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AMAZING SECRET ORIGIN STORIES PRESENTS
THE SECRET ORIGIN OF THE HOODED SHADOW!
The Shadow’s famous slouch hat is as much a part of the character as is his mocking laughter -- but originally, the Master of Darkness first appeared garbed not with a slouch hat, but in a HOOD. Where did  the hood come from? When was it replaced with the slouch hat? And WHY? It's time to lift the hood, once and for all.
Mysterious, hooded figures can be traced all the way back to the Grim Reaper -- the personification of death as a mysterious, hooded figure . The Shadow didn’t raid death's closet for his look, but he may have borrowed an outfit from a fellow pulp character called “The Shadow Of Wall Street.”
The character first appeared in February 1929, in Street and Smith’s Fame and Fortune pulp (pictured right). This Shadow was a mysterious, green-hooded specter who haunted Manhattan’s financial district with his mocking laughter. His real name was Compton Moore, and he appeared just a single time, in Fame and Fortune.
This pulp's cover was probably the first model for the Shadow's visualization. Below is an illustration from the story's splash page, showing The Shadow Of Wall Street in a full-face hood and pinstriped outfit completely different from the green, spectral image seen on the Fame and Fortune cover: |
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 THE RADIO SHADOW: BOY 'N' THE HOOD!
Magazine publishers Street and Smith created a radio program to promote their "Detective Story Magazine" pulp. Broadway actor James Lacurto (pictured left and below) was chosen to play the show's narrator, and The Detective Story Hour premiered on July 31, 1930 -- about a year and a half after "The Shadow of Wall Street" had debuted in Fame and Fortune.
Lacurto quickly left the radio show and returned to Broadway, starring in a drama that opened on October 27, 1930. Given the dates, Lacurto could have voiced as many as 12, but if we take into account several months of Broadway rehearsal time, it seems more probable that Lacurto narrated as few as three episodes of The Detective Story Hour.
Since it was a radio drama, there was no way for the audience to know what the show’s narrator looked like. He was never seen -- except in publicity photos provided by the radio network, CBS. Several shots of Lacurto survive, and in them (pictured left  and below, right), the actor can be seen wearing a hood. This was how the RADIO Shadow was originally envisioned -- like “The Shadow of Wall Street” -- wearing a hood!
BIRTH OF THE SHADOW PULP MAGAZINE!
The radio program had been created to promote DETECTIVE STORY, but soon listeners rus
hed to newsstands asking for “THE SHADOW” magazine! Unfortunately, no such magazine existed -- so Street and Smith decided to create one. The new pulp was planned as a quarterly,
Street and Smith circulation manager William Ralston called in the troops, to brainstorm. A meeting that included Frank Blackwell, who was to be the new pulp's editor, as well as a few other staff members, produced a list of suggestions for the new character. This list was given to magician/journalist Walter B. Gibson, who was hired to write eight Shadow novels, covering the first two years of publication.
Did Ralston's list of suggestions include "wear a black hood"? We can't be sure, but the list was later used as a series of clews in a "Guess The Shadow's Appearance" contest (covered in DBB #4-5), and they do not mention a hood. Walter Gibson had never seen the Compton Moore Shadow prior to writing his first Shadow novel, so the Moore character could not have influenced Gibson's conception of the Shadow's appearance, which included the slouched hat. So where did the hood come from?
All signs point to the hood having come directly from the radio show's publicity photos, which were probably influenced by the hooded "Shadow of Wall Street," as  well as the traditional hooded image of the Grim Reaper.
The Shadow #1 (cover shown left) hit the stands in 1931, and Street and Smith were shocked when it completely sold out. So did succeeding issues. In response, the title was made a monthly, and promoted with an ad picturing The Shadow wearing a hood!
Why not a slouch hat? Because the hooded radio Shadow was gaining in popularity with each passing week, and Street and Smith wanted the public to know that the PULP Shadow was the same character as the RADIO Shadow. In fact, the illustration in the ad (below left) is a composite of publicity pics of hooded James Lacurto! |
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THE HOOD VS. THE HAT!
The Shadow pulp was selling like hotcakes, and it was decided to increase its frequency from monthly to TWICE a month. The sudden increase was shocking -- not to Gibson, who churned out Shadow novels like a finely-tuned machine constructed just for that purpose -- but to Street and Smith’s art directors. The first two covers of The Shadow had been reprinted from old pulps. Now, The Shadow would suddenly require a brand-new painting not just monthly, but TWICE a month!
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To maintain maximum identification with the radio show, it was decided that covers would feature both the hooded Shadow and the hatted Shadow. The first two covers had been reprints. On The Shadow #3's main scene (shown above, left), The Shadow is seen in silhouette wearing a slouch hat -- but he is ALSO seen in the cover's lower right hand corner, sporting his “Shadow of Wall Street” radio hood. It's even green! This same hat/hood format was continued for the next three issues, as seen above.
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THE SILVER SHADOW!
The hooded Shadow looms large on the cover of The Shadow #6 (below) in a full page, oval portrait -- surrounded by SILVER ink, an expensive “extra” usually reserved for special issues of established titles. The painting interrupted the gradual move towards the slouch hat because it had been commissioned several months earlier, for use at some unspecified future date.
And although the cover, painted by George Rozen, was certainly foreboding and mysterious, it was a static portrait with little or no drama. It emphasized the pulp magazine's direct connection with the popular radio show, but would that be enough to make it SELL on America's crowded newsstands? Street and Smith wouldn't know until sales figures on the "Silver Hood" issue came in, which typically occurred three months after an issue's publication. |
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Meanwhile, although the main scene on the cover of The Shadow #7 (below, left) pictured our hero in a cape and hat, the corner still showed a hooded Shadow. The Shadow #8 (below, right) saw the debut of The Shadow all decked out in black cape with red lining, wearing a slouch hat -- a uniform still he retains to this day -- yet the corner still pictured him in a hood, to maintain identification with the hooded radio Shadow.
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THE GOLDEN SHADOW!
Soon the slouch-hatted version of the character became firmly implanted in the public mind, and there was no longer any need for the pulp to continue featuring the hooded Shadow of the radio show -- but when sales figures for the “Silver Hood” cover finally came in, and showed it had sold through the roof, ever-thrifty Street and Smith couldn't resist reprinting the best-selling cover at least one more time. They decided to reuse the image immediately, with two changes... |
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This time, the hooded Shadow was surrounded by metallic GOLD ink, and framed by the story's title, "Mobsmen On The Spot." The guilded cover of The Shadow #9, April 1932 (shown above), marks the final appearance of the hooded Shadow. Goodbye, hooded Shadow. We hardly knew ye!
POSTSCRIPT: HAT BEATS HOOD!
In 1934, James Lacurto temporarily replaced Frank Readick as the radio Shadow, and a new publicity photo of Lacurto (seen below
) was taken. It shows the actor sporting not his old hood, but the famous slouch hat. The hood had met the hat -- each struggling in the public mind to become an essential part of the iconic image of the Master of Darkness -- and the hat had won.
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THE END!
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RICK LAI'S DEFINITIVE SHADOW TIMELINE
CHRONOLOGY OF SHADOWS!
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