Candy Matson was the best of all of the old time radio lady detectives. Luckily for us, the show was also funny, wry and set in San Francisco.
As OTR expert Jack French has written, Candy’s sidekick Rembrandt Watson was about as gay as you could be on radio in the 1940s: “[B]y the end of WW II, San Francisco had the largest gay population of any city in the US. While network radio in the late 40s and early 50s would certainly not permit an openly gay character to appear on the air, Masters did manage to ‘suggest’ that Rembrandt Watson was gay. Candy’s sidekick was single, middle-aged, fashion photographer who loved opera. If these clues were not enough, Jack Thomas added a slightly feminine flavor to his presentation. Whether many people in Candy’s large radio audience caught on is very unlikely.”
Steven Capsuto points out: “Candy’s jealous fiancée didn’t mind her friendship with Rembrandt at all… and anyone with the slightest imagination knew why. Compared with similar characters, Rembrandt was one of the more naturalistic, well-rounded depictions of gayness on the air.” He provides two brief clips from an October 1950 episode that give you a sense of the show, and of Rembrandt:
The regular announcer for the Candy Matson series was Dudley Manlove, and yep, he was gay. After the show ended, Manlove moved to LA, where he ended up working with Ed Wood on several features; most famously, he played Eros in Plan 9 from Outer Space.
