Advertise on podcast: Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar — Bob Bailey 30-Minute Era (1956–1960)
Categories
This podcast has
49 episodes
Language
EnglishPublisher
07 Audio NetworkExplicit
No
Date created
2026/07/25
Latest episode
2026/09/05
Average duration
22 min.
Release period
1 days
Description
Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar follows radio's toughest freelance insurance investigator as he tracks down fraud, blackmail, and murder one expense account at a time. In this run, from 1955 to 1956, Bob Bailey took over the role and brought a world-weary, wisecracking edge to Johnny, with each case unfolding across a week of tight, cliffhanger-driven quarter-hour episodes rather than a single half-hour story. Sharp scripts from writer-director Jack Johnstone and a deep bench of radio's best character actors make this stretch a favorite among old-time radio fans and often cited as the series at its peak. It's hardboiled detective fiction built for serialized listening, decades before the podcast binge existed.
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Check latest episodes from Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar — Bob Bailey 30-Minute Era (1956–1960) podcast
The Hapless Hunter Matter
2026/09/05
Aired: Dec 8th, 1957. A wealthy banker is dead in the woods near Kingman, New York, gunned down by his own hunting guide — or so the story goes. Johnny Dollar heads upstate to check the numbers behind a half-million-dollar policy, only to find a suspiciously wounded beneficiary, an overprotective doctor, and a case that refuses to add up.
Johnny Dollar and the Drunken Guide's Secret
2026/09/05
Aired: Dec 8th, 1957. A wealthy banker is dead and his hunting companion lies wounded in a hospital bed, with the local police pinning it all on a hard-drinking backwoods guide. But Johnny Dollar smells something off about the beneficiary's convenient alibi, and no amount of doctor's reassurance is going to stop him from chasing the half-million-dollar question. A classic Bob Bailey-era mystery of insurance fraud, small-town suspicion, and a detective who trusts his hunches over everyone's word.
The Sunny Dream Matter
2026/09/04
Aired: Dec 1st, 1957. Johnny Dollar heads to a quiet rest home in Buckland Center after its owner reports a disturbing string of accidental deaths among the elderly residents — deaths that just happen to leave the home itself as beneficiary. Behind the flower-lined walkways and cheerful porch gatherings, Johnny starts tallying up a body count that doesn't add up to coincidence. A classic slow-burn Bob Bailey mystery blending small-town charm with a cold-blooded insurance scam.
The Sunny Dream Matter
2026/09/04
Aired: Dec 1st, 1957. Johnny Dollar heads to a quiet retirement home outside Buckland Center, where the elderly residents seem content and well cared for — but five of them have died in the past six months, and each time, the home itself was the beneficiary. What looks like a run of bad luck for the actuarial tables starts to smell like something far more deliberate. Bob Bailey brings his weary, wisecracking charm to a case where the real danger hides behind rocking chairs and garden parties.
The Death Insurance Gamble
2026/09/03
Aired: Nov 24th, 1957. Johnny Dollar is called in on the strangest policy Hartford's ever seen: a doctor has insured $250,000 against a woman's continued survival past November 10th. With a colleague's career on the line and a mysterious beneficiary to track down, Johnny has just days to unravel why anyone would bet a quarter-million dollars on someone's death. A classic Bob Bailey-era twist on the insurance racket, sharp-tongued and ticking against the clock.
The Hope to Die Matter
2026/09/03
Aired: Nov 24th, 1957. A puzzled insurance executive drags Johnny Dollar into the strangest policy of his career: not a payout on death, but on a woman's survival. As Johnny digs into who benefits from Mary Ellen Markham staying alive past a chillingly specific deadline, he finds a mysterious doctor, a vanished underwriter, and a countdown that's already ticking. Classic Bob Bailey-era intrigue with a twist baked right into the premise.
The Shy Beneficiary Matter
2026/09/02
Aired: Nov 17th, 1957. An eccentric spinster leaves $25,000 to a mysterious man named Elijah Summers, but two weeks of searching turns up no trace of him. Johnny Dollar's hunt for the elusive beneficiary takes him from a shabby New York apartment to a San Francisco ad campaign and finally to a Gold Rush ghost town in the Sierra foothills, where a slow-talking deputy drops a bombshell: Elijah Summers is wanted for murder.
The Shy Beneficiary Matter
2026/09/02
Aired: Nov 17th, 1957. A dying woman's mysterious $25,000 bequest to a man nobody can find sends Johnny Dollar from the streets of New York to a foggy San Francisco rooming house and finally into the gold rush hills of the Sierra Nevada. But when Johnny finally tracks down the elusive Elijah Summers, he learns the missing beneficiary isn't just hard to find — he's wanted for murder. Bob Bailey brings his signature world-weary charm to this twist-filled hunt for a man who doesn't want to be found.
The Alkali Mike Matter
2026/09/01
Aired: Nov 10th, 1957. A telephone call from an old flame pulls insurance investigator Johnny Dollar out to Port Hopeful, Nevada — a stone palace built in the desert by a gold-rush legend's son, who's just turned up dead. With a $200,000 policy on the line and the victim's housekeeper already behind bars, Johnny has to sort motive from mirage among a house full of hungry heirs. Bob Bailey brings his trademark wit to this twisty half-hour of desert intrigue.
The Alkali Mike Matter
2026/09/01
Aired: Nov 10th, 1957. A desperate call from an old flame pulls Johnny Dollar out to a stone palace in the Nevada desert, where the legendary prospector Alkali Mike Murphy's son has died under suspicious circumstances just as a $200,000 life insurance policy comes due. With the local sergeant convinced the housekeeper did it, Johnny has to sort motive from mining-camp legend before an innocent woman hangs for a killing she didn't commit. Classic Bob Bailey-era Johnny Dollar: brisk banter, a sun-baked ghost town, and a twist-laden insurance case.
The Model Picture Matter
2026/08/31
Aired: Nov 3rd, 1957. A million-dollar face gets battered in the dark, and Johnny Dollar's investigation into an insurance claim for injured model Dorothy Blair leads straight to a sleazy fashion photographer with wandering hands. When that photographer turns up dead in the river before Johnny can question him, a simple assault case curdles into murder, with Dorothy's new beau and an old flame both looking like they've got something to hide. Bob Bailey brings his trademark wit to a twisty case of jealousy, vanity, and betrayal in the world of high fashion.
The Three Sisters Matter
2026/08/30
Aired: Oct 27th, 1957. A world-famous concert pianist vanishes on a routine mountain walk near his Colorado ranch retreat, and Johnny Dollar is called in by claims man Earl Foreman to track him down. What starts as a missing-persons case turns grim when a body turns up in a gully with a bullet wound — and suspicion falls uncomfortably close to home, on one of the pianist's own three daughters. Bob Bailey brings his signature wry warmth to a snowbound whodunit tangled up with family secrets and a stray rifle cartridge.
The Mary Grace Matter
2026/08/29
Aired: Oct 20th, 1957. When Johnny Dollar's dear friend Mary Grace Marshall — a talented fashion designer he once hoped to marry — turns up murdered in her New York apartment, he rushes east to investigate. But NYPD Sergeant Randy Singer has uncovered a piece of evidence that puts Johnny himself squarely in the frame: his own cigarette lighter, left behind at the scene. Now the insurance investigator must clear his name while chasing down his old friend's killer.
The Silver Belle Matter
2026/08/28
Aired: Oct 13th, 1957. A reclusive widow in a fading Montana mining town survives a mysterious shooting only to vanish without a trace, and Johnny Dollar heads west to find her before her insurance company has to pay out on a decades-old policy. Between a land-grabbing developer eyeing her silver mine and a town full of people who'd rather she disappear for good, Johnny digs through old grudges and older secrets in the ghost-town streets of Silvergill. Classic Bob Bailey-era Johnny Dollar: sharp dialogue, a remote setting, and a mystery built on greed.
The Bum Steer Matter
2026/08/27
Aired: Oct 6th, 1957. A wealthy Colorado cattle rancher summons insurance investigator Johnny Dollar out to his Lazy JD spread with a suspiciously flimsy excuse — some local color, he says, nothing's wrong. Johnny finally makes the drive out from Denver only to find a funeral wreath on the ranch house door: his client is already dead and buried, and someone's convinced it was murder. A classic slow-burn opener from the Bob Bailey era, full of expense-account wit and Rocky Mountain scenery before the case turns deadly serious.
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