4. Nan the Radio Star - Part 1

Early Radio Soap Operas

Publicity shot of Nan Dorland, C. 1931. Source Animation by Deep Nostalgia.

The newly christened Nan Dorland moved back to her hometown of Chicago in 1931 to pursue a career in radio. Her interest in the new invention of radio began during her teenage years in Los Angeles in the late 1920s when, according to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Oct. 8, 1931), she stood before the microphone of station KFI to promote current theatre productions.

Nan was young when radio was young. The first record I could find of Nan's radio gigs is an advertisement in the Chicago Daily Herald on July 17, 1931 listing her as one of the Chicago Motor Club Players who were presenting a drama on radio station WENR (NBC). By September of the same year, Nan had embarked on her radio career in earnest, working on a daytime serial in the Chicago studios of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC).

Perhaps Nan felt the same way Mary Jane Higby felt at her first radio broadcast when she saw her first microphone . "I had heard a great deal about mike fright," Higby wrote in her book Tune in Tomorrow (1966), "but I felt absolutely nothing. Perhaps it was because I could never imagine that anyone was actually listening." In fact, millions of women were listening.

The Daytime Radio Serial

Much like the 1990s was a time of growth for the Internet, the 1930s was a time of rapid growth for radio. Hundreds of commercial radio stations popped up across the USA over the course of the decade. At the start of the decade 12 million American households owned a radio, and by 1939 this total had exploded to more than 28 million. [Source: Christopher H. Sterling and John M. Kittross, Stay Tuned: A Concise History of American Broadcasting, Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1990, p. 11.)

A housewife at work while listening to the radio (in the corner by the window), c1940. Source

Frank and Anne Hummert of Chicago were the founders of the daytime soap opera. In 1930, according to Jim Cox, Frank Hummert "postulated that the American housewife might appreciate daytime audio fare more amusing than cooking tips, beauty secrets and personal advice ... which dominated the airwaves during the sunlight hours." (Jim Cox, Frank and Anne Hummert's Radio Factory: The Programs and Personalities of Broadcasting's Most Prolific Producers. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2003). Daytime serials, designed to accommodate the daily pattern of the homemaker, made their debut on the infant medium of radio. Advertisers quickly recognized the potential and signed on in droves. During the "golden age" of radio there were between 360 and 391 soaps on the radio air.

Illustrator Cara Slack's depiction of a 1930s radio serial broadcast in the Chicago Tribune, Jan. 14, 1968.

The 15-minute daily serials were sentimental, with ample doses of hardship. James Thurber once wrote, "A soap opera is a kind of sandwich. Between thick slices of advertising, spread 12 minutes of dialog, add predicament, villainy, and female suffering in equal measure, throw in a dash of nobility, sprinkle with tears, season with organ music, cover with a rich announcer sauce, and serve five times a week." [As quoted in Jim Harmon, "When Life Could be Beautiful," The Chicago Tribune, Jan 14, 1968, p. 225.]

Keeping Up with Daughter

Nan's publicity photo by Maurice Seymour for Chicago NBC radio's daytime serial "Keeping Up with Daughter," 1931. Source

Nan's first starring role was in 1931 on NBC Chicago's "Keeping Up With Daughter" - one of the very first radio serials. The new radio program, sponsored by Sherwin-Williams, cost NBC $120,000 according to the Chicago Tribune (Sept. 27, 1931). Nan played Dora Mae, the high-school-age daughter. The story was billed as a "moving, human drama of the life of an average American family. ... Joys, pleasures, sorrows, success and ambitions - all these and other feelings of a family of three in a typical American town" were portrayed in the episodes. [Source: Minneapolis Star, September 26, 1931.] The show, which aired every Wednesday morning from 11 to 11:15 a.m., lasted only one season, from September 30, 1931 to June 22, 1932.


Minneapolis Star, September 26, 1931.

The Problem of Sponsor Meddling

A review in Variety magazine provides some insight into why the show "Keeping Up With Daughter" was a flop. "Mid-afternoon series of sketches only mildly entertaining because of the nearly 100% commercialism," Variety pronounced on April 26, 1932. Apparently, Sherwin-Williams insisted that plugs for their company's products be inserted into the story "in an none-too-deft manner," with Nan as the daughter reading off paint colours - and their numbers - from a catalogue! This commercial angle, the magazine continues, "practically ruins whatever chance to entertain the sketch possesses."

The question of entertainment versus advertising quickly became a dilemma in the early days of radio programming. As Dr. Cynthia Meyers points out, sponsors believed that since they were paying the piper, they should call the tune. By 1929 the sponsor system was in full swing, with advertisers involved in all aspects of radio broadcasting from concept development to talent recruitment to script-writing The problem of over-commercialization due to sponsor control resulted in listener alienation. [Source: Cynthia B. Meyers, "The Problems with Sponsorship in US Broadcasting, 1930s-1950s," Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 31:3, 2011.]

The Publicity Machine

Publicity photo of Nan by Maurice Seymour. Source

NBC's publicity machine kicked into high gear in the fall of 1931 to promote its new star Nan Dorland. Publicity photos and biographical sketches were distributed to newspapers and magazines far and wide. Obviously, physical appearance mattered little in radio, but newspapers and magazines were happy to print photos of the attractive, blue-eyed redhead. For example, on October 18, 1931 the Brooklyn Daily Eagle wrote:

Although she admits she feels much more at home in a bathing suit or on horseback, Nan Dorland, radio drama actress, has proved she acts as well as she swims. She has a delightful smile that lingers on after she has passed, and a smile that, coming out of a "picture-speaker," would make all radio listeners television fans. (RCA began experimenting with television in 1931.)

Radio Guide, April 16, 1932.

"Incidentally she is an expert bowler." Allentown Morning Call, Feb. 17, 1932.

The Lane Reporter

Radio Guide, March 31, 1932.

Nan's second starring role in a radio program was "The Lane Reporter," sponsored by Lane Cedar Chests. Launched in the spring of 1932, Nan's new show took her back to her former home in Hollywood where she guided her listeners on tours of movie stars' homes, "observing with an uncanny eye what milady's boudoir should contain by the way of eyelash curlers or what the last word is in chintz coverings," Radio Retailing magazine wrote in June 1932. It was like a 1930s radio version of Robin Leach's "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous." Nan's Hollywood "tittle-tattle" included a visit to the home of Paramount star Miriam Hopkins where she described for her listeners "the white, bright blue and yellow decorative scheme employed in the boudoir of Miss Hopkins as an attractive setting for the silver blond loveliness of its occupant." (Tampa Times, May 5, 1932.)

Vancouver Province, August 10, 1932.

Protests again arose about over-commercialization. "Miss Dorland is favorably equipped with a pleasant vocal apparatus and an easy flow of vocabulary," a review of "The Lane Reporter" in Variety magazine observes on April 26, 1932. "but what is more important to the sponsor is the subtle interjection of the plug throughout the discourse." While taking listeners through the homes of movie stars, Nan had to promote the sponsor's product - Lane cedar chests. If fans could be persuaded to believe "that all stars have big mansions with silver-brocaded bathtubs and silk-lined swimming pools," the magazine continues, " then it should be a cinch to sell 'em on the idea that no Hollywood home is complete without a cedar chest."

"Behind-the-Scenes" Video of a 1930s Radio Show

Here's a video from 1938 called "Back of the Mike" (produced by Jam Handy Organization) showing how radio shows were made in the 1930s. It begins with the images in the mind of a boy listening to a radio western and then cuts to the broadcast studio where we see how this whole fantasy world was created.

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3. Nan's Education

Changes in Schools, Change of Name

Source

Nan Dorland suffered severely from chronic stomach ulcers as an adult, to the point that she underwent abdominal surgeries throughout her life. Her health problems may have had their roots in childhood anxieties. Nan's family moved frequently and, by my count, attended eight schools in ten years. Changing schools can be stressful for children, disrupting their academic performance as well as their emotional functioning.


Nan in Grade 9.

Among the papers that Nan's distant cousin Martin W. Beerman shared with me was a list of schools that Nan attended from Grade 1 through high school, prepared by Nan's father Ernest Danke. Beerman had obtained it from John Danke (1950-2015) - Nan's son with John Albrecht. The column on the right of this list shows the Danke family's home addresses over the years, and has helped me to piece together Nan's school years.

The list of Nan's schools prepared by her father, Ernest Danke. Source: Martin W. Beerman.

Ernest compiled this list in his efforts to prove Nan's US citizenship. He and his second wife, Ida (Nan's stepmother) had adopted Nan's son John after her death in Toronto, Ontario in 1950. By 1954 they were attempting to procure "derivative" American citizenship (citizenship granted to foreign-born children adopted by United States citizens) for the boy.

Ernest Danke sent letters like this one to all the schools his daughter Nan attended. Source: Martin W. Beerman.

I will only highlight a couple of the schools Nan attended. While in Grades Three and Four, 1920-1911, Nan attended Laughlin Falconer School, 3020 North Lamon Avenue, Chicago. It was built in 1918 in the Falconer Historic District on land that Nan's maternal grandfather, George C. Hield had subdivided for a residential development. The Falconer District promoted single-family home ownership for Chicago residents, many of whom were immigrants who could walk to work in the nearby manufacturing and industrial areas. Nan and her parents lived in this neighbourhood, about a 3-minute walk from Falconer School.

Freshman Year at Ward-Belmont College

The most stressful school move for Nan took place in 1925-1926 when she was sent to the Preparatory School (high school) of Ward-Belmont College, an all-girls boarding school in Nashville, Tennessee. She lasted, perhaps, one year. Maybe Nan was sent to boarding school due to her mother's ill-health (although Eva Danke did visit her daughter at least once - in November 1925, according the to school's newsletter, The Hyphen). Maybe Nan had become a handful at age 14. Or perhaps Nan's parents simply wanted the best education for their only daughter.

Ward-Belmont College campus sited on a former antebellum estate, c. 1910. Source

An article in the Nashville newspaper The Tennessean on September 14, 1924 claims that Ward-Belmont College was "easily the leading college of the land in many respects." Its high standards for learning, excellent faculty, high moral atmosphere, and healthy environment meant that "men from all over the United States desire most of all to have their daughters brought into contact with the Southern culture, and nowhere can it be found as in this city, the Athens of the South, and at Ward-Belmont College."

I contacted the Alumni Association at Belmont College for her school records but unfortunately a fire in 1972 destroyed all administrative records from the 1920s. I did, however, locate the 1926 yearbook for the College - Milestones - which included her school photo.

Ward-Belmont yearbook, 1926. Nan's Grade 9 photo is second row, far right.

"Along with the rich heritage of cultural and religious values from the two finishing schools for young ladies which combined to form Ward-Belmont," three members of the school's alumni wrote in 1971, "came also the heritage of high moral standards and stringent requirements for deportment which were, perhaps, unparalleled in any comparable school for girls with the possible exception of convents.” Discipline was strict. School rule infractions included wearing makeup, wearing high heels to class, chewing gum, and having a radio in one's room. Smoking and drinking were cause for immediate expulsion. "No infringement of regulations escaped notice or punishment." Benedict, Sarah Bryan, Ophelia Colley Cannon, and Mary Elizabeth Cayce, “The Bells of Ward-Belmont: A Reminiscence,” in Tennessee Historical Quarterly, 30 (4), 1971, pp 379-382.

Illustration from Ward-Belmont College yearbook, 1926. Source

This strict southern finishing school may not have suited Nan. By Grade 10 she was back at home with her parents in Illinois attending a public high school. The family had moved to 2372 Burton Avenue, Highland Park, about 25 miles north of Chicago, and just north of Evanston.

Move to California

Hollywood Union High School, 1927. Source

In the spring of 1927, the Danke family moved from Chicago to Los Angeles, perhaps due to Nan's mother's declining health. This would have been a difficult move for 16-year-old Nan, who completed her sophomore year at Hollywood Union High School. (The name changed to Hollywood High School in 1940.)


Yearbook [Poinsettia] photo of 16-year-old Nan (top row, second from left) in the girls’ choral club at Hollywood Union High, 1927.

Theatre Training in California

In 1928-1929 Nan attended the Marta Oatman School of Theater, one of the best drama schools in Los Angeles. Dedicated to the discovery and development of talent for stage, screen and radio, Marta Oatman had established her school in 1920. Many actors and actresses made it in Hollywood after graduating from Marta Oatman's school, including Lucille LeSueur, better known as Joan Crawford.

"The first months of work in the adult drama classes are given over to personal development to awaken latent powers in the student and to build to correlate emotions and bodily agents in creative thinking, acting and speaking," the Los Angeles Times reported on June 1, 1929. "After that work is covered, practical technical work continues until the student is ready for play production.”

Los Angeles Times, July 15, 1928

While Nan was attending Marta Oatman's school that two major events occurred. Her mother passed away on November 18, 1929, and she changed her name from Annette Danke to Nan Dorland.

Nan was cast in a variety of stage productions while at theatre school. For example, in July 1930, 18-year-old Nan was using her new name in a one-act play produced by Theater Mart in Los Angeles. She played the role of Sadie McGork in a play called "The Land of Manana" by Jimmy Mac. A reviewer wrote that she played her part "with ease." (Inside the Facts of Stage and Screen, August 2, 1930)

Nan set her cap for a career in radio, heading to Chicago in 1931.

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Discovering Nan Dorland