Release Date

01 Oct, 1991

Runtime

01:53: (HH:MM)

Synopsis

For 50 years radio dominated the airwaves and the American consciousness as the first “mass medium.” In Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio, Ken Burns examines the lives of three extraordinary men who shared the primary responsibility for this invention and its early success, and whose genius, friendship, rivalry and enmity interacted in tragic ways. This is the story of Lee de Forest, a clergyman’s flamboyant son, who invented the audion tube; Edwin Howard Armstrong, a brilliant, withdrawn inventor who pioneered FM technology; and David Sarnoff, a hard-driving Russian immigrant who created the most powerful communications company on earth.

Original Title

Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio

Photos

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Actors

Jason Robards

Red Barber

Erik Barnouw

Ken Bilby

Norman Corwin

Susan Douglas

Frank Günther

Jeanne Hammond

Loren Jones

Garrison Keillor

Helen Kelley

Robert Morris

Dana Raymond

Gertrude Tyne

Fred Allen

Gene Autry

John Barrymore

Winston Churchill

Charles J. Correll

Lee De Forest

Ralph Edwards

Crew

Tom Lewis

Ken Burns

Morgan Wesson

Ken Burns

Geoffrey C. Ward

Tom Lewis

Yaffa Lerea

Morgan Wesson

Lee Dichter

Yaffa Lerea

Paul Barnes

Camilla Rockwell

Susanna Steisel

Alan Barker