The vast majority of you won't recognize this name, but I though I'd give a few electrons something to do as tribute to this departed friend. Today's CA obituary has a few words to say about this gifted and unusual broadcaster. Here are a few more/
Dutch died back in October at the VA. He'd been living in Sardis, MS, but his obituary is just hitting the paper today. That sounds about par for the course. Dutch was in broadcasting back in the early 50's up into the mid-70's. He did cartoon voices with Mel Blanc and others in those early years on the Coast and worked air shifts in the northeast and in Memphis part-time at WREC.
He had a terrific set of pipes, a full beard, a checkered past (as many radio types do), and, always, an uncertain future. He loved radio and loved working on WREC. John Powell, Fred Cook, Dean Pollard, Leonard Blakely, Jack Jackson, Joe Oliver, Everett Flagg, Mac Todd and I got to know him in the short time he worked with us and found him peculiar, hilarious, and a mile-a-minute talker...not unlike Art Mehring. Robb Grayson will know what I mean by that, though I'm not sure Robb ever knew Dutch.
I don't think I ever worked with a part-timer who left such a strong impression on me. When he left WREC, he moved upstairs in the Peabody and bought out Cappy's Peabody Liquor Store, which used to face Union. He ran that a few months, sometimes closing up to run downstairs and help out on a piece of production. After that he bought a vending machine business and got the gig at WREC for candy, cigarettes and chips for the next several years...from the Peabody out to 1385 Lamar and he even worked our vending machines on Beale Street in '85...I have a memory of him in the break room there telling tales about his life in and around radio and the movies.
Somewhere about '86 Dutch had legal problems and disappeared into the night, leaving his vending machines and occasional voice work behind. We heard rumors and occasional calls that indicated he would not be back our way again for reasons I'll not go into here. I never heard from him again till today's obit.
We've all worked with characters in this business and we're richer for them. Sometimes we're enriched by the realization that their path is not ours, but they fill niches in lives that we never knew existed. Here's to Dutch van Heilenborque, dead at 74, but alive in memory still, bless 'im!
Dutch died back in October at the VA. He'd been living in Sardis, MS, but his obituary is just hitting the paper today. That sounds about par for the course. Dutch was in broadcasting back in the early 50's up into the mid-70's. He did cartoon voices with Mel Blanc and others in those early years on the Coast and worked air shifts in the northeast and in Memphis part-time at WREC.
He had a terrific set of pipes, a full beard, a checkered past (as many radio types do), and, always, an uncertain future. He loved radio and loved working on WREC. John Powell, Fred Cook, Dean Pollard, Leonard Blakely, Jack Jackson, Joe Oliver, Everett Flagg, Mac Todd and I got to know him in the short time he worked with us and found him peculiar, hilarious, and a mile-a-minute talker...not unlike Art Mehring. Robb Grayson will know what I mean by that, though I'm not sure Robb ever knew Dutch.
I don't think I ever worked with a part-timer who left such a strong impression on me. When he left WREC, he moved upstairs in the Peabody and bought out Cappy's Peabody Liquor Store, which used to face Union. He ran that a few months, sometimes closing up to run downstairs and help out on a piece of production. After that he bought a vending machine business and got the gig at WREC for candy, cigarettes and chips for the next several years...from the Peabody out to 1385 Lamar and he even worked our vending machines on Beale Street in '85...I have a memory of him in the break room there telling tales about his life in and around radio and the movies.
Somewhere about '86 Dutch had legal problems and disappeared into the night, leaving his vending machines and occasional voice work behind. We heard rumors and occasional calls that indicated he would not be back our way again for reasons I'll not go into here. I never heard from him again till today's obit.
We've all worked with characters in this business and we're richer for them. Sometimes we're enriched by the realization that their path is not ours, but they fill niches in lives that we never knew existed. Here's to Dutch van Heilenborque, dead at 74, but alive in memory still, bless 'im!