Mel
Baldwin
Mel, in his younger days.
Mel explains his latest script to a friend- he feels this is his
greatest ass-set.
Sometimes
known as "that skinny guy who never runs in the halls" my tenure
at KNX started 'cause I was a pen-pal-joke-sharing friend of
Steve
Allen
while Managing the KTIL AM station in Tillamook,
Oregon. KNX was one of the few stations we could get at midnight. After visiting
Steve
and his first wife
Dorothy
on vacation, in 1950, through his help, I finally got an audition with
KNX when
Steve
left for NY to do his Tonight TV show in 1951.
I
sent a 55 min audition tape of Steve
's format which they liked, and an announcer's audition. Got a seat on a RR
coach when I became frustrated with no final reply. Sat in the second
floor hallway at KNX for four days while they tried to decide if I was
worth adding to the staff.
On
Jan
4/51 I was hired to start Feb 4/51 as staff announcer (who was not good at
reading commercials because nobody wrote like I talked). So they began letting
me do shows. The first was an emergency fill when the guy picked to
replace
Steve
folded after a few weeks after an inappropriate comment to some lady
on stage. He was cut off the air on a Friday night, and on Monday it
became the "
Mel Baldwin
Show", KNX (12:05 to l:00 AM, the old Steve Allen Show spot) but short
lived. After a few weeks when somebody in
New York
sales called and asked "who do we have in the
Steve
Allen
Show
spot"; and a secretary said the "
Mel
Baldwin
Show". "Who's Mel
Baldwin?". He's a DJ and Station Manager from Tillamook,
Oregon. "Good God, we have to get a NAME in that spot"!!
And
just when I was to switch from studio 6 to the big
Jack
Benny
studio "B", with the old nightly
Steve
Allen
audience, they signed a contract with
Jim
Hawthorne
of Pasahogan fame, and I became Hawth's producer/director on the one hour spot,
as well as my staff duties. When they realized I couldn't read worth a damn they
had me do some ad-lib shows filling in where necessary, I guess, including:
"Mel Baldwin
Show", CBS-Pacific
11 PM
(one year)
"Opinion
Please" 3 years (first telephone talk show in LA)
"Mel Baldwin
Show" Sat. mornings, 6-7 wake up show.
Sub
for Ralph
story morning show, writer/host.
"Music
Til
Dawn
" overnight classical music show,
11:30 pm
to 5:30 a.m. (l953 to 1966)
When
Bob
Crane
left to concentrate on "Hogan's Heroes",
George
Walsh
and I took over his morning show with "
Baldwin
and
Walsh
". of course, one of the funniest AM shows in the market. After 6
months (and we never lost one of
Bob
's accounts) I left to sail around the world, a chance in a lifetime to do so!
I was then the first guy who ever got a two year leave of absence from the
station and they had to hire me when I came back in 1968 when there was nothing
to do! They had gone all news!. I was not really a "staff
announcer". I tried it for 6 months pleading many times with Mgr/VP
George
to fire me so I could get my severance pay and finally he did.
Spent
a few months editing our 90-min travel film of New Zealand
(product of our S. Pacific cruise). I heard Jay
Andres, host of American Airlines "Music til
Dawn" in Chicago, was leaving to go to WGN. I called
Bob
Prall
in
New York
who handled the show for AA, and asked who was replacing
Jay. Hadn't decided, he said. I'll do it, I said. Okay, he said.
So
3 years in Chicago
at WBBM but "Music Til
Dawn" went off the air after year or so and since I decided to stay it
meant I had to be a news anchor on the overnight shift! Probably the worse
job in radio!
I
was addicted to sailboat racing and had been doing so with my friend
Don
Wildman, who owned a bunch of health clubs (now sold to Bally). His crew was mostly gym
instructors who didn't know how to sail and I was evidently quite valuable to
Don
. Hating the overnight anchor job, I planned to return to LA but
Don
kept buying bigger faster boats so I kept staying. He even bought
Charlie
Morgan's "Heritage", the last wooden twelve-meter built for the
America's Cup. So, of course, I stayed. Finally, the news anchor thing
really got to me and I told
Don
"I don't care if you buy the
Queen
Mary
, I'm out of here!"
Back
to KNX-FM as News & Community Affairs Director, thanks to my close friend Rodger
Layng
, probably the best music station programmer in the country. After awhile doing
a one minute newscast hourly and writing commercials and stuff this too sucked.
So
I'm out of radio...and into:
Co-owner,
50 unit apt. complex in Huntington Beach, resident manager, 3 years.
Building
contractor, Developer,
Bainbridge Island,
Washington, 3 years.
Screen
writer, TV writer, (one sale!), 1 year
Publicist/asst.
for behavior science clinic. (gratis)
Acoustic
ceiling business in
Thousand Oaks
, 2 years.
Then
a magical switch to selling yachts and living aboard my 38 foot cruiser in
San Pedro
when all of a sudden!
KNX
called in 1980 and wanted me to do the KNX Food News show which I did. So
there you are.
Retired
in 1991, moved home to Portland,
Ore.
to live with my single daughter, who passed away in l994 from chemotherapy.
Shortly after,
Karl
and Jolene
(Karl, my buddy with whom I cruised the S. Pacific) called and said "come
home"! I'd lived with
Karl
and
Jolene
five times in my life, between wives as they say, so I did, to Port Orange,
Florida, in a fly-in community called Spruce Creek Fly In. (Karl's an active pilot. I'm an inactive one, licensed in 1946 but not since).
We raced radio controlled sailboats (we had 15 in the hanger in 4 classes).
Last move:
2006, moved to Vancouver WA to live with my sister
Marian Hays, whose husband had passed away in the fall of '05.
So,
as of this writing, I'm now an 82 year old ex broadcaster who wouldn't
trade the past and the present for anything. I feel like I've really got it made
finally. Back to the Northwest where it all started in Portland in 1942 at KWJJ.
built by engineer Wilbur J. Jerman, hence the call letters. KWJJ.
Station's still going strong and so am I. Only, my knee hurts.
Mel
