George Fenneman
Announcer, TV Actor
1919 – 1997
Who was George Fenneman?
George Watt Fenneman was an American radio and television announcer.
Fenneman was born in Peking, 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 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 for Groucho Marx's 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. Fenneman's mellifluous voice, clean-cut good looks, and gentlemanly manner provided the ideal foil for Marx's 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."
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- Born
- Nov 10, 1919
Beijing - Also known as
- George Watt Fenneman
- George
- Spouses
- Peggy Ann Clifford
(1943/05/29 - 1997/05/29)
- Peggy Ann Clifford
- Nationality
- United States of America
- China
- Profession
- Education
- San Francisco State University
- Died
- May 29, 1997
Los Angeles
Submitted
on July 23, 2013
Citation
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"George Fenneman." Biographies.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 7 May 2024. <https://www.biographies.net/people/en/george_fenneman>.
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