Mar 05 2006 28 mins 2
Duffy's Tavern was first heard in 1940 and became a regular feature. It was hailed from the start by critics and whole neighborhoods of working-class listeners alike…a duo that doesn't often see eye-to-eye! Duffy's Tavern was a place on Third Avenue and 23rd St. in New York City, where the "elite meet to eat, Duffy ain't here, Archie the Manager speakin'…" Anyone who loved old time radio probably knows that phone patter by heart! Ed Gardner played Archie, the manager of Duffy's Tavern, and he was as "real" sounding as any character on radio, as he had grown up in the Big Apple. His use and abuse of language was "exempulary" - the same type of local "parlese" that made The Damon Runyan Theater a favorite with New Yorkers everywhere. Gardner was a theatrical veteran, whose wife, Shirley Booth, well-known stage and screen actress, began on the show with him.
