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In my first book, ‘Turn Your Radio On’, there is a photo from the Detroit News referencing how I was able to play the part of The Lone Ranger.
It was all arranged by the late Dick Osgood who was a wonderful friend, Emmy Award Winning Radio icon, and a giant in the early days at WXYZ. One of the three performances we did was recorded with Dick giving a brief history of radio and introducing the cast of the performance. You’ll recognize some of the names.
With an introduction by yours truly, this is the only recording in existence and deserves to be preserved. Most of the cast are now in Heaven, including a bit player, Detroit’s most popular radio and television weatherman, Sonny Eliot.
In adding further to the Lone Ranger legacy, in 1986, Lee Alan wrote to a feature columnist with the Detroit News:
“My childhood hero was The Lone Ranger, but before Clayton Moore. As a boy growing up in Detroit I listened to The Lone Ranger as it was done live from WXYZ on the radio. My Lone Ranger in those days (actually the name was Brace) was Bruce Beemer. His deep, resonant voice created a vivid mental picture of my hero.
In 1965, I shared an office at WXYZ with my dear and recently deceased friend, Joel Sebastian. I heard a voice from the hallway. And there he stood . . . 60 plus years of age — looking just like I always thought he would. I nervously introduced myself. He shook my hand, and with the other . . . he gave me a silver bullet. Five days later he died.
“In 1985, at the national convention of the ‘Friends Of Old-Time Radio,’ the Lone Ranger was recreated by the original cast. They asked me to go and play Brace Beemer’s part. For 30 minutes I was surrounded by all the thundering hoof beats from out of the past and realized my boyhood dream. I was the Lone Ranger . . .”
“I retired from radio in 1970 and opened my ad agency about 16 years ago,” said Alan. “The horn and ashtray are locked up in a vault, along with photos and film clips of my radio days. But nothing means more to me than that silver bullet. That and the fact that I actually became the Lone Ranger . . . if only for a little while.”
Alan also added, “The cast members, when I had the wonderful opportunity to play Brace Beemer’s part as the Lone Ranger before a live audience of a thousand people, included Fred Foy who was the show’s announcer, Dick Osgood, Rube Weiss as Tonto and, the show’s actual director on WXYZ, Chuck Livingstone.
When it was over a small elderly lady approached me and said: “I closed my eyes and it was him . . . I heard his voice. It was him.”
The lady was Leta Beemer, widow of Brace Beemer. My “Lone Ranger.” She saw the “pictures” that only radio can produce.
Lee Alan | March 15, 2022
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A special Thank You to Lee Alan for recently providing his special audio presentation of The Lone Ranger for this page on Motor City Radio Flashbacks.
Produced and created by Lee Alan
