Newsletter May 2025

Hello everyone!  Here’s the Hollywood 360 newsletter, May 2025 / Vol. 49.  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 May 31st, we’ll broadcast an episode of Boston Blackie starring Dick Kollmar and Maurice Tarplin (pictured here from the Mutual WOR radio studios in New York).  This radio episode we’ll be airing came directly from Frederic W. Ziv’s personal 16 inch transcription disc master (Ziv was the producer and syndicator of the series).  Other great radio shows scheduled for May include: The Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis Show, Lights Out!, Life With Luigi, Blondie, Mr. Keen-Tracer of Lost Persons, Bold Venture, Dragnet, Suspense, The Whistler, The Man Called X and an hour long episode of Dick Tracy in B-Flat on Command Performance starring Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Dinah Shore, Jimmy Durante, Bob Hope and many others!  Thank you for helping to keep these amazing radio programs alive! Stay safe.  Blessings, Carl Amari 

BOSTON BLACKIE 

by Carl Amari and Martin Grams

The character of Boston Blackie was created by Jack Boyle in a series of short stories beginning in 1914. Blackie was a former safecracker who was rehabilitated while serving time and used his knowledge of the underworld to fight crime as an amateur detective.  

Known as an “enemy to those who make him an enemy, friend to those who have no friend”, Blackie’s exploits were successfully adapted to films, radio and television.  In 1941, Columbia Pictures launched a highly successful series of B-movies starring Chester Morris.  Because Blackie had a checkered past, the police tagged him for just about every unsolved crime committed in the big apple, requiring Blackie to solve the case before landing in jail.  

NBC brought the character to radio in 1944 with Chester Morris reprising his screen role.  Morris’ film commitments kept him from continuing his radio portrayal beyond one summer season, so in 1945, radio producer Fredrick W. Ziv retooled the entire cast.  Ziv signed Broadway actor Richard Kollmar to the radio role of Boston Blackie.  FYI: Kollmar was married to famed journalist and reporter Dorothy Kilgallen.  Kollmar brought just the right amount of sarcastic wit and charm to the character, starring in more than 200 radio episodes produced between 1945 and 1950.  

Ziv also produced a televised version starring likeable B-movie leading man, Kent Taylor.  The television series was an extension of the movies and long-running radio show chronicling the adventures of the ex-crook with a heart of gold.  

SUPER EXCITING NEWS FROM CARL AMARI:

I licensed all 41 complete radio series produced by Frederic W. Ziv, the most prolific radio syndicator in history.  All 10,000+ radio episodes have been preserved on Mr. Ziv’s personal 16 inch master transcription discs.  So far, I’ve launched three different Kickstarter campaigns to raise the funds necessary to professionally transfer these 16 inch discs so that the complete series for each can be enjoyed for generations to come in brilliant sound quality!

If you have pledged to help save these important radio series, thank you!  If not, feel free to learn about these three radio series and their campaigns by clicking the links below.  All three of these Kickstarter campaigns were successful and are now closed.  If you missed out on obtaining these complete radio series, call me to order them on audio CDs or via digital download links.  FYI: The cost is slightly higher than the Kickstarter pricing.  To order, call 1-815-900-7535.