Anne Hummert
Encyclopedia
Born Anne Schumacher in Baltimore, she attended Goucher College while working as a college correspondent for the Baltimore Sun and then took a job with the Paris precursor of the International Herald Tribune
International Herald Tribune
The International Herald Tribune is a widely read English language international newspaper. It combines the resources of its own correspondents with those of The New York Times and is printed at 38 sites throughout the world, for sale in more than 160 countries and territories...
. In France, she married reporter John Ashenhurst. The couple had one son and moved to Chicago. Unable to find a job as a journalist, Anne Ashenhurst became an assistant to an advertising executive E. Frank Hummert. At the Blackett-Sample-Hummert agency, she rose in the ranks and became a full partner in 1933, earning $100,000 a year. Radio historian Jim Cox
Jim Cox (radio)
Jim Cox, a retired college professor living in Louisville, Kentucky, is a leading historian on the subject of radio programming in the 20th century...
noted that when the two teamed to create daytime radio serials, they...
- ...intended to seize the housewives’ attention and alter the pattern of their daily existence... Radio as Americans experienced it during its golden age likely would have been vastly different had Frank and Anne Hummert not been on the scene to influence it so pervasively.
After their first major success, Just Plain Bill
Just Plain Bill
Just Plain Bill was a long run 15-minute daytime radio drama program heard on CBS and NBC. The series was sponsored by Anacin for 18 of the program's 23-year run. Other sponsors over the years were Kolynos toothpaste, Clapp’s baby food and BiSoDol...
, they followed with Ma Perkins
Ma Perkins
Ma Perkins is an American radio soap opera which was heard on NBC from 1933 to 1949 and on CBS from 1942 to 1960. Between 1942 and 1949, the show was heard simultaneously on both networks...
, Backstage Wife
Backstage Wife
Backstage Wife is an American soap opera radio program that details the travails of Mary Noble, a girl from a small town in Iowa who came to New York seeking her future....
and Young Widder Brown
Young Widder Brown
Young Widder Brown was a daytime radio drama series broadcast on NBC from 1938 to 1956. Sponsored by Sterling Drugs and Bayer Aspirin, it daily examined the life of "attractive Ellen Brown, with two fatherless children to support."...
. Her marriage to John Ashenhurst ended in divorce, and Frank Hummert was single after the death of his wife, Adeline Hummert. Following their 1935 marriage, Frank and Anne Hummert moved to New York where they launched their company, Air Features, a radio production house. The Hummerts produced many radio drama series, including Amanda of Honeymoon Hill
Amanda of Honeymoon Hill
Amanda of Honeymoon Hill was a 15-minute daily radio soap opera produced by Frank and Anne Hummert. Broadway actress Joy Hathaway had the title role, sometimes described as "the beauty of flaming red hair." The series was broadcast from February 5, 1940 until April 26, 1946, initially on the Blue...
, Front Page Farrell, John’s Other Wife, Little Orphan Annie
Little Orphan Annie
Little Orphan Annie was a daily American comic strip created by Harold Gray and syndicated by Tribune Media Services. The strip took its name from the 1885 poem "Little Orphant Annie" by James Whitcomb Riley, and made its debut on August 5, 1924 in the New York Daily News...
, Judy and Jane
Judy and Jane
Judy and Jane was a radio soap opera originally heard on CBS from February 8 to June 17, 1932 and on NBC from October 10, 1932 to April 26, 1935. Sponsored by Folgers Coffee, it was heard regionally in the midwest only....
, Mr. Chameleon, Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons
Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons
Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons was one of radio's longest running shows, airing , continuing well into the television era. It was produced by Frank and Anne Hummert...
and Our Gal Sunday. They soon had as many as 18 separate 15-minute serials airing for a total of 90 episodes a week. They also produced The American Album of Familiar Music
The American Album of Familiar Music
The American Album of Familiar Music was a radio program of popular music broadcast from 1931 to 1951, first on NBC and then on ABC. Directed by James Haupt, the show was produced by Frank and Anne Hummert, better remembered today for creating Ma Perkins and other soap operas.Sponsored by Bayer...
.
From their estate in Greenwich, Connecticut
Greenwich, Connecticut
Greenwich is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. As of the 2010 census, the town had a total population of 61,171. It is home to many hedge funds and other financial service companies. Greenwich is the southernmost and westernmost municipality in Connecticut and is 38+ minutes ...
, Anne Hummert delivered a large weekly word count, outlining all of the plot twists for all of her programs. The Hummerts farmed out the writing to scripters, known as "dialoguers," who embellished her synopses into complete scripts for Stella Dallas
Stella Dallas (radio series)
Stella Dallas was an America radio soap opera that ran from 1937 to 1955. The title character was the beautiful daughter of an impoverished farmhand who had married above her station in life. She was played for the entire run of the series by Anne Elstner .Her husband Stephen Dallas was portrayed...
, Young Widder Brown and other soap operas.
Actress Mary Jane Higby observed, “Unquestionably, they had a profound influence on the whole literature of soap opera. They, more than anyone else, determined the shape it took.” According to Jim Cox, by the 1940s, the Hummerts controlled four-and-a-half hours of the national weekday broadcast schedule. Their programs brought in more than five million letters a year. By 1939, the Hummert's programs were responsible for more than half the advertising revenues generated by daytime radio. They also did primetime musical shows, such as Waltz Time.
The Hummerts each had an annual income of $100,000. Frank Hummert died in 1966. Anne Hummert was a multimillionaire when she died July 5, 1996 in her Fifth Avenue apartment at the age of 91.