Maurice Tarplin

[DanielJones]

This week is the birth week of Maurice Tarplin, novelist & radio actor, although he is better known for the acting part. His best known role was as the narrator of The Mysterious Traveler, employing a voice once described as "eerily sardonic." He was also known for the voice as Dr. Weird on 'The Strange Dr. Weird' and Inspector Faraday on Boston Blackie (all of which were playing on Radio Classics today).
Tarplin's novel, 'Seven Casks of Death', was published in the June 1948 issue of Dime Mystery Magazine.

Cheers!

Dan

 

[DanielJones]

This site has a great listing of The Strange Dr. Weird episodes. I think that you can even play a couple of them as a download.

http://www.digitaldeliftp.com/DigitalDeliToo/dd2jb-Dr-Weird.html

Maurice Tarlin [Tarplin] is one of those memorable personae etched forever into the collective memory of Golden Age Radio aficionados the world over. Although he's most often mistakenly identified as Raymond Edward Johnson, his two most memorable roles were as the host of The Mysterious Traveler and the host of The Strange Dr. Weird (as 'Dr. Weird').

His obvious pleasure in attempting to scare the bejeebers out of his anxious listeners, though at times over the top, was delivered in a consistently tongue-in-cheek manner, thus appealing equally well to juvenile listeners at bedtime [remember, this was the 1940s] as to dyed-in-the wool supernatural mystery fans.

And he always managed to deliver these two personae with predictable gusto. He's so deeply associated with Mysterious Traveler and Dr. Weird, that his fans are often unaware of the fact that he was a very busy, diverse actor for most of his career. His radio experience reads like a 'Who's Who' of superior radio dramas (witness his brief radiography in the sidebar at the left).

He didn't limit his considerable talent to Radio. He also enjoyed a repectable career on the stage and television as late as 1980 (kinda scary in itself since he's reported to have passed away in 1975--could the IMDB be wrong, or . . . .?).

Here is the section for The Mysterious Traveler.
http://www.digitaldeliftp.com/DigitalDeliToo/dd2jb-Mysterious-Traveler.html


Cheers!

Dan

 

[The Wolf]

Thanks for reminding me of Tarplin. Those were great shows and he had a wonderful voice.

Sincerely,
The Wolf