I know this is really going back in the history book and that it's a real long shot that I'll get any answers, but here goes.
I'm trying to find some biographical information on Dorothy (Dottie) Abbott, who was the first general manager for Sam Phillips's WHER, Memphis, the 1955 all-girl station, and then later became known as the overnight syndicated voice of Holiday Inns, Dolly Holiday. As I recall she had a beautiful, seductive, radio voice
In a 1999 interview Phillips was quoted as saying he hired an experienced woman as his manager, who at the time was working in Phoenix radio. He didn't give the call letters. Dorothy Abbott, in turn, hired mostly women inexperienced in radio.
She was apparently manager until 1966 when a male manager was appointed. Phillips's partner was the owner of the Holiday Inn chain and that presumably was how she developed her contacts at Holiday Inn. Her program was distributed on tape to local stations, many of them Class 1A clear channels. Local sponsors would include local Holiday Inns and I don't recall if other ads were allowed in the program. The format would have been described as MOR or pop standards.
A 1955 directory that I have lists a Margie Abbott as Program Director of KONI. There were so few women listed as PD's in those days that I'm wondering if Dorothy Abbott and Margie Abbott could have been one and the same?
Do we have any historians on the website whose information might go back that far?
Thanks.
Charles Frodsham
I'm trying to find some biographical information on Dorothy (Dottie) Abbott, who was the first general manager for Sam Phillips's WHER, Memphis, the 1955 all-girl station, and then later became known as the overnight syndicated voice of Holiday Inns, Dolly Holiday. As I recall she had a beautiful, seductive, radio voice
In a 1999 interview Phillips was quoted as saying he hired an experienced woman as his manager, who at the time was working in Phoenix radio. He didn't give the call letters. Dorothy Abbott, in turn, hired mostly women inexperienced in radio.
She was apparently manager until 1966 when a male manager was appointed. Phillips's partner was the owner of the Holiday Inn chain and that presumably was how she developed her contacts at Holiday Inn. Her program was distributed on tape to local stations, many of them Class 1A clear channels. Local sponsors would include local Holiday Inns and I don't recall if other ads were allowed in the program. The format would have been described as MOR or pop standards.
A 1955 directory that I have lists a Margie Abbott as Program Director of KONI. There were so few women listed as PD's in those days that I'm wondering if Dorothy Abbott and Margie Abbott could have been one and the same?
Do we have any historians on the website whose information might go back that far?
Thanks.
Charles Frodsham