Maisie, aka The Adventures of Maisie.

Show Information based on John Dunning's book "On The Air", www.otrcat.com and www.allmovie.com

Situation comedy, based on the MGM film series (1945-1953).

The ten Maisie films (1939-1947) were strictly B-fare, and the radio series was more of the same. Ann Sothern was Maisie Ravier, a sassy commoner who fell in love often but, as in the films, gave up the hero and went her own way in the end. Maisie was a sassy and street-smart American working woman turned woman of the world. The catchphrase, Maisie's answer to everything, was "Likewise, I'm sure."

The show was later titled The Adventures of Maisie.

MGM Studios had created the series of ten motion pictures based on a brash blonde with a heart "of spun gold." Maisie, the first in 1939, was from the book "Dark Dame" by the writer Wilson Collison.

From the first, MGM wanted Ann Sothern to play Maisie. She began in Hollywood as an extra in 1927. ""Maisie and I were just together - I just understood her," Sothern, born Harriette Arlene Lake in Valley City, ND, said after several of the films made her a star.

Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Ann Sothern, like many performers in Hollywood, had not one but two careers - one in motion pictures and one on radio. Ann had started in radio as early as 1935, appearing on such variety shows as Rudy Vallee's "The Fleischmann Hour" and Bing Crosby's Kraft Music Hall. She also did dramatic parts on "Woodbury Playhouse," "Screen Guild Theatre," and the biggest anthology of them all, Lux Radio Theatre.

In July, 1945, Ann took Maisie to radio in a half-hour weekly radio for CBS. Famed radio actor Elliott Lewis co-starred as boyfriend Bill, with other parts going to such seasoned radio players as John Brown and Lurene Tuttle. The series ran two seasons, and was revived in 1949 as a syndicated program, now called The Adventures of Maisie. Included in the repertory cast were Hans Conreid, Sheldon Leonard, Joan Banks, Elvia Allman, Bea Benadaret, and Sandra Gould.

The radio show continued in the tried and true Maisie tradition of one part adventure of the emotional kind, one part romance, and one part laughs. To the end Maisie was the single girl, as this allowed her to get involved in continuing adventures of many kinds. These radio adventures of a liberated American "dame" from Brooklyn were tailored to post-WWII, and featured Maisie making her way (and having her way, most of the time) on both sides of the Atlantic.

Sothern, due in great part to the Maisie films' type-casting, would ultimately admit she was "a Hollywood princess, not a Hollywood queen." But in its time, the Maisie series in film and on radio made her known and loved the world over. And for many of us, Ann Sothern was a beautiful and intelligent actress whose warmth and charm were singularly beguiling. She continued to do TV (Private Secretary, The Ann Sothern Show) and movies (A Letter to Three Wives, 1949), and was nominated for an Academy Award in 1987 for The Whales of August. She died March 15, 2001.

CAST:

Ann Sothern as Maisie Ravier, a Brooklyn beauty and Jane-of-all-trades who usually ended up broke in some remote dive.

Support from Hollywood's Radio Row:

Hans Conreid, Sheldon Leonard, Ben Wright, Lurene Tuttle, Marvin Miller, Joan Banks, Bea Benaderet, Frank Nelson, etc.

ANNOUNCER: Jack McCoy.

MUSIC: Harry Zimmerman.

WRITER: Arthur Phillips, Samuel Taylor, etc.

DIRECTOR: Tony Sanford.

ORCHESTRA: Albert Sack.

BROADCAST HISTORY:

July 5, 1945-March 28, 1947, CBS. 30m,

Thursdays at 8:30 until mid-Aug.;

Wednesdays at 9:30, 1945-46;

Fridays at 10:30, 1946-47. Eversharp.

1949-1953, transcribed syndication from MGM, offered for distribution beginning Nov. 24, 1949.

Also: Jan. 11-Dec. 26, 1952, Mutual. 30m, Fridays at 8.