BW - EP133—006: Thanksgiving With I Love A Mystery—Tony Randall's Early Career

Breaking Walls: The Podcast on the History of American Network Radio Broadcasting

Tony Randall was born Aryeh Leonard Rosenberg on February 16th, 1920 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He attended Northwestern University for a year before going to New York City to study under Sanford Meisner and choreographer Martha Graham. Randall worked as an announcer at WTAG in Worcester, Massachusetts. As Anthony Randall, he starred with Jane Cowl in George Bernard Shaw's Candida and with Ethel Barrymore in Emlyn Williams's The Corn Is Green. After serving with the U.S. Army Signal Corps in World War II, he came back to New York City. In 1946, Randall was cast in Katharine Cornell's revival of The Barretts of Wimpole Street. The following year in Antony and Cleopatra and in 1949 he appeared in Caesar and Cleopatra. Simultaneously, Randall found work in radio. Randall was twenty-nine and in New York when I Love a Mystery was revived. He originally auditioned for the part of Doc, but Carlton Morse felt he was better suited for Reggie York. As much as Randall loved I Love A Mystery, he wasn’t a huge fan of many of the soap operas he appeared on.