Nila Mack was the creator and director of Let"s Pretend, the long-running Columbia Broadcasting System radio series for children.
Background
Her mother, Margaret, was a dance instructor. Her father, Don Carlos, was a railroad engineer who died in a train accident when Nila was very young. After his death, she attended an Illinois finishing school, Ferry Hall in Lake Forest, and later took classes in both Arkansas City and Boston, financing her education by playing piano at her mother’s dance studio.
Career
She was the Director of Children"s Programs for Columbia Broadcasting System from 1930 to 1953. Born Nila Mac, she was an only child. She added a "k" to her name because she felt "Mac" looked like a nickname.
However, some sources, including her obituary in The New York Times, said her birth name was Nila MacLoughlin.
She worked in vaudeville and spent six years with the Nazimova company, appearing with that troupe on Broadway in Fair and Warmer and A Doll’s House, as well as the play and film versions of War Brides (1918). “Broadway prepared me for radio,” said Mack, who was cast in Columbia Broadcasting System’ experimental Guild of the Air, the series that evolved into the Columbia Workshop, and a Columbia Broadcasting System comedy show, Nit Wits.
She scripted and narrated the Night Club Romances series. Mack moved back to New York and began to retool the struggling program
Cast member Gwen Davies recalled that initially Mack “was terrified about working with children, because she never had any.” Eventually, she changed the content and casting, assembling a company of child actors, and retitling the series as Let"s Pretend.
The focus was on fantasy. She recalled, “We were deep in the depression when Let’s Pretend began… I remembered fairy stories that filled me with wonder when I was very young. I figured that if these lively pieces with a message at their hearts had meant so much to me, other children would like them, too.” In addition to original scripts, the series broadcast more than 300 fairy tale adaptations.
Cream of Wheat signed on as the program"s sponsor.
Cast member Arthur Anderson wrote that she realized:
..how much better would be a cast of child actors, who could convey much more than grownups the openness, innocence and simplicity she wanted for the show. Besides Nila Mack’s scripts, her genius for choosing and working with her juvenile cast was the main reason the show survived longer than any other dramatic program on American radio.
Nila Mack was.. a lone woman in a man’s world. Actor Larry Robinson on Nila Mack as a director
Let"s Pretend: "Jack and the Beanstalk" {October 26, 1946}.
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Quotations:
“Broadway prepared me for radio,”.