The Nero Wolfe Radio Programs

Background

Rex Stout's extraordinary, rotund, beer-swilling, agoraphobic character, Nero Wolfe, remains one of Detective genre's most fascinating, fully formed characterizations in American Detective Fiction History. The first of Stout's Nero Wolfe novels to escape the written page was Fer de Lance, as first interpreted for the big screen by Edward Arnold in 1936's Meet Nero Wolfe for Columbia.

The Adventures of Nero Wolfe were first heard over the New England
Network of Westinghouse Radio stations throughout Massachusetts,
Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Rhode Island

Nero Wolfe languished in popular media for another seven years, until he was reprised over Radio by the old New England Network as The Adventures of Nero Wolfe. Sadly, precious little is known about this first series, other than the dates of its run and its principal actor, J.B. Williams in the role of Nero Wolfe. It was with the series' transition to its first national network that The Adventures of Nero Wolfe was first heard by a national audience. But again, many of the details of this second, Summer 1943 run of 13 episodes--other than its episode titles and its star, famous character actor Santos Ortega in the role of Nero Wolfe--remain a mystery to this day.

Indeed, we have only one representative episode of the 1944 run of The Adventures of Nero Wolfe in circulation to date--and that lone episode is preserved only by its inclusion as a selection for the Armed Forces Radio Service's Mystery Playhouse series. The production run starred Santos Ortega in the role of Nero Wolfe and Joseph Julian as Archie Goodwin..

The next run of Nero Wolfe appears as The Amazing Nero Wolfe, starring Francis X. Bushman as Nero Wolfe, with Elliott Lewis as Archie Goodwin. As best as we can determine, this was a Don Lee-Mutual Network production from the West Coast. Indeed it may possibly have been broadcast only in The West. But again, we have one--and only one--circulating example episode from that series--the last episode of its run.

Sydney Greetstreet and a bevy of Archies

This brings us to the first full run of Nero Wolfe in circulation--The New Adventures of Nero Wolfe--over the National Broadcasting Company network. This series starred Sydney Greenstreet as Nero Wolfe, and no less than five solid chracter actors in the role of Archie Goodwin: Wally Maher (in one of his last Radio roles), Lamont Johnson, Herb Ellis, Larry Dobkin, Gerald Mohr, and Harry Bartell. They broke down as follows:

• Wally Maher, Premiere episode only
• Lamont Johnson, Episode No. 2
• Herb Ellis, Episode No. 3
• Larry Dobkin, Episodes 4 through 12
• Gerald Mohr, Episodes 13 through 16
• Harry Bartell, Episodes 17 through 26

Our standout favorite Archies among this gaggle were Wally Maher, Gerald Mohr and Harry Bartell. Why Syndey Greenstreet changed Archies so often remains lost to history for the moment. Generally the meatier of the two roles, more lines were usually spoken by Archie than Nero Wolfe. That's a testament to the fine actors chosen for the role of Archie during the run. For them it was an opportunity to work with Sydney Greenstreet which, at the time, had to have been an excellent entry in their respective resumes.

This is the series that has most popularized Nero Wolfe on Radio. Indeed, given the truly impressive talent of each of the replacement Archies, the performances over the entire run of this production remain well-mounted, highly listenable, compelling examples of the Nero Wolfe mystery franchise.

While Rex Stout himself was never truly satisfied with how his character was depicted in Film, Radio, or Television, he's said to have enjoyed Edward Arnold and Sydney Greenstreet's portrayals of Nero Wolfe, the most. I'm certain that if he'd survived to see A&E's wonderful Nero Wolfe Mystery series, he'd have been even more impressed.

The next Radio airing of the Nero Wolfe mysteries appear in a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation production of 13 high-production-value episodes from 1982--arguably the finest run of Nero Wolfe mysteries to air over Radio. These starred Mavor Moore as Nero Wolfe, multi-talented Donald Francks as Archie Goodwin, and Cec Linder as Inspector Kramer. While more a revival series than a classic Golden Age Radio series, the Canadian run stands as the most accurately mounted series of episodes in the history of Nero Wolfe over Radio. Most of the Rex Stout stories from the CBC series appeared in A&E's marvelous A Nero Wolfe Mystery (2000).

Indeed there are as many proponents of 1950's The New Adventures of Nero Wolfe as there are for the CBC run of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe. We tend to lean more in the direction of the 1950 series, not so much for Sydney Greenstreet's depiction of Nero Wolfe, as for the Golden Age Radio atmospherics and patina of the older, more traditional broadcasts. Indeed, though it's quite clear that the CBC and A&E probably got it most 'right', the nostalgic attraction of the much earlier 1950 series stands--for us, anyway--as the most authentic Radio incarnation of Rex Stout's marvelously complex character.

With the notable exception of the marvleous A&E network production, "A Nero Wolfe Mystery" over cable television, Nero Wolfe hasn't fared very well over television. Italy's "Nero Wolfe" (1969) and Paramount Television's "Nero Wolfe" (1981, starring Bill Conrad) weren't Nero Wolfe's best moments; the former a mercifully short run and the latter a miserable attempt to cast Nero Wolfe in the 1980s.

Series Derivatives:

• Wally Maher
• Lamont Johnson
• Herb Ellis
• Larry Dobkin
• Gerald Mohr
• Harry Bartell

1982 Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe: Mavor Moore as Nero Wolfe, Donald Francks as Archie Goodwin, and Cec Linder as Inspector Kramer

Billboard Magazine December 18 1943 announcement of the return of Nero Wolfe on January 21 1944


Billboard magazine review of The Adventures of Nero Wolfe from July 24 1943, which would have made this episode The Case of The Vacant Blonde

Notes on Provenances:

All above cited provenances are in error in one form or another. The most helpful provenances were the log of the radioGOLDINdex and contemporaneous newspaper radio listings.

OTRisms:

1. The New England Network [WBZ] run of The Adventures of Nero Wolfe ran from 43-04-10 through 43-06-26, as well as the widely reported 43-04-07 through 43-06-30

2. There is no provenance whatsoever to support the 46-12-15 date for the last episode of The Amazing Nero Wolfe. Indeed, an exhaustive examination of a wide range of contemporaneous Radio Listings for MBS affiliate stations throughout the U.S. shows no evidence whatsoever of this program for either November or December 1946. The only reference to an otherwise unidentified Detective Program is an MBS series named Detective Mysteries from Books.

3. There are, however numerous newspaper provenances for the series of Nero Wolfe programs listed as MBS productions from The Don Lee-Mutual Broadcasting network from the West Coast. Using these listings we can reconstruct a brief run of The Amazing Nero Wolfe working backwards from November 30, 1945. This is further supported by both the appearances of Francis X. Bushman and Elliott Lewis, both actors based in California. As further evidence, the sponsor, Post-War Jergens Lotion, emphasizes two key provenances within the one, genuinely existing episode of this series, The Shakespeare Folio. The sponsor breaks announce 'new' Post-War Jergens lotion, now available for Christmas. World War II finally ended, September 2, 1945, therefore it's quite plausible that Jergens Lotion could have mounted a campaign promoting 'new Post-War' Jergens Lotion by November 1945. Since there are no further known episodes of The Amazing Nero Wolfe after 45-11-30, it seems reasonable to conclude that The Shakespeare Folio, announced as the last episode, was in fact broadcast on 30 November 1945, not the widely reported 46-12-15 date in virtually every known available log among the otr community.

4. The one available exemplar of The Adventures of Nero Wolfe--The Last Laugh Murder Case--from the AFRS Mystery Playhouse syndicated series, has been attributed to Santos Ortega in the role of Nero Wolfe. This is in conflict with the historical references to The Blue Network [ABC] run of the series. It's widely reported that Santos Ortega appeared in only the first thirteen episodes that aired between 43-07-05 and 43-09-27. All of the titles for that run can be verified through contemporaneous newspaper radio listings--which thankfully list the titles of all thirteen of those productions (see below). But none of those known thirteen episodes is titled The Last Laugh Murder Case. One can only conclude either:

• Luis van Rooten is Nero Wolfe in that episode (allegedly the last in that third series), or . . .
• Santos Ortega inexplicably returned to the role in the last episode of the Luis van Rooten run, replacing Luis van Rooten for that one episode--the last.

Contemporaneous provenances simply do not support the second conclusion. It is therefore our conclusion that the voice of Nero Wolfe heard in The Last Laugh Murder Case is that of Luis van Rooten--not Santos Ortega. We recognize that this flies in the face of 'conventional' wisdom in the 'OTR World', but not only do we not subscribe to the 'OTR' view of the world of Golden Age Radio, we contend that there exists no tangible provenance whatsoever to support that 'wisdom'. The 'OTR community' rarely ever provides any sort of provenance for their specious findings. We continue to repudiate any and all such findings not supported by an identifiable provenance.

5. It is widely alleged that the first three runs of The Adventures of Nero Wolfe comprised "over 60 episodes." This is not supported by any available provenance. As best as can be proven by all known available contemporaneous newspaper radio listings from 1943-1944, there were no more than 51 episodes of The Adventures of Nero Wolfe broadcast between 1943 and 1944: The 12 episodes of the New England Network run, the 13 episodes of The Blue Network [ABC], Santos Ortega run, and the 26 episodes of the Santos Ortega/Luis van Rooten run which began airing after a four-month hiatus, during which the reorganized Blue Network aired The Johnny Morgan Show and other limited-run productions in that timeslot. Note in the Billboard provenance at the upper left, that the announcement cites the series 'returning to the air on January 21, 1944.' This may account for the 16 - 18 episode discrepancy between the actual broadcasts and the estimates long alleged as fact from the commercial otr vendors. Let's make this as clear as we possibly can: no current commercial otr vendors or otr book authors give a whit about the historical accuracy of what they're selling. None. Period.

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[Date, title, and episode column annotations in red refer to either details we have yet to fully provenance or other unverifiable information as of this writing. Red highlights in the text of the 'Notes' columns refer to information upon which we relied in citing dates, date or time changes, or titles.]

The Nero Wolfe Series Logs

The Adventures of Nero Wolfe [New England Network - WBZ, Boston]

The Adventures of Nero Wolfe [The Blue Network - WJZ]

The Adventures of Nero Wolfe [Santos Ortega]

44-03-10 Wisconsin State Journal
9:30 p. m. — Nero Wolfe (WENR): Archie lands in the middle of an underworld double-cross,

The Amazing Nero Wolfe [Don Lee-Mutual]

The New Adventures of Nero Wolfe

Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe [CBC]

Mystery Playhouse [AFRS]

Nero Wolfe Biographies

Nero Wolfe Novels:
1934 Fer-de-Lance
1935 The League of Frightened Men
1936 The Rubber Band
1937 The Red Box
1938 Too Many Cooks
1939 Some Buried Caesar
1940 Over My Dead Body
1940 Where There's a Will
1942 Black Orchids
1944 Not Quite Dead Enough
1946 The Silent Speaker
1947 Too Many Women
1948 And Be a Villain
1949 Trouble in Triplicate
1949 The Second Confession
1950 Three Doors to Death
1950 In the Best Families
1951 Curtains for Three
1951 Murder by the Book
1952 Triple Jeopardy
1952 Prisoner's Base
1953 The Golden Spiders
1954 Three Men Out
1954 The Black Mountain
1955 Before Midnight
1956 Three Witnesses
1956 Might as Well Be Dead
1957 Three for the Chair
1957 If Death Ever Slept
1958 And Four to Go
1958 Champagne for One
1959 Plot It Yourself
1960 Three at Wolfe's Door
1960 Too Many Clients
1961 The Final Deduction
1962 Homicide Trinity
1962 Gambit
1963 The Mother Hunt
1964 Trio for Blunt Instruments
1964 A Right to Die
1965 The Doorbell Rang
1966 Death of a Doxy
1968 The Father Hunt
1969 Death of a Dude
1973 Please Pass the Guilt
1975 A Family Affair
1985 Death Times Three
(posthumous)

Radiography:
1939
Information Please
1942
Our Secret Weapon
1943
This Is Our Enemy
1943
The Adventures of Nero Wolfe
1944
The Adventures of Nero Wolfe
1944
Wake Up, America
1946
The Amazing Nero Wolfe
1949
Author Meets the Critics
1950
United World Federalists
1950-1951
The New Adventures of Nero Wolfe

Upon completing his two-year Navy service in 1908, he began writing by 1910 while working at a variety of jobs in six different states. With his brother, Stout devised, patented, implemented, and marketed a school accounting system to keep orderly track of the hundreds of small accounts of school children throughout some 400 elementary schools. The royalties he realized from this invention funded his travel to Paris to write full-time.

While in Paris he wrote his first book, How Like a God, in 1929, a psychological fiction story written in the second person. Stout mastered a variety of literary forms, including the short story, the novel, and science fiction. His 1934 novel, The President Vanishes, was considered a pioneering political thriller.

On returning to the U.S. Stout turned to writing detective fiction in earnest. His first detective fiction novel was Fer-de-Lance, introducing the brilliant detective, gourmand, agoraphobe, and orchid fancier, Nero Wolfe and his rakish, fearless assistant, Archie Goodwin. Fer-de-Lance was published by Farrar & Rinehart in October 1934, and a month later in abridged form as Point of Death for the November, 1934 issue of American Magazine. Stout's ardent fans will recognize the Fer-de-Lance as one of his most often adapted stories, in Film, Radio and Television.

In 1937, Stout created Dol Bonner, a female private detective introduced in The Hand in The Glove and who would later reappear in several of Stout's Nero Wolfe stories. Dol Bonner is considered an early, significant example of the female private investigator in popular fiction.

From 1938 on, Stout focused almost exclusively on the mystery genre, writing the Nero Wolfe series -- at least one adventure per year--until his death in 1975.

Rex Stout's mystery novels were brilliantly crafted, both challenging and satisfying to his readers, and wove a visceral image of Nero Wolfe's world. A world so realistic and accurate that his millions of fans worldwide can almost literally reconstruct the entire layout of Wolfe's mid-town Brownstone better than their own homes.

Even more remarkable, Stout maintained that it took him approximately 39 days to write each of his novels, never re-reading any of them after he'd written them. This may explain why Stout was never very satisfied with the manner in which his novels were adapted for Radio, Film, or Television. He wrote his novels much as Beethoven wrote his music, composing the entire opus in their heads, then simply commiting the complete work to ink once--and only once, never editing them any further.

Stout's keen sense of irony and his continual lampooning of aristocracy--foreign and domestic--may serve to explain his long-standing friendship with another literary genius, P.G. Wodehouse. Each was reportedly a great fan of the other's, and the attentive reader can readily see many points of comparison between many of their more quixotic characters and basic character development techniques.