- Himan Brown
Himan Brown (aka Hi Brown), {born
July 21 ,1910 ,New York City ,New York }, has been a highly prolific producer of radio programs for more than six decades. Producing for the major radio networks and also for syndication, Brown worked with such actors asHelen Hayes ,Boris Karloff ,Peter Lorre ,Gregory Peck ,Frank Sinatra andOrson Welles while creating thousands of radio programs.The son of a tailor from a shetl near the Ukrainian seaport of Odessa, Brown first learned about radio from a shop teacher at Brooklyn's Boys High School. At the age of 18, he began on New York's WEAF reading newspapers with a Yiddish dialect. One of his listeners was
Gertrude Berg who wanted him to play Jake, her husband on "The Goldbergs ", which he did for six months. He continued as a radio actor, and then he began to pitch shows directly to advertising agencies.During a span of 65 years, he produced more than 30,000 radio programs, including "
Bulldog Drummond ", "CBS Radio Mystery Theater , "Dick Tracy", "The General Mills Radio Adventure Theater ", "Grand Central Station",Inner Sanctum Mysteries ", "Terry and the Pirates" and numerous daytime soap operas.When television arrived, Brown produced 26 episodes of the syndicated "Inner Sanctum" TV series, plus a daytime show, "Morning Matinee". Realizing that "all these guys making TV, they have to have a set," he profited by buying studios in Chelsea that were then used for 35 years by New York TV production firms. [http://www.himanbrown.com/library.htm "Keeping His Foot in a Creaking Door, a Radio Pioneer Clings to Tradition," "The New York Times", October 7, 2003.] ]
Through his non-profit educational foundation, Brown produced "They Were Giants", radio programs dramatizing the lives of such literary figures as Walt Whitman and H.G. Wells. "We, The Living", fact-based dramas about the lives of senior citizens.
A member of the Radio Hall of Fame, Brown is the recipient of the American Broadcast Pioneer and the Peabody Award. Brown has taught audio drama at Brooklyn College and the School of Visual Arts. He has lived at the same apartment on Central Park West sine 1938.
References
External links
* [http://www.himanbrown.com/ Himan Brown official site]
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