"Another transcribed adventure of the man with the action-packed expense account, America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator: Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar!"
Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar was a detective series that ran over CBS from February 11, 1949 until September 30, 1962. It was one of the very last old-time radio shows, ceasing its broadcast run on the same night CBS cancelled Suspense. The role of Johnny Dollar was played by Charles Russell (1949-1950), Edmond O'Brien (1950-1952), John Lund (1952-1954), Bob Bailey (1955-1960; also known for Let George Do It), Bob Readick (1960-1961) and Mandel Kramer (1961-1962). However, it should be stated up front that of them all, Bob Bailey not only had the longest-run, but today, his episodes continue to be the most thoroughly circulated among all episodes of Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar; to many fans, Bob Bailey is Johnny Dollar.
In every iteration, Johnny Dollar was an insurance investigator working out of Hartford, Connecticut, who would be sent by insurance companies to investigate their clients' insurance claims. This would involve an element of mystery and usually some danger as Johnny would inevitably find someone trying to steal or destroy an insured item, kill an insured person, or commit insurance fraud. The stories were narrated by Johnny as he indicated the various expenses he incurred on his account. In the early years, he sometimes traveled to investigate clients in exotic locales in Europe, Asia or the Caribbean; but usually, he was stateside. Initially, his tagline "yours truly" came with an implied question mark and his employers would complain about how he'd pad his expense account; that was dropped in time as Johnny became increasingly virtuous; by the time of Bob Bailey, his integrity was unassailable.
An audition program from December 7, 1948 still exists but although the script would turn up on the eventual series, the production is quite different from the eventual series; it was produced by Anton M. Leader (Words at War, Murder at Midnight, Suspense) and starred Dick Powell (who was in between Rogue's Gallery and Richard Diamond, Private Detective at the time)! It's even more surreal hearing Bob Bailey as the bad guy in the 2nd version of the pilot (which was Charles Russell's audition)! Leader didn't stick around past the original pilot, with Richard Sanville producing the series in its early days.
Richard Diamond seemed to haunt the series at times; in "Murder Ain't Minor" (August 7, 1949), Dollar quipped to his client, "There's any number of good licensed private detectives that you could have gone to: Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade and Richard Diamond-- and he would not only have solved your case he would also sing you a song; why did you come to me?" In a final, strange connection, a script from Richard Diamond, Private Detective was recycled with Johnny Dollar as "The Shayne Bombing Matter" (July 14, 1953)!
The series was sustained by CBS for most of its run but Wrigley's served as their sponsor from 1950-1954.
Early episodes had very typical titles but as of "The Abel Tackett Matter" (May 2, 1950) the series set itself apart from others by using "Matter" in the title of every episode. At times in the John Lund era the show would play like a police procedural; "The Dameron Matter" (April 21, 1953) for example, featured Johnny working alongside the police to solve a crime connected to his insurance company.
Music in early episodes was by Leith Stevens, who was also scoring Escape at the time - and indeed, the two shows had very similar organ music then. Wilbur Hatch took over the music when it shifted away from the organ to orchestral; music was mostly canned by 1955 but the series did at least have its own unique music bridges and themes (unlike NBC where every dramatic show used the same music library).
Bob Bailey's initial tenure on the series saw a switch from the half-hour format to a 15-minute Monday-Friday format in 1955. In this era, Johnny would usually solve a single case over 5 days (but some cases ran into 2 weeks). The serialized Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar is probably the most-beloved version of the series (it was my introduction to the program) and these days some fans have edited them into uninterrupted dramas that run about 1 hour each. But this format change only lasted for a year before reverting to the half-hour version.
The Bob Bailey years also included the one time Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar featured a guest star - Vincent Price, who portrayed himself as Johnny's client in "The Price of Fame Matter" (February 2, 1958). It's a fun episode for us Vincent Price fans. On the completion of Bailey's fifth year as Johnny Dollar the program celebrated with "The Five Down Matter" (September 25, 1960), with appearances by most of Johnny's supporting characters.
Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar didn't have a supporting cast in the way most detective programs did. There were all sorts of recurring characters but they didn't appear in every episode; in the Bailey years, Johnny had a girlfriend, Betty Lewis (Virginia Gregg, who previously starred opposite Bailey on Let George Do It), but she only appeared when it suited the plot. Similarly, Johnny had all sorts of insurance company representatives who would send him on his assignments, such as Pat McCracken (usually played by Lawrence Dobkin), but as Johnny was a freelancer he took his assignments from a variety of different companies. There were recurring clients as well, such as the wealthy eccentric Alvin Cartwright (Howard McNear).
The series was produced in Hollywood until 1960, when it moved to New York (costing them Bailey as their lead). It had benefited from CBS' terrific cast of Hollywood radio regulars, including William Conrad, Lawrence Dobkin, Parley Baer, John Dehner, Georgia Ellis, Virginia Gregg, Joseph Kearns, Howard McNear and Raymond Burr. In New York, it drew from the likes of Jackson Beck, Santos Ortega, William Redfield, Raymond Edward Johnson, Luis Van Rooten and Maurice Tarplin -- the same voices heard on Suspense in its own twilight years.
I count myself as a typical Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar fan in that I prefer the Bob Bailey years. The Edmund O'Brien years have some interest, particularly as they have longer stories (the Baily half-hours used lots of commercials), but I don't have much interest in the New York years - I found Mandel Kramer in particular to be an uninteresting Johnny Dollar.
The Old Time Radio Researchers have a YouTube playlist containing 721 episodes of Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar! It includes all the audition recordings and, where the broadcast versions haven't been found uses what are clearly rehearsal versions (particularly in the Edmond O'Brien era).
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