Gene Baker, Announcer of the Queen For A Day TV Show from 1956-1960

Steve, I hope that you have luck finding something substantive about your grandfather ... photos, bios, etc..

I recall seeing "Queen, For A Day," as a little girl. It was a daytime program, and high on the viewing fare, on days when one was home from school.

On that program (and, on others), the Announcer played quite an important role as a vocal "Ambassador," to deliver messages of happy outcomes to the contestants, as well as a subtle salesman for the sponsors.

You might try contacting AFTRA ... American Federation of Television/Radio Announcers, which I believe has merged with SAG, (Screen Actors' Guild) -- SAG/AFTRA. Your grandfather may be listed among their membership/archives.

Good luck in your search.

Wow, Thank You very much for the reply, great insight and tip. I'll let you know if I get a lot of good info.
Steve

I see that you're a new user to IMDb, so you may not know how to pull up pages that are specifically dedicated to any personality. The link to your grandfather's page is down below.

(to search for any person, just enter his/her name in the search box at the very top of the screen ... the one that is followed by the magnifying glass "search" icon)


Gene Baker: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0048465/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t4

There is a 1960 episode of "Queen for a Day" viewable the "Internet Archive", and according to the end of the episode Gene Baker was the announcer (he can be heard saying so at the end of the episode):
https://archive.org/details/Queen_For_A_Day

I know the program is very poorly regarded these days and seen as exploitation, however it was very popular at the time.

There is also a 1958 viewable on the Internet Archive which I believe features him an the announcer:
https://archive.org/details/1958EpisodeOfqueenForADay

I don't know if these links are helpful, but I post them just in case.

Surviving episodes of "Queen for a Day" are very rare.


Have you played Atari today?

My mother would watch it in the afternoon, and even then it seemed to me to be one of the strangest programs ever on TV. Women would tell sob-stories, and the saddest one would win electric appliances. Almost surreal.

But no, I don't remember Gene Baker, or his role in the show. Wish you luck, anyway.

I assume you mean the off-screen announcer, and not the MC, Jack Bailey.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7HdYjrQRAg

Listen to the river sing sweet songs
to rock my soul

I'm 71 years old and I vividly recall watching Queen for a Day on TV in the nineteen fifties. The host I remember was Jack Bailey, who was also a host on Truth or Consequences at one time. Unfortunately, I don't remember seeing Gene Baker on the show. However, I just Googled Gene Baker and found a bio of him right here on IMDB and it mentions that Gene was the announcer on Queen for a Day. He was born Eugene Locke Baker in 1910, married in 1945 and died in 1981 at age 71. The link to one of his bios can be found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0048465/. I may have also found some video of your grandfather doing commercials on youtube. I think he may be the announcer doing commercials near the beginning and end of a 1956 kinescope of Queen for a Day. The youtube link is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7HdYjrQRAg. It was not uncommon for the announcer to also do live commercials in those days He also has a screen credit in the 1994 movie Corina Corina, which apparently featured a clip from Queen for a Day. As for the TV show Queen for a Day, I was only a kid at that time, but I was appalled by the crass commercialism of the show, which played shamelessly on the misfortune of women and hyped sentimentality. In my opinion, the show exploited the hardships of poor women who were often desperate. For example, the winning contestant might be a woman who was seriously injured in an automobile accident. After that, her husband ran off and left her destitute to care for her young child who had polio and could only breathe in an iron lung. Her electricity was going to be cut off soon and the kid's iron lung would stop running without electricity, so the kid would suffocate. After putting a rhinestone crown on her head and handing her roses, the solution to all her problems was to give her an Amana freezer and some kitchen appliances, plus a night on the town and maybe enough cash to pay the electric bill for three months. This example is made up of many typical sad stories I saw on Queen for a Day, but it's not much of an exaggeration. You could argue that what the show did for people was better than nothing, but I'm convinced that the minimal assistance the producer provided paled in comparison to what the broadcast of a national TV show earned for NBC. To me, Queen for a Day epitomized the worship of consumerism in post war America more than any other show of the time.

Very interesting post.

I was a kid too and I remember seeing some shows. I don't think I was mature and/or intelligent enough to have the impressions you did but I did think it was rather pitiful sometimes. I do remember the women crying and then getting roses and a crown and a washing machine. Then she would cry some more because she was so grateful. I would tell my mother....look! the lady is a queen for a day! Does she have to give it all back tomorrow? and she would roll her eyes, laugh and say no.. but I would never tell the world my problems like that!

I did not realize that a new washing machine meant so much to a woman because we still had a wringer washer and nobody cried about it. But my grandmother would get red in the face when she was wringing out clothes....and was always warning me not to get my fingers in the wrong place.



I had the chance to work with Michael Jackson who was as brilliant as they come.
Tommy Mottola