George Hodel KFI Radio Announcer of Classical Music for Earle C. Anthony in Early L.A. Radio at Age 16

July 10, 2024
Birch Bay, Washington

I knew my father had been a radio announcer of classical music in Los Angeles in his youth, but this is the first time I have found documentation.

The Los Angeles Examiner article below lists him as the programmer/announcer of his own radio show for Earle C. Anthony on KFI radio in 1923, at age 16. I quote from the 1923 article “Song Series On KFI Bill”:

 “…Signalizing the response of the Anthony Studio of KFI to the constant demand of the public
for notable departures from the ordinary, George Hill Hodel presents Dione Neutra, versatile
Swiss musician, who has a charming soprano voice and ability as a cellist. Her program from 8:30
to 9:00 will be devoted to a series of songs which she studied under the great European singing master August Becker.
After long years of concert and recital work, Mme. Neutra has come to Los Angeles to make her home.”
…

Los Angeles Examiner
August 6, 1923

KFI Studio 1924                  Earle C. Anthony 1920s             KFI studio 1924

Dione Neutra 1901-1990

https://www.neutrahistory.org/welcome-to-the-social-history-of-the-neutra-vdl-compound/who-comprised-the-neutra-family/dione-neutra-190

Dione Neutra, an accomplished cellist featured in 1923 on George Hodel’s classical music program, was the wife of famed modernist architect Richard Neutra.  The photo above left shows Dione in their Silver Lake home in Los Angeles.

The Neutras were close friends of Frank Lloyd Wright and his son Lloyd Wright, who, three years after this performance, designed and built the Hollywood “Sowden House,” which George Hodel purchased some nineteen years later, in 1945.

The post George Hodel KFI Radio Announcer of Classical Music for Earle C. Anthony in Early L.A. Radio at Age 16 appeared first on Steve Hodel.