Randall Did Radio, Too

Tony Randall was great on stage and film, famous on TV.
But, as David Hinckley of the N.Y. Daily News points out, the late actor, like so many other performers of that era, started in radio.
“After coming to New York in the early ’40s, he started announcing for and acting in radio soap operas. That was mildly ironic insofar as his musical passion was real opera. He took opera singing lessons for years. But the soaps were as close as he got,” Hinckley writes.
“When he returned from military service during World War II, he did Henry Morgan’s radio show and in 1948 played Jarrod in a 13-part dramatization of ‘Samson and Delilah’ on NBC’s Bible-based program ‘Light of the World.’
The Daily News columnist noted that Randall’s most famous radio role was probably a three-year stint as Reggie Yorke on “I Love a Mystery” for Mutual.
“Yorke was a fastidious, focused sort of chap who in some ways foreshadowed Felix Unger – without the overt neuroses.”
Randall died this week.