The Strange Story of The Whistler's Chicago Series

The Chicago-based Whistler series ran from February 3, 1946 to February 9, 1947. It starred Everett Clarke. The program was sponsored by Peter Hand Brewery and promoted their Meister Brau beer. The broadcasts were based in WBBM studios and were performed in front of live audiences. 

The 54 WBBM broadcasts used scripts from the Pacific Network series with Chicago actors and production staff. Only three programs have survived as of the date of this entry into the Internet Archive.

• Whistler 1946-04-07 CHI-10 The Trigger Man AFRTS#14 (Pacific open, Chicago drama)

• Whistler 1946-09-08 CHI-32 A Brief Pause For Murder

• Whistler 1946-12-15 CHI-46 Blind Impulse

The recordings can be accessed at https://archive.org/details/WhistlerWBBM A log of the WBBM series is also available at that page.

The Trigger Man is a curious one because the only surviving recording was issued by the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service (AFRTS). Their engineers used a Whistler opening segment from the CBS Pacific Network series and then attached the extracted drama of the WBBM production recording behind it. (They likely wanted consistency with other Whistler programs from the CBS Pacific Network that they were releasing; editing the WBBM openings with the studio audience applause and the Meister Brau beer commercials out likely provided a challenge in AFRS production editing). Without this AFRTS recording, we'd have only two of the 54 WBBM productions. The other two recordings are sponsored WBBM broadcasts with Meister Brau commercials. 

The production Blind Impulse was produced on the Pacific Network, but that recording has not been found. Only the WBBM broadcast is known to survive.

The log of the WBBM series is available on this page as an Adobe Acrobat PDF. It can be directly accessed using this link https://archive.org/download/WhistlerWBBM/The%20Whistler%20Log%20%20-%20WBBM%20Chicago%20series%20-%2005-07-2026.pdf

This ad appeared in the Chicago Tribune of 1946-02-03:

The broadcast agreement with CBS National was that WBBM could produce its own Whistler programs until the network found a sponsor for the series for areas not covered by the CBS Pacific Network. The successful series was bankrolled by Signal Oil, which operated only in those states, and was so thrilled with their sponsorship results they were not about to surrender it. When CBS attracted Household Finance Company to sponsor the series in the non-Pacific Network geography, the WBBM productions had to conclude.

The response to the Whistler productions was encouraging, and WBBM and Peter Hand Brewery decided to press forward with a different radio drama. A few weeks later after the Chicago Whistler series left the air, WBBM initiated a new series with Clarke. It was a psychological drama, The Echo. It had some similarities to The Whistler according to the way it was described in newspapers. It lasted only 17 weeks. No recordings are known to survive.

A 1946 interview with Everett Clarke is included on the Internet Archive page. It was broadcast on Chicago station WIND's program Celebrity Spotlight. 

Clarke Played the Whistler in a 1948 Experimental TV Broadcast in Chicago

In 1948, CBS and the Whistler creators were experimenting with television and produced three Whistler episodes. Two were in New York City, and one was in Chicago. (Kinescope technology was still being developed, so no video recordings are available of them). Everett Clarke played The Whistler in that WBKB-TV Chicago, June 27, 1948 broadcast. The production received a positive review.

from the June 30, 1948 review in Variety

The Very Strange Ending to the Chicago Whistler Story, 33 Years Later

Sadly, Clarke came to attention in 1980 when he was brutally murdered. News wire services reported around the country that the star of radio's golden age series, The Whistler, had been killed. Reports did not have the proper context. Clarke's tenure as the character was limited only to the upper Midwest market for the 54 weeks it was on the air. There were over 800 Whistler broadcasts in the golden age of radio with more than 500 surviving.

Clarke had a long tenure in Chicago dramatic radio and was highly regarded there. He appeared in Chicago Theater of the Air, Lights Out, World's Great Novels, Destination Freedom, The Eternal Light, and many others. Radio production and many of its talented actors left Chicago for opportunities in Hollywood and New York, and took advantage of television's increasing adoption. Clarke decided to stay in Chicago. He opened an acting school, and it was there he was killed. There was a loud scuffle in his studio. A tenant who overheard it mistakenly believed was part of an acting lesson. The killer was Paul De Wit, a student of Clarke's. He got away, but was later arrested.

The 1980-09-13 Chicago Tribune reported that De Wit was 21, and was indicted for the murder. He was released to his parents on a $500,000 bond (which required parents to post 10% of that). A year later, the case went to trial, and the Tribune reported on 1981-09-23 that his attorney urged jurors to consider an insanity defense. She explained that he had a history of behavioral problems, and in the months up to the murder he developed paranoid schizophrenia. The prosecutors argued otherwise. On October 1, 1981, jurors found De Wit guilty, but mentally ill. They deliberated for six hours. The Tribune report described the proceedings as "a battle of psychiatrists." His mother explained that De Wit believed Clarke was a member of the Mafia "who wanted to kill him and destroy his career." Years later, a historical crime story in the February 16, 2010 edition of the Newfoundland Western Star newspaper stated that the jury was "convinced that De Wit, high on drugs, hadn't taken Everett's criticism of his acting well and that an argument had turned into bloody murder. They found him guilty. He was sentenced to 22 years imprisonment. Early in 1991, Paul De Wit was paroled after serving over 10 years in prison."

Additional genealogical research indicates that Paul De Wit spent some time in California after his release. Social Security records indicate he died in 2004.

MORE RESOURCES

The definitive telling about the strange history of the Chicago Arts Building, including the murder of Clarke and much more, is Keir Graff's 2025 book Chicago’s Fine Arts Building: Music, Magic, and Murder https://trope.com/products/chicagos-fine-arts-building

Graff has a very good blogpost about the murder at https://www.newcity.com/2023/11/17/fine-arts-building-interlude-three-death-in-the-afternoon-no-paul-god-no-paul/

Hear Graff in a short interview about the building and his book https://youtu.be/a313Rupfi6M?si=ZrByLvVi0KNRiqoR.

LOVE THE WHISTLER? VISIT THE WHISTLER PROJECT WEBSITE

https://sites.google.com/view/the-whistler-files/home

Cobalt Club recently completed a significant upgrading of the Whistler set of recordings. The project website has information about accessing the episodes. There are some newly found episodes in the set. Some previously poor sounding shows have been improved significantly. The most important part of the project is the series log, freshly updated and expanded. Details about downloading are at the Whistler Project site.

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