Voice of the '20s

One noon in 1923 an inquisitive Irish baritone, waiting for the fall concert season and work, strolled into Manhattan's Station WEAF, began to ask questions. Attracted by his voice, a studio official hired Graham McNamee on the spot. From an announcer-singer, the neophyte soon became the best-known voice of the '20s. Fans first heard the familiar "Take it away, Graham," when he covered the Greb-Wilson title fight in the summer of '23, and the same year McNamee gave his first free translation of a World Series.

No sports expert, he drove the experts wild. He once announced the wrong winner at the Poughkeepsie regatta, another time caused Ring Lardner, who sat near him while he was announcing a ball game, to observe that there had been a double-header--the game that was played and the one that McNamee announced. But he had a knack of being breathless, exciting even when describing the hills behind the Rose Bowl, and the fans loved him. At one World Series game, delayed by rain, he cheerfully draped his raincoat over himself and the mike and ad-libbed for 60 minutes in a downpour. Twenty-five million people heard him describe the Tunney-Dempsey long count, the broadcast he was proudest of.

When sport technicians invaded his pre serve and began to talk in a jargon all their own, McNamee became a master-of-ceremonies, a commentator for Universal Newsreel. Three weeks ago he handled the Elsa Maxwell's Party Line show (Blue, Fridays, 10 p.m. E.W.T.), signed off with his usual "This is Graham McNamee." It was his last sign-off. In a New York hospital (where he had gone because of a streptococcus infection) death last week silenced the voice of the '20s.

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