The Life of Riley's weird early years

Lionel Stander

When you think of The Life of Riley radio program, I'm sure that you, like me, think of William Bendix as Riley, Paula Winslowe as Peggy and Tommy Cook and Barbara Eiler as the two kids.

The show began in April of 1941.  It was a Saturday morning program, coming on at 10 AM and then later the time was changed to 11 AM.

Lionel Stander played the part of Riley - who then was known as J. Riley Farnsworth.  You might recognize his photo (left) as that fellow on the television show, Hart to Hart.

Having written all of the above, this The Life of Riley show had almost nothing to do with the show we are all more familiar with.  Though the two are lumped together because they have the same title, the less familiar Riley show only lasted about 6 months and it was no more.

There was something very familiar about the above though which made it's way to the more familiar Riley program.  J. Riley Farnsworth's wife was named Peggy - the same name of the Winslowe character.  And her father was the richest man in town, which is pretty much on par with the Winslowe character in the more familiar Riley version.

To my knowledge, there is no available audio of this less familiar program.

Barbara Eiler on the far right

The Riley program we are familiar with began in 1944.  The early days were strange.  For one thing, Chester Riley called his wife, "Mom."  This wasn't uncommon in 1940's.  But it's uncommon for The Life of Riley.

The daughter - we know her as "Babs" (Barbara) was not named Babs but rather, "Eloise" (sometimes they called her "Ellie.")  And of course, the girl who played her wasn't the familiar Barbara Eiler but the unfamiliar Sharon Douglas.

And Junior Riley wasn't the more familiar Tommy Cook but several actors (Conrad Binyon, Scotty Beckett, Jack Grimes, Bobby Ellis.)  Beckett is easily recognizable as he was a member of Our Gang.

Also in the cast was Uncle Baxter, who was played by veteran actor Hans Conried.  By April of 1944, Uncle Baxter was (thankfully) gone.  I never thought he added much of anything to the show, except dead weight.

If you listen to the available shows in order, you can hear Digby O'Dell grow into his part; it seems to get better each episode until he finally settles in the man we know.  Meanwhile, John Brown (who played several parts on the show, including O'Dell and a neighbor, Gillis) has a son whose name changes from something weird (I forget now what it is) to something weirder, "Egbert."  You might be surprised to know that Shirley Mitchell sometimes (not always) played his wife "Honeybee."

I don't want to leave out Dink Trout, who shows up in plenty of the available episodes.  He played Waldo "Oh My Aching Back!" Binny, a neighbor in the pre-Gillis days.

Living a Life of Riley

One of the Best: The Life of Riley

William Bendix, who had made a ton of movies, agreed to work on radio (and eventually TV) as Chester A. Riley, a husband, father and riveter.  The original radio series (with a different name) was actually designed for Groucho Marx of all people but the sponsor didn't like the way things were going and canned Groucho.  Groucho's brother Gummo was one of the early backers of the show.  (I can't imagine Groucho as a Chester Riley-character but that's for another day...)

Riley worked hard for his family but he wasn't the smartest guy on radio - as matter of fact, he was one of the dumbest.  He was easily led astray by quick-money schemes, often heralded by next-door neighbor friend and co-worker Jim Gillis (John Brown.)  In so many ways, Riley and Gillis were the forerunner to TV's Honeymooners' Ralph and Norton and you could also compare them to The Flintstones, an adult cartoon series done in the 1960's.

Riley tried hard - but it seems no matter what, he would fall for a tempting scheme that was deigned to make someone else money - not him.  Even Gillis was behind some of these, himself.  If it wasn't that, he would foul things up by his own sheer buffoonery.   Every show had an implied moral that was always same - never trust Chester with anything.

Still, Riley had a heart of gold - and this karma was almost always good to him as things would always work out well in the end.

Riley's wife, Peg (radio veteran Paula Winslowe) was good to Riley but put her foot down when it came to him wasting money.  She wore the financial pants in the family and would often bust Riley down.

William Bendix

Riley's daughter was Babs, who somehow thought she should be a society girl, even though it was obvious (but never said) that the Riley's lived on the wrong side of the tracks.  Babs was in her late-teens.

Babs had a variety of young men in her life - and you wondered why she would date nerdy Simon, a show fixture early on.  Riley did not like Simon and this often ruffled Babs (and Peg's) feathers.

Junior, Riley's capable son, was a level-headed, hard-working, decently-intelligent 14-15 year old teen.  I often wondered where he picked up all of those traits.

There were other notable characters, especially Digby O'Dell, the undertaker (also played by John Brown) who was on every show, often offering advice to Riley.  Digby, (Riley called him, "Digger") was all about his work at the cemetary and all of his talk and jokes cenetered around burial.  The audience loved Digby and they were always excited when he showed up.  The fans could almost mouth his every word - but that didn't seem to matter.

Other not-so-important (or funny) characters were often heard, including Egbert Gillis, a kid who couldn't ever seem to reach puberty but was pretty smart; Waldo Binny (Dink Trout) who always complained of an aching back and Uncle Baxter (radio/TV vet Hans Conried), who was just always there and never paid for anything in the Riley household.

The show was funny at times.  It's pretty predictable (some moments are word-for-word predictable; "Oh, my aching back!", "What a revoltin' devolpment this is!", "I better be shoveling off!" but as long as you never take the show serious and treat it like a big cartoon, then you can have some fun.

Most of the episodes in the series have very good sound - with only a few being a problem.

I'd rate it 3 stars just because there are a whole lot of them and silliness can grow on you - and this show does that.