Bob Sweeney Collection

Bob Sweeney
(1918 – 1992)

Many of the Los Angeles "Radio Row" actors worked in radio as a way to make a living while pursuing a screen acting career. When sponsor dollars began to flow to television, it was an easy step for many Radio Row denizens to make the move to TV, even though there were some very important differences between Radio and TV.

Although in the early days many considered the small screen to be little more than 'radio with pictures', TV was more complex and technical than radio by orders of magnitude. On radio, a single voice actor could perform several different parts in several different productions, and 'doubling', playing more than one character in a single episode, was a common cost-cutting practice.

TV actors were recognized by their faces, they had to deal with makeup and wardrobe, use props, and had to actually learn their lines rather than simply reading from a script while performing as was common practice in front of the mic in a radio studio. Perhaps the biggest stumbling block in transitioning from radio to TV was that producers felt that many Radio Row actors simply had "a face for radio".

Prolific radio actor Bob Sweeney made the transition to TV by working off-screen, where his experience with the technical side of radio worked in his favor as a TV director. Bob was born in San Francisco, 1918, and graduated from Balboa High School and San Francisco State College where he majored in Speech with ambitions to work as a radio announcer. He drove a taxicab for some time before passing an audition at KYA San Francisco in 1942.

Little KYA had been one of the pioneering stations in the Bay Area, but never quite made it in competition with the networks. The station changed hands many times over the years and had affiliations with Pacific Broadcasting Corporation, West Coast Theatres, CBS, the American Broadcasting Company (not the ABC which grew out of the Blue Network, however), the Northwest Broadcasting System, NBC's Westcoast Orange and Gold Networks, the Hearst Newspapers, and finally as an independent broadcaster about the time Sweeney came on as an announcer. Sweeney was eventually raised to chief announcer at KYA, but his biggest success was teaming with fellow announcer Hal March to form The Sweeney and March Show. When KYA went through another ownership change in 1945, Sweeney and March moved on and were hired for NBC's Hoagy Carmichael Show before winning their own show on CBS.

The act apparently broke up by the early 1950's. Hal March found work as host of TV's $64,000 Question and his career would be irreparably damaged by the "Quiz Show Scandal". Sweeney found several short-lived radio acting jobs and began to break into TV in radio-related roles. His first TV job was as a gardener on The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show between 1950 and '53. He also had small, recurring roles in the TV versions of Our Miss Brooks (1952-'56), The Life of Riley (1953), The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1952-'53), and My Favorite Husband (1953-'54). He was selected to star with Cathy Lewis in the TV adaptation of Fibber McGee and Molly (1959-'60). Although Sweeney and Lewis could sound like Jim and Marian Jordan, who were unable to take the roles for age and health reasons, the show's biggest shortcoming was not having Don Quinn's writing.

During the same season that Fibber and Molly was failing so miserably, Bob was hired to direct three episodes of the sitcom Love and Marriage at Desilu Studios. Sweeney had finally found his niche as a TV director, credited with dozens of episodes of The Andy Griffith Show, That Girl, The Courtship of Eddie's Father, Hogan's Heroes, Hawaii Five-0, Dynasty, Fantasy Island, The Dukes of Hazzard, Trapper John M.D., MacGyver, Matlock, and several other programs.

Cancer took Bob Sweeney on July 7, 1992. He was 73.