Bakers' Theater of Stars
Ronald Reagan in "The New Man"
Bakers' Theater of Stars - Listen to Episodes, Below
For three years, Hollywood Star Playhouse was a successful anthology series on NBC. The third year it was in production, it obtained a new sponsor - The Bakers of America, an industry group that represented many large baking companies.
During the last season of Hollywood Star Playhouse the new sponsors created something of a stir throughout the advertising industry by announcing to Billboard magazine they intended to devote the lion's share of their advertising budget to radio.
The company also decided to move the anthology show to CBS. However, because NBC owned the rights to the show's name, they renamed their program Bakers' Theater of Stars.
The show featured some of the top-name movie talent of the time. Folks like Joan Fontaine, Joseph Cotten, Vincent Price, Dana Andrews and and Ronald Reagan. The shows were produced and directed by Norm MacDonald and John Meston supervised the scripts - which were written by such top writers as Les Crutchfield and Antony Ellis.
Sadly, only 13 scripts were produced. Of those, only five remain in circulation today. It is sad because the production values were very high, the stories were all first rate with and acting was top-notch. It all made for wonderfully entertaining listening.
Bakers' Theater of Stars: Click on Title to Listen