Newsletter January 2024

Happy New Year everyone!  Here’s the Hollywood 360 newsletter, January 2024 / Vol. 33.  As someone on our mailing list, you’ll receive the most current newsletter via email on the first day of every month.  If you don’t receive it by the end of the first day of the month, check your spam folder as they often end up there.  If it is not in your regular email box or in your spam folder, contact me at carlpamari@gmail.com and I’ll forward you a copy.  The monthly Hollywood 360 newsletter contains articles from my team and the full month’s detailed schedule of classic radio shows that will air on Hollywood 360.  The week of January 6th, we’ll present an episode of Bold Venture starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.  Here’s an article on the one and only Lauren Bacall that I hope you enjoy!

LAUREN BACALL’s sex appeal could be seen on radio.

by Carl Amari and Martin Grams

I’m hard-pressed to name an actress who made her film debut as a leading lady in a major motion picture other than Lauren Bacall.  The film was To Have and Have Not (1944) and her co-star was Humphrey Bogart.  Their chemistry on-screen was impossible to miss and their off-screen relationship during filming resulted in their 1945 marriage.   

The power couple continued in the film noir genre with The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Passage (1947) and Key Largo (1948).  

Bacall’s sultry looks were matched by her distinctive voice, one she enjoyed lending to radio productions.  In 1941, she was billed as “Betty Bacall” on the comedy series Let’s Playwright.  During the war years, she was a frequent supporting player on Command Performance opposite Frank Sinatra, Cary Grant, James Stewart, Jimmy Durante, Herbert Marshall and Betty Davis, to name a few.

She made appearances on nearly every other major radio series as well, including The Jack Benny Program, The Bing Crosby Show, The Bob Hope Show, The Eddie Cantor Show and the biggest of them all, The Lux Radio Theatre.   The Bogarts were pitched radio program ideas by ad agencies, networks, sponsors and syndicators on a regular basis.  One of those pitches included an adventure series set in Cuba reminiscent of Key Largo, called Bold Venture.  

Bogart played the role of “Slate Shannon,” the proprietor of a small, quasi-respectable hotel in Havana, inhabited by a motley, shifting cast of characters.  Shannon’s motorboat, the Bold Venture, was on stand-by, ready to roar to the rescue of a friend or track down an enemy.

Bacall played “Sailor Duval,” ostensibly Shannon’s ward and given a seductive edge by the glamorous actress.  With its exotic Cuban background and Latin-American flavor, the weekly seafaring adventure program was loaded with gunfights, pirates, questionable characters and romantic intrigue.  

The Bogarts’ busy schedule demanded that the series be pre-recorded, so mega-producer Frederick W. Ziv funded a syndicated series with a big operating budget ($12,000 per episode) with a fees-plus-royalties deal for each broadcast.  Bold Venture was produced by the Bogart’s picture company, Santana Productions (named after a boat they owned) and recorded in Ziv’s Hollywood studio.   

The series made a fortune and was syndicated to more than 400 radio affiliates, but after a season and a half, Bogart sank it … “I got tired of it.  I never listened to it, but Betty did.  She loved to hear her voice.”

Note from Carl Amari: I recently licensed Bold Venture from the estate of Frederic W. Ziv and transferred all 78 episodes (including 18 lost episodes not heard in 70+ years) directly from Ziv’s master 16-inch discs and have them available on 39 Audio CDs or via digital download links in pristine sound quality.  If you’d like to purchase all 78 episodes of Bold Venture, call 815-900-7535.  If a live operator does not answer, please leave your name and return phone number and you will receive a call back asap.    

We successfully saved the Bold Venture radio series thanks, mostly, because of YOU the Hollywood 360 listeners so THANK YOU!  We are now attempting to save the radio series Boston Blackie (my personal favorite!).  

I recently licensed this series from the estate of Frederic W. Ziv so If you would like to help us transfer all 218 Boston Blackie half-hour radio episodes (this is the complete syndicated series produced by Frederic W. Ziv and starring Dick Kollmar, including more than 50 lost episodes not heard in more than 70 years) please go to our Kickstarter website and pledge any amount.  Depending on the amount you pledge, you can receive some or even ALL 218 Boston Blackie radio episodes in pristine sound quality on Audio CDs or via digital download.  All of the information is available at our Kickstarter website.  Simply search: “Boston Blackie” “Kickstarter” in your search engine or click here to be taken directly to the Boston Blackie Kickstarter website:

If you have trouble pledging on the Kickstarter website or would like to learn more by talking to a live operator, please call 815-900-7535.  If a live operator does not answer your call, please leave your name and return phone number and you will receive a call back asap.