PARLEY BAER (1914 - 2002) Prolific radio actor

 

Episode 36 aired February 22, 1948 over the CBS Radio Network. A professor who has rejected companionship is haunted by an invisible creature. Luis Van Rooten as Professor Guildea and the narrator, Father Murchison played by Parley Edward Baer (PHOTO) (August 5, 1914 – November 22, 2002) who was an American actor in radio and later in television and film. Despite dozens of appearances in television series and theatrical films, he remains best known as the original "Chester" in the radio version of Gunsmoke, and as the Mayor of Mayberry (Roy Stoner) in The Andy Griffith Show. 

  BAER BIO, Wikipedia

Parley Edward Baer (August 5, 1914 – November 22, 2002) was an American actor in radio and later in television and film.

His first network show was The Whistler, which was soon followed by appearances on Escape (notably narrating "Wild Jack Rhett" and as the title patriot in an adaptation of Stephen Vincent Benet's "A Tooth for Paul Revere"), Suspense, Tales of the Texas Rangers (as various local sheriffs), Dragnet, The CBS Radio Workshop, Lux Radio Theater, The Six Shooter, and Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, to name a few. In 1952, he began playing Chester, the unofficial deputy to Marshal Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke, eventually ad-libbing the character's full name, "Chester Wesley Proudfoot". In 1946, he met and married circus aerialist and bareback rider Ernestine Clarke. They were together for 54 years until her death on August 5, 2000, in Tarzana, California.

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