Abie's Irish Rose
The only three episodes of this vintage radio show that are known to have survived. If you remember television's short-lived Bridget Loves Bernie in the early 1970s, this radio show---around the marriage of a Jewish boy and a Roman Catholic girl---was its antecedent, based on the 1927 Broadway hit. The plots usually hooked around disputes between their fathers that usually ended up with a good if skittery laugh; the show was a hit in 1942 but slipped and fell away by 1944. Abie Levy: Sydney Smith, Richard Coogan, Richard Bond, Bud Collyer. (Yep---THAT Bud Collyer.) Rosemary Levy: Betty Winkler, Mercedes McCambridge, Julie Stevens (better known as the title character in The Romance of Helen Trent), Marion Shockley. Solomon Levy: Alan Reed. (You remember him as Falstaff in the "Allen's Alley" routines.) Patrick Joseph Murphy (Rose's father): Walter Kinsella. The Cohens: Menasha Skulnik, Anna Appel. David Lerner: Carl Eastman. Casey: Ann Thomas. Father Whelan: Bill Adams. The twins (Abe and Rose had twins on Christmas Day, 1942!): Dolores Gillen. Director: Joe Rines. Writer: Anne Nichols. Air times: NBC, 8 p.m. Saturdays. Sponsor: Drene Shampoo
This recording is part of the Old Time Radio collection.