San Jose-born Edna Fischer became one of the best-known stars of early Bay Area radio, in a career that carried her through to television’s early years. She became known as “San Francisco’s First Lady of Radio”.
Fischer’s family moved to Berkeley after the 1906 earthquake. A child musical prodigy who sang at the Panama Pacific Exhibition as a 9-year-old, she graduated from Berkeley High School. At age 16, she sang at the Claremont Hotel for an experimental radio broadcast.
Her piano and vocal skills as well as her abilities as a dancer led her to a career in vaudeville before she joined the staff of KFRC in 1926. She became a regular on the popular Blue Monday Jamboree and Happy Go Lucky Hour programs.
She then spent two decades on KPO and the NBC network, regularly appearing on Signal Oil’s Carefree Carnival and developing her own show, Stars In The Making. On that show, which she carried over to KPIX-TV in 1950, Fischer coached young talent.
In the 1980’s, Fischer came out of retirement to host a weekly show on KALW, Edna Fischer’s Melody Time, on which she would play a few songs andchat with radio old-timers.
Edna Fischer died in 1997 at the age of 95.