Existing comment:
"To say that I wanted to be a movie star would have been as eccentric as saying I wanted to go to the moon. But I had an idea to start in radio."
-- Ronald Reagan
Radio Days:
Fresh out of college, Ronald Reagan landed a job in radio through an unusual audition. A program manager at WOC in Davenport, Iowa, hired him after he improvised the play-by-play commentary of an imaginary football game.
The demands of live radio ultimately taught him to be nimble and creative with language and comfortable with evoking a scene in words. He soon moved to a larger station, WHO in Des Moines, Iowa, as the staff sports announcer. In the depths of Depression, he had steady work and a job he loved. |