Graham McNamee
Graham McNamee (July 10, 1888 - May 9, 1942) was a pioneering broadcaster in American radio, the medium's most recognized national personality in its first international decade.[1]
Graham McNamee's father John B. was an attorney, and his mother, Anne, was a homemaker, who also sang in a church choir. Born in Washington, D.C. and raised in St. Paul, Minnesota, McNamee had early aspirations of being an opera singer. In 1923, while serving jury duty in New York City, he passed the studios of radio station WEAF en route to the courthouse and, on a whim, went to see the station manager. He was given an audition and hired as a staff announcer on the spot.
Contents |
[edit] Sportscasting
Radio broadcasting of sporting events was a new thing in the 1920s. The play-by-play announcements were performed by a rotating group of newspaper writers. Their descriptions were matter-of-fact and boring at best. In 1923, announcer McNamee was assigned to help the sportswriters liven up their broadcasts. He wasn't a baseball expert, but had a knack for conveying what he saw in great detail, and with great enthusiasm. He became broadcasting first as a color commentator, bringing the sights and sounds of the game into the homes of listeners.[1]
At WEAF, McNamee performed a variety of on-air duties, including baseball color commentary, culminating in doing play-by-play of the 1926 World Series. Over the course of the next decade, first with WEAF and then with the national NBC network, McNamee broadcast numerous sports events (including several World Series, Rose Bowls, and championship boxing matches), national political conventions, presidential inaugurations and the arrival of aviator Charles Lindbergh in New York City following his transatlantic flight to Paris, France in 1927. Later that year, McNamee was featured on the cover of Time (October 3, 1927).
In 1925, at the Radio World Fair, he won a solid gold cup, designed like a microphone, as America's most popular announcer, receiving 189,470 votes out of 1,161,659 votes cast. He was married to concert and church soprano Josephine Garrett.[1]
In the fall of 2010, two middle school students re-created the broadcast of the 1926 World Series which was taped by McNamee and Phillips Carlin.
[edit] Radio comedy and films
McNamee continued to broadcast into the 1930s, as an announcer on Ed Wynn's and Rudy Vallee's weekly programs. McNamee played straight man for Wynn, reacting to Wynn's gags. McNamee also worked in motion pictures, narrating Krakatoa (1933), Universal Pictures' weekly Universal Newsreel and Camera Thrills (1935), an Academy Award-nominated short subject, produced and directed by Charles E. Ford.
McNamee opened each broadcast by saying, "Good afternoon (or evening), ladies and gentlemen of the radio audience." He closed each broadcast with, "This is Graham McNamee speaking. Goodnight, all."[1]
He was married twice-- the first time, in 1921,to singer Josephine Garrett. They were divorced in 1932, and in 1934, he remarried, to Anne Lee Sims.
McNamee died at the age of 53 of a brain embolism, after being ill for over a week. He was buried in Mount Calvary Cemetery in Columbus, Ohio.[2]
[edit] Awards
In 1984, McNamee was part of the American Sportscasters Association Hall of Fame’s inaugural class which included sportscasting legends Red Barber, Don Dunphy, Ted Husing and Bill Stern.
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d "Voices," Time, October 3, 1927.
- ^ Miller, C. L. (2008), Images of America: Mount Calvary Cemetery, Arcadia Publishing, p. 126, ISBN 0738552054.
- "Graham M'Namee Is Dead Here At 53." New York Times, 18 May 1942, p. 43.
- Schmidt, Raymond. "Graham McNamee Biographical Entry." Scribner's Encyclopedia of American Lives, 2002 edition, volume 2, pp. 96-97.
