Trips to New York were commonplace to Gibson, who enjoyed delivering plot synopses in person to editor John Nanovic, who’d become a good friend. Nanovic made useful suggestions, and Gibson felt the editor had come to know the Shadow as well as his creator.
Unlike a lot of editors, Nanovic did not stint on the compliments. He frequently told Gibson (in varying words), “You’ve got the newspaperman’s knack for giving me just enough facts to take me into the next paragraph…and the magician’s flare to intrigue me with hints of what’s to come.”
Later this afternoon, he would meet with Nanovic. Right now (it was just after one-thirty) he had his first stop to make-at the Columbia Broadcasting Building at Madison Avenue and 45th Street. The Shadow had been born in this building, and yet the father of the character had never visited the birthsite before.
Technically, of course, Gibson was the character’s stepfather. In 1930 a radio show had been introduced at CBS, Detective Story, that based its episodes on stories from the Street and Smith pulp magazine of the same name; a sinister-voiced narrator-dubbed the Shadow-presented the tales. A voice actor named Frank Readick gave the narrator a haunting laugh and a spooky presence that had made something of a national sensation.
Instead of serving to promote Detective Story Magazine as intended, however, the show inspired listeners to request at their newsstands “that Shadow detective magazine.”
Which was where Walter Gibson came in. Frank Blackwell, then the Street and Smith editor, challenged Gibson to come up with a character to go with the memorable name and the spooky voice.
Already Gibson had been toying with the idea of doing a mystery-story hero who was himself mysterious, and a little nasty, unlike the straightforward goody-two-shoes heroes of other mystery series-an avenger who would wear not a white hat, but a black one. He reflected upon his magician friends and came up with a character who combined the hypnotic power of Thurston and Blackstone with Houdini’s penchant for escapes. By early 1931, “Maxwell Grant” had begun his punishing, profitable run, charting the adventures of this tall, black-cloaked figure with the broad-brim black felt hat tucked over a hawkish countenance.
And by 1937, the radio show had dropped its narrator-version of the Shadow to adapt Gibson’s avenging hero-embodied by a new young actor with a magical second-baritone: Orson Welles.
Though Gibson had helped develop the radio version of the Shadow with scriptwriter Edward Hale Bierstadt (it had been gratifying to hear Ed say how much he loved Gibson’s yarns), the creator of the character was contractually tied up with Street and Smith to produce those twenty-four novels a year. So the radio Shadow had gone its own way, deviating somewhat from Gibson’s vision-rather over emphasizing the character’s rich-man-about-town secret identity, Lamont Cranston (admittedly a perfect fit for Welles)-but staying mostly on course…and becoming a household word among radio listeners.
Which meant-everybody in America.
The Columbia Broadcasting Building was no longer home to the Shadow show-it was a Mutual program now, and broadcast out of New York’s powerhouse WOR-but the skyscraper remained home to Orson Welles, whose amazingly resonant voice and ironic delivery had much to do with the radio Shadow’s success.
Welles had just finished his two-season run as the Shadow to take on a more ambitious project-The Mercury Theatre on the Air, an extension of the wunderkind’s acclaimed Broadway theater company-and so Gibson had been surprised to be contacted by the showman himself, to discuss a Shadow project.
Not as surprised as Jewel, however, when she came rushing breathlessly into the cabin with news that a phone call from the famous young radio actor awaited next door…
…where Gibson gave both his wife and his message-screening cousin a long cool look that told them this was business and that they were dismissed, and the two were reluctantly taking their leave when the writer brought the receiver to his ear.
“Do I have the honor of speaking to my illustrious father?”
The deep voice on the other end of the line, filtered through long-distance, had the processed sound of the Shadow on the air, attempting to frighten that week’s evildoer.
Gibson, however, neither frightened nor impressed easily.
“Hello, Mr. Welles,” he said.
The two men had met exactly once, at a Society of Magicians gathering in Manhattan where the radio actor had performed as a perfectly respectable amateur magician-respectable for a celebrity, at least.
“This is a much overdue call,” Welles said, amusement and something like chagrin in his formidable voice. “I have been told that…in the beginning…” The latter had proper Biblical weight. “…you personally recommended me to the Shadow’s sponsor.”
Gibson had indeed pointed the way toward Welles as an ideal radio Shadow-he had been impressed with Welles’s stagecraft (even if his magic was merely competent) and by his rich, worldly voice. Also, Welles had done work on The March of Time radio show that had bowled both Gibson and Jewel over; so when the Shadow creator’s counsel was sought in matters of casting, he’d thought immediately of Welles.
In fact he had said, “There’s only one actor on the face of the earth who, using only his voice, can do justice to the Shadow.”
Nonetheless, this was Gibson’s first direct contact (since that Society of Magic gathering, where they’d been introduced and shared a few words) with the actor who had brought his character to life, and to radio fame.
“I may have played a small role in getting you that part, Mr. Welles,” Gibson admitted. “But you’ve more than made up for it by boosting the circulation of The Shadow Magazine with your fine work.”
“Very kind of you, Walter-may I call you Walter?”
“If I might risk Orson, certainly.”
“Please!” Welles’s warm laugh had nothing to do with the Shadow’s sinister one. “Walter, I know we’re going to be great friends.”
Gibson shook his head-actors. “The last time I saw you…Orson…was on the cover of Time. What’s the occasion?”
Welles dove right in: “Walter, I have an interesting offer from Hollywood. They’ve made several lousy pictures out there about our character, as I’m sure you know.”
Our character apparently meant the Shadow. Gibson smiled to himself at this presumption, but kept this reaction out of his voice as he replied: “You’re telling me? The wife and I walked out on both of ’em.”
Welles chuckled. “Frankly, I didn’t bother going. People I trusted warned me off. I mean, honestly, Walter, with a character as wonderful and famous as ours, how could they? I mean, Rod LaRocque! Didn’t he single-handedly kill off silent pictures?”
“I don’t know about that, Orson-but he made a good stab at killing off talkies with those two crummy Shadow pictures.”
“Agreed! Warner Brothers agrees, as well. They are prepared to make up for those B-movie embarrassments, if we can come up with a worthy scenario.”
“A top-budget affair this time? With a first-rate director, and a real star, you mean?”
“Precisely!”
“What director?”
“Why me, of course.”
“And the star?”
“You’re speaking to him!”
“…Have you ever directed before, Orson? I mean, a moving picture?”
Welles did not miss a beat: “Actually, my dear fellow, I have taken a few experimental steps-I made a short film as a student, and recently I dabbled in the art for a stage production we did of Gillette’s farce, Too Much Johnson, with the Mercury players.”