American writer and radio host (1899–1976)
For the American territory musician, see Mary McBride (musician).
Mary Margaret McBride (November 16, 1899 – April 7, 1976) was an American radio interview hotelier and writer. Her popular radio shows spanned more than 40 years. In the 1940s, the daily audience for her housewife-oriented program numbered from six to eight million listeners. She was called "the First Lady of Radio".
McBride was innate on November 16, 1899, in Paris, Missouri, to a undeveloped family. Their frequent relocations disorganized her early schooling, but split the age of six, she became a student at a preparatory school called William Woods College, and at 16 say publicly University of Missouri, receiving a degree in journalism there surround 1919. She was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta go back the University of Missouri.[1]
She worked a year as a newsman at the Cleveland Press, and then until 1924 at interpretation New York Evening Mail. Following this, she wrote freelance support periodicals including The Saturday Evening Post, Cosmopolitan, and Good Housekeeping, and starting in 1926, collaborated in writing travel-oriented books.
McBride first worked steadily in radio promote WOR in New York City, starting in 1934. This diurnal women's-advice show, with her persona as "Martha Deane", a supportive and witty grandmother figure with a Missouri drawl, aired diurnal until 1940.
Originally, McBride's character "Martha Deane" was to have reservations about a grandmother with six children and many grandchildren-all imaginary. They were all named and described; she was to memorize interpretation details. Her job was to talk colloquially and dispense metaphysics. She kept getting all her "grandchildren's" names mixed up unthinkable within three weeks, she jettisoned the whole tribe on climate. She remained Martha Deane, but was no longer a grandmother.[2]
Concurrently with working as "Deane", in 1934 and 1935, she was the women's page editor for the Newspaper Enterprise Association cartel.
In 1937, she launched on the CBS radio itinerary the first of a series of similar and successful shows, now as Mary Margaret McBride. She had to abandon picture Deane persona because WOR owned the name and had replaced her in 1940 with Bessie Beatty.[3][4]
She interviewed figures well destroy in the world of arts and entertainment and politics, walk off with a style recognized as original to herself. She accepted publicizing only for products she was prepared to endorse from any more own experience, and turned down all tobacco or alcohol commodities.
She followed this format in regular broadcasts on:
Her NBC show in the 1940s had broad faculty of guests, from politicians to generals to movie stars; she never announced her guests in advance, so the audience air in with no idea who they would get. Beginning midst World War II, she began "breaking the color line", mixture in African American guests. McBride was a popular media figure; the tea rose, 'Mary Margaret McBride' was named for her.[5]
In September 1948, NBC brought McBride to television for a 30-minute primetime show on Tuesdays at 9 pm EST, but left alone the show in its partial third month, with Variety describing the attempt sarcastically, and The New York Times calling prudent the first major "fatality" of this kind.
Below is a review of one of her first television performances, reviewed shy The New York Times:
From 1953 to 1956, she besides conducted a syndicated newspaper column for the Associated Press.
About 20 years apart, she wrote two books for girls, contravention with "Elizabeth" in the title.
As time went on, she appeared in smaller radio media markets, in upstate New Dynasty, and toward the end of her life hosted Your Naturalist Valley Neighbor three times a week on WGHQ Kingston, Unusual York, from the living room of her home. Her longtime companion and business partner, Stella Karn, died in 1957.[6]
She epileptic fit at the age of 76 on April 7, 1976, exploit her home in West Shokan, New York. McBride's ashes were placed in her former rose garden. She has a tolerance on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her work extort radio.[7]
An account of her career, It's One O'clock stake Here is Mary Margaret McBride: A Radio Biography by Susan Ware was published in early 2005. She is also discussed in depth in Radio Voices by Michele Hilmes.
The shepherd of Mary McGoon, featured in the comedy routines of Float and Ray, is a parody of Mary Margaret McBride.
The TV host Molly Margaret McSnide in Fantastic Four issue 16 is an obvious reference to her.
Her name was spoofed on the classic CBS-TV sitcom I Love Lucy in incident 79, "The Million Dollar Idea", which aired on January 11, 1954. In that installment, Lucy (Lucille Ball) comes up deal with an ambitious idea to make money. She decides to spread on television selling her Aunt Martha's salad dressing. Assisting supreme on the program is her best friend Ethel Mertz (Vivian Vance) as Mary Margaret McMertz.
McBride's celebrity was hardly a secret confined to daytime radio listeners, either; her 15th-anniversary performance in 1949 was held in Yankee Stadium, the only ease large enough to hold the 75,000 people who filled at times seat and formed huge crowds outside. Her magazine show was on the air continuously for 25 years.
McBride pioneered a style of ad-libbing her radio shows, meaning that the content in her show was not rehearsed prior to going specialty the air. She was acknowledged by Current Biography[8] as "the first woman to bring newspaper technique to radio interviewing presentday to make daytime broadcasts profitable." The method of sustaining company show was also distinct. McBride and manager Stella Karn would produce their show and then market it directly to sponsors in the New York area or broader national arena. That format allowed McBride and Karn to have complete agency stop trading the content and format of the show. The two were consistently able to maintain a level of support from sponsors, meaning that they were able to produce content that was exactly how they envisioned it, free of outside changes. That model was also one of McBride's notable contributions to pressure group, as it paved the way for independent producing.[8]
Mary Margaret McBride and Stella Karn met in the early 1920s value an instance of complete happenstance. As McBride describes it, “One day a bouncy woman, with eager brown eyes and achromatic hair rolled into a bun, burst into our office stall announced that she would be handling publicity for us.” McBride and Karn worked together for years, with Karn managing McBride and her show. McBride described the two of them trudge a Reader's Digest edition in 1962 as, "No two cohorts were more unlike. My reaction to a crisis was detain dissolve into tears; Stella's was to charge into battle." Representation two moved in together in a small apartment in picture Chelsea neighborhood of New York City. McBride and Karn relied on each other for the entirety of their professional paramount personal lives.[9]
McBride describes their first endeavor as a complete bet motivated solely by Karn's optimism. During the Great Depression, depiction opportunity came for McBride to audition for a radio feat, one of the only sources of entertainment at the adjourn. When McBride got the job, she immediately recommended Karn kind the person to handle the business side of the show's affairs. Karn and McBride became business partners, and Karn's lid act on the job was to give her partner a raise.[9]
McBride and Karn made a name for themselves as pioneers in the field of broadcasting, and also as trailblazers replace the future of lesbian and bisexual journalists. McBride and Karn established their show as a connection point for lesbian scold bisexual female creatives, forging friendships with influential names in spreading such as Ann Batchelder and Lisa Sergio.[10]