CBS Stars in the Afternoon Radio Log

RADIO
By William Juengst

SHOWCASE--Comes Sunday afternoon, the Columbia Broadcasting System proposes to give you an hour-and-a-half show, written by Norman Corwin and called "Stars in the Afternoon," to preview in one stanza all its Fall and Winter top offerings . . . To get his full effect, Corwin has decided to turn the stage of Carnegie Hall into a broadcasting studio . . . With the living room of "The Aldrich Family" as the scene of his script . . . Among the "visitors" to the Aldrich clan between 3 and 4:30 p.m., will be Helen Hayes, Phil Baker, Andre Kostelanetz, Patrice Munsel and "Miss America of 1945."

Opaminute Series
Opens Sunday
On Columbia Net

NEW YORK. Sept 21—(AP)-First of two 90-minute weekly broadcasts in which network talent for fall and winter will be displayed, will go on CBS at 1 pm. Sunday. Dinah Shore and Frank Sinatra will team up to handle the MC role.
Title of the series is "Stars in the Afternoon." Among the acts included are those of Bob Hawk. Moore and Durante. Dick Haymes, Crime Doctor, Dr. Christian and the Radio Theatre.

46-09-22 Wisconsin State Journal
Special Program 7 p.m.--Stars In the Afternoon (WBBM): Dinah Shore, Frank Sinatra, Hoagy Carmichael, Jimmy Durante and Garry Moore, Joan Davis, Bob Hawk, Dick Haymes and Helen Forrest; casts of American Melody Hour, Inner Sanctum, Crime Doctor, Crime Photographer, Thin Man, Sam Spade, Dr. Christian, Digest Blondie, Radio Theater, Screen Guild Players.

CBS Stars in the Afternoon Radio Program Biographies

• Acting as one of the Sponsors of an Artists Front to Win the War meeting he helped organize at Carnegie Hall in 1942.
• A December 1946 speech he gave on the encroachments being made against free speech.
• Being a signator to a 1948 full page 'We Are for Wallace' ad in the New York Times.
• A masthead listing him as an Associate for the Hollywood Quarterly, a scholarly journal of Film, Radio and Television history.

That's apparently all the extreme Right Wing needed during those shameful post-War years to destroy any great professional's career--through whispers and innuendo. Robson had been one of CBS's premiere Radio and Television talents, but their withering support of Robson, fueled by the spurious comments in Red Channels eventually pressured CBS into discharging Robson. The long-festering Right Wing backlash from F.D.R.'s famous Four Freedoms Speech had traversed full-circle. And so it evolved that anyone speaking out for the protection of those very freedoms was targeted for ostracization.

But despite the attempts to destroy his reputation, Robson's career in Radio and Television and in service to his country still stand as one of the finest records of acheivement of the Golden Age of Radio. Indeed, it was Edward R. Murrow himself, under the administration of John F. Kennedy that gained an appointment for Robson as a Director for The Voice of America. His security clearance for that highly sensitive position was expedited without a hitch.

William Robson had every expectation of having a storied career. He showed early promise at Yale, began his writing career with Paramount Pictures, then in 1936, entered Radio while still in his twenties. He was a staff writer and director for CBS for almost 20 years. So instrumental was his role in early CBS Radio dramas that his name was rountinely attached to the promotional efforts for the programs he wrote, directed or produced for CBS--and rightly so. By the mid-1940s Robson had already received two prestigious George Foster Peabody awards for CBS--for 1943's Man Behind the Gun and the documentary, Open Letter on Race Hatred.

Robson's Philosophy degree served him well throughout his career, and its influence on his Radio and Television productions is readily apparent throughout his body of work. Always sensitive to the eternal conflicts between morality and amorality, many of Robson's pet projects strove to shine a light onto the murkier aspects of American society. This is undoubtedly one of the reasons that the first half of his career attracted the prurient interests of the extreme Right Wing during the infamous HUAC era.

And indeed, despite all extreme Conservative attempts to squelch his 'voice' in the Media, he could not be restrained for long. Robson may well have argued himself, that the second half of his career was even more productive and influential on the World Stage than his years in American Radio and Television.

William N. Robson capped an outstanding career in Communications with a highly influential position producing Pro-Democracy documentaries as Chief Documentary Writer, Producer and Director for the Voice of America. Indeed, he won four more Peabody Awards for his work at The Voice of America. How fittingly ironic.

And though his work with The Voice of America may well have eclipsed his work during The Golden Age of Radio, his personal influence in shaping and giving a conscience to those Golden Years stands head and shoulders above his peers.

William Robson died of Alzheimer's disease at his home in Alexandria, Va in April of 1995, survived by his wife, Shirley, and three sons, Christopher, Anthony and Michael.