Breakfast in Hollywood

Breakfast in Hollywood was a popular morning radio show created and hosted by Tom Breneman who broadcast from 1941 to 1948 on three different radio networks: NBC, ABC and Mutual. These unscripted shows were spontaneous and involved much audience participation. Breneman's many guests included such stars as Jimmy Durante, Andy Devine and Orson Welles.

Then radio personality Breneman was in Hollywood having lunch in 1940 with friends at Sardi's Restaurant on Hollywood Boulevard when he realized the location's potential for a radio program. He quickly found an audience when he began broadcasting his Breakfast on the Boulevard January 13, 1941, on KFWB Los Angeles. Breakfast at Sardi's aired on the Blue Network from August 3, 1942, until February 26, 1943, when the title was changed to avoid confusion with Sardi's in New York.

Breneman's program went through numerous title changes but was best known as Breakfast in Hollywood (1948–49). He had numerous sponsors, including Kellogg's cereals, Ivory Flakes, Planters Peanuts, Aunt Jemima Flour, Minute Man Soups and Alpine Coffee. By the mid-1940s, Breneman had ten million listeners. The popularity of the radio program was such that he created his own magazine, and in 1945 he opened his own establishment, Tom Breneman's Restaurant, located on Vine Street off Sunset Boulevard. Organist Korla Pandit was only one of the musical talents who performed at the restaurant.

In 1945, flushed with success, Breneman promoted the production of a 90-minute feature film, Breakfast in Hollywood (1946) starring Breneman, Bonita Granville, Beulah Bondi, Raymond Walburn, ZaSu Pitts, Billie Burke and Hedda Hopper, featuring musical numbers by Spike Jones, the Nat King Cole Trio and Andy Russell. Songs included "It Is Better to Be Yourself" by Nat King Cole and "If I Had a Wishing Ring" by Marla Shelton and Louis Alter. "Magic is the Moonlight," "Amor", and "If I had a Wishing Ring" are sung by crooner Andy Russell. The film is available on DVD from Mill Creek Entertainment in the Classic Musicals 50 movie pack.

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