Jack Wells, a pioneering Baltimore broadcaster who won fame as "Mr. Fortune" and hosted the city's first morning TV show, died Sundayfrom complications of a stroke at a Los Angeles nursing home. He was 86.
Mr. Wells developed his ambition to go into radio during World War II, when he served in Europe as an Army radio operator with Chuck Thompson. Thompson went on to become a legendary Baltimore Orioles announcer.
"I was Chuck's corporal and in awe of him. He'd been working on a small Pennsylvania radio station as an announcer and that's all I wanted to be," Mr. Wells told The Baltimore Sun in a 2008 interview. "We remained lifelong friends until his death."
Mr. Wells began his radio career in 1946 as an announcer and disc jockey on WITH, and two years later, originated the nation's second radio talk show. The show was broadcast from the Copa, a nightclub in the 100 block of W. Baltimore St. that featured food and dancing to local swing bands.
"I got the idea from the Copacabana nightclub in New York, who broadcast a similar show," Wells recalled in the 2008 interview.
Mr. Wells sat at a table with a telephone and microphone as his only companions.
The live show, which was broadcast from 1 a.m. to 4 a.m. six days a week, went on the air as Mr. Wells intoned into the microphone, "I'm Jack Wells. Hey, I'm at the Copa. Where are you? Please call me."
He recalled that it wasn't uncommon for 400 people to call while this show was on the air, and they came from all walks of life.
The denizens of the night who found solace and advice in connecting with Mr. Wells included cab drivers, Block strippers, politicians, lonely hearts, drunks, cops, night workers, spinsters, and others who had access to a phone.
Because the technology for a two-way conversation on the air didn't exist at the time, Mr. Wells repeated the caller's words to listeners.
""I was supposed to handle them in such a way that the radio audience would get the gist of the whole conversation," he said in a 1977 interview with The Evening Sun.
"But I kept getting calls from nuts — guys who were going to blow up the world, quacks with cure-alls, people like that. I couldn't let on over the air how goofy these callers were," he said.
If the conversation grew too wacky, off-color or blue, Mr. Wells had a quick remedy.
"I'd say, 'I'm so glad your uncle is recovering from his operation. Please give him my best and call again,'" Mr. Wells said in the 2008 interview.
Years later, Mr. Wells said in the Evening Sun interview that he was nervous when his phone rang late at night.
"I'm scared to pick up the phone," he said. "I'm afraid it's some girl from The Block calling me at the Copa to talk dirty."
In 1950, he joined WCBM, where in addition to spinning records he hosted "Dialing For Dollars" for seven years.
"I was 'Mr. Fortune' on the show and we paid callers $5. I had the idea in 1952 to put the show on TV and that's what we did," Mr. Wells said in 2008. "We went on WMAR and it aired at 9:15 a.m. We paid callers $50 and our sponsor was Food Fair."
While at WCBM, Mr. Wells had a show that featured a children's segment called "Tadpole's Corner."
"Tongue-in-cheek, he invited parents to leave the room while encouraging kids to engage in activities such as 'Go to the kitchen and get a box of cornflakes. Now, wave it around the room and make your own blizzard!'" said his son, Glenn S. Wells of Timonium.
Local broadcasting legend Stu Kerr replaced Mr. Wells as "Mr. Fortune" in 1957 when Mr. Wells left WCBM to start "The Jack Wells Show," Baltimore's first morning TV show, on WJZ.
"He made this groundbreaking program a template for the type of morning variety shows so prevalent today," his son said. "Unlike Dave Garroway's 'Today Show,' Jack's programming included previously unheard examples of zaniness and risk-taking."
A letter writer to The Baltimore Sun in 1958 said the show was "nothing but a good baby-sitter for mothers who are scrambling to get breakfasts ready and pre-schoolers well out of the way."
In addition to his on-air work in Baltimore, Mr. Wells appeared in numerous TV commercials, including for Arrow Beer, in which he portrayed multiple characters in a single spot.
William Hyder, then The Baltimore Sun's TV critic, wrote in 1962 that Mr. Wells was "probably the best local practitioner of this art that looks so easy."
Mr. Wells left Baltimore in 1963 and settled in Los Angles, where hosted for five years a very popular daily afternoon telephone call in show on KABC Radio.
He also worked in TV and feature films such as "Brian's Song," which was based on the life of the late NFL player Brian Piccolo — portrayed by actor James Caan. He also appeared on "The Rifleman" and "The Doris Day Show."
For 20 years until his retirement in the late 1980s, he regularly worked on several soap operas such as "The Young and the Restless," "Days of Our Lives" and "General Hospital."
"Some shows worked and some flopped," he told The Baltimore Sun in 2008.
Mr. Wells was born in Baltimore and raised in the 2700 block of W. Fairmount Ave. He was a 1942 graduate of Polytechnic Institute, then studied art under Jacques Maroger, a proponent of the old masters' classical-realist style, at the Maryland Institute College of Art.
His son added that he "was a talented artist, illustrator and cartoonist."
Mr. Wells had lived for many years in Coldwater Canyon near Los Angeles, where his neighbors were actor Jackie Cooper, Charlton Heston and Maureen and John W. Dean III of Watergate infamy.
He had lived there with his wife of 38 years, the former Shirley Jason, a Beverly Hills real estate broker, who survives.
A memorial service will be held at noon July 10 at Havenwood Presbyterian Church, 100 Ridgely Road, Timonium.
Also surviving are a stepson, Casey Carmel of Miami; a stepdaughter, Jamie Johnston of Los Angeles; a brother, William Wells of Baltimore; a sister, June Wentworth of Marriottsville; and four grandchildren. Earlier marriages to Phyllis Spahr and Louise Rohner ended in divorce.