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GRAHAM McNAMEE — NBC Announcer
C'1 RAHAM McNAMEE today is conceded one of America’s best known radio announcers, and the dean of his profession. But if you ask McNamee what it takes to become popular before the gilded “mike” — and be able to call notables by their first name — he will shake his head in despair. McNamee went into radio as a temporary occupation until he could obtain sufficient bookings as a concert artist to keep the wolf from the door. He has traveled across the continent to spend two hours describing a college football game. He once came near exhaustion keeping America’s radio audience informed as to the doings of their delegates at the drawn-out Democratic National Convention of 1924. Each time the NBC has broadcast the running of the Kentucky Derby — Graham has been at the micro¬ phone. It was his voice that described Lindbergh’s triumphant return from Paris after his trans-Atlantic flight. Again all America listened to the versatile announcer as Richard E. Byrd returned to New York after his Antarctic expedition. Stay-at-homes welcomed his description of the inauguration of President Hoover. During his eleven years of broadcasting, McNamee estimates he has used more than seven times the maximum number of words in the dictionary. And seldom has his pronunciation been challenged. During his talks with kings, queens, cardinals, football captains, presidents, prize-fighters, and what-have-you, it is estimated that more persons have heard his voice than of any other man alive. McNamee made his first “broadcast” from a Washington, D. C., hospital on July 10, 1889. Boyhood found him in a choir, and with such promise he continued his study of voice past the amateur stage. Concert artists were not so much in demand, so Graham obtained a job as a salesman. He soon found himself in New York, not too well supplied with money. Then he took up jury service at $3 a day. One day during the court’s noon recess he chanced to pass the old studios of WEAF at 195 Broadway. He decided to save 50 cents which he would spend at lunch and look over a broadcasting studio. It was then that one of the world’s greatest radio personalities started on the proverbial ladder to success.
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