Advertising agent. Producer. Frank Hummert was the producer, along with his wife Anne, for nearly 100 daytime/primetime radio serials during the 1930s-1950s. Edward Frank Hummert was born on June 2, 1884 in St. Louis. He was the only child of Edward and Carrie Hummert. Hummert graduated from both Stonyhurst University in Lancashire, England and Saint Louis University. Hummert turned to public media upon graduation and soon landed a reporting assignment with the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch and after that assignment ended, Hummert landed reporting jobs for the news journal of the Catholic Archdiocese in Chicago, New World and the International News Syndicate of The New York Times. In 1920, Hummert began working in his new field of interest, advertising. He was hired as chief copywriter for Albert Lasker's Lord & Thomas agency in New York. Hummert earned a starting salary of $50,000 a year. One of Hummert's first big breaks in advertising came when he coined the slogan "For the skin you love to touch" for soap manufacturer Procter & Gamble's Camay. While at Lord & Thomas, Hummert created ads and slogans for big name companies such as Ovaltine, Quaker Quick Macaroni, Gold Medal Flour and Palmolive soap. In 1927, Hummert left Lord & Thomas and accepted a position with Hill Blackett and J.G. Sample as vice president of their Chicago based agency. In 1943, the agency was renamed the Blackett-Sample-Hummert agency. Also in '27 was when Hummert his future collaborator and wife, the former Anne Ashenhurst who was hired by Hummert to be his assistant. The two began collaborating together on radio in 1932. Hummert's first wife Adeline died in 1934. He remarried in 1935 to Anne. The Hummerts' earliest radio serial was a soap opera by the name of "Betty and Bob". "Betty and Bob", sponsored by General Mills' Gold Medal Flour, was about the marriage of a secretary of her wealthy boss, whose disapproving father cuts Bob out of the will. The program sustained an eight year run from 1932-1940. Also in 1932, their long-running soap "Ma Perkins" starring Virginia Payne premiered on the radio. "Ma Perkins" centered around "Ma" who owned and operated a lumber yard in the fictional small Southern town of Rushville Center (population 4000), where the plotlines pivoted around her interactions with the local townsfolk and the ongoing dilemmas of her three children, Evey, Fay and John. The program ended in November 1960. In September 1932, "Just Plain Bill", (under the name "Bill the Barber"), premiered on CBS Radio. The series revolved around a barber who marries above his league. "Just Plain Bill" and "Ma Perkins" were the start of Hummert's radio empire. Their next major hit was "The Romance of Helen Trent" which premiered October 30, 1933 on CBS. The program revolved the personal romantic life of Helen Trent and the continuing question: "Can a woman of 35 find love?" The program ended after 27 years in June 1960 and the broadcast of 7,222 episodes; more than any other radio soap opera. With the premieres of "Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons", "The American Album of Familiar Music", "Manhattan Merry-Go-Round" and "Backstage Wife" between 1931 and 1937, Blackett-Sample-Hummert were producing 46% of shows on the daytime schedule. With the beginning of the 17 year run of "Stella Dallas" in 1938, the Hummert factory was underway. In 1943, B-S-H reorganized to form Dancer Fitzgerald Sample and the Hummerts spun off their own radio production company, Air Features, Inc., which continued to control the airwaves and purchase air time through DFS. In addition to their daytime soap operas, the Hummerts produced a number of musical programs and crime/mystery shows. At one point, their output included 18 separate serials on the air and up to 90 episodes a week. Other Hummert programs included "Amanda of Honeymoon Hill", "Judy and Jane", "Little Orphan Annie", and "The American Melody Hour". Frank Hummert died on March 12, 1966 in New York. He was 81. He was survived by wife Anne Hummert and step-son John Ashenhurst, Jr. Anne, whom never remarried, died aged 91 in 1996. Both Hummerts are buried in Graceland Cemetery Chicago.