A recent article I wrote about some of the famous people with Chattanooga connections prompted several e-mails mentioning others in the entertainment industry with local roots.
Larry Blanks pointed out that comedians George Gobel and Buddy Hackett had spent some time in Chattanooga as young adults, and that actors Grady Sutton, Tom Reese and Bill McKinney were born in Chattanooga.
Former Chattanoogan Scott Patterson mentioned that the diminutive actor Leslie Jordan is a native of the Scenic City as well.
After doing a little research, I was able to gather some information on these six people.
George Gobel had worked with WDOD in the late 1930s as a country singer just out of high school. Formerly from Chicago, he performed with the WDOD Radio Players.
Longtime former WDOD announcer Earl Freudenberg, now with WDYN, has a scrapbook someone once gave him, and it features a 1938 newspaper article mentioning Mr. Gobel.
The article says that “Little Georgy Gobel” will be performing on the new feature, “the Noonday Frolics,” as well as the “Saturday Night Barndance,” which must have been similar in style to Nashville’s now-famous “Grand Ole Opry.”
According to Mr. Freudenberg, the Gobel shows were held at the Capital Theater at 526 Market St.
Also in the scrapbook is a 1937 article referring to “Grandpappy” Archie Campbell – who was then 22 – performing for WDOD as well. He later went on to become a star of the TV show, “Hee Haw.”
At the time, radio stations had as much local entertainment as they did news or music.
Mr. Freudenberg added that talented entertainers such as Gobel and Campbell were usually not in a market like Chattanooga for very long.
“They would get a little name recognition and move on,” he said.
After World War II, Mr. Gobel turned to comedy, although he would use singing and playing the guitar as part of his skit.
He later went on to have his own Emmy Award-winning television show and in later years became familiar to a younger generation as one of the panelists on the “Hollywood Squares.”
He died in 1991.
Mr. Fredenberg added that a former WDOD staff announcer named Gaylord McPherson had formerly worked at WHO in Des Moines, Iowa, with an announcer named Dutch Reagan, who was, of course, future actor and president Ronald Reagan.
Buddy Hackett, the stocky comedian with an unusual way of talking, apparently spent some time serving at Fort Oglethopre during World War II. His name at the time was Leonard Hacker.
Mr. Blanks said he once heard Mr. Hackett, who died in 2003, talk about his time there.
“My wife and I went to one of his Las Vegas shows in the early 1970's at the Sands Hotel,” he recalled. “He would walk back and forth on the stage, lean over and ask someone toward the front where they were from. One lady told him Chattanooga, and he went on to tell funny stories of when he was stationed at Fort Oglethorpe. He seemed to know what he was talking about.”
Mr. Blanks said he was also able to get in touch with Mr. Hackett’s son, Sandy, recently via e-mail, but he did not recall his father ever talking about Fort Oglethorpe.
Mr. Jordan, who won a 2006 Emmy for a guest actor in a conedy series for his work on “Will & Grace,” graduated from Brainerd High in 1973, according to some information provided by Mary Helms at the Bicentennial Library.
He has also been on “Boston Public.”
Before becoming a professional actor, he studied theater at UTC and performed at the Vine Street Market in 1984.
Mr. McKinney is remembered for his role as one of the “redneck” mountain men Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty and Jon Voight meet in “Deliverance.”
He also played in a number of Clint Eastwood movies and was in “The Shootist” with John Wayne.
In a 1982 Chattanooga newspaper interview, he recalled that he had not been in Chattanooga in 15-20 years.
He said he lived as a boy in Red Bank, Glenwood and Flintstone, Ga. He later moved to Birmingham and returned to Chattanooga to enlist in the Navy during the Korean War.
His mother, Virginia Guinn, later moved to Memphis.
He also said that some of his ancestors came from Sequatchie Valley.
Tom Reese, whose real name was Tom Allen, was born in Chattanooga in 1928. His father had been a member of the Chattanooga Boys hillbilly music group.
He later played Sgt. Velie in “Ellery Queen” and was in 22 episodes of “Gunsmoke.”
Grady Sutton was born in Chattanooga in 1906 to William D. and Emma Sutton. His family moved to Florida when he was young.
He visited Hollywood while on vacation, took a job as an extra, and stayed for six decades. He was in several films with the comedic actor W.C. Fields and appeared in “Anchors Aweigh” in 1945 and “White Christmas” in 1954.
He died in 1995.
Jcshearer2@comcast.net