The Damon Runyon Theatre

The run

Network

Syndicated (Mayfair)

Years active

1940–1950

Surviving broadcasts

104

Genre

theatre

THE DAMON RUNYON THEATRE The Damon Runyon Theatre was another of Alan Ladd's Mayfair Transcription Company productions. Ladd, long an admirer of 'The Brighter Side', Damon Runyon's long-running newspaper column, initially signed Pat O'Brien to star as 'Broadway' in the program. Indeed we have an alleged audition from the program, titled "Princess O'Hara" in which O'Brien and Wendy Barrie are heard announcing the next production of the series, 'A Piece of Pie'. Newspaper listings of the era describe Pat O'Brien slated to cut all 52 programs upon completing principal filming of the Howard Hughes/RKO feature, The Boy with Green Hair . But the quixotic Hughes decided the 'message' element of The Boy with Green Hair was a bit too risky for late-1940s audiences. He directed that the film be re-shot, as needed, to remove the social intolerance message from the completed celluloid. Digitised by the Old Time Radio Researchers and streamed from the Internet Archive item “OTRR_Damon_Runyon_Singles”; these recordings are in the public domain.