Little Orphan Annie

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Little Orphan Annie was a daily American comic strip, created by Harold Gray (1894–1968), that first appeared on August 5, 1924. The title, suggested by an editor at the Chicago Tribune Syndicate, was inspired by James Whitcomb Riley's popular 1885 poem "Little Orphant Annie". Beginning when she was ten years old, Chicago actress Shirley Bell Cole (born 1920) starred on radio's Little Orphan Annie from 1930 to 1940. In 2007, she continued to make personal appearances talking about her experiences on the radio show. Her memoir, Acting Her Age: My Ten Years as a Ten-Year-Old (2005), won two awards at the Chicago Book Clinic's Book and Media Show. From 1931 to 1933, the radio show had two different casts, one in Chicago and one in San Francisco, daily performing the same scripts, many written by Ferrin Fraser. Floy Hughes portrayed Annie in the West Coast version. Little Orphan Annie began in 1930 in Chicago on WGN (720), and on April 6, 1931, with Ovaltine as the sponsor, the 15-minute series graduated to (MORE) .