KEN BURNS: AMERICA COLLECTION: EMPIRE OF THE AIR - THE MEN WHO MADE RADIO

Details

• Release Year: 1991
• Genre: Documentary
• Plot: For fifty years radio dominated the airwaves and the American consciousness as the first 'mass medium.' ; ; This film by Ken Burns examines the lives of three extraordinary men who shared the primary responsibility for this invention and its early success, and whose genius, friendship, rivalry and enmity interacted in tragic ways. ; ; This is the story of Lee de Forest, a clergyman's flamboyant son, who invented the audition tube; Edwin Howard Armstrong, a brilliant, withdrawn inventor who pioneered FM technology; and David Sranoff, a hard driving Russian emigrant who created the most powerful communications company on earth.; ; Against the backdrop of radio's 'Golden Age,' this fascinating backstage drama tells the history of radio through archival photgraphs, newsreels of the period, and interviews with such radio personalities as Garrison Keillor, sports commentator Red Barber, radio dramatist Norman Corwin and broadcast historian Erik Barnouw.
• Cast: Jason Robards, Red Barber, Erik Barnouw, Ken Bilby, Norman Corwin, Susan Douglas, Frank Günther, Jeanne Hammond, Loren Jones, Garrison Keillor, Helen Kelley, Robert Morris, Dana Raymond, Gertrude Tyne, Fred Allen, Gene Autry, John Barrymore, Winston Churchill, Charles J. Correll, Lee De Forest, Ralph Edwards, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Freeman F. Gosden, Guglielmo Marconi, Marie Mosquini, Nelson Rockefeller, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, David Sarnoff, Frank Sinatra, Arturo Toscanini, Harry S. Truman, Bob Warren, Orson Welles, Ken Burns, Tom Lewis
• Director: Ken Burns
• Runtime: 2:00
• Company: PBS Home Video
• Media Format: Series