WRR radio began broadcasting in Dallas, Texas, in 1920, and in 1921 became the first licensed radio station in Texas and the second in the U.S.
In 1947, when Jimmy Stewart and Frank Capra were in Dallas promoting their new film, It’s a Wonderful Life, they were interviewed at WRR. The 15-minute interview was broadcast on March 5th, from 3-3:15 p.m. They were asked questions by a panel of female employees of the station – Pauline Carroll from the Program Department; Peggye Bradford, Traffic Department; Alta Faye, Director of Women’s Programs; Angie Polansky, Librarian; Pat Ingram, Continuity; Grace Hartwell, Accounting; Doris Sheppard, Engineering; Gladys Yates, Commercial Department; and Kathleen Carlton, Receptionist.
Possibly because most, if not all of these women, were not “on air” personalities, a script was prepared for them to follow. One of these scripts has come into our possession and will be included at the end of this post. Unfortunately, the script only has the question that each panelist would ask and who was answering that particular question. There is no indication of how Stewart and Capra answered the questions.
We can only speculate that Stewart did hundreds of this type of interview through the years as he traveled the country promoting his films. Most of these never made the newspaper listings.The audio for only a very few of these has been located and scripts are even more rare.
As you will notice on the bottom of the first page of the script, Stewart and Capra also autographed it.
