Acade­my Award The­ater (aka Acade­my Award) was a CBS ra­dio anthol­o­gy se­ries which pre­sent­ed 30-​minute adap­ta­tions of plays, novels or films.

The pro­gram aired Sat­ur­days at 7pm through June and then moved to Wednes­days at 10pm. Frank Wil­son script­ed the 30-​minute adaptations for pro­duc­er Dee En­gle­bach, and Lei­th Stevens pro­vid­ed the mu­sic. The sound ef­fects crew in­clud­ed Gene Twombly, Jay Roth, Clark Casey and Berne Surrey.

The se­ries be­gan March 30, 1946, with Bette Davis, Anne Re­vere and Fay Bain­ter in Jezebel. It was an ex­pen­sive show to pro­duce since the stars cost $4,000 a week, and an­oth­er $1,600 went each week to the Acade­my of Motion Pic­ture Arts and Sci­ences for the use of their name in the show’s ti­tle.

Dra­mas in which ac­tors recre­at­ed their orig­i­nal film roles in­clud­ed Humphrey Bog­a­rt in The Mal­tese Fal­con, Cary Grant in Sus­pi­cion and Ronald Col­man in Lost Hori­zon.

The se­ries end­ed De­cem­ber 18, 1946, with Mar­garet O’Brien and Jeff Chandler in Lost An­gel.

This ar­ti­cle is based on in­for­ma­tion from Wikipedia.

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