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George Fenneman, George Watt Fenneman (November 10, 1919 – May 29, 1997) was an American radio and television announcer.Fenneman was born in Beijing, China, the only child of American parents in the import-export business. He was nine months old when his parents moved to San Francisco, California, United States, where he grew up. In 1942 he graduated from San Francisco State College with a degree in speech and drama, and took a job as an announcer with a local radio station. During the Second World War he worked as a broadcast correspondent for the U.S. Office of War Information. In 1946 he moved to Los Angeles and resumed his radio career.He is most remembered as the announcer and good-natured sidekick on the Groucho Marx comedy/quiz show vehicle, You Bet Your Life, which began in 1947 on radio and moved to television in 1950, where it remained, on NBC, for 11 years. Fennemans mellifluous voice, clean-cut good looks, and gentlemanly manner provided the ideal foil for Marxs zany antics and bawdy ad-libs.Groucho called [Fenneman] the male Margaret Dumont, according to Frank Ferrante, who portrayed Marx onstage in Groucho: A Life in Revue. George took it as the highest praise. Groucho called him the perfect straight man. Fenneman was also selected because of his intelligence and ability to calculate the scores of the contestants, whom Groucho frequently encouraged to bet odd amounts, making the arithmetic difficult to keep straight on the fly during a live show. He remained friends with Marx until the latters death in 1977.Fenneman was one of a pair of announcers on Dragnet, sharing narration duties with Hal Gibney on radio and the original Dragnet television series, and with John Stephenson when Dragnet returned to TV in 1967. It was Fennemans voice which announced, The story you are about to see is true. The names have been changed to protect the innocent. while Stephenson would be heard at the end of the episode describing the court trials and verdicts.[citation needed]. He was also the principal commercial announcer for the radio version of Gunsmoke, frequently introducing Matt Dillon himself, William Conrad, who appeared out of character after the episode, and would then thank George and extoll the virtues of L&M or Chesterfield cigarettes.[citation needed]He appeared on screen in the 1951 film The Thing from Another World in a substantial but uncredited role. He and his wife were neighbors of the director, Christian Nyby. A spontaneous on-set script revision convinced Fenneman his future was not in movie acting. Producer Howard Hawks took a long scientific speech away from Robert O. Cornthwaites character Dr. Carrington, preferring to give exposition to a minor character (Fenneman). As a radio performer accustomed to reading from a script and not used to quick memorization, Fenneman stumbled over the technical gobbledegook (We have the time of arrival on the seisomograph...), resulting in 27 takes of the scene. In the final film, viewers can see the other actors trying not to smile as Fenneman spouts the lines.[citation needed] He also appeared in an obscure serial, The Secret Of Mystery Lake, in which he played the unlikely role of a naturalist teaching a young girl about the flora and fauna around a Tennessee lake. This serial aired on The Mickey Mouse Club in 1957.[citation needed] He avoided on-screen performances thereafter, except as himself in documentaries.Fenneman also hosted two different game shows, Anybody Can Play in 1958; and a daytime offering from CBS, Your Surprise Package in 1961. In 1966, he hosted two pilots for a show called Crossword, which would later be re-named The Cross-Wits and picked up in 1975 with Jack Clark as host. He was the commercial spokesman for Lipton Tea during much of the 1960s, and in that role, appeared live on The Ed Sullivan Show when the Beatles made their second U.S. TV appearance on February 16, 1964.[citation needed] He hosted Talk About Pictures on PBS from 1978 through 1982.In 1963 he hosted an ABC Television program, Your Funny, Funny Films, a precursor to Americas Funniest Home Videos. His last credit was as narrator of The Naked Monster, released posthumously in 2006.Contrary to popular belief, George Fenneman is not the voice of the US Naval Observatory Master Clock (that distinction belongs to Fred Covington according to Demetrios Matsakis at the observatory), nor of the National Institute of Standards and Technologys WWV. According to Sean Hall, Marty Edwards is the voice of the U.S. Naval Observatory Master Clock.Fenneman was married to Peggy Ann Clifford from 1943 until her death in 1984 and had three children.He died from emphysema in Los Angeles, California on May 29, 1997 at the age of 77.[edit] Notes^ Vosburgh, Dick (July 1, 1997) The Independent (UK) Retrieved 2010-06-21^ a b George Fenneman, Sidekick To Groucho Marx, Dies at 77 New York Times (June 5, 1997) Retrieved 2010-06-21^ Van Gelder, Lawrence (June 1, 1977): George Fenneman, 77, Dies; Courtly Foil for Groucho New York Times Retrieved 2010-06-21^ Sean Hall: Martys voice--at its best--may be heard in perpetuity...by calling 202-762-1401...thats the US Naval Observatory Master Clock. Marty was a great talent, but, above all, a great person. I will miss him.^ DCRTV.COM archives dated 2004-12-03.^ George Fenneman - Biography[edit] External linksGeorge Fenneman at the Internet Movie DatabasePersondataNameFenneman, GeorgeAlternative namesShort descriptionDate of birthNovember 10, 1919Place of birthDate of deathMay 29, 1997Place of deathRetrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_FennemanCategories: 1919 births | 1997 deaths | American game show hosts | American radio personalities | Deaths from emphysema | Game show announcers | People from San Francisco, CaliforniaHidden categories: All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements from June 2010 | Articles with unsourced statements from July 2010Personal toolsLog in / create accountNamespacesArticleDiscussionVariantsViewsReadEditView historyActionsSearchNavigationMain pageContentsFeatured contentCurrent eventsRandom articleDonate to WikipediaInteractionHelpAbout WikipediaCommunity portalRecent changesContact WikipediaToolboxWhat links hereRelated changesUpload fileSpecial pagesPermanent linkCite this pagePrint/exportCreate a bookDownload as PDFPrintable versionLanguagesFrançais This page was last modified on 22 January 2011 at 04:08.Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License;additional terms may apply.See Terms of Use for details.Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.Contact usPrivacy policyAbout WikipediaDisclaimersif ( window.mediaWiki ) {mediaWiki.config.set({wgCanonicalNamespace: , wgCanonicalSpecialPageName: false, wgNamespaceNumber: 0, wgPageName: George_Fenneman, wgTitle: George Fenneman, wgAction: view, wgArticleId: 1088484, wgIsArticle: true, wgUserName: null, wgUserGroups: [*], wgCurRevisionId: 409300952, wgCategories: [All articles with unsourced statements, Articles with unsourced statements from June 2010, Articles with unsourced statements from July 2010, 1919 births, 1997 deaths, American game show hosts, American radio personalities, Deaths from emphysema, Game show announcers, People from San Francisco, California], wgBreakFrames: false, wgRestrictionEdit: [], wgRestrictionMove: [], wgSearchNamespaces: [0], wgFlaggedRevsParams: {tags: {status: {levels: 1, quality: 2, pristine: 3}}}, wgStableRevisionId: null, wgRevContents: {error: Unable to get content., waiting: Waiting for content}, wgWikimediaMobileUrl: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki, wgCollapsibleNavBucketTest: false, wgCollapsibleNavForceNewVersion: false, wgArticleAssessmentJUIPath: http://bits.wikimedia.org/w/extensions-1.17/UsabilityInitiative/js/js2stopgap/jui.combined.min.js, Geo: {city: , country: }, wgNoticeProject: wikipedia});}if ( window.mediaWiki ) {mediaWiki.loader.load([mediawiki.legacy.wikibits, mediawiki.util, mediawiki.legacy.ajax, mediawiki.legacy.mwsuggest, ext.vector.collapsibleNav, ext.vector.collapsibleTabs, ext.vector.editWarning, ext.vector.simpleSearch]);mediaWiki.loader.go();}if ( window.mediaWiki ) {mediaWiki.user.options.set({ccmeonemails:0,cols:80,contextchars:50,contextlines:5,date:default,diffonly:0,disablemail:0,disablesuggest:0,editfont:default,editondblclick:0,editsection:1,editsectiononrightclick:0,enotifminoredits:0,enotifrevealaddr:0,enotifusertalkpages:1,enotifwatchlistpages:0,extendwatchlist:0,externaldiff:0,externaleditor:0,fancysig:0,forceeditsummary:0,gender:unknown,hideminor:0,hidepatrolled:0,highlightbroken:1,imagesize:2,justify:0,math:1,minordefault:0,newpageshidepatrolled:0,nocache:0,noconvertlink:0,norollbackdiff:0,numberheadings:0,previewonfirst:0,previewontop:1,quickbar:1,rcdays:7,rclimit:50,rememberpassword:0,rows:25,searchlimit:20,showhiddencats:0,showjumplinks:1,shownumberswatching:1,showtoc:1,showtoolbar:1,skin:vector,stubthreshold:0,thumbsize:4,underline:2,uselivepreview:0,usenewrc:0,watchcreations:1,watchdefault:0,watchdeletion:0,watchlistdays:3,watchlisthideanons:0,watchlisthidebots:0,watchlisthideliu:0,watchlisthideminor:0,watchlisthideown:0,watchlisthidepatrolled:0,watchmoves:0,wllimit:250,flaggedrevssimpleui:1,flaggedrevsstable:false,flaggedrevseditdiffs:true,flaggedrevsviewdiffs:false,vector-simplesearch:1,useeditwarning:1,vector-collapsiblenav:1,usebetatoolbar:1,usebetatoolbar-cgd:1,variant:en,language:en,searchNs0:true,searchNs1:false,searchNs2:false,searchNs3:false,searchNs4:false,searchNs5:false,searchNs6:false,searchNs7:false,searchNs8:false,searchNs9:false,searchNs10:false,searchNs11:false,searchNs12:false,searchNs13:false,searchNs14:false,searchNs15:false,searchNs100:false,searchNs101:false,searchNs108:false,searchNs109:false});mediaWiki.loader.state({user.options:ready});/* cache key: enwiki:resourceloader:filter:minify-js:3:ae2156c08a06314b12473d37e57711e2 */} if ( window.isMSIE55 ) fixalpha();