Mutual Broadcasting System Memories

Oh--one more name! Pye Chamberlayne did a TON of radio news reports for Mutual, although I believe he was a freelancer.

Happy New Year to everyone!

Jim Stokes jstokes@mninter.net

Anyone else have some comments on Mutual in the same vein as my initial post. That is, some comments on the Mututal net when it "WAS."

Thanks a zillion.

My own recollections of Mutual are newsman Del Shartbutt, and sportscaster Van Patrick. Also Larry King made his comeback via Mutual overnight radio. There was also the Mutual Radio Theatre in the early eighties.

Mutual is now Westwood One Broadcasting (with CBS Radio). Internally, Westwood One still uses the term Mutual to identify there station breaks and alerts.

Good Luck

Do you recall the night that newscaster Tony Marvin was drunk? I was working at WLOL-AM at the time, where we taped all the news for delayed broadcast. We got some chuckles playing it back later for ourselves.

If you hear of any behind the scenes stories of Mutual back in the 60s and 70s, please let me know. It is a favorite network of mine. Mutual had very extensive Capitol Hill coverage.

Jim Stokes

The network was at this time owned by a combine made up of the F. L. Jacobs Company and Hal Roach Studios Inc., and in early 1959, Jacobs president Alexander Guterma visited Rafael Trujillo, the Dominican dictator, and cut a deal in which Mutual would over the next year and a half agree to provide a minimum of 425 minutes of favorable news coverage of Trujillo's regime. In exchange, Guterma was given a briefcase containing $750,000 in US currency.

Planted pro-Trujillo news items began to show up on the network shortly after -- but before the scheme could be fully implemented, Guterma was indicted for fraud in connection with an unrelated stock swindle. The facts about his deal with Trujillo were uncovered during the investigation of these charges, and succeeded in destroying Mutual's reputation as a credible news organization. Even though Guterma was forced to sell out his share of the company, the scandal dealt Mutual a blow from which it took many years to recover. (This is all well-documented in issues of "Broadcasting" magazine from the fall of 1959.)

Frank Singiser was at one time the youngest announcer on the NBC New York staff -- he joined NBC in 1930 at the age of 22, but his extreme premature baldness and thick glasses made them think he was much older. He stayed at NBC into 1936 -- and among other network programs on which he worked, he was the first announcer for "Your Hit Parade." (He is also heard on one of the earliest surviving NBC newscasts, a five-minute Press-Radio News summary from December 1934.) He moved to WOR in 1936 and was their regular nightly newscaster from 1939 and 1944. He was still working at WOR into the early 1970s, but retired shortly after -- and died in 1982.

Del Sharbutt's most important radio work was as the voice of Campbell's Soup in the 1940s -- he appeared on every program sponsored by Campbell's during that decade, and replaced Bill Hay as the announcer for "Amos 'n' Andy" when Bill retired in mid-1942. Sharbutt announced A&A during the last several months of its 15-minute serial run, and is in fact the last living link to the original series. He is currently living in California, I believe, and is still active in doing voiceovers for industrial films.

Pye Chamberlain worked at UPI News in the 1980s, and most recently has been associated with the NPR enviornmental news series "Living On Earth." He also had the cheesiest-looking whiskers in broadcasting history, if the mid-80s publicity photos distributed by UPI are any indication.

My interest in Mutual stems from their unabashed show biz flair in all their newscasts, as if they'd all had a bit of wine before they opened the mic to entertain millions.

I have a bit of info on Pye Chamberlayne that I'd love to share with you, all else reading this message. As an instructor in the army reserve, I recall hearing Pye doing voiceovers on how to operate military radios.

And while we're on that subject, my own keenly-tuned broadcasters ear also heard the likes of Martin Bookspan, long the voice of the New York Philharmonic radio broadcasts, and Carl Kassel, of NPR news, doing instructional voiceovers as well.

Jim Stokes, who now makes movies, but will forever have radio in his blood.

Another Mutual newsman of the era was Bill Maher, father of the POLITICALLY INCORRECT host.