Category: Broadcasting

Call for Philip Morris!

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Images: from Outwitting Handicaps magazine. Per the inside cover, it was founded “as a non-profit publication dedicated to the best interest of the physically handicapped. It is the offical organ of Chair Warmers, Inc., an incorporated association without capital stock, chartered under the laws of Michigan.”

So, while it is not a southern California story, the Philip Morris cigarette brand was the CBS radio sponsor of the 9 p.m. time slot on Fridays in 1939-1940 featuring the Russ Morgan Orchestra. So, we can presume that local listeners heard Johnny Roventini make that famous “Call for Philip Morris!” yell many times.

First woman network broadcaster

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A 1939 NBC photo could not be located.

Image: “Pauline Frederick Reports,” ABC news radio, circa 1940*. Photograph by Charles Kanarian for ABC News. http://www.smith.edu/libraries/digitalcollections/pauline-frederick

Pauline Frederick was a feature writer for newspapers and magazines from late 1930s. “She broke into broadcasting in 1939 when NBC’s director of women’s programs, Margaret Cuthbert, asked her to interview the wife of the Czechoslovakian minister shortly after Germany overran that country.”

Excerpt is from an article by Louise Benjamin: http://www.museum.tv/eotv/frederickpa.htm .

As a woman in a male-dominated field, Frederick overcame many obstacles as described at the link.

*most likely, this photo dates from 1946 as she was working for NBC until 1945.