Wisecracks, a piano, and a .38
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Richard Diamond, Private Detective, the radio show, around the clock: Dick Powell as the wisecracking private eye who sings, 1949 to 1953. A Stupid Potato channel.
Richard Diamond, Private Detective is an old time radio detective show starring Dick Powell, first heard on NBC on April 24, 1949, and later on ABC and CBS until 1953. Here you can listen to it free online, around the clock, or as a free podcast. Powell plays Diamond, an ex-New York cop turned private eye with an office at Broadway and 53rd Street, a fee of $100 a day plus expenses, and a habit of getting hit on the head. Fans also called it Richard Diamond, The Singing Detective.
The show was created by Blake Edwards, who later directed Breakfast at Tiffany's and the Pink Panther films, and his scripts mix hard-boiled action with jokes. Powell had become a convincing tough guy playing Philip Marlowe in the 1944 film Murder, My Sweet, and he even recorded the 1948 audition for Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar before choosing this show instead. NBC sold him as "the romantic tough guy." He ad-libbed freely, kidding rival radio detectives and sometimes Dick Powell himself.
Most episodes end with Diamond at the piano in the Park Avenue penthouse of his wealthy girlfriend, Helen Asher, played by Virginia Gregg, singing her a standard. His old partner, Lieutenant Walt Levinson, was played over the years by Ed Begley, Arthur Q. Bryan (the voice of Elmer Fudd), Ted de Corsia and Alan Reed (the first voice of Fred Flintstone). Unlike most radio private eyes, Diamond gets along with the police. If you want a detective show that doesn't take itself too seriously, start here.
NBC, ABC, CBS, 1949-1953. With Dick Powell, Virginia Gregg, Ed Begley, Arthur Q. Bryan, Alan Reed, Blake Edwards.
The these recordings here come from the Old Time Radio Researchers' Richard Diamond Private Detective Singles set (100 episodes), hosted by the Internet Archive. Our thanks to the Old Time Radio Researchers, the volunteers who found, dated and assembled the set, and to the Archive and the collectors whose uploads it rests on. The sound is our remaster of those files (rumble, hiss and hum cleaned out, levelled to steady broadcast loudness); the recordings themselves are theirs. About our sources.
Every Richard Diamond, Private Detective episode: the full list, with air dates and stories
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Dick Powell played Richard Diamond on radio from 1949 to 1953. When the show came to TV in 1957, David Janssen played the part and did no singing.
Most episodes ended with Dick Powell, a former musical-comedy star, singing a song at the piano to Diamond's girlfriend, Helen Asher.
Blake Edwards created the series and wrote or directed many episodes. He later became a top film director, making Breakfast at Tiffany's, Days of Wine and Roses and the Pink Panther films.
On the Stupid Potato Richard Diamond channel, which streams the original radio episodes 24 hours a day, free and with no account. There is also a free podcast.
Yes. Richard Diamond, Private Detective is free to listen to, live around the clock and as a podcast: no sign-up, no app and no subscription. Potato Plus is optional and never required.
No. It is an internet radio channel, live 24 hours a day: press Listen live, no sign-up and no app needed.
No modern ads, and we promise none until Valentine's Day 2027 (February 14). Nothing breaks into the show to sell you something you never asked for. Any commercials you hear are the original sponsor spots that aired with the broadcast.
Richard Diamond, Private Detective is a Stupid Potato channel (https://stupidpotato.com/), made by Stupid Potato Studios and powered by MonsterCast. The other channels and the Stupid Potato cartoons are at https://stupidpotato.com/.
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