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Great Women in Old Time Radio

By Old Time Radio


Some of our favorite and most prominent women at the radio microphone as actors include:
  • Agnes Moorehead - the first lady of SUSPENSE!
  • Mercedes McCambridge
  • Lurene Tuttle 
  • Arlene Francis 
  • Mary Jane Higby 
  • Natalie Park 
  • Virginia Gregg
  • Anne Elstner 
  • Virginia Payne 
  • Mary Margaret McBride: The "Oprah" of her time with the largest radio audience 
  • Ora Nichols: The mother of sound effects. She founded the craft of radio sound effects, although it would eventually become a male-dominated portion of radio 
  • Peg Lynch: The best comedy writer in radio who also starred in her own shows 
  • (Mary) Kathleen Hite: The first woman writer on the CBS westerns who would go on to write nearly all of the "Ft. Laramie" scripts and later, many TV westerns 
  • Betty Mandeville: Directed "The FBI in Peace and War" thus becoming the first woman to direct a crime show in prime time 
  • Ruth Woodman: Creator and writer of "Death Valley Days" on radio and TV for over four decades, the longest western in broadcast history 
  • Bernardine Flynn, the voice of Sade Gook on "Vic and Sade" and a WMAQ news announcer
  • during World War II. She also filled in on many other shows. 
  • Miriam Wolfe (a stalwart on "Let's Pretend") 
  • Shirley Mitchell (Leila Ransom on "Gildersleeve" and Alice Darling on "Fibber McGee") 
  • Janet Waldo 
  • Bea Benaderet 
  • Mary Jane Croft 
  • Cathy Lewis
  • Edith Mesider is the actress-producer-director-scriptwriter who first brought Sherlock Holmes to the airwaves 
  • June Foray - In June 2012 Foray became the oldest person ever awarded an Emmy Award ... at age 95! 
  • Janet Waldo 
  • Lucille Ball
  • Eve Arden
  • Gracie Allen
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Comments

  1. AnonymousNovember 13, 2013 at 12:58 PM

    Do you know anything about the ladies who provided the female voices for "The Cisco Kid?" I've often thought the older-sounding one was a wonderful voice actress, especially as the voice of Mrs. Jones in the several Morbid Jones shows--a very distinctive rough, coarse voice - I always wondered if her voice matched her appearance in any way.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousFebruary 26, 2017 at 5:33 AM

    Betty Lou Gerson should be on this list. She was awesome on The Whistler.

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownMarch 29, 2022 at 9:59 PM

    By by all means Betty Lou Gerson should be on the list that's the name I was looking for

    ReplyDelete
  4. UnknownMarch 29, 2022 at 10:03 PM

    I think Virginia Gregg number one and Betty Lou Gerson where the top two most versatile voices of old time radio

    ReplyDelete

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