'Man Who Owned Midnight'

They called him "the man who owned midnight" and he was a familiar voice to millions of people in the Philadelphia region through more than five decades.

His name was Eddie Felbin but we knew him as Frank Ford.

The midnight tagline came mid-century when Ford hosted a live, late night radio show from what was then the headquarters of WPEN radio. On the ground floor of the building Ford operated out of a small cafe with a live studio audience of diners. In that cozy environment he interviewed some of the most famous and accomplished people imaginable.

Frank Ford was also one of the first radio hosts to use updated technology which allowed listeners to hear callers' voices when they called in to chat with the host over the telephone. Prior to that the host would have to repeat what the callers were saying and listeners would simply have to trust the host to repeat accurately.

Of course we knew Frank Ford as the husband of the great Lynne Abraham, Philadelphia District Attorney. And as DA Abraham has said many times: "No wife could have asked for a better cheerleader and supporter."

Frank Ford was a Renaissance man who remained curious and active all through his life. He didn't seem to know the meaning of the word "retirement." At various times he owned the Valley Forge Music Fair, a radio station and his own consulting business.

More from Sally A Downey at the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Although Mr. Ford was also a musical-theater impresario, he was best known as one of Philadelphia's first talk-radio celebrities. His last gig was hosting a daily show with WWDB-FM before it switched to an all-music format in 2000. . . .

After graduating from Penn in 1939, Mr. Ford ran a modeling agency called "Eddie First." Later, when he had a radio gossip show called "Hollywood According to Hoyle," he took the moniker "Eddie Hoyle."
How he got the name Frank Ford is another story. In 1946, he had a job selling radio time for a radio station, and one of his clients was Frankford Unity Grocery Store. The store wanted a music program, and Mr. Ford figured that he could pick up extra cash by hosting the show.
To sweeten the deal, he took the moniker "Frank Ford." The program lasted 10 years, and the name stuck.
"I wonder what my name would be if the sponsor was the Piggly Wiggly stores," told the Daily News in 1995.
In the 1950s Mr. Ford was an announcer on WPEN-AM when the station asked him to take over for a late-night talk-show host who had moved to New York.
Known for his liberal views, in 1959 Mr. Ford won an award from the Philadelphia Fellowship Commission for informing the public "on many issues of inter-group relations."
Over the years his guests included Abbie Hoffman, Eleanor Roosevelt, Sugar Ray Robinson and controversial comedian Lenny Bruce - who became a friend. . . .

Mr. Ford and Abraham traveled all over the world, she said, including to China, Japan, Africa, Australia and New Zealand. He was a foodie and enjoyed art, architecture, dance and opera, she said.
"Frank did everything with such zeal," his wife said, His accomplishments, she said, included producing concerts for entertainers as varied as Benny Goodman and Renata Tebaldi; making a TV pilot with Dr. C. Everett Koop called Seniority; and manufacturing cars. Mr. Ford briefly owned a business reproducing classic Jaguars. "He was remarkable," Abraham said.