Oracle of the Kitchen

In the last ten years the growling comments and resonant tones of Radiorator Fletcher Wiley have become as familiar to the ears of Southern California housewives as the hiss of boiling water or the whir of the carpet sweeper. Five days a week he has soothed them with friendly advice about household problems, stormed angrily against frauds on the market, chatted lightly on a variety of subjects ranging from the history of cinnamon to modern marriage.

Born E. Mclntyre de Pencier 44 years ago near New Orleans, French-Irish Fletcher Wiley was long a jack-of-all-trades: "mucked in the mines, worked on the railroad, was a salesman, shipped on a freighter, did some research in chemistry developing two processes now in general use in the foodstuff industry."

Wiley began his homey radio career on Los Angeles' station KNX by forming the Housewives' Protective League. Starting with a 30-minute, salaryless spot, he chatted away for six months, was just about ready to turn his time over to soap operas when Golden State Creamery signed up for two weeks, ended by staying 20 months. He now has a second program, Sunrise Salute, 24 accounts each paying $275 a week for one plug daily.

Week ago Los Angeles' May Co. department store had him begin on Wednesday mentioning their shirts which were to go on sale the following Monday. By Friday, with sale prices not yet in effect, half the shirts were gone. Equally astounding have been some of his results in other lines. One morning last summer he briefly mentioned that the drinking water had a peculiar taste. By 4:30 the same afternoon the Hollywood dam reservoir had been partially drained and workmen were ready to clean it. Wiley frankly tells his adoring audience he won't answer their fan letters (about 2,500 a month), bases his success on two rules: 1) accept no "catchem and killem projects"; 2) always tell the girls the truth.

Filed in his fourth-floor office in the CBS building in Los Angeles are the names of 3,500 faithful Wiley worshipers, all good members of the Protective League. When a new sponsor approaches him with a product, Wiley turns it over to 50 of his housewives for testing. They have rejected about half of the products thus offered, have never given him a bum steer. Asked to spiel for a quick-drying floor wax, he tried it on his own floors, reported candidly over the air next day: "This is a good wax, and it's as good as any wax, I suppose. It says on the can it will dry to the touch in four hours. I don't know what drying to the touch means, but I can tell you you won't be able to walk on it without ruining the wax in much less than 24 hours." He kept the account.

A gulping, attentive reader, Wiley has a great wealth of miscellaneous information at his fingertips, hires four researchers to keep him supplied with more. His informal delivery (he uses no scripts, occasionally resorts to notes) keeps studio attendants wondering what's coming next. He stops to light a cigaret, change chairs, or take off his coat; then tells the audience, "It's getting warm in here, so I just took off my coat. You know, it's a funny thing about heat . . ." and launches into a lecture on thermodynamics in the home. Last summer he sported a handsome Vandyke beard but shaved it off when people called him a "poor man's Orson Welles"; now has a toothbrushy, Hitlerian mustache. An ardent sailor and fisherman, Wiley's life away from the mike is strictly his own.

Last week, Super-Salesman Wiley got into the national bigtime. On a long-term contract, over a 36-station CBS hookup, he began to chat five times a week for Campbell Soup, was introduced to the nation on his opening broadcast by Campbell's black-faced Amos 'n' Andy, piped in from Philadelphia. If the new backers expect windy orations on the merits of their product in return for the special sendoff, they are badly mistaken. Typical Wiley formula: "Before I get off the air, and because it's a quaint old radio custom, may I recommend Campbell's chicken soup as a really fine chicken soup. End of commercial."

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