{
  "title": "CAT WIFE",
  "category": "[RADIO-SCRIPT]",
  "article": "One of the most famous of Arch Oboler’s Lights Out scripts—and one of the few recordings to\nsurvive from the original Chicago run of the show.\n[1938, press release] “To start things off Karloff will do a revival of ‘Cat Wife,’ a favorite horror\ndrama of the Lights Out listeners. It seems they wrote in and wanted him to do the piece, as full of\nshivers as anything that Lights Out has presented.”\n[Capital Times, June 14, 1939] “Betty Winkler can’t avoid being a cat. As title role player in ‘Cat\nWife’ more than a year ago, she turned out a stellar dramatic performance in the Lights Out\ndrama. Tonight, over WIBA at 10:30, Betty Winkler will turn into a cat again when she becomes\nthe voice of the black-pelted, green-eyed alley cat that stalks across Robert Gerson Powers’ Lights\nOut horror plot to participate in a ghastly murder climax.”\n[Circleville Herald, September 12, 1940] “Girl Alone star, Betty Winkler, will fly to the coast for\nher guest shot on the Arch Oboler series, staying there only long enough for the rehearsal and\nbroadcast. Vehicle will be ‘The Cat Wife,’ which she did with Boris Karloff two years ago.”\n[Hammond Times, November 13, 1940, Paul  K. Damai] “Incidentally we just received a letter\nfrom Arch which reads in part: ‘…on the Cat Wife show I personally asked for a middle\ncommercial simply because I felt there was such danger of the drama becoming so real to children\nlistening, that it would be wise to take a deep breath in the middle and say ‘Look, folks—this is all\nin fun.’”",
  "origination": "",
  "duration": "",
  "personnel": "Arch Oboler (scriptwriter; director—1940, 1943).",
  "extant_recordings": "",
  "chronology": "LIGHTS OUT (WMAQ, CHICAGO—NBC-RED)\n[Wednesday—11;30 PM-12;00 MIDNIGHT]\nJune 17, 1936\n“Cat Wife”\nCAST: Betty Winkler, et al.\nFebruary 17, 1937\n“Cat Wife”\nCAST [1937, Lights Out]: Betty Winkler, et al.\nApril 6, 1938\n“Cat Wife”\n[“…It is the story of a neurotic wife, played by Betty Winkler, who drives\nher husband, Karloff, to the point of insanity… Miss Winkler created the\nCat Wife role and appeared in both previous presentations…”]\nCAST [1938, Lights Out]: Boris Karloff, Betty Winkler (Linda), et al.\nEXTANT RECORDING\nEVERYMMAN’S THEATRE (\n[\nOctober 18, 1940\n“Cat Wife”\n[“…Arch Oboler has written an Everyman Theater play for Betty Winkler,\nChicago serial actress who has carved an enviable radio career for herself\nsince he wrote some of his early scripts for her. This one concerns\npsychological twists appropriate to the approaching Halloween…”]\nCAST [1940, Everyman’s Theatre]: Raymond Edward Johnson, Betty Winkler\n(Linda).\nEXTANT RECORDING\nYOUNG IDEAS (KNX, HOLLYWOOD—CBS)\n[Sunday—1:00-1:30 PM]\nAugust 24, 1941\n“Cat Wife”\n[CHARLESTON DAILY MAIL: “…‘Cat Wife,’ an original radio drama by\nArch Oboler, is presented by the junior staff of KNX, the Columbia\nstation in Hollywood, today at 4 on WCHS. The production is directed by\nBob Guggenheim, young contact man at CBS, and the cast includes tour\nguides, clerks, stenographers and page boys. Oboler is guest producer,\nsupervising the work of the various junior staff members. ‘Cat Wife’\nconcludes the series of radio dramas broadcast under the program title,\n‘Young Ideas’.”\nLIGHTS OUT (WABC, NEW YORK)\n[Tuesday--????\nJanuary 19, 1943\n“Cat Wife”\n[“WILL COME FROM THE  LOCAL CBS STUDIO”—NYC]\n[NOTE: The 1943 performance of “Cat Wife” is available under the title of\n“Alley Cat” in a syndicated package released by Oboler in the early 1970s\nas The Devil and Mr. O.]\nTHE DEVIL’S PLAYHOUSE (WTOP, WASHINGTON)\n[Sunday—11:05-11:30 PM]\nOctober 15, 1944\n“Cat Wife”",
  "sources": "",
  "gallery": "",
  "images": []
}