Rocky Jordan, Volume 1

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Special Features

Rocky Jordan
Volume 1

Jay Novello and Jack Moyles pose in character for a CBS photo publicizing "Rocky Jordan".

Flashing eyes and flashing knives...intrigue and mystery in the dusty, crowded streets of Cairo. That's what "Rocky Jordan" meant to faithful radio listeners between 1945 and 1951. It began as "A Man Named Jordan," a fifteen-minute daily serial on the CBS West Coast Network, and evolved into the weekly half-hour adventure that is best remembered today. Heard for the most part only on the west coast and unknown to most of the radio audience during its original airing, the series had national exposure only for the final two months of its run -- but has nonetheless captured the imagination of latter-day Old Time Radio enthusiasts as securely as if it had been a long-running coast-to-coast favorite.

"Rocky Jordan" is very reminiscent of the classic movie "Casablanca." You'll remember that, at the end of the 1942 movie, nightclub owner Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) and Police Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains) walk off into the night, leaving Casablanca to join the Free French garrison across the desert. It would be very easy to think of them ending up in Cairo a few years later, with Blaine opening a new cafe and Renault returning to the challenges - and perks - of police work.

Jack Moyles plays Rocky Jordan, who is much like the Bogart character Rick Blaine. Jordan runs the Cafe Tambourine in Cairo, and Jay Novello plays Captain Sam Sabaaya, a policeman who relates to Jordan much as Captain Renault does to Rick: they like each other, they respect each other -- but they both maintain a certain skepticism.

The settings of both stories are nearly identical: the desert sands, the fez, the turbans, the robes, the underworld lowlifes who visit the cafe. In "Casablanca," 'everyone comes to Rick's'. Not so in "Rocky Jordan;" the Cafe Tambourine is a lower-class establishment. It's more a waterfront dive, filled with forgotten men. And, unlike "Casablanca," the war is over -- but not the mystery or the intrigue.

In this collection of twenty full-length shows, all taken from original CBS network master recordings, Rocky Jordan has encounters with a beautiful gypsy girl, escaped killers, desert raiders, ex-Nazis, diamond smugglers, black marketeers, gun runners, arsonists, racketeers and international thieves. And in them all, he hides a strong sentimentality behind his gruff exterior.

Yes, it's Bogart's Rick Blaine all over again -- but this time portrayed by Jack Moyles as Rocky Jordan. Casablanca or Cairo, it makes no difference. Close your eyes and feel the hot desert winds against your face. Listen to the babble of the crowds at the bazaar. Feel the adrenaline rush as a sharp Bedouin knife thunks into the woodwork inches from your ear. It's time for another adventure in Cairo with Rocky Jordan!

Up in Flames
Sunday, December 19, 1948 - 30:00 - CBS, sustaining

Red Stands for Blood
Sunday, February 13, 1949 - 30:00 - CBS, sustaining

The St. Louis Blues
Sunday, March 13, 1949 - 30:00 - CBS, sustaining

Consignment for Naples
Sunday, April 24, 1949 - 30:00 - CBS, sustaining

Lady in Disguise
Sunday, May 8, 1949 - 30:00 - CBS, sustaining

The Man They All Loved
Sunday, June 5, 1949 - 30:00 - CBS, sustaining

The Map of Murder
Sunday, July 3, 1949 - 30:00 - CBS, sustaining

The Race
Sunday, July 17, 1949 - 30:00 - CBS, sustaining

The Coward of Mutakhan
Sunday, July 24, 1949 - 30:00 - CBS, sustaining

Barlache
Sunday, July 31, 1949 - 30:00 - CBS, sustaining

Gold Fever
Sunday, August 7, 1949 - 30:00 - CBS, sponsored by Del Monte Foods

Cairo Vendetta
Sunday, August 14, 1949 - 30:00 - CBS, sponsored by Del Monte Foods

The Gum Queen
Sunday, August 21, 1949 - 30:00 - CBS, sponsored by Del Monte Foods

A Stranger to the Desert
Sunday, September 4, 1949 - 30:00 - CBS, sponsored by Del Monte Foods

Adventure with Andraya
Sunday, September 11, 1949 - 30:00 - CBS, sponsored by Del Monte Foods

The Nile Runs High
Sunday, September 18, 1949 - 30:00 - CBS, sponsored by Del Monte Foods

Momento from Adelaide
Sunday, September 25, 1949 - 30:00 - CBS, sponsored by Del Monte Foods

Pattern for Revenge
Sunday, October 2, 1949 - 30:00 - CBS, sponsored by Del Monte Foods

The Man with No Name
Sunday, October 9, 1949 - 30:00 - CBS, sponsored by Del Monte Foods

Quest for Tornina
Sunday, October 16, 1949 - 30:00 - CBS, sponsored by Del Monte Foods

A Man Named Jack

The cast of "Rocky Jordan" assembles for a 1949 broadcast from the CBS studios in Hollywood.

The October 1949 issue of "Radio and Television Mirror" featured a brief article about Jack Moyles, the star of "Rocky Jordan." It offers a small but unique insight into the life and career of an actor who, though largely forgotten today, was a busy and popular performer during the hey-day of network radio.

There's a lot of mileage between Cairo, Egypt and the Columbia Square studios of KNX in Los Angeles, but Jack Moyles spends half an hour each Sunday afternoon in both places.

The Egyptian phase of Jack's life started in 1945 when he was set to play "A Man Named Jordan" on the Columbia Pacific Network. Owner of the Cafe Tambourine in Cairo, Jordan spent his spare time chasing crooks. In that first year Jordan, A Man Named...did his chasing five days a week, fifteen minutes at a time.

Now he's gained a first name, and a lot of West Coast listeners who travel to Egypt with Rocky Jordan every Sunday.

Jack is a Californian right down to his first pair of shoes - he was born in San Francisco on June 26, 1913. He followed up his first appearance before an audience in the high school senior play with active participation in the San Francisco University's Glee Club and Players group. After graduation, radio producers, too, liked the sound of Jack's voice and in 1933 he made his debut as an announcer, but the start of his radio career in San Francisco meant only one step in the vocational ladder set up by Moyles. His next aim was a job with the CBS station in Hollywood.

With two friends who worked with him at the San Francisco station, a "Hollywood Caravan" (that was the banner) of two cars invaded the southern mecca of talent from the north.

Two days after Moyles arrived in Los Angeles he had a job. Being particularly adept at various roles and several dialects, Jack was immediately busy and established. Then, in January of 1945, the Moyles-Rocky association began. And in the four years the program has been broadcast from KNX in Los Angeles, Jack has missed only one program.

That day, June 28, 1945, instead of tending to Cafe Tambourine business as Rocky Jordan, Jack Moyles was wearing a tuxedo and nervously mumbling "I do" before an altar. The bride was Nina Vanderbush, attractive CBS receptionist.

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