Truly Silent Stars

[sepiatone]

OTR (old time radio) is a rich source of silent film voices. I remember one episode of Lux Radio Theatre which I believe featured both Theda Bara, who sounded like your maiden aunt, and Frank Borzage, who didn't sound a bit like I would have expected him to. I think William S. Hart also did some radio work. You can certainly hear his Shakespearean stage training in his prologue to the reissue of Tumbleweeds.

The Theda Lux broadcast for CB DeMille was with W.S. Van Dyke rather than Frank Borzage. I could be mistaken or she did another appearance with Borzage.

[Brooksie]

OTR (old time radio) is a rich source of silent film voices. I remember one episode of Lux Radio Theatre which I believe featured both Theda Bara, who sounded like your maiden aunt, and Frank Borzage, who didn't sound a bit like I would have expected him to. I think William S. Hart also did some radio work. You can certainly hear his Shakespearean stage training in his prologue to the reissue of Tumbleweeds.

The Theda Lux broadcast for CB DeMille was with W.S. Van Dyke rather than Frank Borzage. I could be mistaken or she did another appearance with Borzage.

I'm sure you're right - there was a period when I'd listen to a Lux a day, and I probably conflated those two episodes.

For anyone who thinks that Theda gave her career away willingly - it's hard to find a single interview from her later years where she doesn't announce plans for a comeback, including this one. I suspect hers was one of those old fashioned marriages where the husband (in this case, director Charles Brabin) didn't want his wife to work. She probably could have done well in the kind of daffy society dame roles Billie Burke played in her later career.

[fivnten]

In answer to a question posed in this discussion "was Florence Lawrence ever recorded" some years ago, I tracked her down in this Warner Bros. 1932 Barbara Stanwyck talkie ("So Big") - in a small, uncredited - but recognisable appearance - despite the fact that she had had a "nose job" since her starring days. I clipped the scene and popped it up on my YouTube channel. Have yet to find her in another speaking role.
Link here:
https://youtu.be/OOuDt50Oov4\

[ajabrams]

Florence Lawrence also shows up (with a few lines) in the 1931 Hoot Gibson western "The Hard Hombre." It's available on TUBI television. She appears at about 44 minutes and 30 seconds into the film.

[Frame Rate]

How about actors "re-creating" their silent-movie performances on radio? Here's Noah Beery doing just that for Orson Welles' production of BEAU GESTE: https://archive.org/details/CampbellPla ... 7BeauGeste

Or this oddity, a famous movie director not playing himself in the after-show chit-chat about a radio "re-creation" of his best-remembered silent film: https://archive.org/details/TheLodgerSuspense

[wich2]

Beery's not so good there; ditto, Anna May Wong in her Mercury/Campbell's stint:

https://archive.org/details/OrsonWelles ... +Wong).mp3

As far as the Fake Hitch, that was not uncommon in Classic Radio. It was referred to as, "appearing by Proxy," and among others, it is said that the Col. Herbert Norman Schwarzkopf (Sr.), 1st Superintendent of the New Jersey State Police, heard on GANGBUSTERS, was - at least sometimes - an actor.

It is also rumored that Hans Conried appeared as Jack Barrymore, when the latter was too far in his cups. And of course, the FDR (Art Carney), Hitler, etc., heard on MARCH OF TIME, were also usually portrayals.

- Craig

[wich2]

There are also some rarely-heard Silent voices in this excellent 1962 Mutual Radio series:

https://www.wnyc.org/series/memoirs-of-the-movies

[Frame Rate]

As far as the Fake Hitch, that was not uncommon in Classic Radio. It was referred to as, "appearing by Proxy,"

- Craig

A high school friend, daughter of our town's longtime Chief of Police, once pointed out to me a framed document hanging on the wall in her family home. It was an "official certificate" (signed by Phillips H. Lord) thanking her dad for "narrating by proxy" a Gangbusters episode based on the apprehension of some local bank robbers!