Luise’s post-Hollywood career was almost as busy as during her heyday, with appearances on stage and television. Before she made her television debut, however, Luise appeared on American radio in a handful of dramas. During the 1930s her radio appearances were confined to readings and dramatic excerpts from her own films, especially the now famous telephone scene from The Great Ziegfeld. In 1940 she made her radio acting debut in an episode of Lincoln Highway.
In 1944 she returned to radio to appear in the mystery detective series The Adventures of Ellery Queen, a drama-cum-panel show based on the exploits of Fredric Dannay’s and Manfred Lee’s celebrated eponymous sleuth. The series ran from 1939 to 1948 and featured a panel of amateur armchair detectives, crime fiction writers or radio and film stars. Each episode featured a dramatic episode which was curtailed when all clues had been revealed to give the panel a chance to solve the crime.
Luise appeared as Guest Armchair Detective on the episode The Inner Circle, broadcast on 28 December 1944. As far as I am aware the recording no longer exists.
Credits:
Producer / Director: George Zachary
Cast: Sydney Smith, Santos Ortega, Ted de Corsia, Marian Shockley, Ernest Chappell (announcer)
Luise Rainer 