Second Husband
| Genre | Soap opera |
|---|---|
| Running time | 30 minutes 15 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language(s) | English |
| Syndicates | CBS |
| Starring | Helen Menken |
| Announcer | Andre Baruch |
| Created by | Frank and Anne Hummert |
| Written by | Helen Walpole Nancy Moore Elizabeth Todd |
| Produced by | Frank and Anne Hummert |
| Air dates | April 26, 1936 to April 26, 1946 |
| Sponsored by | Sterling Drugs |
Second Husband was a radio soap opera in the United States.
The program told "[t]he dramatic story of Brenda Cummings and the problems that arise within her family when she marries Grant Cummings, her second husband." Widow Brenda's marriage to wealthy Grant Cummings produced problems on two levels—her son and daughter didn't want to accept Grant as their new father, and Brenda wanted a career as a movie actress, which Grant opposed.
Second Husband was one of 35 radio series -many of them soap operas- produced by the husband-and-wife team Frank and Anne Hummert from 1931 through 1960. The conflict regarding Brenda Cummings' desire for a career in movies resembled the situation of Mary Noble in another Hummert program, Backstage Wife.
Helen Menken, who was the first actress to play Brenda Cummings, was a veteran of Broadway plays when the show began. She first appeared in a Broadway production at age 3 and was in another when she was 5. Menken progressed to more substantial roles by the time she was a teenager and "[t]hrough the mid-1920s, she presented a string of powerful performances in challenging dramas." Thus, a newspaper article about Second Husband advised readers: "The series will afford Miss Menken the opportunity of displaying her versatility and acting genius and will enable you radio dialers to hear one of the theater's brilliant actresses in a gripping role."
A 1939 magazine article about Second Husband described Menken as "a perfectionist, which probably accounts for the fact that she is one of the few stars of stage or screen who has been able to make and retain an equal success on the air."
Menken's personal life mirrored her role in the program to an extent, because when the show aired she was married to her second husband. Thus, her real-life experience sometimes affected her work on Second Husband. As an example, she told one reporter, "It wasn't until after my second wedding that I realized what I had missed in not wearing a lovely, flowing, white wedding gown." After acknowledging her sentimental nature, she continued: "When my wedding scene ... came into the script, I went out and bought a beautiful wedding gown. And I was married over the air in it. The way I had always wanted to be married in real life. It was beautiful."
The star's stage experience might also have influenced how the program was broadcast. That same article noted, "Broadcasting Second Husband is almost like putting on a regular stage play, with the curtain rising at the beginning of the show and falling at its end, and all the actors taking curtain calls in response to applause."
...
Wikipedia