I remember when Jim (Fibber McGee) Jordan died at a rather ripe old age in the 1980s, it was announced on CNN by a young newslady, who was warmly reporting about this old show-biz personality having passed away, and thinking how it was pretty obvious that this lady almost assuredly had no idea who he was. At my young age, I probably shouldn’t have known who he was either, but I was already a big purchaser of old-time-radio on cassette tapes, and knew the “Fibber McGee and Molly” show pretty well.
I remember when Jim (Fibber McGee) Jordan died at a rather ripe old age in the 1980s, it was announced on CNN by a young newslady, who was warmly reporting about this old show-biz personality having passed away, and thinking how it was pretty obvious that this lady almost assuredly had no idea who he was. At my young age, I probably shouldn’t have known who he was either, but I was already a big purchaser of old-time-radio on cassette tapes, and knew the “Fibber McGee and Molly” show pretty well.Specifically---and perhaps appropriately, considering his long-living character---Jim Jordan died at 91 on April Fool's Day 1988. (No, that isn't just a Fibber McGee joke . . . though it could have been!)
Marian Jordan died of ovarian cancer 7 April 1961. (She was 63, I believe.)
The Jordans are buried next to each other. (So, for that matter, are Phil Harris and Alice Faye.) But strangely enough, to the left of their plot is buried Sharon Tate, the actress murdered by the Manson Family.
Recommended reading about Fibber McGee & Molly:
Mickey Cohen (not the gangster!), How Fibber McGee & Molly Won World War II
Clair Schulz, Fibber McGee & Molly On the Air 1935-1959
Charles Stumpf and Tom Price, Heavenly Days: The Story of Fibber McGee & Molly
Recommended reading about classic network radio, period:
John Dunning, On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio
Gerald Nachman, Raised on Radio
Leonard Maltin, The Great American Broadcast
Fred Allen, Treadmill to Oblivion
Henry Morgan, Here's Morgan: The Original Bad Boy of Broadcasting
John Crosby, Out of the Blue: A Book About Radio and Television (Crosby was the New York Herald-Tribune's radio critic and an excellent one.)
Paul Rhymer, Vic & Sade (A collection of selected Vic & Sade radio scripts.)
Goodman Ace, Ladies and Gentlemen---Easy Aces (A collection of latter-year Easy Aces scripts.)
Sally Bedell Smith, In All His Glory: The Life of William S. Paley (The best biography of the CBS founder.)
Michele Hilmes, editor: NBC: America's Network (Scholarly writings about NBC, particularly its early years in the radio era.)
Michael Leannah, editor: Well! Reflections on the Life and Career of Jack Benny
Abe Burrows, Honest, Abe! Is There Really No Business Like Show Business (Before he became renowned as a Broadway script doctor and writer, Burrows was the co-creator and original head writer for Duffy's Tavern, and wrote for other radio shows while also hosting his own witty music and patter radio exercise for a couple of years.)
Michael Barson, editor: Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel: The Marx Brothers' Lost Radio Show