In this episode of From the Vault we celebrate National Women’s History Month with a program devoted to two character actresses from a bygone era of cinema, Spring Byington and Una Merkel. While both women were nominated for Supporting Actress Academy Awards during their silver-screen careers, their personal stories remain relatively obscure today – after all, neither wrote an autobiography, nor were the subject of scandal or affair.
What each of these women did do, however, was to cross paths with Richard Lamparski, producer and host of the Pacifica Radio series, Whatever became of… This series was broadcast on WBAI New York and KPFK Los Angeles from 1968-1970 – delivering an unabashed oral history from aging and forgotten Hollywood actors and actresses. Byington and Merkel, like so many others, had conversations with Lamparski that not only provided precious insight into the earliest days of Hollywood, but also of the political and social environments of the day. During the 1930’s, when most women did not have professional lives and their political voices were newly developing, these two actresses represented and played the woman’s spirit to the world – in an art form called cinema. Both of these rare and insightful interviews were recorded in 1968.
First broadcast on Friday, March 4, 2011.
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