LACKMANN, Ron(ald) 1934-

PERSONAL: Born May 8, 1934, in New York, NY; son of Frederick and Minerva (Morlock) Lackmann. Education: Hofstra College (now University), B.A., 1959, M.A., 1962; University of Hull, drama certificate, 1967-71.

ADDRESSES: Home—18 East Beverly Pkwy., Valley Stream, NY 11580.

CAREER: Writer and actor. Central High School, Valley Stream, NY, 1960—, began as speech and drama consultant, currently instructor in English, speech, and drama. Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY, drama instructor in adult education program, 1970-71. Host-moderator, "Education in Action," WHLI-Radio, 1974-75; narrator, Pan Am's "Music in the Air." Actor on radio, television, and stage; playwright. Military service: U.S. Army, 1957-59; served as personnel and broadcast specialist.

MEMBER: Actors Equity Association, Screen Actors Guild.

WRITINGS:

Under the Angel's Wing (play), first produced at Hofstra College, 1958.

(With Barbara Gelman) Bonnie and Clyde Scrapbook, Personality Posters, 1968.

Remember Radio, Putnam (New York, NY), 1970.

Hadrian's Wall (play), first produced at Showcase Theatre, May, 1970.

Remember Television, Putnam (New York, NY), 1971.

TV Soap Opera Almanac, Berkley Publishing (New York, NY), 1976.

TV Superstars 1978, Xerox Education Publications (Middletown, CT), 1978.

TV Superstars 1979, Xerox Education Publications (Middletown, CT), 1979.

Super Vans, Xerox Education Publications (Middle-town, CT), 1979.

Disco, Disco, Disco, Xerox Education Publications (Middletown, CT), 1980.

TV Superstars 1980, Xerox Education Publications (Middletown, CT), 1980.

TV Superstars 1981, Xerox Education Publications (Middletown, CT), 1981.

Animal Superstars, Xerox Education Publications (Middletown, CT), 1981.

TV Superstars 1982, Xerox Education Publications (Middletown, CT), 1982.

TV Superstars 1983, Xerox Education Publications (Middletown, CT), 1983.

Kids Video Game Guide, Xerox Education Publications (Middletown, CT), 1983.

Video Game Joke and Puzzle Book, Xerox Education Publications (Middletown, CT), 1983.

TV Superstars Scrapbook, Xerox Education Publications (Middletown, CT), 1984.

Same Time, Same Station: An A-Z Guide to Radio from Jack Benny to Howard Stern, Facts on File (New York, NY), 1996, published as The Encyclopedia of American Radio: An A-Z Guide to Radio from Jack Benny to Howard Stern, Facts on File (New York, NY), 2000.

Women of the Western Frontier in Fact, Fiction, and Film, McFarland (Jefferson, NC), 1997.

The Encyclopedia of American Television: Broadcast Programming Post-World War II to 2000, Facts on File (New York, NY), 2002.

The Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century American Television, Checkmark Books (New York, NY), 2003.

Author of several short stories and children's plays. Contributor of articles to various periodicals. Editor-in-chief, Vid-Kid (video game players newsletter), 1983.

SIDELIGHTS: Writer and actor Ron Lackmann has been active in the film and television industry since the 1950s. As a college student at Hofstra University in the 1950s, Lackmann portrayed Bud on the NBC radio soap opera Pepper Young's Family. During his U.S. Army stint in the late 1950s, he served as a personnel and radio broadcast specialist at WFDH radio, the Fort Dix radio station. While serving at Fort Dix, he was producer and narrator for radio shows, and an actor in more than fifty dramatic productions on radio. Following his military service, he toured in stage productions of several well-known plays, including My Fair Lady, Oklahoma, Death of a Salesman, and Auntie Mame. Lackmann has also taught high school speech and drama, cohosted the Joe Franklin Show, and lent his voice to cartoon characters.

Lackmann brings his insider's knowledge of film and television to bear in his numerous books on broadcast arts and history. In The Encyclopedia of American Radio: An A-Z Guide to Radio from Jack Benny to Howard Stern (previously published as Same Time, Same Station: An A-Z guide to Radio from Jack Benny to Howard Stern), Lackmann offers a concise history of radio programming, both as entertainment and as a resource for news and information. "Ambitious in design but limited in execution, this eminently browsable guide to major North American network radio programming from the 1920s to the present will delight some readers while disappointing others," wrote David Ettinger in RQ. The book provides synopses of hundreds of radio shows from the 1920s to the talk radio of the present day, with longer features on more popular programs and personalities. The entries provide data on show stars, writers, producers, date and year the show aired, network on which it appeared, and major sponsor. Coverage includes legendary radio personalities such as Walter Winchell and Edward R. Murrow, and programming such as Franklin Roosevelt's fireside chats, the "War of the Worlds" broadcast, and genre programs in areas of mystery, soap opera, and adventure. Black-and-white photographs provide faces for famous voices, and a number of appendices provide information on related areas such as museums, newsletters, Canadian radio, lists of radio program sponsor, birth and death dates of radio personalities, lists of current radio stations running vintage radio shows, and more. However, Ettinger remarked that "the treatment of topics is uneven and seems capricious, raising questions of editorial judgment and priorities." Despite its flaws, "The work is still a useful resource for research on radio because Lackmann, like every radio history buff, has stories, tidbits, and information to add to the growing body of knowledge about the subject," wrote a reviewer on the Booknews Web site.

Lackmann also wrote The Encyclopedia of American Television: Broadcast Programming Post-World War II to 2000, which "is just as valuable [as its radio counterpart], in addition to being fun to read and use," commented David M. Lisa in Library Journal. The book includes more than 1,000 descriptions of major network and syndicated television shows that appeared on the airwaves from 1947 through 2000 (cable television programming is excluded). Entries include biographies of notable television personalities from the time period. Details provided in the capsule entries include broadcast schedules and network data, and a number of listings include photographs. Lackmann also provides bits of trivia and interesting facts in the descriptions. "Lackmann offers two excellent appendixes," Lisa noted, a list of top-rated programs from 1952 to 1999 and a listing of Emmy Award winners from 1948 to 1999. A reviewer in Booklist called The Encyclopedia of American Television "worthwhile" and "a readable, popular guide."

Lackmann's 1997 book Women of the Western Frontier in Fact, Fiction, and Film collects biographical information from newspaper clippings, novels, fictional accounts, and tall tales to provide a collection of biographies of notable women from the American West. Lackmann divides the book into four sections, according to Candy Moulton in Wild West: gunfighters' wives and lovers, and female outlaws; female entertainers; prostitutes, madams, and gambling ladies; and "respectable" women of the frontier. Although Moulton noted that the mixing of fact and fiction in the book would likely keep it out of the category of serious history, it is still "entertaining." A reviewer in the Journal of Women's History called it "a handy resource for western lore in American memory and media."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

Booklist, February 15, 1996, review of Same Time, Same Station: An A-Z Guide to Radio from Jack Benny to Howard Stern, p. 1044; June 1, 2003, review of The Encyclopedia of American Television: Broadcast Programming Post-World War II to 2000, p. 1828.

Journal of Women's History, winter, 2000, review of Women of the Western Frontier in Fact, Fiction, and Film, p. 215.

Library Journal, February 15, 2003, David M. Lisa, review of The Encyclopedia of American Television, pp. 128-129.

RQ, summer, 1996, David Ettinger, review of Same Time, Same Station, p. 565

Wild West, June, 1998, Candy Moulton, review of Women of the Western Frontier in Fact, Fiction, and Film, p. 68.

online

Booknews Web site,http://www.booknews.com/ (November 14, 2003), review of The Encyclopedia of American Radio: An A-Z Guide to Radio from Jack Benny to Howard Stern.

Internet Movie Database Web site,http://www.imdb.com/ (November 14, 2000), biography of Ron Lackmann.*