Parley Baer

That's right, it's Parley Baer.

This veteran character actor was born in Salt Lake City, Utah in August 1914. One of his great loves (besides dramatic radio) was the circus, and he even owned one for a while. His wife Ernestine Clarke was a former circus performer. They were married from 1946 until her death in 2000. In an episode of tv's Streets of San Francisco, Parley played a circus ringmaster. The episode used Parley's own circus as the backdrop for the storyline. He estimated that between 1932 and 1962 he appeared on 15,000 radio shows. Parley called it "the most nearly perfect medium for an actor". He continued to work in film and television until a stroke took away his speech in 1997. He died of stroke complications in November of 2002, having been in show business for more than sixty years.

What are your favorite Parley Baer performances?