Glenhall Taylor was among the first wave of Bay Area radio performers, heard for the first time on the short-lived Oakland station KZY in 1922.
Taylor was born in Buffalo, NY and moved to the Bay Area with his parents in 1915. His early work as an announcer and musician launched a remarkable career that included work as an orchestra conductor, announcer, actor, scriptwriter, radio station manager, producer/director, and advertising-agency executive (he was a vice-president of Young & Rubicam, Inc., and later, manager of the Hollywood office of N. W. Ayer & Son, Inc.).
Heard on numerous Bay Area stations, including San Francisco’s notorious KFWI, Taylor managed KFRC, where he created what may have been the West Coast’s first amateur show, Star Maker, in 1926. He later served as program director at KTAB before leaving for Los Angeles to manage KHJ.
He wrote and/or directed popular network radio shows such as Burns and Allen, Ozzie and Harriet, The Jimmy Durante Show, and Blondie.
In his later years, Taylor chronicled his experiences in radio’s early era in the 1979 book Before Television–The Radio Years.
Glenhall Taylor died in 1998 at age 94.