The run
- Network
- NBC
- Years active
- 1953–1954
- Surviving broadcasts
- 27
- Genre
- detective
Created in 1953 by writer George Lefferts and starring Frank Sinatra in the lead, Rocky Fortune followed the exploits of a marginally employed jack-of-all-trades Rocko Fortunato, or Rocky Fortune. Considered a second-rate show even when it aired, the series found Sinatra at the nadir of popularity after his 1940s crooning heights and just before his career was rekindled with his role in From Here to Eternity . The scripts, mostly by George Lefferts and Ernest Kinoy, often stretched the limits of believability, taking Fortune from jobs as a social director at a Catskills resort to transporting a truck of nitroglycerine…
Source collection
Old Time Radio Researchers Group
Rights
Public domain — no renewed US copyright
Cataloguing
Air dates and notes from the Archive item record
The shape of the run
What survives, year by year
6 dated broadcasts across 2 years on the air. Brightness is transfer quality; empty cells are months lost to time.
Episodes
Start here
Listen to the run in order
Restored broadcasts from 1953, in original transmission order.
- 1. Oyster Shucker at the Fifty Fathoms · 6 Oct 1953
- 2. The Shipboard Jewel Robbery · 20 Oct 1953
- 3. Some Cat's Killed the Canary · 17 Nov 1953
Oyster Shucker at the Fifty Fathoms
6 Oct 1953 · 25 min
Broadcast 6 October 1953. Public-domain transfer from the Old Time Radio Researchers certified set at the Internet Archive.
The Shipboard Jewel Robbery
20 Oct 1953 · 24 min
Broadcast 20 October 1953. Public-domain transfer from the Old Time Radio Researchers certified set at the Internet Archive.
Some Cat's Killed the Canary
17 Nov 1953 · 24 min
Broadcast 17 November 1953. Public-domain transfer from the Old Time Radio Researchers certified set at the Internet Archive.
Murder Among the Statues
1 Dec 1953 · 24 min
Broadcast 1 December 1953. Public-domain transfer from the Old Time Radio Researchers certified set at the Internet Archive.
Companion to a Chimp
15 Dec 1953 · 24 min
Broadcast 15 December 1953. Public-domain transfer from the Old Time Radio Researchers certified set at the Internet Archive.
The Prize Fight Fix
29 Dec 1953 · 24 min
Broadcast 29 December 1953. Public-domain transfer from the Old Time Radio Researchers certified set at the Internet Archive.
The Rodeo Murder Mystery
12 Jan 1954 · 24 min
Broadcast 12 January 1954. Public-domain transfer from the Old Time Radio Researchers certified set at the Internet Archive.
The Football Fix (AFRTS)
2 Feb 1954 · 25 min
Broadcast 2 February 1954. Public-domain transfer from the Old Time Radio Researchers certified set at the Internet Archive.
Also on NBC
NBC in 1953–1954
Other series the network carried while Rocky Fortune was on the air.
Same seasons
detective on the air then
Series in the same genre whose runs overlapped this one.
What it became
The private eye at the microphone
First-person narration, a case that walks in the door, and a city that talks back. Marlowe, Sam Spade and Johnny Dollar turned detection into a listening form.
Lineage is written by our editors, not inferred from listening data.
Descendants
Working in the tradition of Rocky Fortune
Modern series carrying this form forward.
If you liked this
More to explore
Chosen by the same editors.
