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KENNETH ROBERTS — CBS Announcer
T^ENNETH ROBERTS was born in New York on February 22, 1906, and is one of the two or three announcers on the Columbia network who were actually born and raised in Manhattan. He attended De Witt Clinton High School and spent three years of study towards a law degree at St. John’s College in Brooklyn. Work in school and college dramatic societies intensified his theatrical ambitions, and in 1928 he cast aside his text books with the hope of going on the stage. Dramatic work over WPCH was his first taste oi radio, and it was followed by a short term as radio announcer at WMCA, which he left to fill a previous contract playing summer stock with the Cedar Hills company at Lakeville, Conn. At the end of the summer he was determined to be an announcer rather than an actor. A friend on a Brooklyn newspaper introduced Ken to the manager of a Brooklyn station at a propitious moment. The station’s announcer was preparing to leave that day and the applicant, after a test, was hired on the spot. During the four hours a day the station was on the air it was his duty to announce all programs and to fill in at the piano or with readings of poetry or drama when extra time had to be filled. He considers this excellent schooling, for a thorough knowledge of radio came out of the exigencies he had to cope lvlt“ ®1J1^le-handed. After six months at the Brooklyn station he applied for a WABC audition, and in February, 1931, he was chosen from 40 candidates as a Columbia announcer. Since then he has become identified with several of the network’s leading programs. The theatre is still his hobby, though he is now set on a radio career . . . another hobby is singing . . . he has studied both piano and voice, and is continuing his musical studies now . . . spare time, if anv, is devoted to horseback riding, swimming, tennis and bridge . . . is tall and dark, with a black mustache, but not of the “After Dark” villain type . . . has taken incidental parts in dramatic programs at Columbia . . . also has served as master of ceremonies, notably at the Ferde Grofe concert for the benefit of jobless musicians.
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