'Take a Giant Step'

Book excerpt: RICHARD SEFF remembers the excitement of his early days in the radio industry, when 85 million radios were blaring away in American homes, while a mere 1.3 million TV sets were moving in. Everyone in the nation turned those AM dials seeking financial advice, weather reports, news of the world, news of the city, mood music, heavy and light drama; they could even have the comic strips read to them by the Mayor of New York. Many actors did their best acting only from the neck up, and some became well paid stars, who never needed to sign an autograph because no one had a clue what they looked like! Richard Seff was there, he was one of them, as Bruce Bigby, a young millionaire on the daytime serial "The Brighter Day" in which his nine month marriage to Althea Dennis ended abruptly when a slight cough developed into an unnamed terminal disease. All this and more is told in a comical voice that pokes fun at the absurdities and the power plays. Though everything in the book could have happened, a clerk in a hardware store may in fact have been an office boy in an under garment showroom, a pretentious understudy may actually have been a woman who had changed her family name to one of her own creation, a raffle ticket may have won its winner a toaster instead of a kayak. Come join Alice and Harold in the Wonderland of Radio.