Here is a video That IBA prepared to honor Mal. He gave this talk in 1995. The award was given in June 2009 when Mal was 89 and no longer as spry. This link shows you others who have been given the broadcast pioneer award. The video above was...
Mal and Jo Bellairs at the mike for their On the Go show.
Mal and Jo with some of the kids. Fall 1968 picking pumpkins for Halloween. Only 3 minues long with a couple of places where the audio drops off badly. At the Wauconda Apple Orchard.
Mal, Jo and kids at Arthur Godfrey’s desk – WCBS New York, 1966.
On Tuesday, Mal’s guests include Ed Ames and Helen Gurley Brown. Also, apparently, the Bellairs kids bought everything for sale at FAO Schwartz on 5th Ave. Greatest toy store ever.
Mal makes it through discussing women’s sex lives with Gurley Brown and Ames sings “Try to Remember” from The Fantasticks.
Godfrey pitches Lysol, diet pills and breakfast bran cereal.
Mal went long – announcer says the program was edited to meet time requirements. Or maybe Helen said too much.
First 15 minutes of Music Wagon on January 21, 1959. Mal Bellairs, the Boyd Twins, Hal Carton, Billy Leach, Paul Rogers. A snowy day in Chicago. School closings. Survey – what do you gals want in your house? Porky Panico, Big Boogie.
Here’s a great video about Art Hellyer, another Chicago radio pioneer. Some of the comments about Art are by Mal. In a home where we mostly listened to Dad on the radio, I still managed to listen to Art’s AM radio show on WCFL. I love that the video also credits Lenny Kaye. Dr. Kaye was a true artist.
The VintageBroadcast.com website has captured recordings of many of the greats of early radio. They have more than 100 recordings of Mal, starting in 1954. Feel free to scroll through and listen to your favorites. You can help support VintageBroadcast.com by buying recordings you want to be sure to...
Among Dad’s tapes was a disk of Mom’s. The A side is the recording of a radio play by Jo Morrissy. It won first place in the annual radio playwriting contest of the Wisconsin Dramatic Guild (in 1939?). The B side has no identifying info. It is a dramatic...
In 1954 Mal was doing some TV. This is audio from the show “Close Up” that he hosted. The audio is from the “pretty little girl” sketch. If I recall correctly, Dad did this sketch wearing a zoot suit. I think this show may have been a favorite of his. He kept the artwork slides for this sketch on the walls of his home, even when he moved to Woodstock, 60 years later. You can tell from his reading that he was having a good time.
I have no idea how long the show was on the air; not long I suppose. Close Up was an early evening variety show. Shortly after this he went back to radio to stay.
Here are handwritten notes Mal made when preparing to talk about his work. (If you have heard his talk you understand he never typed a word.) Interesting things he mentions that you may not hear in the talk — His first job in on the air was a commercial...
Here we all are in one of our quieter moments. A photo from some years ago taken at Lake Barrington Shores home of Mal and Maria.
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