Born in Merino, Colorado, Edwards worked for KROW Radio in Oakland, California while he was still in high school. After graduating from high school in 1931, he worked his way through college at the University of California, Berkeley, earning a B.A. in English in 1935. While there, he worked at every job from janitor to producer at Oakland\'s KTAB, now KSFO. Failing to get a job as a high school teacher, he worked at KFRC and then hitchhiked across the country to New York City, where, he said, "I ate ten-cent (equivalent to $2 in 2018), meals and slept on park benches".\n', '

After some part-time announcing jobs, he got his big break in 1938 with a full-time job for the Columbia Broadcasting System on the original WABC (now WCBS), where he worked with two other young announcers who would become broadcasting fixtures - Mel Allen and Andre Baruch.\n', '

The young director had an assured, professional manner, and in a few years he was well established as a nationally famous announcer. It was Edwards who introduced Major Bowes every week on the Original Amateur Hour and Fred Allen on Town Hall Tonight. Edwards perfected a chuckling delivery, sounding as though he was in the midst of telling a very funny story. This "laugh in the voice" technique served him well when 20th Century Fox hired him to narrate the coming-attractions trailers for Laurel and Hardy movies.\n', '

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