February 17: Happy Birthday, Ronald Knox

February 17: Happy Birthday, Ronald Knox!

Ronald Knox was that rare combination of radio host, crime novelist, and priest. If you know someone who was all three of those things, you probably know Ronald Knox.

He wrote a collection of ten commandments for detective fiction stories, translated the St. Jerome Latin Vulgate Bible into English, and published a pseudo-historical study on Sherlock Holmes.

His British radio program in the 20's mostly broadcast his sermons. However, a program in 1926 called "Broadcasting the Barricades" was a hoax portraying a revolution in London, complete with interviews with witnesses. It went over the airwaves on a snowy day when newspaper delivery was delayed, so many Londoners believed the reports. Fine job, Monsignor Knox.

October 20, 1930: The First Holmes' Show on Radio Featured by William Gillete

October 20, 1930: Among one of the most unforgettable radio shows, The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes, made its debut airing over NBC Red network on this date. William Gillette, in the role of the famous detective, was featured in the show's first entry of "The Speckled Band". New York audiences met Holmes through Gillette on the stage as early as 1899.

The stories of Sherlock Holmes were very popular as adaptations for the stage, film, and television.
Created by the Scottish author Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle, DL (1859-1930), the Sherlock Holmes stories were a major innovation in crime fiction.

With each adaptation of these stories, the actors brought their own spin to the character. William Gillette was the great popularizer of Holmes who took the role to a new medium. The program continued off and on since Gillette's rendition on a variety of networks: NBC (1930-33) (1934-36) (1955), Blue Network (1939-42), Mutual Network (1943-46), (1947-49), ABC (1946-47) (1949-50) (1956), BBC (1954, and many more years), and BBC-WFMT Chicago (1959-69).

One of more famous radio appearances starred Orson Welles as Sherlock Holmes in an adaptation of one of William Gillette's plays. This was broadcast in September 1938 as part of the ""Mercury Theater on the Air"" series on CBS Radio.