Genres
Duration
113 min
Director
Ken Burns
Rating
7.5
Release Date
September 30, 1991
Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio
Original title: Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio
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Watch Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio – Streaming Availability
We couldn’t find any streaming platforms offering this title right now.Synopsis Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio
For 50 years radio dominated the airwaves and the American consciousness as the first “mass medium.” In Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio, Ken Burns examines the lives of three extraordinary men who shared the primary responsibility for this invention and its early success, and whose genius, friendship, rivalry and enmity interacted in tragic ways. This is the story of Lee de Forest, a clergyman’s flamboyant son, who invented the audion tube; Edwin Howard Armstrong, a brilliant, withdrawn inventor who pioneered FM technology; and David Sarnoff, a hard-driving Russian immigrant who created the most powerful communications company on earth.
Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio cast
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Jason Robards
Character:
Narrator (voice)
-
Red Barber
Character:
Self - Radio Announcer
-
Erik Barnouw
Character:
Self - Historian
-
Ken Bilby
Character:
Self - Biographer of David Sarnoff
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Norman Corwin
Character:
Self - Writer
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Susan Douglas
Character:
Self - Historian
-
Frank Günther
Character:
Self - Engineer
-
Jeanne Hammond
Character:
Self - Niece of Edwin H. Armstrong
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Loren Jones
Character:
Self - Engineer
-
Garrison Keillor
Character:
Self - Writer
-
Helen Kelley
Character:
Self - Radio Broadcaster
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Robert Morris
Character:
Self - Engineer
-
Dana Raymond
Character:
Self - Friend of Edwin H. Armstrong
-
Gertrude Tyne
Character:
Self - Engineer
-
Fred Allen
Character:
Self - Predicts Demise of Radio (archive footage)
-
Gene Autry
Character:
Self - Sings (archive sound)
-
John Barrymore
Character:
Hamlet (archive sound)
-
Winston Churchill
Character:
Self - Finest Hour Speech (archive sound)
-
Charles J. Correll
Character:
Self - Prepares for Amos 'n' Andy Broadcast (archive footage)
-
Lee De Forest
Character:
Self - Objects to Quality of Radio Programming (archive footage)
-
Ralph Edwards
Character:
Self - Host of 'This Is Your Life' (archive footage)
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Dwight D. Eisenhower
Character:
Self - Announces Landing in Normandy (archive footage)
-
Eugenia Farrar
Character:
Self (with Lee De Forest) (archive footage)
-
Freeman F. Gosden
Character:
Self - Prepares for Amos 'n' Andy Broadcast (archive footage)
-
Guglielmo Marconi
Character:
Self - Visits Sarnoff at RCA (archive footage)
-
Marie Mosquini
Character:
Self - with Lee De Forest (archive footage)
-
Nelson Rockefeller
Character:
Self - Eulogizes Sarnoff (archive footage)
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Franklin D. Roosevelt
Character:
Self - Makes Broadcast About Banking Reform (archive footage)
-
David Sarnoff
Character:
Self - with Marconi at RCA (archive footage)
-
Frank Sinatra
Character:
Self - Serenades Sarnoff (archive footage)
-
Arturo Toscanini
Character:
Self - Conducts NBC Symphony (archive footage)
-
Harry S. Truman
Character:
Self - Announces Bombing of Hiroshima (archive sound)
-
Bob Warren
Character:
Self - This is Your Life Announcer (archive footage)
-
Orson Welles
Character:
Self - Professor in War of the Worlds Broadcast (archive sound)
