Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar

Bob Bailey, who played Johnny Dollar

Among the many radio shows produced during the era of Old Time Radio, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar has an honour that it shares with Suspense alone. Quite simply, on September 30 1962 Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar and Suspense would become the last radio dramas from the Golden Age of Radio to air new episodes. For enthusiasts, this date is considered the end of Old Time Radio.

The best known format of the show centred on Johnny Dollar, a freelance insurance investigator characterised as "the man with the action-packed expense account." He usually worked for the Universal Adjustment Bureau, who would send him on a variety of cases, from stolen art to acting as a bodyguard for a rich man whose life had been threatened. Each episode would end with Johnny totalling his expense account. He would end it, "End of report. Yours truly, Johnny Dollar."

While Johnny Dollar is best remembered as a freelance insurance investigator, he did not start out that way. In fact, he wasn't even "Johnny Dollar." The show was originally to be called Yours Truly, Lloyd London. Why the name was changed remains a bit of a mystery, but it seems possible that it was to avoid possible legal action from famous insurance company Lloyd's of London. The 1948 audition show (the radio equivalent of a television pilot) featured Dick Powell in the role of Johnny Dollar. Mr. Powell passed on the series to do Rouge's Gallery and Richard Diamond, Private Detective instead. Charles Russell was then cast in the role. As originally conceived, Johnny Dollar was not an insurance investigator and there was actually very little to differentiate him from other private eyes on radio. He was simply another wisecracking, tough as nails detective, with the only thing to differentiate him from other private detectives being his habit of tipping waiters, bellhops, et. al. with silver dollars.

Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar received some fairly negative reviews upon its debut, but it turned out to be a success regardless. That having been said, it would go through changes in its leading man. Charles Russell remained with the show until January 1950, after which Edmund O'Brien took over. Mr. O'Brien would remain until September 1952. He would be followed by John Lund who remained with the show until the end of its initial run in September 1954.

Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar would remain off the air for over a year. In 1955 an audition show was made that totally revamped the format of the show. No longer a private detective, Johnny Dollar was now the familiar freelance insurance investigator with the "action-packed expense account." Gerald Mohr played Johnny Dollar in the audition show, but it would be Bob Bailey who would play him in the regular series. Bob Bailey would remain with the show for several years, becoming arguably the most popular actor in the role. While during the original series Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar had been a once a week show, the revival was a five day a week serial. In 1956 it would become a once a week show again. Curiously, for most of its run the revival of Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar was a sustaining program on CBS. That is, it aired without a sponsor.

Bob Bailey remained with Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar until November 1960. It was then that the show moved to New York City. Unwilling to move, Mr. Bailey left the show and Bob Readick took over. He remained until June 1961, after which Mandel Kramer took over. He remained until the show went off the air.

During most of its run, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar did not feature much in the way of a supporting cast. In the mid-Fifties Virginia Gregg played Johnny's girlfriend Betty Lewis. That having been said, there were some fairly big name actors who regularly appeared on the show, including Parley Baer, Ed Begley, William Conrad, John Denher, Jack Kruschen, Howard McNear, and yet others.

As with many radio shows, CBS would attempt to bring Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar to television. In late 1949 CBS made a pilot with Charles Russell, then the voice of Johnny on the radio, in the role. It would have aired live on the West Coast and then through kinescope in the rest of the country. CBS did not pick up the show. It was in 1956, following the radio show's revival in 1955, that CBS prepared another pilot, this one based on a script by E. Jack Newman (who had written for the radio show). This attempt seems to have gotten no further than the discussion stage. In 1959 Screen Gems was working on a television pilot for Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, but it apparently never made it beyond the discussion stage as well.

It would be in either late 1961 or early 1962 that MGM-TV and Project III Enterprises made a pilot for a half hour Johnny Dollar series that would have debuted in the 1962-1963 season. The pilot starred William Bryant and Blake Edwards served as executive producer. The music was even composed by Henry Mancini. Unfortunately, CBS passed on the pilot.

While Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar aired one last time on September 30 1962, it would not be forgotten. Reruns of the show have aired on various radio stations through the years, and episodes are widely available on CD and MP3s. In 2003 Moonstone Books published a graphic novel based on the radio show. Since then it has published further Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar books.

In total, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar would run twelve years. And while it is not remembered among the general population beyond those of a certain age, it remains a favourite among Old Time Radio enthusiasts. In an era when more recent properties are constantly being rebooted and re-imagined, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar seems ripe for revival.