over 50 films to his credit. He was nominated for the Academy Award as Best Director for 12 Angry Men , Dog Day Afternoon , Network and The Verdict...
directed Oboler's Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
play, Night of the Auk, a science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
drama about astronauts returning to Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
after the first moon landing. The play was based on Oboler's radio play Rocket from Manhattan, which aired as part of Arch Oboler's Plays in September 1945. Produced by Kermit Bloomgarden
Kermit Bloomgarden
Kermit Bloomgarden was an American theatrical producer, who had started out as an accountant, before producing plays on Broadway including Death of a Salesman, Look Homeward, Angel, The Music Man and Equus.Bloomgarden was born in Brooklyn to Zemad and Annie Groden Bloomgarden, where he attended...
, the play ran for only eight performances in December 1956 despite a cast that included Martin Brooks
Martin E. Brooks
Martin E. Brooks is an American character actor known for playing scientist Dr. Rudy Wells in the television series The Six Million Dollar Man and its spin-off, The Bionic Woman, from 1975 onward .Brooks reprised the role of Wells in three television movies: The Return of the...
, Wendell Corey
Wendell Corey
Wendell Reid Corey was an American actor and politician.He was born in Dracut, Massachusetts, the son of Milton Rothwell Corey and Julia Etta McKenney . His father was a Congregationalist clergyman...
, Christopher Plummer
Christopher Plummer
Arthur Christopher Orne Plummer, CC is a Canadian theatre, film and television actor. He made his film debut in 1957's Stage Struck, and notable early film performances include Night of the Generals, The Return of the Pink Panther and The Man Who Would Be King.In a career that spans over five...
, Claude Rains
Claude Rains
Claude Rains was an English stage and film actor whose career spanned 66 years. He was known for many roles in Hollywood films, among them the title role in The Invisible Man , a corrupt senator in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington , Mr...
and Dick York
Dick York
Richard Allen "Dick" York was an American actor. He is best remembered for his role as the first Darrin Stephens on the ABC television fantasy sitcom Bewitched...
. In the December 17, 1956 issue, Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
reviewed:
Television
In 1949, Oboler helmed an anthology television series, Oboler's Comedy Theatre (aka Arch Oboler's Comedy Theater) which ran for six episodes from September to November. In the premiere show, "Ostrich in Bed," a couple awaiting the arrival of a dinner guest find an ostrich in their bedroom. In "Mr. Dydee" a dim-witted horse player inherits a diaper service.Recordings
LP album
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...
recording, Drop Dead! An Exercise in Horror (1962). It features the following tracks: "Introduction to Horror," "I'm Hungry," "Taking Papa Home," "The Dark," "A Day at the Dentist's," "The Posse," "Chicken Heart" and "The Laughing Man." The cast featured some well-known radio actors: Edgar Barrier, Bea Benaderet
Bea Benaderet
Bea Benaderet was an American actress born in New York City and raised in San Francisco, California. She is best remembered for her wide variety of television work, which included a starring role in the 1960s television series Petticoat Junction and Green Acres as Shady Rest Hotel owner Kate...
, Lawrence Dobkin
Lawrence Dobkin
Lawrence Dobkin was an American television director, actor and television screenwriter whose career spanned seven decades....
, Sam Edwards, Virginia Gregg
Virginia Gregg
Virginia Gregg Burket was an American actress best known for her many roles in radio dramas.Born in Harrisburg, Illinois, Virginia Gregg was the daughter of musician Dewey Alphaleta and businessman Edward William Gregg.-Radio:Gregg was a prolific radio actor, heard on such programs as The...
, Jerry Hausner, Jack Johnstone, Jack Kruschen
Jack Kruschen
Jack Kruschen was a Canadian-born character actor who worked primarily in American film, television and radio.-Radio:...
, Forrest Lewis, Junius Matthews, Ralph Moody, Mercedes McCambridge
Mercedes McCambridge
Carlotta Mercedes McCambridge was an American actress. Orson Welles called her "the world's greatest living radio actress."-Early life:...
, Harold Peary
Harold Peary
Harold Peary was an American actor, comedian and singer in radio, film, television and animation remembered best as Throckmorton P...
, Barney Phillips
Barney Phillips
Barney Phillips was an American film, radio and television actor.-Biography and career:He was born Bernard Philip Ofner in St. Louis, Missouri, to Harry Nathan Ofner, a commercial salesman for the leather industry, and Leona Frank Ofner, a naturalized citizen of German origin, who went by the...
, Bill Phipps, Olan Soule
Olan Soule
Olan Soule was an American character actor with hundreds of credits in films, radio, commercials, television and animation.-Early life:...
and Chet Stratton.
Books
His work was collected in Free World Theatre: Nineteen New Radio Plays (Random House, 1944) and Oboler Omnibus: Radio Plays and Personalities (Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1945). Night of the Auk: A Free Prose Play was published by Horizon Press in 1958. His short story "And Adam Begot" was included in Julius Fast's Out of This World anthology (Penguin, 1944), and "Come to the Bank" was published in Weird TalesWeird Tales
Weird Tales is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine first published in March 1923. It ceased its original run in September 1954, after 279 issues, but has since been revived. The magazine was set up in Chicago by J. C. Henneberger, an ex-journalist with a taste for the macabre....
(Fall 1984).
Oboler also wrote non-fiction, such as his "My Jackasses and the Fire" in the June 1960 issue of Coronet
Coronet (magazine)
Coronet was a general interest digest magazine published from October 13, 1936, to March 1971 and ran for 299 issues. The magazine was owned by Esquire and published by David A. Smart from 1936 to 1961.-Typical issue:...
. His fantasy novel, House on Fire (Bartholomew House, 1969), was adapted by Oboler for radio's Mutual Radio Theater
Sears Radio Theater
Sears Radio Theater was a radio drama anthology series which ran weeknightly on CBS Radio in 1979, sponsored by the Sears chain. Often paired with The CBS Radio Mystery Theater during its first season, the program offered a different genre of drama for each day's broadcast.In 1980, the program...
in 1980.
Personal life
Oboler married the former Eleanor Helfand; they were the parents of four sons: Guy Oboler, David Oboler, Steven Oboler and Peter Oboler. On April 7, 1958, Oboler's six-year-old son, Peter, drowned in rainwater collected in excavations at Oboler's Malibu home. The house was designed by architect Frank Lloyd WrightFrank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...
; the Wright-designed Oboler residential complex is named Eaglefeather. The house is featured in Oboler's film Five. Arch Oboler died in Westlake Village, California
Westlake Village, California
Westlake Village is a planned community that straddles the Los Angeles and Ventura county line. The eastern portion is the incorporated city Westlake Village, located on the western edge of Los Angeles County, California. The city, located in the region known as the Conejo Valley, encompasses half...
in 1987.