Year 1957 (MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar.
The Shadow is a collection of serialized dramas, originally in pulp magazines, then on 1930s radio and then in a wide variety of media, that follow the exploits of the title character, a crimefighting vigilante in the pulps, which carried over to the airwaves as a "wealthy, young man about town" with psychic powers. One of the most famous pulp heroes of the 20th century, The Shadow has been featured in comic books, comic strips, television, video games, and at least five motion pictures. The radio drama is well-remembered for those episodes voiced by Orson Welles.
Introduced as a mysterious radio narrator by David Chrisman, William Sweets and Harry Engman Charlot for Street and Smith Publications, The Shadow was fully developed and transformed into a pop culture icon by pulp writer Walter B. Gibson.
The Shadow debuted on July 31, 1930, as the mysterious narrator of the Street and Smith radio program Detective Story Hour. After gaining popularity among the show's listeners, the narrator became the star of The Shadow Magazine on April 1, 1931, a pulp series created and primarily written by the prolific Gibson.
George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, writer and producer who worked extensively in theater, radio and film. He is best remembered for his innovative work in all three media, most notably Caesar (1937), a groundbreaking Broadway adaption of Julius Caesar and the debut of the Mercury Theatre; The War of the Worlds (1938), the most famous broadcast in the history of radio; and Citizen Kane (1941), which many critics and scholars name as the best film of all time.
After directing a number of high-profile theatrical productions in his early twenties, including an innovative adaptation of Macbeth and The Cradle Will Rock, Welles found national and international fame as the director and narrator of a 1938 radio adaptation of H. G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds performed for the radio drama anthology series Mercury Theatre on the Air. It was reported to have caused widespread panic when listeners thought that an invasion by extraterrestrial beings was occurring. Although these reports of panic were mostly false and overstated, they rocketed Welles to instant notoriety.
Jock Mahoney (February 7, 1919 – December 14, 1989) was an American actor and stuntman of Irish, French, and Cherokee ancestry. Born Jacques O'Mahoney, he was credited variously as Jock Mahoney, Jack O'Mahoney or Jock O'Mahoney. He starred in two television series, both westerns. He played Tarzan in two feature films and was associated in various capacities with several other Tarzan productions.
Mahoney was born in Chicago but was raised in Davenport, Iowa. He entered the University of Iowa, but dropped out to enlist in the United States Marine Corps when World War II began. He served as both a pilot and a flying instructor. After his discharge, he moved to Los Angeles and was a horsebreeder for a time. However, he soon became a movie stuntman, doubling for actors Gregory Peck, Errol Flynn, and John Wayne. Director Vincent Sherman recalled staging the climactic fight scene in the 1948 film Adventures of Don Juan, and finding only one Hollywood stuntman who was willing to leap from a high staircase in the scene. The man was Mahoney, who demanded and received $1,000 for the dangerous stunt.
Luana Patten (July 6, 1938 – May 1, 1996) was an American film actress.
Luana Patten was born in Long Beach, California, the daughter to Harvey T. Patten and Alma Miller. Patten made her first film appearance in Joel Chandler Harris's 1946 musical Song of the South with Bobby Driscoll. They also appeared together in Song of the South's sister film So Dear to My Heart.
She appeared again with Bobby Driscoll in the Pecos Bill segment of Disney's Melody Time. In 1957 she also co-starred with Jock Mahoney in Joe Dakota. In 1947, she appeared with Edgar Bergen, Charlie McCarthy, and Mortimer Snerd during the live action scenes in Fun and Fancy Free. She played the role of Priscilla Lapham in Disney's 1957 production of Johnny Tremain.
In 1959 she played the role of Abbie Fenton in the Wanted: Dead of Alive episode "Call Your Shot". In 1960, she played the role of Libby Halstead in Vincente Minnelli's melodrama Home from the Hill. In 1966 she had a small part as Nora White, the new bride of the reformed "Whitey" played by Kurt Russell, in Follow Me, Boys!. She also appeared in Fun and Fancy Free and A Thunder of Drums, and the Rawhide episode "Incident of the Druid Curse". She retired from the film industry in the 1960s, but returned to make a cameo as an elderly woman in Grotesque.