Kenny Delmar

Kenneth Howard Delmar (born Kenneth Frederick Fay Howard; September 5, 1910   July 14, 1984) was an American actor active in radio, films, and animation. An announcer on the pioneering radio news series The March of Time, he became a national radio sensation in 1945 as Senator Beauregard Claghorn on the running "Allen's Alley" sketch on The Fred Allen Show. The character Delmar created was a primary inspiration for the Warner Bros. cartoon character Foghorn Leghorn. Early life and career Delmar was born September 5, 1910, in Boston, but moved to New York City in infancy after the separation of his parents. His mother, Evelyn Delmar, was a vaudevillian who toured the country with her sister. Kenny Delmar was on the stage from age seven. His first screen appearance was in the D. W. Griffith film Orphans of the Storm (1921), in which he played the Joseph Schildkraut role as a child. During the Depression he left the stage to work in his stepfather's business. After running his own dancing school for a year he married one of his ballet teachers, Alice Cochran, and decided to try a career in radio. Radio By the late 1930s, Delmar was an announcer on such major radio series as The March of Time and Your Hit Parade. He played multiple roles in The Mercury Theatre on the Air'''s October 1938 radio drama The War of the Worlds. His main role was that of Captain Lansing, the National Guardsman who collapses in terror when confronted by the Martian invaders, although he also is noted for his address to the "citizens of the nation" as the Secretary of the Interior, in which role he spoke in a stentorian, declamatory style deliberately reminiscent of then-President Franklin Roosevelt.Kelly, Ray, Celebrating the 70th Anniversary of Orson Welles's panic radio broadcast The War of the Worlds. Wellesnet, October 26, 2008; retrieved April 10, 2012. Delmar's other roles were Policeman at farm, Secretary of the Interior and Bayonne radio announcer. Cavalcade of America featured him in their repertory cast, and also was heard as Commissioner Weston on early episodes of The Shadow.