Episode 464 – Dear John (The Judge, Frontier Gentleman, Have Gun - Will Travel, & The Whistler)

Down These Mean Streets (Old Time Radio Detectives)

We're saluting John Dehner - the Disney animator and award-winning radio news editor who became one of the radio era's best actors and a great big and small screen character actor from the 50s to the 80s. He found his biggest radio fame in a pair of westerns - Frontier Gentleman and Have Gun - Will Travel - but he was heard all over the dial in everything from Escape to Family Theatre. We'll hear him in the audition recording for The Judge, where he plays a retired judge and unofficial police consultant (recorded March 13, 1952). Then, he's English reporter J.B. Kendall in "Kendall for the Defense" from Frontier Gentleman (originally aired on CBS on April 13, 1958) and the man called Paladin in "The Wager" from Have Gun - Will Travel (originally aired on CBS on July 26, 1959). Finally, Dehner plays an embezzler who may turn to murder in "Rebound" from The Whistler (originally aired on CBS on June 11, 1950).