Thus spoke radio actor J. Scott Smart, whose resume during Radio’s Golden Age included The March of Time, Blondie, and the Jack Benny, Fred Allen and Bob Hope shows. In this particular instance, Smart was referring to his best-known radio role—that of Brad Runyon, the heavyweight sleuth who served as the focus for the mystery series The Fat Man, heard over ABC Radio from January 21, 1946 to September 26, 1951.

The inspiration for the Runyon character, which was developed by the show’s producer, Ed Rosenberg, came from the written works of legendary mystery author Dashiell Hammett. Both Hammett’s “Continental Op” and sinister Maltese Falcon villain Caspar Gutman (the title of the novel’s eleventh chapter is “The Fat Man”) provided partial motivation, but Runyon was in many ways a combination of Falcon’s Sam Spade and The Thin Man’s Nick Charles: hard-boiled and tough-as-nails but charming and witty when the occasion rose. It could be said that Hammett scored a hat trick on radio with three series inspired by his books—The Fat Man, The Adventures of Sam Spade, and The Adventures of the Thin Man—but that would be giving him a little too much credit; he was once quoted as saying: “My sole duty in regard to these programs, is to look in the mail for a check once a week.”

Another interesting aspect of Brad Runyon was that he was quite the lady killer despite his ample girth; he even had a steady girlfriend in the show’s early seasons in the form of Cathy Evans, played by Amzie Strickland. Other regular characters included Runyon’s secretary Lila North (Mary Patton) and Sergeant O’Hara (Ed Begley), with support provided by many actors in the New York talent pool: Robert Dryden, Alice Frost, Betty Garde, Margot Stevenson, Paul Stewart and Vicki Vola, to name only a few.

At 270 pounds (soaking wet?) the 5’ 9” Smart considerably outweighed his fictional counterpart, who tipped the scales at a beefy 237. It was, in fact, these same scales that became the focus for the program’s opening, one of the most memorable of old-time radio:

WOMAN: There he goes, into that drugstore…he’s stepping on the scale…

(SFX: penny dropping into scale)

WOMAN: Weight? …two hundred thirty-seven pounds…

(SFX: click of fortune card popping out of a scale)

WOMAN: Fortune—danger!

(music sting)

WOMAN: Whooooooo is it?

RUNYON: The Fat Mannnnnnnn…

“Man” was pronounced “Mannnnnnnn” by J. Scott Smart, whose slurring vocal quality also rendered “murder” as “murrrderrr.” Born in Philadelphia in 1902, he began his acting career in 1925—but acting was but one of his talents; he dabbled in art, music and dance (yes, despite his portly frame, he was quite light on his feet) as well. At the time of The Fat Man, his home was a fisherman’s shack on the coast of Maine, which allowed him to paint seascapes during the week, then traveling by plane to New York so he could do each broadcast.

The program was sustained during its first year on the air, but then The Fat Man soon found an ideal sponsor in Pepto-Bismol, an arrangement that lasted three years. Other companies that picked up the tab included R.J. Reynolds Tobacco (for Camel cigarettes) and the American Chicle Company (makers of Adams Dentyne and Chiclets chewing gum). In a broadcast that I listened to last night—“The Nightmare Murders” from January 17, 1951—the show’s sponsor is Buick, and the plot concerns a drunken mystery writer (Lyle Sudrow) who hires Runyon, convinced that he’s murdered a girl poet. The episode features some narration by the Fat Mannnnnn (sorry, he’s got me doing it):

RUNYON: It takes a good man to make a first-class old-fashioned…you have to muddle the sugar, bitters and water properly, then toss in the ice and whiskey…and then carefully twist the lemon peel on top…like anything else, it’s simply a matter of following the recipe…but here’s another illustration…if you take a liberal jigger of motive, add a slice of opportunity and a dash of means, and then pile a dozen or more old-fashioneds on top of this…you’re quite likely to end with a real gruesome hangover…murrrderrr…

The Fat Man is fairly standard 1940s detective fare, but it’s sort of difficult to get a feel for the show’s overall quality because only ten episodes from the series have survived today. (There are at least three dozen shows available from the Australian version, which, naturally, features an altogether different cast.) But during its heyday on radio, the show was a big hit with fans—its cancellation in 1951 had more to do with author Hammett being listed in Red Channels than any decline in its popularity. (The other two Hammett-inspired shows, Sam Spade and The Thin Man, succumbed to the same fate as well.) The corpulent Smart reprised his radio role in a Universal Pictures film version of The Fat Man in 1951, a movie that features in its cast Julie London (Mrs. Jack Webb at the time), clown Emmett Kelley, and a young Rock Hudson. (Listings for this flick often mistakenly credit Hudson as “the fat man”—so know you know…the rest of the story.)
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