The Rogue's Gallery Radio Program

Background

Rogue's Gallery was one of those Golden Age Radio programs that simply wouldn't quit. It resurfaced again and again between 1945 and 1951 in original broadcast--and in rebroadcast for years later. We've seen this before in Nero Wolfe and The Saint, with public demand so insistent that an otherwise short-lived production seems to take on a life of its own. Rogue's Gallery was broadcast through five different runs, over three major networks: NBC, The Mutual Broadcasting System, and ABC. The protagonist, fictional detective Richard Rogue, was performed by three different major dramatic actors: Dick Powell for the first three runs, Barry Sullivan for the 1947 Summer run, and critically acclaimed Mercury Theatre alumnus, Paul Stewart, for the 1950-1951 run.

The program was wonderfully entertaining in all of its incarnations. The story line developed around Richard Rogue, a very likeable, albeit catastrophe-prone private detective--or variously, 'creep', 'gumshoe', 'private dick', 'P.I.', or 'shadow'. And yes, the series is replete with all of the colorful Chandleresque radio noir dialogue America had come to expect from the darker--and often tongue-in-cheek--detective dramas of the 1940s and 1950s.

One of the more carefully guarded, yet signature elements of the Rogue's Gallery formula was Richard Rogue's alter ego, 'Eugor' (Rogue spelled backwards), played by the famous--but uncredited--character actor, Peter Leeds. 'Eugor' resides in a particularly entertaining recess of Richard Rogue's mind called "Cloud Eight", an obvious play on the euphemism, 'Cloud Nine', which by the 1940s had come to describe a euphoric state induced in one form or another--by alcohol, drugs, or often love or intense emotional satisfaction. Interestingly, the origin of the term Cloud Nine itself is often--mistakenly--attributed to the term's use in the "Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar" radio program whose popularity post-dated Rogue's Gallery by over five years. In fact, the term was in wide use well before 'Johnny Dollar'.

To set euphemism etymology--and Golden Age Radio history--straight, we'll remind the reader that 'Cloud Nine' had been around since the 1930s, attributed most often to an arcane practice of the U.S. Weather Bureau. According to weather bureau lore, some time during the 1930s they began to classify clouds by an arithmetic sequence. Level Nine was the very highest cumulonimbus, which can reach 30,000 to 40,000 feet, appearing to be glorious white mountains in the sky. Therefore, if you were on 'cloud nine' you were at the very peak of existence. Early examples show a lot of numerical variability, with the cloud sometimes being as low as number seven or eight--or as high as thirty-nine, though seven and nine were most common.

But we digress. Richard Rogue's 'Cloud Eight' by contrast was not so much the product of euphoria, but rather induced by one or more blows to Richard Rogue's head--or in some instances by being slipped a "mickey" of one sort or another. And in even more of a twist, Rogue's Cloud Eight is inhabited by a denizen of Richard Rogue's convuluted conscience--Eugor. Eugor alternatively counsels Rogue, entreats him to correct whatever situation landed him on Cloud Eight--yet again, or chides him for ending up there in the first place. Peter Leeds, a wonderful, prolific character actor in Radio, Television, and Film, voices Eugor, with a cacklely, high-pitched voice. Apparently the program went to great lengths to deny Peter Leeds a credit in the recurring role. One suspects this may have been at Peter Leeds' insistence. But we're more inclined to believe that it was simply an attempt to keep Eugor's true identity a closely held secret for the duration of the program to keep it mysterious and unique.

Be that as it may, Eugor became an integral element of many of the Rogue's Gallery scripts. Indeed, Rogue's self-reflection during his visits to Cloud Eight were often instrumental to solving the caper in which he was involved. The capers themselves were both well-crafted and entertaining, as much for Rogue's first-person exposition as for the often complex plots themselves. Dick Powell, in particular, had popularized the expositional narrative in his 1944 "Murder, My Sweet" portrayal of legendary Raymond Chandler detective, Philip Marlowe. Powell's soft-spoken, though gritty, expositions consumed as much as a third of some of the Rogue's Gallery scripts. One can't help but wonder if it was Powell's performance in "Murder, My Sweet" that made this project so attractive to both NBC and F.W. Fitch, its sponsor for its first four incarnations.

Fitch Sponsorship

The F.W. Fitch sponsorship bears some reflection. It was Fitch's sponsorship of the long running Fitch Bandwagon variety program that helped perpetuate Dick Powell's image as one of America's favorite fresh-faced, young radio entertainers. DickPowell was by then reaching his 40s, with the fresh-faced singing idol image quickly being displaced by a more rugged, worldly-wise appearance. Powell's successful re-invention of himself as a serious dramatic actor--with his portrayal of Philip Marlowe in "Murder, My Sweet"--was instrumental in persuading Fitch to spin Powell off into a dramatic role. Fitch's Bandwagon Mysteries ran during the Summer of 1945--as a three-month replacement for its successful Bandwagon variety program. The Bandwagon Mysteries inaugurated Powell's Richard Rogue character, a somewhat transparent incarnation of his Philip Marlowe characterization.

The fourteen-week summer replacement series was so successful that The Mutual Broadcasting System signed up to deliver it to their rapidly growing network. The Fitch Bandwagon was already scheduled to return for its regular season over NBC, so there was nowhere for Fitch to take Bandwagon Mysteries but to another network. The MBS-rebranded Rogue's Gallery took to the air for a full 39-episode run, from September 1945 to the summer of 1946, at which time NBC picked it up, yet again, as the summer replacement for the Fitch Bandwagon, this time continuing the Rogue's Gallery program name.

The chemical process of Saponification


LIFE magazine Fitch ad promoting Rogue's Gallery from August 12 1946

Fitch's sponsorship was also noteworthy for it's shampoo products themselves. Touting it's 'saponified' shampoo formula, Fitch claimed--rather elaborately--to be able to eradicate dandruff with its "revolutionary" saponified formula. As with much of the florid prose in feminine requisites advertising of the era, Fitch characterized saponification itself, as a revolutionary process unique to F.W. Fitch. In point of fact, saponification was in wide use in manufacturing soap products as early as 1908. Saponification is simply the process by which an alkali (sodium hydroxide) is introduced to a base (animal fat) to produce a salt (soap) and a free alcohol (glycerin). The only thing that made the Fitch's 'saponified' references mysterious was its otherwise arcane--but by then ubiquitous--usage in virtually all other common soap production of the era. And in fact it was Fitch's claims to eradicate dandruff that raised the dander of the Federal Trade Commission during the late 1940s, and which, by 1950, enjoined F.W. Fitch for its elaborate claims to eradicate dandruff with its use. Dandruff, a normal, mammalian by-product of life processes, cannot be eradicated--by any product. The damage caused by the injunction and ruling--and all the attendant bad press--almost ruined Fitch.

So it was that by the fifth incarnation of Rogue's Gallery, the series no longer enjoyed F.W. Fitch sponsorship. The 1947 Summer run of Rogue's Gallery starred successful Film actor, Barry Sullivan, who would subsequently popularize Milt Caniff's famous Steve Canyon (1948) character on Radio. The series was picked up by NBC, yet again, as the final F.W. Fitch sponsored Bandwagon production, airing as Rogue's Gallery. Rogue's Gallery's fifth and final incarnation was broadcast over the ABC Radio network in 1950, as a sustaining production, for a full, fifty-five program season. This incarnation starred noted character actor, Paul Stewart, of Mercury Theatre and 'Citizen Kane' fame. Stewart delivered the Richard Rogue character in a somewhat more foreboding manner, but the musical accompaniment and scripts maintained the lighter fare that Rogue's Gallery fans had come to prefer. Indeed, Stewart's somewhat grittier delivery was more reminiscent of the various performances of William Gargan's Barrie Craig (1951), than the far lighter, more whimsical Richard Rogue and Richard Diamond of Dick Powell.

In fact, Dick Powell , having distanced himself from F.W. Fitch sponsorship, segued his Richard Rogue character into a four-year run of Richard Diamond, "The Singing Detective" [Richard Diamond, Private Detective], from 1949 through 1953. A highly successful program in its own right, Richard Diamond, Private Detective ran for two years over NBC before, ironically, running over ABC from 1951 to 1952, while the last incarnation of Rogue's Gallery was airing over the same network. Richard Diamond, Private Detective eventually outlived Rogue's Gallery by two years, finishing over CBS in 1953, with Powell in the role to the end. And in yet another irony--or not--Dick Powell may have borrowed his 'Rogue' moniker for the title of his critically acclaimed role as Whit Corbett in the 1948 film, "Rogue's Regiment."

Series Derivatives:

Notes on Provenances:

The most helpful provenance was the Wisconsin Daily Journal.

Rogue's Gallery has been lumped into one long contiguous run of programs for over 37 years--coincident with the invention of 'OTR.' In fact, the Rogue's Gallery canon represents five distinct and separate runs over a six-year span. Program numbering for these various programs should not be amalgamated into one long series of program numbers. This was not a single run of a program, it was five--separated by spans of between one and three years.

We do not impune the honest motivations of what, statistically at least, would have to be at least a handful of otr proponents. We can well imagine those individuals' continuing efforts to rehabilitate the various otr groups and their preposterous claims to 'most accurate in the world.' We applaud that minority and hope they continue to make some headway. None of us in the vintage radio preservation community deserve any less.

OTRisms:

The title of the first program of the Summer run of 1945 is 'I Break Into Print--The Hard Way', which first aired June 17, 1945, not the reported June 24, 1945 in all of the extant 'OTR' logs. We've discovered seven more titles to add to the existing Summer 1945 canon.

We turned up only six known titles for the 1946 NBC Summer Run of Fitch Bandwagon's Rogue's Gallery. The remaining eight program titles and their sequence remain unknown as of this writing. Of note in this run is the apparent rehearsal of Program #4, Where There's A Will There's A Murder. The rehearsal remains undated as of this writing.

The last run of Rogue's Gallery over the ABC Network remains undated, unsequenced and predominately un-titled. The only known program from the run is possibly the first, second, or third program of the Paul Stewart run, titled The Janice Kroll Murder Case, provisionally dated 50-11-29, due to Paul Stewart's comments at the close of the program. We've uncovered one more title--the final episode of the series.

[Update: We've added 26 more provenanced titles to the knowledge base of Rogue's Gallery. They're updated in the logs below]

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Rogue's Gallery Program Logs

Fitch Bandwagon Mysteries Summer Run [NBC]

Rogue's Gallery [MBS]

"Rogue's Gallery"

A wholesale case of " Murder on the House " presents itself for the skillful detection of private detective Richard
Rogue — as played by Dick Powell. Tonight at 8:30

[Replaces Boston Blackie]

45-09-27 New York Times
8:30-9--Drama: "Murder in the House," With Dick Powell--WOR (Premiere).

Rogue's Gallery 1946 Summer Run [NBC]

Rogue's Gallery 1947 Summer Run [NBC]

Rogue's Gallery [ABC]

Mystery Playhouse [AFRS/AFRTS R-Series]

Rogue's Gallery Biographies

The following year, Dmytryk and Powell re-teamed to make Cornered (1945), a gripping, post-WWII thriller that helped further define the film noir style. Powell became a popular "tough guy" lead, appearing in movies such as Johnny O'Clock (1947) and Cry Danger (1951). From that point forward in his career--with the exception of his Radio detective roles, even when appearing in lighter fare such as The Reformer and the Redhead (1950) and Susan Slept Here (1954), Powell never again sang in his Film roles.

Powell began a new career in Radio as well, remaking his radio persona with gumshoe Richard Rogue in Fitch Bandwagon Mysteries' Rogue's Gallery, followed later by four years as Richard Diamond, Private Detective.

Still eager to broaden his creative horizons, Powell set his sights on directing Film in the late 1940s, but yet again met with resistance from studio heads. Finally, in 1952, RKO studio head Howard Hughes gave Powell the green light to direct the thriller Split Second, and the success of that film led Hughes to offer Powell a position as Producer. While there was some speculation in Hollywood that Powell would become Head of Production at RKO, he was able to complete only one feature, The Conqueror, before Hughes sold the company in 1955. Powell went on to helm three more features in as many years at other studios.

Although the leadership of RKO had eluded him, Powell had already begun his rise as an early television mogul. On the heels of his first feature assignment Powell had formed an independent telefilm production company with actors Charles Boyer and David Niven. Four Star Films derived its name from its first project, the half-hour anthology Four Star Playhouse, in which one of the three partners would rotate with a different weekly guest star. In its second season the partners invited guest Ida Lupino to become the show's permanent "fourth star." Although she did not become a stockholder in the firm, Lupino went on to direct many episodes of Playhouse and other Four Star series, in addition to her acting duties.

While Boyer and Niven each owned a sizeable share of Four Star, it was Dick Powell that ran the company. A 1962 Television magazine profile of Powell called him the company's "principal architect of policy as well as the most valuable performer and production executive," and noted that Four Star's fortunes moved in direct proportion to the time Dick Powell devoted to it's operations. Powell was notoriously driven, and closely involved with both the financial and creative aspects of Four Star. He not only managed operations, but was active in developing story properties, overseeing script conferences, and, when needed, used his charm--and the weight of his celebrity--to close a program sale.

Four Star's primary commodity was anthologies. Powell followed up Four Star Playhouse (1954) with the short-lived Stage 7, and two years later Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre, hosted by--and occasionally starring-the Four Star chief executive officer himself. Powell and company also produced one season of Alcoa Theatre (1958), and in subsequent years crafted anthologies around one of Powell's partners (The David Niven Theater), and his wife (The June Allyson Show), both featuring the requisite array of Hollywood stars.

Zane Grey Theatre ran for five years, at once feeding and riding the crest of the phenomenal surge of western programs on television in the late 1950s. Four Star generated its share of the stampede, scoring its biggest hits in the genre with The Rifleman, Wanted: Dead or Alive, and Trackdown, as well as less successful entries like Johnny Ringo, Black Saddle, Law of the Plainsman, Stagecoach West, and the highly-regarded but extremely short-lived Sam Peckinpah project, The Westerner.

Four Star's western output highlights the creative economy of program development under Powell. Anthologies were the perfect vehicles by which to generate new program pilots at a network or sponsor's expense. Most of the Four Star westerns, for example, were born as installments of Zane Grey Theatre (Wanted: Dead or Alive had its trial run as an episode of Trackdown). Four Star Playhouse spawned two crime series featuring gambler Willy Dante: eight Four Star installments starring Powell as Dante were repackaged as a 1956 summer replacement series (The Best in Mystery), and a new Dante series was hatched in 1960 with Howard Duff in the title role. Another spin-off of sorts came in 1957 when Powell revived his Richard Diamond radio vehicle for television, with young David Janssen as the suave P.I--and an even younger Mary Tyler Moore as the 'legs' of the program's later preface sequence.

Michael Shayne, Private Detective was a less successful Four Star entry in the private eye cycle of the late 1950s.

Four Star was one of the busiest telefilm suppliers in the business in 1959. The following year the newly renamed Four Star Television marked its peak in prime time with a remarkable twelve series on the networks. Four Star was producing more programming than any other Hollywood independent, surpassed only by MCA-Revue and Columbia-Screen Gems. Powell resisted the increasingly common practice of ceding control of off-network distribution to the networks themselves. So even though Four Star was often obliged to cut broadcasters in on series profits, it was Four Star that retained syndication rights to all its shows. Four Star inaugurated its own syndication division--albeit belatedly--in 1962.

Powell the executive was uncharacteristically sensitive--as Studio Heads go--to the creative process as well as profits. Many Four Star alumni have attested to Powell's sensitivity and support for their pet writing projects. Powell personally fielded ideas from writers, interceded with sponsors to protect controversial scripts from censorship, and would support any story if the writer was passionate enough about it.

Indeed, Powell mentored writer-producers Sam Peckinpah, Blake Edwards, Bruce Geller and Aaron Spelling, and signed young writers like Christopher Knopf, Richard Levinson and William Link, Leslie Stevens, and Robert Towne early in their careers. By all accounts, Powell was universally respected by his creative team.

With the western on the wane in the early sixties, Four Star diversified its product, turning out situation comedies like The Tom Ewell Show, Peter Loves Mary, McKeever and the Colonel, The Gertrude Berg Show, and Ensign O'Toole, as well as a courtroom drama, The Law and Mr. Jones, an organized crime saga, Target: The Corrupters, and an unusual anthology, The Lloyd Bridges Show. Only The Detectives, starring Robert Taylor was even a modest success. By 1961 Powell had reduced his hands-on involvement in the overall operations at Four Star and focused his attentions on producing The Dick Powell Show, a star-studded drama anthology featuring Powell as host and frequent star.

The new anthology presented even more pilots than Zane Grey--over a dozen in two years--which eventually yielded the newspaper series Saints and Sinners in 1962, and the detective series Burke's Law the following year. Among the unsold projects was Luxury Liner--produced by future Love Boat creator Aaron Spelling. The Dick Powell Show show received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Dramatic Achievement for both its seasons on the air.

After Powell's death in January of 1963, Four Star continued operation, but Four Star's reign as a "TV major" was over. With six series on the fall schedule for 1962, by a year later Burke's Law was the firm's only prime-time entry. The change in Four Star's fortunes probably had as much to do with ratings as anything else. The firm's continued resistance to network control of syndication may have cost it prime-time sales. Certainly the loss of Powell's leadership, his formidable salesmanship powers, and indeed his reputation, could not have helped matters. With declining network program sales, more flops like Honey West and The Rogues, and the disappointing performance of the company's own belated entry into the syndication business, Four Star was awash in red ink by 1966. The Big Valley was the last series being produced under the Four Star banner when the firm was sold in 1967.

Powell's relatively abbreviated life was not without some fascinating ironies:

• He may have been yet another of the famous casualties of the 1956 film The Conqueror. The movie was filmed near a nuclear test site in Utah. Many of the people involved with the film, including Powell--who directed--eventually died of cancer, either caused by--or exacerbated by--working on location near the site. The others included actors John Wayne, Susan Hayward, Ted de Corsia, and Agnes Moorehead--none of them shrinking violets, or capitulators, in any respect.
• Powell died on the same day and of the exact cause as fellow Radio, Film and Television star, Jack Carson.
• Powell sold his famous yacht, Santana to Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in 1945. The beautiful schooner had been previously owned by Ray Milland, George Brent, and Charles Issacs and Eva Gabor.

By the 1942 Broadway season, he'd experienced three more flops: Mr. Big, Ring Around Elizabeth, and Johnny Wisely. Quite understandably, he then steered clear of Broadway for over a decade, during which time he performed in Radio and early Television.

Sullivan made several dramatic appearances in Radio dramas during the early 1940s, but his first lead role was as the second Richard Rogue in the Summer 1947 run of Rogue's Gallery, for NBC. Sullivan followed his lead in Rogue's Gallery when he brought famous cartoonist Milt Caniff's beloved Steve Canyon comic strip to life in 1948's Steve Canyon radio program. 1949 found him in the role of Simon Templar, The Saint for two episodes. Sullivan continued to perform in straight dramatic roles on Radio until 1954.

Barry Sullivan's 1945 return to Broadway landed him a hit play, The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, taking over the role of Barney Greenwald from Henry Fonda. Indeed, in 1955, Sullivan was nominated for a Best Actor - Single Performance Emmy Award in his reprise of the Barney Greenwald role on Ford Star Jubilee's The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial. Sullivan's last appearance on Broadway, was in the original Too Late the Phalarope (1956), which true to form, was also a flop.

Sullivan starred in movies with Joan Crawford, Loretta Young, and most of the forties and fifties leading ladies. Sullivan toured the US with Bette Davis in theatrical readings of the poetry of Carl Sandburg and starred opposite her in the 1951 film Payment on Demand.

Having wisely abandoned his Broadway career, Sullivan had made his commercial film debut in the western The Woman of the Town (1943). And while Sullivan never caught on as a lead, he excelled at supporting roles in which he could play tough, aggressive characters more apropos of his height, athleticism and physique. His most notable roles were as the lead in The Gangster (1947), as Tom Buchanan in the Alan Ladd version of The Great Gatsby (1949), and as movie director in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952). He continued acting in movies until 1977, rounding off a near 40-year movie career with an appearance in Oh, God! (1977). He continued occasional appearances on television until retiring in 1980. He was coaxed out of retirement for one last role, 1987's fittingly titled, The Last Straw.

Sullivan was a democratic party activist and a tireless advocate for the mentally disabled. Barry Sullivan died of a respiratory ailment on June 6, 1994 in Sherman Oaks, California. He was 81 years old.