Vanessa Brown stars in an Alexander Woollcott story, adapted by William N. Robson. He presented it three times on Escape in the years 1948 and 1950. The story is about a hoax involving a vanishing hotel room, and the whereabouts of the lady who was in it.
The Woollcott story first appeared in The New Yorker in two parts in July 1929. The editions can be viewed at the Internet Archive. The links go directly to the page where the story was published.
Part 1 https://archive.org/details/sim_the-new-yorker_1929-07-06_5_20/page/32/mode/1up?q=alexander
Part 2 https://archive.org/details/sim_the-new-yorker_1929-07-13_5_21/page/36/mode/1up?q=alexander
What happens to the woman? Authorities did not want the news of her contracting the black plague to discourage visits to a major international exhibition in Paris. They created this ruse to keep her illness quiet. In the meantime, her poor daughter was put through great difficulties as she searched for her mother and no one wanted to help her, and even denied their previous encounters with her. It is a story about frustration, and it can test the patience of listeners. There is a wrap-up of most of the strange details of the story at its conclusion.
This program was recorded on Friday, March 29, 1957. Rehearsal began at 1:00pm and concluded at 6:30pm. Recording began at 6:30pm and finished at 7:00pm.
There are two recordings that have survived. The better recording is the Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS#929) one. There is a network recording that has narrow range and background noise. All of the Escape broadcast recordings are in slightly better audio quality than the AFRS Suspense recording and much better that the Suspense network recording.
This was Vanessa Brown’s first of three appearances on Suspense. Brown came to the USA with her parents when she was a child. She was on radio as a young girl. Her 165 IQ earned her a two-year spot on the famous radio program The Quiz Kids. She had a successful movie, film, and television career. In later years, she had an interview program on the Voice of America, and it is possible that William N. Robson played a role in her getting that as he worked there beginning as an appointee by President Kennedy when Edward R. Murrow was head of the United States Information Agency. More information about her interesting career and life can be found at Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanessa_Brown
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP570407
THE CAST
Vanessa Brown (Cynthia Winship), Diana Bourbon (Operator / Doctor’s Wife), Virginia Gregg (Mrs. Winship), Ben Wright (Bruce Stanley / Garcon), Ramsay Hill (Doctor), John Dehner (Driver / Cabbie), Edgar Barrier (Hotel clerk / Waiter), Frank Goss (framing voice for story), George Walsh (Suspense Narrator)
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