Before
the publication of Suspense: Twenty Years of Thrills and Chills (1998),
most books about old-time radio consisted of spiral bound independent
publications with episode numbers, titles, broadcast dates and, on occasion,
celebrity guests. When Martin Grams self-published Suspense: Twenty Years of
Thrills and Chills, he changed the way old-time radio was documented in
book form. Instead of a "log" of radio broadcasts, the author
provided an "episode guide" with plot summaries, writer credits
including story origin, assorted trivia related to the broadcasts... and he
documented more than the radio program. Suspense was also a network
prime-time television program, spawned movies, imitations, spoofs, two separate
runs of mystery magazines and a number of comic books. So comprehensive was his
Suspense book that Martin was repeatedly asked, "What is your next
project?" Little did the 18-year-old know at the time that his books would
ultimately inspire and influence the way old-time radio would be documented.
We wanted to know about Martin's drive to become a writer.
M:
I never had intentions of becoming a writer. I wrote a book on Suspense because
I had broadcast logs from two different historians and I noticed there was
conflicting material between the two. I also wanted to know more about the
program. So I set out to write a book about the show and write something I
could pull off my book shelf as a reference guide when I needed. Initially I
did wrote the Suspense book for myself, with no intention of making
copies and selling it until a few good folks convinced me to do so.... I had no
college education. I was in my senior year at high school. But it turns out a
lot of people were enthusiastic about the book. After it was published, people
started asking me what my next book project was, so I figured people liked what
I did and I set out to do another, The History of the Cavalcade of America.
What
books have you written for BearManor, and what are they about?
M:
I wrote a few books for BearManor. Information, Please documents the
history of the radio program, as well as the television program, film shorts
and encyclopedia named after the radio program. The Railroad Hour was a
project I co-authored with Gerald Wilson because I had a lot of material on
hand about the program and Gerald needed a little help with his project. I
Led 3 Lives documented the history of the television program produced by
Ziv-TV in the fifties. It's a piece of historical propaganda now and hasn't
been televised in reruns since the early sixties. My latest was The Time
Tunnel which documented the history of the Irwin Allen television series. I
recently finished a book about Duffy's Tavern that has been ten years in
the making. It should be published before the end of the year.
Why
did you choose those particular subjects?
M:
There is usually a story behind each of the books about how I choose to write
about them. But the biggest factor is -- and always has been -- what subject
needs to be documented for the sake of preservation. I wrote a book
about Invitation to Learning, an obscure radio program from 1940 to
1964, that fell into obscurity over the decades. Certainly a book about a more popular subject would sell better than Invitation to Learning, but there was a bigger
need to document the radio program because very few people even knew it
existed. I
sometimes wonder why movie studios re-master the same movie four times over the
past seven decades when they have films in their vaults rotting away. I know The
Wizard of Oz, for example, is a cash cow for Turner but what about those
silent Gloria Swanson movies that haven't seen the light of day? Writing about
old-time radio programs is a form of preservation. We don't need another
general encyclopedia of old-time radio when there are sole subjects that badly
need documentation.
Which
brings me to the next question. You are known for preserving old-time radio in
a number of areas besides writing books. Tell me about them.
M: From my view point, there are very few preservation efforts being done for old-time radio broadcasts. When I ask an individual in charge of some organization what preservation efforts have been done recently, the answer is mute except for the revenue generated which they seem proud of or express concern. Over the past decade I helped photocopy radio scripts that were damaged in a basement flood. Those scripts were warped, had mold growing on them and were probably a health hazard. A friend of mine and I quickly went to Staples and cured the scripts to the best of our ability and made photo copies so we could save what had to be tossed into a dumpster. Most of those scripts were for radio programs that do not exist in recorded form so it was important that we save them.
In
recent years I began scanning scripts for "lost" radio programs into
digital format. Many from archives that presently house the only existing
copies. Over 2,000 glossy photographs and publicity stills were purchased six
months ago and I had each and every one of them scanned, backside with press
release included. A friend used Adobe Photoshop to repair visible damages. We
purchased transcription discs for "lost" radio shows and had them
transferred to digital audio and off-site backups were made. That's just a
sampling. Presently I am a consultant for two preservation societies regarding
how old-time radio programs and materials are restored and preserved. Sadly,
that is not enough. There are many individuals out there who brag about their
holdings in museums and collections because they know what they have is
rare and probably the only existing copies known to exist. But if a flood or
fire destroys the scripts or transcription discs, they'll become the ridicule
of the hobby. I have more respect for people who did something to preserve,
duplicate and create an off-site backup of their archival materials. Believe it
or not, most people praise such efforts but very few do anything about it.
How
long does it take you to write a book, and having written more than 20 books,
do you find it an easy task?
M:
The time it takes to write a book is about three to four months. Researching,
however, can take years. When I visit an archive out of state, I always look to
see what else they have in their archives so if I get done the job done sooner
than planned, I can spend the extra time copying material for another potential
project. Or copy material for friends who need the materials for their
projects. I have more than two dozen plastic bins in the basement filled with
boxes of papers from archives. When people expressed an interest in writing a
book or magazine article about subjects I came across, I send them some of the
papers to save them time and expense traveling to the same archive. So not
everything I have is intended to make it into book form. But in the long run it
helps someone. There are subjects I would like to write about in the future but
I don't have the time to write about them yet so I still keep gathering
material until I feel satisfied that I have everything needed for a book. For
some subjects, I have ten years worth of research and it's still growing.
M:
Mostly academic materials. I never write biographies. I admire people who write
biographies because I find that to be the most challenging. Anyone can stack
newspaper and magazine clippings in a pile, chronologically, and write a
biography but that only documents the actor's stage, radio and screen career.
The trick is not starting each paragraph off with "on such and such date,
so and so premiered on such and such play on Broadway..." Writing a true
biography means interviewing family relatives and getting their cooperation,
scanning family photo albums, interviewing people who know the actor for
behind-the-scenes recollections, browsing vintage interviews, etc. The trick is
knowing what kind of person the actor was without a slant. For this reason, I admire
anyone who writes a true biography and not one that simply documents in prose a
chronological list of their accomplishments.
I
guess I stick with a specific format that I am better equipped and experienced.
I choose a radio or television program to write about, browse hundreds of
archives, thousands of scripts and recordings and document every facet I can
unearth. For The Green Hornet, I read over 1,000 radio scripts, listened
to over 200 radio recordings, browsed through Trendle's archive, Striker's
archive, over 1,000 news briefs, magazine articles, dozens of archival
collections for Mutual, NBC, and so on. Folks can now read an 800 page book
featuring the history of the radio program, an episode guide with plot
summaries, and virtually like my Suspense book.... if someone has a
question about The Green Hornet they know of a one-stop source that more
than likely provides the answer.
What
would you say is the most interesting thing about being a writer?
M:
The feedback. Family relatives looking for information about their father who
was a band leader for The Cavalcade of America ask for information and I
send them a complimentary copy of the book. In many cases, family relatives
learn more about their father, mother, grandfather, and so on from the book.
Sometimes a reader bestows me with a gift of something value that gets framed
and hung in the house, a token of their appreciation for the book I wrote.
Sometimes I get a phone call from a museum curator asking for information
because they misplaced a book. I remember one evening I received a phone call
from the writers of The Family Guy asking me which episode of the Alfred
Hitchcock television show had a phrase poking fun of a sponsor. They knew what
they wanted but they insisted on having the phrase word-for-word verbatim and
because Hitchcock's narrations were not indexed, I pulled out my pdf on my
computer and looked up the exact episode. They were able to flip to the correct
page and found what they were looking for.
There
have been moments, however, where my books act like fly paper for whackos. One
day I received a letter from someone accusing me of being a Communist because I
wrote a book for BearManor called I Led Three Lives, documenting the
television series. They claimed the show was Communist propaganda and I should
be dragged out in the street and shot. I sent a polite and short letter telling
them that the lead character of the television show, Herbert A. Philbrick, was
not a Communist but an America. He risked not just his life but that of his
wife and children to be a counterspy for the FBI to help smash Communist plots
and in my opinion.... that is as American as a man could get. I have received
poison pen letters from people threatening to break my legs because of a book I
wrote, beating them to the punch. I have easily half a dozen letters
handwritten, double sided, four pages long, of people venting because they
spent 20 years researching a subject and never got it submitted to a publisher
yet... and told me my book was so good it hampered all reasonable attempts to
publish theirs. Depressing, but if they had 20 years.... I find usually most of
the crackpots are people with professional jealousy and sadly, express their
negative opinions publicly. Not good taste. Worse, they burn bridges doing so.
The trick is avoiding the crackpots and focusing on the importance of the
projects at hand.
Do
you have a website, blog etc, where readers can find you?
M:
Yes. www.martingrams.com and it
features scans of pages from my books so people could sample the contents, a
list of convention appearances and the site is always updated with the latest
books including DUFFY'S TAVERN, which will be published by BearManor Media
later this year. I also have a blog, which posts something new every Friday
involving old-time radio, movies or TV. Nostalgia in general. Sometimes it's scans
of archival documents. Sometimes it is a sample of a book I wrote or plan to
write. I recommend everyone check it out. www.martingrams.blogspot.com
Is
there anything else you'd like to add?
M: Eight years ago my wife and I formed the Mid-Atlantic
Nostalgia Convention, a three-day festival that includes old-time radio,
vintage movies, retro television and other facets of nostalgia. The event has
grown in size and last year the attendance topped past 2,000. It's becoming
what one attendee refers to as "the destination convention" of the
year. And we must have accomplished something to be proud of not because of the
size of the event, which takes up two floors of the hotel, but two members of a
convention committee for another event have been speaking ill about MANC
claiming our non-profit event that helps benefit the St. Jude Children's
Research Hospital is the cause of their own convention diminishing in size.
MANC also provides a platform for authors to speak about their subjects to a
large crowd, exposes old-time radio to an attendance that wouldn't normally
attend an event solely focused on old-time radio and promotes all forms of
nostalgia. If anyone reading this interview wants to check it out, this year's
dates are September 19 to 21, 2013, held at the Hunt Valley Inn in Hunt Valley,
Maryland. It's a fun time with lots of celebrities, authors, magazine editors,
museum curators and lots of friendly people. Of course, I will be there so stop
by and say hello.
You can find our collection of Martin Grams Jr. books here:
http://www.bearmanormedia.com/index.php?route=product/search&filter_name=martin%20grams
