AFFINITY, LOVE, AND JOY IN OLD-TIME RADIO

I FEEL AFFINITY for Frank Lovejoy’s old-time radio portrayal of Randy Stone, night-beat reporter for the Chicago Star. In real life, Daughter Beth, Michael, and their two kids, Lilly and Carter, reside in this city (sharing, I’m told, White Sox enthusiasm with Pope Leo XIV). 

The Chicago Star’s “Night Beat.” Wikipedia describes, “ ‘Night Beat,’ sometimes spelled ‘Nightbeat,’ is an NBC radio drama series that aired February 6, 1950—September 25, 1952, sponsored by Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer and Wheaties.” What’s more, it’s a regular feature on SiriusXM “Radio Classics.”

John Dunning observes in The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio, “Nightbeat was a superior series that focused as much on people as predicament. Frank Lovejoy, a distinctive radio voice, played the role of a reporter who cared about the human interest angle, and about the people who suffered through life’s hard knocks.” 

Dunning recounts, “He stumbled across ‘the wino dreaming of a muscatel paradise in cold dark doorways… painted little dames defying the world with their brassy laughter… the homeless, the hopeless.” 

But Not in “The Old Itch.” This one begins with Randy noting, “Sometimes the best stories a reporter gets are the ones he can’t print. They’re off-the-record conversations with people in high places.” 

Randy’s old pal Robbie is now Far East specialist Maynard Robertson, passing through town, staying at a small residential hotel on the north side, and looking forward to chatting with Stone, albeit all on the hush-hush. So much so that Randy has a helluva time even getting the desk clerk to believe the two are indeed old pals. 

Eventually Randy is on his way to the elevator when he’s accosted by an attractive young lady who identifies herself as Uncle Robbie’s niece.  

Indeed, she’s actually Kit Gaynor, a glamorous globe-trotting journalist intent on finagling a hot story with Maynard Robertson—which she manages to get. 

Later, Randy notes, “I planted myself at the Press Club bar and thought dark thoughts about Kit Gaynor. Sure I’d heard of her. She was one of those ‘first’ women, first to fly in a bomber, first in a jet, first to slip unnoticed onto a troop ship at the canal locks and go to the South Pacific. And most of all she was the first dame reporter to make a real chump out of me. I had a drink to each of her blue ribbons.”

Later, Stone and Gaynor meet at that Press Club bar. Stone: “How did you get in here? We got a rule about women.” Gaynor: “I’m a newspaperman. I hold press club cards all over the world, even in Chicago.” Stone: “I wish you were a newspaper man. I’d flatten you.”

But Then, Long-Distance Flirting Evolves. Kit is off to Europe after which Randy says, “One particular overseas operator and I became old friends.” The calls, of course, are all from Kit: “Elizabeth and Philip are a couple of dolls and they’re so in love. Oh, Stone. I miss you.” “Nobody else in Paris thinks of Chicago. I’m staying on the Left Bank. Picasso is really divine. Do you ever think about me, Stone?” And from Rome: “I warn you, Stone, if you’re fiddling while I’m away, I’ll really burn.” And Vienna: “I think I’m in love with you, Stone.”

Randy Reciprocates: “No, I didn’t forget her. And after awhile, I didn’t even try. At first, I was amused, then amazed.” 

Casting Stars. I’ll not give everything away, but will observe that “Nightbeat” was renowned for its casting stars of radio’s Golden Age: Among them were William Conrad, Parley Baer, and Howard McNear (Dodge City’s Marshal Matt Dillion, his sidekick Chester Proudfoot, and Doc Adams, respectively); Lurene Tuttle (Effie Perrine, Sam Spade’s charming and occasionally dizzy secretary); Peggy Webber (“What does Joe Friday’s mother have in common with Orson Welles’ Lady Macduff?”); and Joan Banks (“described as ‘a soapbox queen’ ” relates Wikipedia). 

Yes, that Frank Lovejoy. And, of course, Kit Gaynor was portrayed by Joan Banks. Talk about Love and Joy in Old-Time Radio. ds

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2026