CJAT - 1949

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CJAT - 1949

Postby cart_machine » Sat Dec 08, 2007 8:21 pm

Around Your Rail Dial Tonight
By Dick Diespecker [from Daily Province, Dec. 10, 1949]
SMELTER STATION
Radio station CJAT at Trail has a policy which I like the sound of very much. It says “The basic policy of CJAT is to provide facilities for expression of cultural development within the coverage area rather than to attempt to establish a culture.”
That is a very sensible outlook, and their operation proves that they are doing their best to adhere to it. For example they have an Italian program broadcast each Monday night, originated by Sylvio Romano, an employee of the Consolidated Mining and Smelting Co. Mr. Romano has been active for years in arranging concerts at the Italian Club in Trail and the broadcast introduces new vocalists and instrumentalists every week. The show is introduced and explained in English after which the Italian language is used throughout.
Like the Italian group, the John Barwis instrumental quartet is a home-grown group of amateurs. CJAT has also presented a Doukhobor male choir on many occasions, and the Trial High School Band of 44 pieces.
In the educational line, CJAT often carries University of British Columbia lectures provided by the UBC Radio Society. Like most rural stations, CJAT works closely with the Provincial Police and other official organizations, and during the disastrous 1948 floods, Trail’s city engineer described the station’s work as a “godsend.”
CJAT has also produced some distinguished talent. Outstanding alumni are Mercer McLeod and his wife and sportscaster Doug Smith. McLeod started his career on CJAT with a series called The Ghost Walker. Later he moved to Vancouver, then to Winnipeg, then to Toronto, where he now commuters to New York to transcribe the NBC series The Man With a Story.

Transcribed by cArtie.
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Postby Jack Bennest » Sat Dec 08, 2007 10:14 pm

Mercer McLeod
Born: in Canada
Died: Jan 20, 1993
Occupation: Actor
Active: '50s
Major Genres: Drama

Biography
Mercer McLeod was a gifted character actor whose career carried him from the English stage to radio in Canada and the United States, and to Broadway and television, with room for one feature film in the midst of it all. Born in Canada, he moved to England as a boy and grew up in Yorkshire. He was a member of the Frank Benson Shakespeare Company and later joined the Ben Greet Players (one of the last great British stock companies, whence Dame Sybil Thorndike, among many others, first started). McLeod first toured the United States with Sir Philip Greet in a production of Hamlet, and the Bernard Shaw Players, with which he toured England, South America, and the Far East. McLeod returned to Canada after a particularly long and exhausting tour and decided to try his hand at radio, initially as a producer. He later became a radio actor and proved so adept -- writing and acting all of the male parts in a very popular piece, "The Man With the Story" -- that he found himself in demand from radio producers in the United States. It was a short jump to television, and McLeod appeared regularly on such early dramatic anthology series as Ford Theater, Kraft Television Theater, and Pulitzer Prize Playhouse. His Broadway debut came in 1951, in The Green Bay Tree. His other Broadway credits included Deadfall, starring Joanne Dru and John Ireland and directed by Hollywood blacklistee Michael Gordon. McLeod could play a wide range of roles, from crafty, clever types to dithering, nervous individuals -- often with a comic edge -- to great effect. His sole feature-film appearance, amid dozens of television performances and hundreds of radio broadcasts, was in the 1957 Universal delinquency drama The Violators, as the judge. His last major television appearance was as a bystander in a 1963 broadcast version of Shaw's Pygmalion.

~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
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