The images, in this post, are from the January, 2023 issue of Radiogram magazine, which is published by the California-based Old-Time Radio group SPERDVAC (the Society to Preserve and Encourage Radio Drama, Variety and Comedy).
This particular feature, in the January issue, contains a page of script from a May 1938 radio broadcast of Your Hit Parade. The page shows, interestingly, the marks and symbols announcer André Baruch made on the script to guide, or perhaps reinforce, his reading of it during the program.
The Radiogram feature--which contains an explanatory guide to the markings Mr. Baruch made use of--was, Radiogram notes, adapted from a story in a 1938 issue of Radio Stars magazine.
The attention to detail, as indicated in the markings, is illuminating; the notes make clear how meticulously a network announcer such as Mr. Baruch approached his work, the care given to the words and phrasings. There are markings regarding particular emphases, pauses, changes in tone. One symbol means: "Long sentence. Take deep breath." Another indicates: "Drop inflection, as with comma."
During his lengthy, legendary career Mr. Baruch was the announcer for many network programs, in addition to radio's Hit Parade (including, on radio, The Shadow and The Kate Smith Show, and the television version of the Hit Parade). His announcing was invariably crisp, lively, authoritative; there was a feeling of elegance to it.
Mr. Baruch was married to singer Bea Wain, one of the best-known stars of the radio Hit Parade (and one of the most popular, and most admired, singers of the big band era). After World War Two, the couple hosted a music show on New York radio station WMCA; in the 1970s and 1980s they hosted other radio programs together, both music- and talk-oriented.
Mr. Baruch died in 1991, at age 83. Ms. Wain died in 2017, at age 100.
(Above images © Radiogram magazine and SPERDVAC, 2023)
