Steve Markham

Steve Markham’s varied career spans over 65 years as performer, director, violinist, symphony conductor, recording engineer/producer, and radio broadcaster. Coming from a theatrical family (his father, at 17, had toured with Buffalo Bill) Steve was raised as a violinist and did do a tour for a brief season at 18. But, his heart wasn’t in it. At Jefferson City High School, he’d become the band’s Drum Major, going on to win two national championships with his batons. This led to a vaudeville contract and he added comedy to his act for the traveling unit. However, the very successful tour suddenly ended with Pearl Habor.

World War II found him in the Pacific (Signal Corp-Air Force) where, in addition to his army duties, he built or ran theatres and produced shows for the troops in Australia, Dutch New Guinea and the Philippines. Having had some experience in radio he helped build and operate a radio station in the New Guinea jungle, entertaining the 90,000 troops around Gen. MacArthur’s headquarters. With the liberation of Manila he found himself (back to the violin) with the U.S. sponsored Manila Symphony Orchestra doing four concerts a week. Shortly he would make his debut as a conductor, later becoming its Associate Conductor. With a military discharge there he joined the Manila/NBC network as American announcer and drama director.

Two years later Steve was sent back home for an orchestra benefit tour but the U.S. sponsors failed to come through (after three months) and the tour was cancelled (two weeks before a scheduled Carnegie Hall debut with the MGM Orchestra). With that, plus political stifle in the Philippines, he resigned his Manila jobs and joined his mother and sister in Los Angeles. Briefly working for CBS radio he started a new career as a radio drama director at ABC, later winning an award for a Best Show of the Month. The presenter was guest Ronald Reagan. However the career in radio drama was short-lived with the advent of television. Having been working part-time since 1948 as a program host for classical music stations KFAC AM&FM he gave most of his time there for the next 25 years. His programs netted two awards along the way. Then, crashing with new owners over the downsizing of quality programming he left KFAC in 1978 amidst some nasty public outcries, including even the music critic of the Los Angeles Times. Then, for a period, he joined his now-TV producer sister co-ordinating celebrity guests.

The then-new tape recording had been a sideline since the ABC days so now he devoted full time with it, producing for his LP label and restoring and editing old radio shows for Armed Forces Radio. He was also busy in movie studios doing star interviews and documentaries for national syndication. Over 41 years in recording he did the USC School of Music among other institutions including the William Hall Chorale with whom he toured to Europe and China.

Loving travel Steve would take a month off every three years for a major trip including an expedition to the upper Amazon, a walking safari in Kenya, Rwanda and Zaire (getting “detained” there as a suspected spy!) and doing culture tours to Europe and the Soviet Union. In 1973 as a guest for the Egyptian government (for KFAC) he was allowed to explore alone some ancient tombs (including “King Tut”)and the interior of the Great Pyramid. Permission was given to climb to 40-story structure but, at 51, he managed to get only half-way(!).

In 1989 Steve helped found the Friends of the Orpheum Theatre on downtown Broadway where he’d come to perform but missed because of military service. The small group’s aim was to preserve and restore this magnificant 1926 movie palace where a young Judy Garland has been discovered on its legandary stage. A vast improvement and public recognition has moved forward since. Steve’s hobby there has been the collection of vintage theatrical drapes for restoration and usage. The collection now is overflowing a large room under the stage.

The group also took on other downtown theatres which have been cleaned up and preserved. The 2200-seat Orpheum is scheduled for a major restoration in 2001 as well as the 1911 Palace down the street whose stage held such luminaries as Sarah Bernhardt, Houdini, W.C. Fields, Will Rogers and a very young Fred Astaire among many more.

Steven is a member of the Los Angeles Conservancy’s theatre committee which presents annual five-weeks of shows to call attention to the almost forgotten historical core (until now). Happily, every night now sells out. A member, also, of the Chicago-based international Theatre Historical Society Steve was co-host of THS for its 1998 conclave which was held in Los Angeles which holds the most still-standing theatres in the country.

A romantic story ends this biography. On KFAC during the Fifties Steve would be a “voice in the night” for a newly widowed-lonely Russian émigré, Helena Volkoff. They finally met after 20 years at the station’s studios and became close friends. When she died in 1994 at the age of 98, Steve inherited half of the estate and was thus able to retire from recording and to devote full time for his final years to theatre presentation. When the time comes the old bachelor’s ashes will be in the niche above the Volkoff’s hwew in the white doned Columbarium.