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Ann Sothern was Maisie Ravier, a sassy and street-smart
American working woman turned woman of the world. That's
in the best sense of the words, of course.
MGM Studios had created the
series of ten motion pictures based on a brash blonde with
a heart "of spun gold." Maisie, the first
in 1939, was from the book "Dark Dame" by the
writer Wilson Collison, who did decades of scripting for
the silver screen along with Broadway plays and magazine
fiction.
From the first, MGM wanted
Ann Sothern to play Maisie. She began in Hollywood as an
extra in 1927. "Maisie and I were just together - I
just understood her," Sothern, born Harriette Arlene
Lake, said after several of the films made her a star.
Throughout the 1930s and '40s, Ann Sothern and Lucille
Ball, like many performers in Hollywood, had not one
but two careers - one in motion pictures and one on radio.
Ann had started in radio as early as 1935, appearing on
such variety shows as Rudy Vallee's "The Fleishman
Hour" and Bing Crosby's Kraft
Music Hall. She also did dramatic parts on "Woodbury
Playhouse," "Screen Guild Theatre," and the
biggest anthology of them all, Lux
Radio Theatre.
Throughout the 1940s, the Maisie pictures continued to
be released every couple of years. "Your pictures pay
for our mistakes," Arthur B. Mayer told her. "And
you'll just keep making Maisies as long as you do that."
In July, 1945, Ann took Maisie to radio in a half-hour
weekly radio for CBS. Famed radio actor Elliott Lewis co-starred
as boyfriend Bill, with other parts going to such seasoned
radio players as John Brown and Lurene Tuttle. The series
ran two seasons, and was revived in 1949 as a syndicated
program, now called The Adventures of Maisie. Included
in the repertory cast were Hans Conreid (later on Life
with Liugi), Sheldon Leonard, Joan Banks, Elvia
Allman, Bea Benadaret, and Sandra Gould.
The old time radio show continued in the tried and true Maisie
tradition of one part adventure of the emotional kind, one
part romance, and one part laughs. To the end Maisie was
the single girl, as this allowed her to get involved in
continuing adventures of many kinds. These radio adventures
of a liberated American "dame" from Brooklyn were
tailored to post-WWII, and featured Maisie making her way
(and having her way, most of the time) on both sides of
the Atlantic. Maisie's favorite comment - "Likewise,
I'm sure."
Sothern, due in great part to the Maisie films type-casting,
would ultimately admit she was "a Hollywood princess,
not a Hollywood queen." But in its time, the Maisie
series in film and on radio made her known and loved the
world over. And for many of us, Ann Sothern was a beautiful
and intelligent actress whose warmth and charm were singularly
beguiling. She continued to do TV (Private Secretary,
The Ann Sothern Show) and movie work (A Letter to
Three Wives, '49), and was nominated for an Academy
Award in 1987 for The Whales of August.She died March
15, 2001.
Other exceptional actresses with radio shows were Lucille
Ball, in My Favorite Husband, Eve
Arden in Our Miss Brooks, Lauren
Bacall in Bold Venture, Gertrude
Berg of The Goldbergs, and of course, Gracie
Allen of Burns and Allen.
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