GEORGE TIREBITER, UNKNOWN AUTEUR OF HOLLYWOOD?S GOLDEN YEARS

HIS LIFE AND CAREER HIGHLIGHTS 1945-1953

GLT201943


Compiled by Fredonia Coupe
From Radio Hero Magazine, July 1988

George Leroy Tirebiter began working as a child actor in the Chicago area and, after a stint with the Chicago World?s Fair (1933-34) found steady radio work on top-rated WOP. As Tirebiter phrases it, ?Poetry, commercials, prosperous young men-about-town, character roles, I did them all.? He created a daily serial, ?Young Tom Edison, Electric Detective,? for WOP in 1936, wrote every show and played the title role until the program went off the air in early 1940. Tirebiter?s early years in show business - 1930 to 1942 - have been documented in detail by Freedonia Clinton and Langley Coupe in their article ?Boy Wonder? in Radio Hero Magazine for October 1987.

CBS brought GLT to Hollywood in 1941 to star in a new comedy-variety series, ?Hollywood Madhouse.? At the same time, he was offered a contract as a director by Paranoid Pictures. Tirebiter expected to be given a film series based on his radio show, but instead was assigned to direct, as he put it, ?inexperienced young performers in the feel-good stories that spaced out the ballads, dances and swing band numbers in Paranoid?s light-weight musicals.? GLT was co-writer on such forgettable movies as Babes in Khaki (1942), Dog Fights Over Broadway and Ruthless Combat (both released in 1943) Pardon My Sarong and Swing, Swing, Swing Shift (both 1944), Pardon My Pinup and First WAC in Tokyo (both 1945).

?Hollywood Madhouse? was on the air (CBS, Friday nights at 7:30) for its fifth and final season from September 1945 through May 1946. The cast included Tirebiter?s wife, former ?Vandals? star Lilly Lamont, teen-age singing ingenue Rita Monroe, vaudeville comic Phil Baines (as ?Sir Lionell Flynn?), night club entertainer Mattie Daniels, and announcer Ben Bland, speaking for Glamorama Soap.

Tirebiter?s final feature for Paranoid, ?Three WACS in a Jeep,? was released as ?First WAC in Tokyo? with new scenes added, in September 1945. Paranoid double-billed it with ?Black Deborah,? a pirate movie starring Jean Heather and Cosmo Sardo.

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