Skip to main content

Radio's Top Secret and actress, Ilona Massey

By

lona Massey was born in Budapest in 1910, while it was still part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Trained as an opera singer, she worked as a dress maker and theater singer to save money for the trip to Vienna where she joined an Opera Company.

Eventually she landed a screen test in London and was offered a Hollywood contract. She appeared in a couple Nelson Eddy operettas, and was billed as "the new Dietrich." Her acting talent was not quite strong enough, and her soprano voice too light to live up to the hype. She would be called upon to play the alluring sophisticated beauty in Thriller pictures. Notable are Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman (1943) with Lon Chaney Jr. and Love Happy (1949) with the Marx Brothers. Ilona's character in Love Happy, the spy Madame Egelichi, was the inspiration for the Steve Canyon comic character Madame Lynx. Steve Canyon artist Milton Caniff went so far as to hire Massey to model for him.

Madame Egelichi/Madame Lynx may have helped lead Massey to her one Radio starring role, as Baroness Karin Geza inn the radio program, Top Secret. Supposedly the character and her stories were inspired by a "personal friend" of Ms Massey's who worked as an Allied Spy during WWII and its aftermath.

The Baroness takes the audience around the globe in her assignments. In a departure from the usual femme fatale formula the Baroness doesn't depend solely upon her considerable feminine charms in her espionage/counter-espionage radio work. When it is necessary she can get as physical as any male spy to defend her secrets, or her life.

Her work on the radio show Top Secret  mixed well with Massey's political posture. Her Austrio-Hungarian upbringing had brought home to her the evils of Communism and Fascism. She became an American Citizen in 1946, and was seen protesting Soviet Premier Khrushchev's visit to the UN in 1956.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Candy Matson Old Time Radio Show

By Old Time Radio
Candy Matson  was no GIRL detective...she was all woman. Candy Matson was a response to all the hard-boiled detectives on the radio like  Jeff Regan ,  Rocky Fortune ,  Pat Novak , and all those  other detectives  who were beaten up on a regular basis. Candy, played by Natalie Parks, was  hard-boiled  in her own way. She never compromised her femininity but she did know how to use a gun and didn't hesitate to use when it was necessary. She didn't take any guff from the guys--the good guys or the bad guys. With a snappy comeback, she could take anybody's head off. Candy was fearless, never hesitating to go wherever she needed to solve a case from the lowest dive to the classiest night club. Candy worked hard to get her goon. Men orbited around her like she was the sun. Her best friend and partner in detection was Rembrandt Watson, a flamboyant photographer. All private detectives need a police detective foil and, in...
Post a Comment
Read more

Old Time Radio: Spies and Espionage

By Old Time Radio
Old time radio featured many spy-themed shows , which were popular during the Cold War era . These shows often depicted heroic spies and agents who worked to protect their countries from enemy spies and espionage, adding to the cultural fascination with the world of espionage and intrigue during this time. Spy shows were popular in the 1950s for several reasons. Firstly, the Cold War was in full swing , and the fear of Soviet espionage and infiltration was widespread. As a result, there was a heightened interest in stories and characters that dealt with the world of espionage and intrigue. Spy shows offered a way for listeners to vicariously experience the world of espionage and feel a sense of excitement and danger. Additionally, radio was one of the primary sources of entertainment during this time, and spy shows offered a way for audiences to escape the anxieties of everyday life and engage with exciting stories and characters. Many of these shows also featured strong, heroic prot...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Clown Laughs and Cries: Red Skelton

By Old Time Radio
  The Clown is one of the most traditional and enduring elements of show business. There are several vital characteristics which add up to define just what a clown is. One of the most important is that under the makeup, the clown is very often laughing on the outside while crying on the inside. America's favorite clown, Red Skelton typifies laughing and crying at the same time. Few performers have given as much to bring happiness to their audience, especially while living through their own personal tragedies. Joe Skelton had performed as a clown with the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus, but settled down to life as a grocer, and sired four sons with his wife Ida Mae. Joe was taken from his family two months before his youngest son, Richard Bernard Skelton, was born in 1913 (the same year, the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus lost 8 elephants, 8 performing horses and 21 lions and tigers when the Wabash River flooded). Richard soon became Red Skelton . With no father, Red went to work early to hel...
Post a Comment
Read more