Racket Squad - "Beauty for Hire" - 12:30 am Tuesday, December 23 on KPLE The Walk

Reed Hadley (Actor) .. Capt. John Braddock

Born: January 01, 1911
Died: December 11, 1974

Trivia: While the name and face may not be familiar, the voice of Reed Hadley will be instantly recognizable to filmgoers of the 1940s. Working as an actor by night and floorwalker by day, the tall, spare Hadley began picking up radio gigs in the 1930s. His best-known airwaves assignment was the voice of western hero Red Ryder. In films from 1938, Hadley spent his first few years before the camera bouncing around between heroes and heavies; he starred in the 1939 serial Zorro's Fighting Legion, and was seen briefly as a burlesqued Hollywood matinee idol in W.C. Fields' The Bank Dick (1940). Signed by 20th Century-Fox in 1943, Hadley appeared onscreen and served as the offscreen narrator of such "docudramas" as House on 92nd Street (1945), Call Northside 777 (1947) and Boomerang (1947). From 1950 through 1953, Hadley starred as Captain Braddock, the unctuous, chain-smoking star/narrator of the popular TV series Racket Squad; in 1954, he played a similar role on the 39-week series Public Defender. Considering the fact that Reed Hadley's deep, persuasive voice was his fortune, it is ironic that his last screen role was a non-speaking supporting part in Roger Corman's The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967).

Karen Sharpe (Actor)

Born: September 20, 1934

Dorothy Patrick (Actor)

Born: January 01, 1921
Died: May 31, 1987

Trivia: She was billing herself under her given name of Dorothy Davis when she made a name for herself as the "Chesterfield Girl." The well-proportioned young photographer's model won a Gateway to Hollywood contest in 1939, but opted instead for a marriage to star hockey player Lynn Patrick. When she finally did begin making films in 1946, the blonde beauty had changed her professional and personal name to Dorothy Patrick. After a brief flurry of stardom in such Republic programmers as Blonde Bandit (1949) and Destination Big House (1950), Dorothy Patrick settled into decorative walk-on roles in major releases like The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) and Singin' in the Rain (1952), before retiring in the late '50s.

Gil Fry (Actor)

Joe Sawyer (Actor)

Born: January 01, 1905
Died: April 21, 1982

Trivia: Beefy, puffy-faced Canadian actor Joseph Sawyer spent his first years in films (the early- to mid-'30s) acting under his family name of Sauer. Before he developed his comic skills, Sawyer was often seen in roles calling for casual menace, such as the grinning gunman who introduces "Duke Mantee, the well-known killer" in The Petrified Forest (1936). While under contract to Hal Roach studios in the 1940s, Sawyer starred in several of Roach's "streamliners," films that ran approximately 45 minutes each. He co-starred with William Tracy in a series of films about a GI with a photographic memory and his bewildered topkick: Titles included Tanks a Million (1941), Fall In (1942), and Yanks Ahoy (1943) (he later reprised this role in a brace of B-pictures produced by Hal Roach Jr. for Lippert Films in 1951). A second "streamliner" series, concerning the misadventures of a pair of nouveau riche cabdrivers, teamed Sawyer with another Roach contractee, William Bendix. Baby boomers will remember Joe Sawyer for his 164-episode stint as tough but soft-hearted cavalry sergeant Biff O'Hara on the '50s TV series Rin Tin Tin.

Jean Bartel (Actor)

Racket Squad: Beauty for Hire

12:30 am - 01:00 am, Today on KPLE The Walk (31.3)

Beauty for Hire

Season 3, Episode 6