Lurene Tuttle Collection

Lurene Tuttle
(1907 – 1986)

Actress in The Great Gildersleeve and The Adventures of Sam Spade, Lurene Tuttle was also a utility actress who was snapped up by series after series for minor and one-off parts, to the point that she sometimes taped fifteen episodes in a week.

Lurene Tuttle's most prominent and probably most memorable role was that of Effie Perrine, Sam Spade's secretary, on the acclaimed series The Adventures of Sam Spade.  Lee Patrick played the quirky office assistant in the original film, but William Spier had other designs for radio.  Recall, Spier was a veteran radio producer, and had worked with Tuttle on Suspense on many occasions.  He felt that she would add a certain nuance to the role of Effie.  Lurene was just about to turn forty when she began her work on Spade: she understood, having honed this skill in previous parts, how to deliver a certain matronly quality, a way of showing a certain wisdom and experience through which a male character's exploits might be frustrating and foolhardy, even in a charming way.  In this manner, Tuttle forged a wonderful chemistry with Howard Duff (and, on occasion, Stephen Dunne), who voiced the inimitable Mr. Spade.

Lurene Tuttle came to this role not long after finishing a long run on the hit series The Great Gildersleeve.  You'll recall that this series was a spin-off, featuring Throckmorton Philharmonic Gildersleeve from Fibber McGee and Molly.  Tuttle's job was, as an actress in her mid-thirties, to voice Marjorie, Throckmorton's teenage niece.   Her work in this capacity pre-figured the authority she'd bring to the role of of Effie in Spade.  For, she played Marjorie not as a typical teenager, but as one mature beyond her years, a no-nonsense foil to a comical male character.

Lurene Tuttle would toil to dutifully give strong performances in series such as Suspense, Mystery House, Twelve Players, Theatre of Romance, Hollywood Star Time, Strange Wills, Maxwell House Coffee Time, Lights Out, Rogue's Gallery and more.  

As befits a regular workhorse, Lurene Tuttle also engaged in a sort of labor movement within the radio industry.  She felt passionately about the working conditions of radio actors.  They weren't paid for rehearsals and often felt they weren't making a living wage and weren't properly respected.  Lurene Tuttle became a charter member of AFRA, American Federation of Radio Artists.  This seems to have cost her some work--anti-labor sentiments caused board members to be on the receiving end of some ostracism--but ultimately she always had a full schedule.

No profile of Lurene Tuttle would be complete without mentioning that, while our interest here is in radio, Lurene was also in the TV seires "Life With Father," "Father of the Bride," and "Julia."

Clearly, an actress's stock in trade is her voice.  It is her ticket to transforming herself, to becoming, essentially, anyone the part calls for.  Lurene Tuttle was very able to play, on the radio, younger characters, and those that she found more glamorous or completely other from her.