Posted By Dan Greenfield on Dec 13, 2025 | 4 comments

Old-time radio programs — and their comics connections…

By PETER BOSCH

Welcome back to my inner sanctum. It’s time for another adventure in time travel when radio was king in the home. What TV is today, radio was in the 1930s and ’40s. And just like today, the airwaves were filled with programs that had ties to comics, pulps, and science fiction.

This time out in FOUR COLOR RADIO, we visit what was possibly the most famous radio series of all time — The Shadow!

The Shadow Magazine, August 1, 1933 (Street and Smith). Art by George Rozen.
(All images of the Shadow, the pulps, and the comic books and strips are © Condé Nast.)

It began in 1930, when a turn of the radio dial to CBS on a Thursday night at 9:30 would get the adults listening to Street & Smith’s Detective Story Hour, a series where stories from the same-titled magazine were read on the air. It turned out the big attraction was not the crime-ridden tales; it was the mysterious narrator who called himself — the Shadow.

The Shadow was voiced by James La Curto, a Broadway actor. When he soon left to do a play, Frank Readick took his place. It was Readick, with his distinctive voice and sinister laugh in the opening and closing moments, who remained with the program for years. What is not well known, even to many fans, is that there were six Detective Story film shorts made with Readick’s voice narrating as the Shadow. Three of the films have survived (see below), but three have not (Trapped, 1931; Sealed Lips, 1931; and The Red Shadow, 1932.)

A Burglar to the Rescue (1931):

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House of Mystery (1931):

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The Circus Show-Up (1932):

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In the above films, just like the radio series at that time, the Shadow was not the star of the program, nor did he yet participate in the stories. However, Street & Smith were soon to discover that the Shadow was why people tuned in each week. During the programs, listeners were told they could buy a copy of the current Detective Story Magazine at their local newsstand. What people kept asking the dealer for, though, was “that Shadow magazine.” Street & Smith got the hint.

Photo giveaway of Frank Readick as the Shadow.

In early 1931, the publisher held a $500 prize contest, inviting readers of the magazine and listeners of the radio program to write in with a description of how they pictured the Shadow. The winner was John G. Porter, who wrote that the Shadow was “…just over 40… tall and strikingly slender, with slim hands and small, narrow feet, yet possessing a giant’s strength… a tattooed cobra on his chest… college graduate… accomplished linguist.”

Walter B. Gibson, who would forever be associated with The Shadow, happened to be in the right place at the right time. He had dropped into the Street & Smith office for a writing assignment and they asked if he could quickly turn out a full-length pulp story of the character. He was respected as a fast writer and he did just that. Gibson’s “The Living Shadow” story appeared in the first issue (April 1, 1931) of their new pulp, The Shadow Magazine, with the writing credited to “Maxwell Grant,” a Street & Smith house name.

In a rush for a cover, The Shadow Magazine #1 (April 1931, Street & Smith) was given one recycled from The Thrill Book Vol. 3, #1 (October 1, 1919, Street & Smith). Art by John Coughlin.

With the third issue, October 1, 1931, the title went monthly. A year later, with its quickly increasing popularity, Street & Smith started publishing the pulp magazine twice a month.

Four “Twice A Month” issues with great George Rozen painted covers. Clockwise from top left: April 1, 1933; June 1, 1937; December 1, 1937; and June 15, 1937.

However, on radio, the Shadow was still just doing narration. This lasted through 1935, when the Shadow program disappeared into the ether.

Two years later, on Sunday, September 26, 1937, the Shadow got his own radio series, this time with the character actually based on the pulp action hero. And on that first program, the Shadow (and Lamont Cranston, of course) was played by a young actor, only 22 years of age… Orson Welles. Agnes Moorehead was Margo Lane from 1937 to 1939, and thereafter would go on to her excellent Hollywood career. (Margo, spelled “Margot” in the early scripts, appeared on the radio show before she was in the pulps.)

Orson Welles and Agnes Moorehead

An oft-repeated myth about Welles is that he had to give up playing the Shadow after the famous broadcast of The War of the Worlds on Oct. 30, 1938 put him in the spotlight. Yes, the producers of The Shadow liked playing up the mystery surrounding whoever was playing the part but the truth was Welles had left The Shadow series before The War of the Worlds broadcast in order to focus his attention on his Mercury Theatre stage plays and Mercury Theatre on the Air radio broadcasts. Bill Johnstone had taken over the Shadow and Cranston parts beginning with the September 25, 1938, episode, one month earlier.

(Left) The radio show premium for joining The Shadow Club in the 1930s was this silvered brass lapel pin. (right) In 1941, a Shadow glow-in-the-dark ring was offered by The Shadow’s radio sponsor, Blue Coal.

Bill Johnstone stayed with the program until March 1943, when the slouch hat and cloak was handed over to Bret Morrison, and in turn to John Archer and Steve Courtleigh. Morrison returned to the role in late 1945 and remained with the program until the last broadcast on December 26, 1954.

(Left) Bill Johnstone and (Right) Bret Morrison and Grace Matthews as the Shadow and Margo Lane.

The radio program also proved to be good training ground for its supporting cast, including several actors who also went on to Hollywood careers: Ray Collins, Everett Sloane, Keenan Wynn, and Alan Reed (later the voice of Fred Flintstone).

(Speaking of Hollywood, actors who have played the Shadow on film include Rod La Rocque, Victor Jory, Kane Richmond, and Alec Baldwin.)

Meanwhile, on the magazine side, by the time of its final publication in the summer of 1949, Walter Gibson had written over 280 of The Shadow stories. He also had written a number of the Street & Smith Shadow Comics.

The cover of The Shadow Magazine pulp for January 1, 1933, was reused for Shadow Comics #3 (May 1940, Street & Smith).

In addition, there was The Shadow newspaper comic strip, which ran from June 17, 1940, to June 20, 1942… and, yes, Gibson wrote that, too.

The Shadow June 21, 1940 newspaper strip. Written by Gibson. Art by Vernon Greene.

The Shadow has never been away from comic books for more than a few years at any one time. Archie, DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, and Dynamite have all kept the man of mystery alive for a very long while.

Batman #253 (Nov. 1973, DC). Cover art by Michael Wm. Kaluta.

In addition, in the Sixties and Seventies, there were a number of collectors’ record albums featuring episodes from the radio series. Today, though, we can count ourselves fortunate as over 200 of the original broadcasts have been preserved for decades and are now available online anytime we want to listen to them.

So, dim your lights and allow the classical strains of Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns’ “Le Rouet d’Omphale, Op. 31” (“Omphale’s Spinning Wheel”) to sweep over you as the Shadow intones, “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows.”

Here is the very first program from 1937 with Orson Welles.

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MORE

— Introducing a New Feature… FOUR COLOR RADIO. Click here.

— FOUR COLOR RADIO Presents: 1940’s THE BLUE BEETLE. Click here.

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13th Dimension contributor-at-large PETER BOSCH’s first book, American TV Comic Books: 1940s-1980s – From the Small Screen to the Printed Page, was published by TwoMorrows. (You can buy it here.) A sequel, American Movie Comic Books: 1930s-1970s — From the Silver Screen to the Printed Page, is out now. (Buy it here.) Peter has written articles and conducted celebrity interviews for various magazines and newspapers. He lives in Hollywood.