Just a few months ago, Mr. Kaplan wrote the forward to a book titled "The Old-Time Radio Trivia Book IV", written by Mel Simons. (Mr. Simons is a personal friend of mine.)
In January 2014 Mr. Simons conducted a telephone interview with Mr. Kaplan, for which I was assigned the duty of writing some excerpts to be included in the monthly newsletter for a club of old-time radio aficionados. Below is what I wrote:
Marvin Kaplan was born in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, NY on January 24, 1927. His acting career began in kindergarten when he played the dormouse in "Alice In Wonderland". He also did some acting as a pre-teen and teenager at his local YMHA.
His radio career was spawned while he was performing in the play “Once In A Lifetime”, which got good reviews. Ed Macks was a radio man who had worked with Marvin and recommended him to Cy Howard. Howard began to create a show tentatively called “The Three Of Us” with the intention of using Kaplan, but the show was not picked up by any of the radio networks. However, CBS did like Kaplan as an actor and offered him a role on their new show "Meet Millie". Kaplan said that CBS originally wanted Judy Holliday in the title role but ended up settling for Audrey Totter. Kaplan added that his character as it was originally developed was deemed to be “too close to Millie” so the producers created a new character – a poet named Alfred Prinzmetal – and moved him into that role. "Meet Millie" aired on CBS radio from 1951 to 1954 and on CBS television from 1952 to 1956.
When asked about any other radio work he did, Kaplan said that Elliot Lewis once used him in an episode of "Suspense" (“Dutch Schultz”, airdate 10-26-53), and that he also did a lot of acting in the "Sears Radio Theater" series in the 1970s.
Kaplan is currently a contributing writer to a stage adaptation of “Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife”, a musical which will be performed at the Beverly Garland Holiday Inn in North Hollywood on February 15, 2014. Kaplan will play the role of St. Peter.
During the interview, Kaplan also talked extensively about the movie "It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World". Kaplan replaced Jackie Mason as Arnold Stang’s partner in a service station operation, and the part originally designated for Kaplan was then given to Doodles Weaver. Kaplan had high praise for the comedic talents of Jonathan Winters, which were a key element in the success of that movie. (He commented that he had the opportunity to work with two comedic geniuses in his lifetime … Jonathan Winters and Charlie Chaplin in the 1949 movie "Adam’s Rib".)