Heard on NBC radio from San Francisco 1949-1951, Candy was the toughest and wittiest of all the female private investigators on the air.
Candy Matson, YU 2-8209 created by Monty Masters—husband of the star,
Natalie Masters—also had some of the cleverest dialogue and well-plotted mystery scripts in broadcast drama. An added plus are the real-life Bay Area locations woven into each story. Candy’s love interest, SFPD Lt Ray Mallard, was played by Henry Leff, while her sometime sidekick, aptly named Rembrandt Watson, was played by Jack Thomas. Astonishingly for the early 50s, Rembrandt is obviously gay—
probably the first favorably portrayed homosexual on radio. This episode, entitled “
The Fort Ord Story”, is dedicated to my husband, novelist-editor Michael Matheny, who took his basic training in Fort Ord in 1967 before being shipped overseas.
