Lakewood Lore

Marvelous make-believe made Mack radio legend

Let's hear it for Wayne Mack, dean of radio announcers whose name is ensconced in the annals of Lakewood history.

Wayne, now 80, returned to Lakewood Park's bandstand early this month to emcee a musical portion of our city's welcome-back for the troops. But most Lakewoodites will remember him for his 17 years (1967-84) as announcer of the summer Sunday band concerts at the park.

Many also associate Mack, and the deep, rich timbre of his voice, with a novel radio series he spawned 41 years ago while working for WDOK-FM.

"Back in 1950, we were the eighth station to appear on the local scene and had to do something different to get listeners," Mack recalled.

"So we concocted an outdoor band concert, not unlike the one later at Lakewood Park, except that it was make-believe," he said. "We added all the background sounds, even including the noise of an occasional airplane passing overhead.

"When the summer of 1950 ended, we had to bring our listeners indoors," he said. "So we created a similarly fictional 'Waltz Palace on the Shores of Lake Erie'--a magnificent ballroom bedecked with beautiful chandeliers, marble staircases, red carpeting and a glassed-in veranda dining room overlooking the water."

It was described as an elegant, fun place where the public danced to the heavenly strains of the big bands and where Mack seemingly interviewed entertainment stars of national acclaim against a backdrop of crowd conversation and whoop-de-doo.

So realistic were these broadcasts that they were likened to Orsen Welles' famous fabricated 1938 landing of the Martians in New Jersey.

"Listeners would turn up their car radios trying to fathom where the ballroom was situated, but there was no such place," he said. "It was only a paper moon, just as phony as it could be."

"Although Federal Communications Commission regulations required the station to reveal at the beginning and end of each broadcast that the setting was fictional and the music on records, nobody seemed to hear.

"Inquiries kept coming in," he said. "For example, one night a woman called my home to say she had eight couples dressed to the nines and ready to go, and where was the place? When my wife explained its non-existence, there was a dead silence after which the caller slowly hung up."

Mack was born Vaino Ilmar Mackey of Finnish parents in Ashtabula, Ohio on Jan. 9, 1911. His father Onni (meaning fortune) came to America in 1901 and changed the family name from Makinen to Mackey for ease of handling. Mack's mother was the former Emma Huntus, also of Finnish extraction, but born in Ashtabula County.

The second of three Mackey children (all boys), Mack played the flute in a band, but preferred acting. After high school, he had aspirations of enrolling in the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City. But it being the depths of the Great Depression, he hadn't the wherewithall.

Then, hearing there was plenty of money to be made as an actor in the blossoming world of radio, he went to Cleveland. He visited former station WJAY, where he was told there was no opening for an actor but that the station could use an announcer to replace one who had been absent without leave for three days.

"The station owner asked me what I wanted as pay," Mack said. "I picked a figure out of the air--$75 a week. The owner said, 'We'll compromise. I'll start you at $10 a week.'"

Thus Mack, at age 20, began a seven-day-a-week, sunup-to-sundown shift at the microphone.

After three years at WJAY, during which he took the handle of Wayne Mack, he was so bushed that he left to join WGAR. In the meantime, he became married in 1933 to Rosena Turnbull, whom he met after one of his shows where she had been part of the studio audience.

Wayne and Rosena, who died three years ago at age 76, lived on the West Side before moving to their Lake Avenue home in Lakewood in 1948. Mack never got to drama school, although he did weave radio acting, as well as producing, into his career.

In 1950, he left WGAR to help start WDOK. He switched to WZAK in 1980, and the following year was invited to WCLV-FM, where he continues with a pop concert show from noon to 1 p.m. four days a week.

Three daughters and two sons were born to Wayne and Rosena. All attended Lakewood High School except one boy who died in infancy. Wayne also has eight grandchildren.

A devout Christian gentleman, Mack avows "the day doesn't go by that I'm not listening for guidance."

Ever known for helping tyros in the trade, he has this advice for today's youth:

"Never cheat. Even though you think there are shortcuts, don't take them if they're dishonest. Integrity is the whole ball game."

This article appeared in the Lakewood Sun Post July 18,1991. Reprinted with permission.

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