Your Truly, Johnny
Dollar
"The man with the action-packed
expense account...America's fabulous freelance insurance
investigator."
Johnny Dollar is
an insurance
investigator with a knack for finding
trouble, solving crimes, and creatively filling out his expense
report. This is one of the best, if not THE best,
dramatic shows of Old Time Radio.
Starting on February 18, 1949, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar brought us
an adventure seeking insurance investigator who worked mainly
for the Universal Adjustment Bureau of Hartford, a
clearinghouse for the many insurance companies. The first actor
to play Dollar was Charles Russell. Eight actors in
total would play Dollar during the 12 year run including two
who only did auditions -- Dick Powell who chose to do
Richard Diamond instead and Gerald Mohr who went on to
play Philip
Marlowe. He started out with the trademark of
tossing silver dollars as tips to busboys and bellhops -- a
trite gimmick that was thankfully dropped later.
For over 12 years (1949 - 1962, including a one year break in
1954-55), Johnny Dollar was heard each week flying off to a
different city filled with danger and possibly murder as he
tried to get to the bottom of insurance fraud. Johnny was a bit
of a ladies man in the early episodes but generally a loner
otherwise.
In 1950 Edmund O'Brien took over as the second Johnny
Dollar and the character became more of the stereotypical
hardboiled American detective ( ). That's O'Brien (in the
front driver's seat) in the photo to the right, along
with Frank Lovejoy (in the front passenger
seat) of Nightbeat. This
picture is from the movie, The
Hitchhiker. The movie is not very good but it is
fun to see video of these two radio legends. Click the
title here and watch or download the movie from the Internet
Archive -- The
Hitchhiker (opens in
new window.)
However, there were some unusual devices used in the show
that helped set it apart from other detective shows. There was
no partner, assistant or secretary for Johnny. Also,
occasionally characters on the show would mention that they had
heard about Johnny's cases on the radio. Johnny often
used his time when filling out his expense account to give the
audience necessary background information or to express his
thoughts about the current case.
O'Brien left in 1952 and John Lund became Dollar number
three with barely a missed beat.
 In 1955 the actor that would be
Johnny Dollar in most people's minds, Bob Bailey,
took over. Bailey was fresh off of his long run as
George Valentine in Let George Do It. It was
with Bailey that the series really started to shine.
Changing to the experimental format of a 15-minute show
five times a week, the scripts got much deeper into
characterization and plot. And Bailey added character and
depth to the role. These are a blast to listen to
today -- listened one after another the become basically
one long hour and 15 minute episode.
But doing a daily show live was hard and by the end of 1956,
the series returned to thirty minute, once-a-week episodes. But
the power of the show continued, due a lot to the continued
presence of both Bailey and Director, Jack Johnstone.
Gradually, however, the insurance investigator began to
sound tired.
Bailey left the show when it moved to New York and Bob
Readick filled in for six months. Then in June, 1961,
Mandel Kramer became the last man to fill the role. He
was perhaps the second best of the Dollars filling the part
with a cynical humor.
Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar has the distinction (along with
Suspense) of being the last dramatic radio series from
the golden age of radio. Plans for a television series fell
through. A TV pilot show was made and aired in 1962 but
television executives felt that Bob Bailey just didn't "look
the part" of Johnny Dollar (Bailey stood 5-foot-9 and weighed
150-pounds) and that the public wouldn't accept another actor
in the role.
In January 2002, Moonstone
Books released a graphic novel of the radio show.
Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar is easily my favorite radio
series. I was lucky enough to get some episodes of the show
early in my collecting and I think it is the primary reason I
love OTR today. My life might be a lot different and
I might not be writing this today if the first show I heard was
Philo
Vance.
Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar investigated insurance
fraud on the air from February 11, 1949 to September 30,
1962 on CBS. There were 811 episodes in the 12-year run, and
over 720 still exist today.
And you can get ALL of the circulating episodes at the
Internet Archive thanks to our friends at the Old
Time Radio Researchers Group -
Click Here to Return to
the Home Page of Old Time Radio from Yours Truly Johnny
Dollar
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