George Watt Fenneman Bio/Wiki, Net Worth, Married 2018
George Watt Fenneman (November 10, 1919 – May 29, 1997) was an American radio and television announcer.Fenneman was born in Peking (now Beijing), China, the only child of American parents in the import-export business. He was nine months old when his parents moved to San Francisco, California where he grew up. In 1942 he graduated from San Francisco State College with a degree in speech and drama, and took a job as an announcer with a local radio station. During the Second World War he worked as a broadcast correspondent for the U.S. Office of War Information. In 1946 he moved to Los Angeles and resumed his radio career.He is most remembered as the announcer and good-natured sidekick for Groucho Marx's comedy/quiz show vehicle You Bet Your Life, which began in 1947 on radio and moved to television in 1950, where it remained on NBC for 11 years. Fenneman's mellifluous voice, clean-cut good looks, and gentlemanly manner provided the ideal foil for Marx's zany antics and bawdy ad libs.Fenneman was a resilient target of Marx's frequent mispronunciations of his name ("Feminine") and other light-hearted teasing. "Groucho called [Fenneman] the male Margaret Dumont", according to Frank Ferrante, who portrayed Marx onstage in Groucho: A Life in Revue. "George took it as the highest praise. Groucho called him the perfect straight man." He was also selected because of his intelligence and ability to calculate the scores of the contestants, whom Groucho frequently encouraged to bet odd amounts, making the arithmetic difficult to keep straight on the fly during a live show. Fenneman remained friends with Marx until the latter's death in 1977.Fenneman was one of a pair of announcers on Dragnet; he shared narration duties with Hal Gibney on radio and the original television series, and then with John Stephenson when Dragnet returned to TV in 1967. It was Fenneman's voice which announced, "The story you are about to see is true. The names have been changed to protect the innocent." while Stephenson would be heard at the end of the episode describing the court trials and verdicts. He was also the principal commercial announcer for the radio version of Gunsmoke, and frequently introduced "Matt Dillon" (William Conrad) after the episode to extoll the virtues of L&M or Chesterfield cigarettes.He appeared on screen in the 1951 film The Thing from Another World and the 1967 film adaption of the Broadway show How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying in substantial but uncredited roles. He and his wife were neighbors of The Thing from Another World's director, Christian Nyby. A spontaneous on-set script revision convinced Fenneman his future was not in movie acting. Producer Howard Hawks took a long scientific speech away from Robert O. Cornthwaite's character Dr. Carrington, preferring to give exposition to a minor character (Fenneman). As a radio performer accustomed to reading from a script and not used to quick memorization, Fenneman stumbl
He appeared weekly on the Dragnet radio show and, along with co-announcer Hal Gibney, Fenneman was as much a part of the show's iconic sound as its star, Jack Webb.
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In the early 1950s he donated a full-sized school bus to the McKinley Home for Boys located in Van Nuys, California.
Actor
Title
Year
Status
Character
The Naked Monster
2005
Narrator (voice)
The Simpsons
1993
TV Series
Narrator
Talk About Pictures
1978
TV Series
Host
Big Jake
1971
Narrator (voice, uncredited)
Once You Kiss a Stranger...
1969
Announcer
Dragnet 1967
1967-1969
TV Series
Main Title Announcer
Gomer Pyle: USMC
1968
TV Series
David Farnum
The Name of the Game
1968
TV Series
1st Newscaster
The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
1968
TV Series
Newscaster
Please Don't Eat the Daisies
1966
TV Series
TV Interviewer
Batman
1966
TV Series
Newsman
The Tom Ewell Show
1961
TV Series
Randy Rambo
The Horse with the Flying Tail
1960
Documentary
Narrator (voice)
Ocean's 11
1960
On Phone Talking to Sheriff Wimmer (voice, uncredited)
Make Room for Daddy
1960
TV Series
Face to Face interviewer
Dragnet
1951-1959
TV Series
Announcer (Opening)
General Electric Theater
1958
TV Series
Quizmaster
Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color
1958
TV Series
Narrator
Those Whiting Girls
1957
TV Series
Max Factor pitchman
Stormy, the Thoroughbred
1954
Narrator
Mystery Lake
1953
Bill Richards
Tanga-Tika
1953
Narrator
The Life of Riley
1953
TV Series
Voice
The Thing from Another World
1951
Dr. Redding (uncredited)
Thanks
Title
Year
Status
Character
The Unknown Marx Brothers
1993
TV Movie documentary special thanks
Self
Title
Year
Status
Character
You Bet Your Life: The Lost Episodes
2003
Video
Himself - Announcer
The Unknown Marx Brothers
1993
TV Movie documentary
Himself - Announcer: 'You Bet Your Life'
The One, the Only... Groucho
1991
TV Movie documentary
Himself
Those Wonderful TV Game Shows
1984
TV Special documentary
Himself
The Marx Brothers in a Nutshell
1982
TV Movie documentary
Himself
Save the Cable Cars Telethon
1982
TV Movie
Himself
Happy Days
1978
TV Series
Himself
The Good Old Days of Radio
1976
TV Movie documentary
Himself
The Mike Douglas Show
1974
TV Series
Himself - TV Announcer
This Is Your Life
1971
TV Series
Himself
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
1967
Himself / TV Announcer
Crossword
1966
TV Movie
Himself - Host
The Ed Sullivan Show
1964-1965
TV Series
Ad Pitchman / Lipton Tea pitchman / Himself - Ad Pitchman