Background
Anderson was born August 29, 1922, in Staten Island, New New York
Anderson was born August 29, 1922, in Staten Island, New New York
His career began on radio during the early 1930s. "He first came to radio through a children"s community playhouse and started appearing regularly in 1934 on Uncle Nick Kenny"s Radio Kindergarten at WMCA."
As a child, he was heard on National Broadcasting Company in the role of the orphan Buddy on the radio network"s musical serial drama, Tony and Gus (1935). The following year he joined the cast of Nila Mack"s and continued on that children"s program until it came to an end in 1954.
In 2004, he wrote a history of the show, and the Golden Age of Radio (BearManor Media), which includes a foreword by Norman Corwin and a complete broadcast log by Derek Tague and Martin Grams, Junior.
Anderson appeared in Orson Welles"s Mercury Theatre production of Caesar on Broadway, as portrayed as the character Richard Samuels in the 2008 film Maine and Orson Welles.
Anderson acted in Welles"s The Mercury Theatre on the Air, his Columbia Broadcasting System Radio series as characters in "Treasure Island", " Julius Caesar" and "Sherlock Holmes". Additional radio credits include the juvenile quiz show, March of Games (1938–1941), produced by Nila Mack and featuring many of the young actors from
Beginning in 1963 he was the voice of the General Mills Lucky Charms mascot Lucky the Leprechaun, continuing the character for 29 years even though he is not Irish.
In 2005, he recalled:
People have expectations. I just have an Irish-sounding name.
I have reason to celebrate.
I had the luck of the Irish to get that part. I never got free cereal, but they gave me lots of green money. And it was a fun character to play.
Hardly a day goes by when somebody doesn"t ask me to sing the Lucky Charms jingle, and I"m proud of that.
An Actor"s Odyssey: Orson Welles to Lucky the Leprechaun, by Arthur Anderson. Albany, 2010. BearManor Media.