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The year was 1930. To boost sales of their Detective Story Magazine, pulp publishers Street and Smith decided to sponsor a radio program where an announcer read stories from the magazine.
Rather than referring to him as "the guy who reads the stories," a man at Street and Smith's ad agency suggested naming him The Shadow.
Soon customers began asking for a pulp magazine of that name.
No such magazine existed at the time -- but Street and Smith knew an opportunity when they saw one, and quickly decided to created just such a title.
In time The Master of Darkness recruited numerous agents, among them the mysterious Burbank.
Little is known about Burbank, other than the fact that he is an "old friend" of the Master of Darkness, and that his mission is to facilitate communication among agents.
The Shadow copyright Advance magazine Publishers, Inc./ The Condé Nast Pubs.
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REPORT 7:
The FIRST RADIO SHADOW!
In 1930, Pulp publisher Street and Smith hit upon a unique, cross-promotional gimmick: they would increase sales of their Detective Story Magazine by sponsoring a weekly radio program dramatizing its stories, hosted by a sinister-sounding narrator named... The Shadow!
Broadway actor James La Curto was chosen to play the part, and when Detective Story Magazine Hour premiered on July 31, 1930, La Curto became the first person to give voice to the radio Shadow .
La Curto's publicity photos show the evolution of the character's appearance from his early hooded look (right) to the more familiar slouch hat and cloak uniform (pictured at top).
But in the beginning, The Shadow was just a narrator. He had no involvement in the weekly dramas, and thus very few lines. Perhaps feeling under-utilized, La Curto voiced The Shadow for just a handful of episodes.
He left the show and returned to Broadway, starring in the drama "The Noble Experiment." The play, set in a steel workers camp in Michigan, opened on October 27, 1930. Following that, La Curto appeared in the comedy "Company's Coming," (opened April 20, 1931), playing a chara
cter with the Shadow-esque appellation of "The Nameless One."
All together, La Curto starred in more than a dozen Broadway productions, yet today, this stage actor is best remembered for his brief engagement off-stage... as the first person EVER to voice the radio Shadow.
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"MAGIC TRICKS FOR ALL AGES"
by WALTER B. GIBSON!
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