Sisters: “All kinds of weather, we stick together”

May 13, 2024December 15, 2023 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

This month we are examining shows about brothers and sisters in Sibling Rivalry. Today it’s Sisters.

Sisters debuted on NBC in May of 1991 which was a weird time to start a show, but they decided to air seven episodes as a test run. It was successful, so it was put on the fall schedule for that year. It was on the air for six seasons. Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman created the series and filled the role of producers.

The show featured four sisters, the Reeds, who live in Winnetka, Illinois. The sisters were very different but were close. Their father had been a successful doctor who was not involved in the girls’ lives much but was involved in the lives of other women. Their mother Beatrice (Elizabeth Hoffman) became an alcoholic to help her through his absence and affairs.

Dr. Reed made it known he wanted sons and the girls all were given “boy” nicknames. Alex (Alexandra) (Swoosie Kurtz) was the oldest. She was wealthy and married to Wade (David Dukes), a plastic surgeon. They have one daughter Reed (played by three actresses over the course of the show: Kathy Wagner [s1], Ashley Judd [s2-4] and Noelle Parker [s6]. Teddy (Theodora) (Sela Ward) was a laid-back artist who never could figure out what she wanted to do with her life. She has a daughter Cat (Heather McAdam) from her prior marriage. Georgie (Georgiana) (Patricia Kalember) was married to John (Garrett M. Brown) and was a stay-at-home mom of two boys, Evan (Dustin Berkovitz) and Trevor (Ryan Francis). Frankie (Francesca) (Julianne Phillips) the youngest, was a businesswoman trying to make a name for herself. She was a bit of a workaholic and an overachiever.

Ward was brought in to audition for the role of Frankie, but after reading the script she felt she was better suited to Teddy.

The first two seasons opened with the sisters having a weekly steam bath and chatting about what was going on in their lives. The sisters did not love this part of the show. Phillips said, “it was miserable.” She said “they were sprayed with mineral oil, sat in a cold towel for hours on a smoke-filled soundstage. . . . We were all severely uncomfortable, and it would go on forever.” Kalember said that it helped the actresses become close though. She said, “if you aren’t able to bond under those circumstances, you are not human.”

A lot of flashbacks are included on the shows, allowing us to learn where some of their personality traits developed and situations in their past that still influence the present. The show found the perfect blend of comedy and drama. They also had a few Moonlighting-like episodes where they were based on movies like The Wizard of Oz or the sisters were in fantasy situations.

During season one Beatrice sells the family home and moves into a condo. She is arrested for driving under the influence. Alex suspects her husband of having an affair only to learn that he is a cross dresser. Teddy returns home to Winnetka and learns that her ex-husband Mitch (Ed Marinaro) is now dating Frankie. She struggles with this and pursues Mitch who discourages her. One night they end up together, but he asks Frankie to marry him, and they plan a quick wedding that Teddy ruins. Frankie stops seeing Mitch, and Teddy realizes she behaved badly and decides to go back to California; however, before leaving she learns Georgie’s son Evan has leukemia, so she stays to help her sister.

In season two, Georgie is dealing with Evan’s treatment. Alex realizes Wade has been cheating on her for six months and they divorce. Reed drops out of school to punish them. Frankie and Mitch spend some time together for a business investment and decide to elope. Teddy realizes she is pregnant and knows it is Mitch’s. She tells her family it was a one-night stand; later Mitch figures out it was his, but Teddy has a miscarriage. Beatrice starts dating Truman (Philip Sterling) who lives in a condo near her. Teddy gets a job at a boutique but that doesn’t last, and she goes through several jobs during the season, eventually designing clothing for local women. Wade tries to convince Alex to come back home and she oddly begins dating her plumber. Alex and Wade reconcile. Frankie learns she cannot have a child, so she asks Georgie to be her surrogate.

Season three finds Beatrice eloping. There is an elaborate ceremony planned that they don’t show up to and Reed ends up marrying her boyfriend Kirby (Paul Rudd). Georgie gives birth to Thomas George and has a hard time not being a mom to him. Teddy finds an investor and is very successful but then he sells it to another person without consulting her. The new investor does not see eye-to-eye with Teddy’s vision, so she leaves the company. Frankie and Mitch divorce and fight over custody of Thomas. In another weird twist for Alex, she discovers she has breast cancer and develops a comedy routine to perform.

A lot of activity occurs in season four. Cat is raped and the police investigator, Falconer (George Clooney) helps her remember and identify him. He is eventually shot at the courthouse by a former victim. Frankie gets out of her stressful job and buys Sweet Sixteen, a local diner. Teddy runs into Falconer at an AA meeting, and they begin dating. Georgie struggles with a deep depression. Her son Trevor runs away from the school he was at and does not contact the family. Alex is hired for a television talk show. She meets Big Al (Robert Klein) who owns a large appliance store and sponsors her show. They eventually marry. Georgie and John have separated with all the drama in their family, and they reunite. You always know it’s a bad sign when another sibling is brought into the fold because it usually means ratings are down. In this show, Charley (Charlotte) (Sheila Kelley) meets her sisters because she needs a bone marrow match. None of them can help her but a donor is found, and she becomes part of the family. At the end of the year, Trevor returns after a tornado hits Winnetka, Reed comes home and gives birth to a daughter, Teddy and Falconer marry on a plane during a storm, and Big Al is arrested for tax evasion on his wedding night.

Teddy learns in season five that she is not meant to be happy. Falconer is murdered by a criminal he was going to testify against in court, and Teddy starts drinking again. Georgie sees a therapist who causes her to remember things about her father molesting her that never happened. (The therapist was played by her real husband, Daniel Gerroll) They begin an affair, and she leaves John, thinking this is her great love, but the doctor ignores her. Frankie’s old investment ends in her managing a boxer whom she begins to date. Big Al gets out of prison and decides to run for mayor. Truman has Alzheimer’s and Beatrice has to deal with that. He wants her to end his life when the disease has advanced. She does and to help her afterward, Charley offers her a job as a receptionist at her free clinic. Teddy has a brief relationship with Jack Chambers (Philip Casnoff) the man who got Falconer’s transplanted heart. Frankie has moved to Japan to market a new cow character she created.

In the final season, Georgie goes to graduate school for psychology. She begins seeing a 24-year-old student. Teddy and Cat are carjacked. Teddy buys a gun for protection and is accidentally shot in the head with it. She is in a coma, and Alex convinces Dr. Sorenson (Stephen Collins) to operate. Teddy and Sorenson start a relationship after her recovery. Cat decides to enter the police academy. Reed returns to Winnetka after divorcing Kirby and losing custody of her daughter. She starts a high-priced prostitution company and Alex turns her in and Reed is sentenced to community service. Big Al needs a heart transplant which he survives.

In the finale, Georgie reads her thesis about sisters which makes Alex and Charley mad. Beatrice has a major stroke and dies, which brings the sisters back together. Frankie moves back to Illinois. Georgie and John reconcile at Bea’s memorial service. Teddy is pregnant with a daughter she has already named Beatrice Rose.

The ratings for this show were never stellar. It was in the fifties for the early seasons but dropped to #75 for season five and #103 for season six. However, it received eight Emmy Award nominations. Sela Ward won for Outstanding Actress in 1994. Swoosie Kurtz was nominated that same year and in 1993. Kurtz was beat out by Kathy Baker for her role in Picket Fences.

I think the success of the show, despite some soap-opera-like plots was the fact that it blended humor with heart. Also, the actresses were believable as sisters. Phillips said that “if God himself came down and said, ‘I’m going to design a show: Who would you like to work with?’ you couldn’t pick better people.” She went on to say that “There was something that just clicked. That chemical, indescribable thing. There was a real comfort and connection. It doesn’t happen often.”

Kurtz agreed. She said that “from the beginning we had chemistry on camera, but we had chemistry in real life too. . . . I’m an only child, so I thought this is my chance. Siblings by proxy.”

I could not find out why, but the show is not available on DVD. There is an avid fan club for this series, and they have campaigned to bring it to Netflix or another streaming service, but so far, they have had no luck. It’s too bad because it is a show well worth revisiting. For now, you’ll just have to take my word for it.

My Sister Sam: Sisters in Every Way

May 6, 2024December 15, 2023 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

This month our blog is all about Sibling Rivalry. It’s a bit unusual because it features two sitcoms and two dramas. I thought it might be fun to start and end with the sitcoms, and today we are learning all about My Sister Sam.

From 1986 to 1988, My Sister Sam aired on CBS. Samantha Russell (Pam Dawber) is a freelance photographer who lives in San Franciso. Her life is turned upside down when her 16-year-old sister Patti (Rebecca Schaeffer) shows up on her doorstep to live with her. They are 13 years apart in age, and Patti had been living with their aunt and uncle in Oregon since the death of their parents. In real life, Schaeffer grew up in Oregon.

The cast is rounded out by coworkers Jordan Lucas, Sam’s agent (Joel Brooks); her assistant Dixie (Jenny O’Hara); and neighbor/photojournalist Jack (David Naughton), who is a ladies’ man.

The sisters have great chemistry, but they have very different personalities. Sam is a bit uptight and alphabetizes her juices in the refrigerator. Patti is a Valley girl, very laid back and a wanna-be rock star who plays the guitar.

In a Chicago Tribune interview in 1987, Dawber gave her philosophy of the show: “I see Sam as a woman who’s successful, who has a beautiful apartment but who doesn’t have the answers. Plus, she has to cope with a teenager who’d put her sister on a pedestal—she moved in because she thought Sam’s life was perfect—but finds out that she’s pretty neurotic. I mean, here is a woman, for openers, who’s compulsively neat, who needs to have control in her life.”

Their personal relationship mirrored their television one. Dawber said she considered Schaeffer a sister. She mentored her and even invited her to move into her home in LA where Dawber lived with Mark Harmon, her then-boyfriend, now husband. Dawber said that “We just kind of fell into this sisterly thing, . . . Cause I’d had a sister. My sister passed away when she was 22 and I was 25. And so having another young girl in the house was something I was very comfortable with. It was good for us.”

Pam Dawber’s production company, Pony Productions, developed the show created by Stephen Fischer. The screenplay was written by Fischer and Diane English. Dawber wanted to base her character a bit on Mindy from Mork and Mindy. She said that she was “not a comedian. I’m a reactor to all the zany people who revolve around me.” English and Mimi Weber took on the producer role, with the show filmed at The Burbank Studio. English would go on to write for Murphy Brown.

The theme song, which I admit I don’t remember, was called “Room Enough for Two,” and it was written by Steve Dorff and John Bettis. Kim Carnes, who had a hit with “Betty Davis Eyes,” sang the song. Dorff later was the composer for Murphy Brown and Murder She Wrote. Bettis worked on The Godfather, Part III and Star Trek V.

The show had a great time slot between Kate and Allie and Newhart on Monday nights. It ranked 21 overall. Of course, the networks rarely leave well enough alone, so they moved the show to Saturday nights opposite The Facts of Life. The end of the second season found the show down 50 points at 71overall. The network was toying with canceling the show, but after receiving a lot of fan letters, they brought it back in March of 1988. It moved to Tuesday nights and the ratings increased. However, the ratings did not stay that high, probably because the competition was Who’s the Boss and Matlock. In April, CBS canceled it outright, leaving 12 unaired episodes.

Sadly, a year after the show was canceled, Schaeffer was murdered in her home by an obsessed fan. After living with Pam, Schaeffer got her own place. She was living in West Hollywood when she was killed. Dawber said she told Schaeffer not to put her real name on her mailbox. Dawber had a scare with a stalker earlier in her career, and she learned not to put her real address on her driver’s license or anything that a fan could track you down with. Schaeffer didn’t listen and her name was on her mailbox.

The man who killed her, Robert Bardo, said he saw her in a promo in 1986 and began watching the show. He sent her fan letters. At one point, he flew from Arizona to LA to the studio to look for her. He took gifts to the studio several times, but studio security always stopped him. Bardo returned to Arizona. After the show was canceled, Schaeffer took on several movie roles which were very different from her role as Patti. One love scene enraged Bardo. Bardo was stopped from buying a gun due to mental health issues. He convinced his brother to buy him one for target practice. Then he boarded a bus to LA. He hired a private detective to find Schaeffer’s address; the detective located it through the Department of Motor Vehicles.

One morning Schaeffer was waiting for delivery of a script of The Godfather III for an audition with Francis Ford Coppola. Bardo rang her bell, and she answered thinking it was the delivery person. He introduced himself and told her she had sent him a card and photo after receiving fan mail. She explained she was busy that day, so he went to a local diner. He returned to her house, and she said he was wasting his time expecting any relationship with her. Then he shot her point blank. He got away and returned to Tucson but was apprehended a day later after running in and out of traffic, shouting that he was the one who killed Rebecca Schaeffer.

Dawber was filled with grief and anger. She reunited with the cast of My Sister Sam for a Public Service Announcement for gun control, and she testified before Congress for stricter gun laws. After Schaeffer’s death, California passed an anti-stalking law in 1990. Now all fifty states have one on the books. Bardo was sent to California where he was found guilty of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

My Sister Sam was a ground-breaking show having women in so many of the critical roles. During the Chicago Tribune interview, Dawber said that “the significant thing is that My Sister Sam is a show about women that is run by women. . . . Not only are three of our five regular cast members women, but we have a female executive producer, two writer-producers, and a director. It really wasn’t intentional. It just happened that way.”

It would have been interesting to see how the show fared if it had kept its original time slot and the plots that would have been written as Patti became an adult. Did she begin to resemble her sister more or did she keep her carefree personality? And would her sister adopt some of her less serious traits? Almost every review I read about the show said it was genuinely funny, adorable, relatable, etc. With all the moving around the schedule and “is it on the air or not” decisions, only 44 episodes were created, so there aren’t enough for syndication or DVDs.

And of course, it’s devastating what happened to Rebecca Schaeffer. She was a rising star, and you have to wonder what type of career she would have had if she had lived more than 22 years. Dawber had to experience the death of another sister much too young to die. I’m glad a lot of laws came out of the experience, but it was such a brutal murder. Now, 35 years later, our country is still dealing with devastating murders because not enough laws have been created.

Leslie Nielsen: Always One to Let ‘er Rip

April 29, 2024March 29, 2024 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

In this last blog in our series of Supportive Men, today’s actor might not be someone most people expect to see when talking about television. When most people think about Leslie Nielsen, they think of Airplane! and some of his other movies. While he did have a prolific movie career, he also has a well-deserved place in television. This guy amassed 259 (150 in television) acting credits during his six-decade long career.

Nielsen was born in Saskatchewan, Canada in 1926. His mother was from Wales, and his father was a Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman. His older brother served in politics, being a Canadian Member of Parliament, a cabinet minister, and a Deputy Prime Minister of Canada. I read several sources that said his father was abusive, and Leslie wanted to move out as soon as possible.

Leslie enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force, serving until the end of WWII. He was legally deaf, wearing hearing aids most of his life, but he was able to train as an aerial gunner.

After the war, he worked as a disc jockey in Calgary, Alberta before enrolling at the Lorne Greene Academy of Radio Arts in Toronto. He was offered a scholarship at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York.

He made five television appearances in 1950 with the first being on The Actor’s Studio. He continued working in television, primarily on dramatic theater series, through the 1950s. In 1956, he had his first big-screen roles, appearing in four movies that year including Ransom, Forbidden Planet, The Vagabond King, (Nielsen later referred to this film as the “Vagabond Turkey”) and The Opposite Sex.

Leslie discussed his role in Forbidden Planet: “Supposedly a science fiction version of Shakespeare’s The Tempest . . . The Trekkies today regard it as the forerunner of Star Trek. I just had to wear a tight uniform and make eyes at Anne Francis. I was pretty thin back then.”

He became an American citizen in 1958 but continued to be proud of his Canadian citizenship as well.

While most of his credits for the late fifties were movies, he jumped back into television in the sixties, appearing in forty different shows. Many of them were dramatic theater roles, but you can spot him in Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Route 66, Wagon Train, Daniel Boone, The Wild Wild West, Dr. Kildare, Bonanza, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., and Gunsmoke. His only recurring role during this decade was on Peyton Place where he played Kenneth and Vincent Markham in 18 episodes.

The seventies were almost a repeat of the sixties. His recurring role was on The Bold Ones. He also appeared in Medical Center, Mod Squad, M*A*S*H, Barnaby Jones, Hawaii Five-0, Kojak, Columbo, and The Love Boat.

1980 brought him the role of Dr. Rumack on Airplane!. Nelson’s deadpan delivery of lines in that movie is what most fans today remember about his career. Of course, his response to the line of “Surely you can’t be serious?” of “I am serious. And don’t call me Shirley” is still repeated today. Leslie said, “he was pleased and honored that he had a chance to deliver that line.” Film critic Roger Ebert once called him “the Laurence Olivier of spoofs.”

He continued in these types of roles in Police Squad and Naked Gun and the sequels. His movie roles increased in the eighties and nineties, but he continued to accept television roles off and on. You can catch him on Murder She Wrote, Highway to Heaven, Who’s the Boss, The Golden Girls, and Evening Shade.

His roles continued throughout the 2000s until his death, but the last decade included fewer memorable shows, although he worked less overall. When reflecting on this, Neilsen said that “I’m afraid if I don’t keep moving, they’re going to catch me . . . I am 81 years old, and I want to see what’s around the corner, and I don’t see any reason in the world not to keep working. But I am starting to value my down time a great deal because I am realizing there might be other things to do that I am overlooking.”

While Nielsen was very successful in his career, he was not as successful with his marriages. From 1950-56, he was married to Monica Boyar. His longest relationship was with wife Alisande Ullman from 1958-1973. He then married Brooks Oliver for two years from 1981-83 and then Barbaree Earl from 2001-2010.

One of his hobbies was golfing, and he later did some humorous instruction videos about the sport. He once said, “I have no goals or ambition. I do, however, wish to work enough to maintain whatever celebrity status I have so that they will continue to invite me to golf tournaments.”

Nielsen died in his sleep in 2010 from pneumonia.

He received two Walk of Fame stars: one in Hollywood in 1988 and one in Toronto in 2001. Nielsen was known for his flatulence gags, especially on movie sets, and his tombstone says “Let ‘er Rip.”

While Nielsen’s career is impressive, what I loved most about him is that he seemed to thoroughly enjoy life. That’s a great reminder for us all. Our best role should be enjoying life to the best of our ability.

Vic Tayback: Cooking Up Some Fun

April 22, 2024March 29, 2024 / thewritelife61 / 4 Comments

This month we are celebrating some of our favorite Supportive Men, actors who usually are not the star of a show but add the special flavor only they can to some of our favorite shows.

Before we move on to our topic today, can I just say a huge THANK YOU to all of you who have joined me on this journey through classic television. Today is my 400th blog and it has been so much fun. Next week will be 401, but for today we are looking at the career of Vic Tayback.

Most of us probably know him best as Mel on Alice; he played Mel Sharples in both the original movie, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, as well as the television show that was on for nine years.

Tayback was born in Brooklyn in 1930. His parents settled there after leaving Aleppo, Syria. During his teenage years, the family moved to California where he attended Burbank High School. He loved sports and played on a variety of teams, his favorite being football.

After high school, he enrolled at Glendale Community College. He also spent some time with the US Navy.

With his love of sports, he decided to attend the Frederick A. Speare School of Radio and TV Broadcasting to be a sports broadcaster. While there he was required to perform in a production of “Stalag 17” for one of his classes. He wasn’t thrilled about doing so, but he realized that he loved making people laugh and decided to switch his career to acting. While trying to break into the industry, he paid his dues driving a cab and working as a bank teller.

📷embarrassingtreasures.com Family Affair

The first of Tayback’s astounding 151 acting credits occurred in 1958 in a little-remembered series, Buckskin. This western was set in Annie O’Connell’s boarding house in Buckskin, Montana in 1880 and the stories were told by ten-year-old Jody. Vic continued to receive a few other appearances on television in the late fifties, as well as two films.

In the sixties, Tayback’s career took off. He would show up on 32 television episodes and 9 big-screen films, including With Six You Get Eggroll with Doris Day and Brian Keith. His tv roles were in comedies such as F-Troop, I Dream of Jeannie, Family Affair, Get Smart, The Monkees, and That Girl. He also could be seen in a variety of dramas that included 77 Sunset Strip, Dr. Kildare, Rawhide, Cimarron Strip, Star Trek, and Mission Impossible.

📷newyorkdailynews.com The Cheap Detective

The sixties also found Vic in the role of groom. In 1963, Tayback married Sheila Barnard, and they remained married until his death.

During the seventies, his appearances escalated to more than forty television series and ten movies. Some of his television shows included Bonanza, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Bewitched, Columbo, Mannix, Ironside, Mod Squad, The Partridge Family, All in the Family, Barney Miller, Cannon, Medical Center, Family, and Hawaii Five-0. His movies included a few genres running from Disney’s The Shaggy DA to Papillon (Papillon was the story of a French convict who befriends a fellow criminal in South America in the 1930s, and he plans an escape).

It was during the mid-seventies that he was offered the role of Mel Sharples. In 1974 the movie was released, and the television show aired in 1976. The show was very popular with viewers. Vic said he and Mel were somewhat similar characters. While people still quote Flo on the show with her “Kiss my grits,” Tayback had his own tagline on the show, “Stow it.”

If you didn’t see the show, it featured a greasy-spoon diner in Phoenix, Arizona. Alice moves there after the death of her husband with her son Tommy. She becomes a waitress at Mel’s along with sassy Flo and shy, gullible Vera. Despite the bad food, they have a lot of regulars who come in for a meal. If you want to visit the restaurant, the building it was based on is at 1747 NW Grand Ave in Phoenix and was called Pat’s Family Restaurant. (It was also featured in American Graffiti.) It is now called Mel’s Diner. According to Trip Advisor, it is ranked #448 out of 1795 restaurants in Phoenix.

The role of Mel won Tayback Golden Globe awards in both 1979 and 1980. In 1978 he was nominated for an Emmy as Supporting Actor in a Comedy. While he did not win, he was in some amazing company. That year, fellow nominees included Harry Morgan and Gary Burghoff for M*A*S*H, Tom Bosley in Happy Days, and Rob Reiner from All in the Family, who took home the win that year.

The series aired on Saturday nights and the first year was in the top thirty. In 1977, its second season, it was moved to Sunday nights, following All in the Family where it rose into the top ten. In 1979, All in the Family left the airwaves, and Alice then followed One Day at a Time. Seasons three-five, it continued to be in the top thirty. In 1981, the show was moved to Monday nights up against M*A*S*H where it fell out of the top 30. However, season seven found it back on Sundays following The Jeffersons where it rose back into the top thirty. However, it took another dive in ratings the next year and then was cancelled. I think it probably stayed on the air a year or two beyond when it should have. However, interestingly enough, the year it was cancelled, CBS introduced 15 new shows. I’m not sure most people have ever heard of any of them; they were all gone by 1986 with the exception of The Twilight Zone (reboot) and West 57^th, which was a news show aimed at younger audiences.

Vic was also an avid horse-racing fan and owned quite a few thoroughbreds. On Alice, Mel was also a track fan, and sometimes the writers asked Mel for names of horses they could use, and he often gave them names of his horses.

On the show, Vic was often made fun of for his bad cooking. In a 1985 interview he said, “If I walked into a restaurant, the other diners would look around and say, ‘I hope you’re not cooking.’” Heinz then offered him the role of spokesperson for their Heniz 57 sauce and his line in the commercials, was “I used to be a lousy cook.” He was also remembered for an Aqua Velva commercial he did with Pete Rose.

Unfortunately, Tayback was a heavy smoker which caused heart trouble for him. While doing Alice, he had a triple-bypass surgery. While he did try to quit numerous times, he just could never kick the habit. In 1990, he died from a heart attack at age 60.

While we were cheated of several decades of performances from Vic with his early death, he did leave an amazing legacy in the Company of Angels theater in Los Angeles. According to its website, “In 1959, a group of actors, including Tayback, Leonard Nimoy, Richard Chamberlin, and Vic Morrow founded the theater to provide a space for actors and other theater artists to work on their craft free of commercial constraints.”

Thank you, Vic Tayback, for deciding to make people laugh in your career and investing in the future of acting so those memories continue in the future.

Ted McGinley: A Model Actor

April 15, 2024March 29, 2024 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

This month we are discussing Supportive Men, and I thought it was time to look at the career of Ted McGinley. He’s never been the star of a show, so he often sneaks under the radar, but he is someone we all recognize and appreciate.

McGinley was born in Newport Beach, California in 1958. He could definitely pull off the California Surfer boy image, so it’s no surprise that he was into athletics, especially swimming, in high school. He worked as a lifeguard at the beach in the summer. USC gave him a scholarship for water polo, and he majored in urban planning and real estate.

Even though he was the MVP of his team, his scholarship was not renewed. He had been doing some modeling work on the side and with the lack of a scholarship, he decided to move to New York for more opportunities.

His modeling career spurred his acting career when he was spotted in GQ and cast as Roger Phillips, a Cunningham nephew from 1980-1984 on Happy Days. After winning the nationwide talent search, he had to face a steep learning curve with no acting experience at all. He doesn’t watch his early work on Happy Days because he hates to be reminded of his awkward performances. He said he “had to work on his lines at home and concentrate on the set before my cues. It was all so new. I’m bumbling away, and I hear stories of Ronny Howard, who forgot his lines just twice in seven-and-a-half- years.”

He studied his costars Henry Winkler, Marion Ross, and Tom Bosley. He also joined an improv class. He learned timing and great tips for developing acting skills.

He also spent four years on The Love Boat as Purser Ace Covington Evans from 1983-1987.

This was the decade his movie career began when he was cast in Revenge of the Nerds as Stanley Gable; McGinley reprised his role in the third and fourth Nerd movie franchise hits as well.

After The Love Boat ended, he made the rounds, appearing on shows that were popular including Dynasty, Hotel, and Perfect Strangers. He also took on several movie roles every year.

In 1989, he joined the cast of Married . . . with Children as Al Bundy’s best friend Jefferson D’Arcy, which he called a great, great gig.” It was during this time, Ted married Gigi Rice.

McGinley kept busy for the rest of the 1990s and early 2000s, never going long in between movies or television appearances; he had recurring roles on several shows including Sports Night, The West Wing, and Charlie Lawrence. Many people don’t recall the last show, because it was only around for a short time in 2003. It starred Nathan Lane as a freshman congressman from New Mexico who lives near Graydon Ford, played by McGinley, a neighbor from the opposing political party.

He got another break from 2003-2005 when he starred on Hope & Faith.

McGinley has continued his busy streak since 2005, although he has not been part of a cast during the past two decades. He’s amassed 96 acting credits since 1982. In 2008, he took a stab at Dancing with the Stars, paired with pro dancer Inna Brayer. Unfortunately, he was the second contestant to be eliminated.

Considering McGinley got his first job without any acting experience and had to learn this skill thrown into the fire, he has developed a very successful career. His years on The Love Boat get lost because he is not part of the original crew. I have to admit, when I think of McGinley, I think of Jefferson D’Arcy. No surprise to those of you who have gotten to know me during these past eight years, Married . . . with Children was not a favorite of mine, but I appreciate the place it has in television history. I know a lot of people remember it fondly. I do remember McGinley fondly though for his supporting roles over the years.

Dick Van Patten: He Was Enough

April 8, 2024March 29, 2024 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

We are discussing some of our favorite actors who were typically supporting actors. In the case of today’s subject, he did star in a television show, but he was so great in other assisting roles, we are including him here as well. Today we get to know Dick Van Patten.

📷nypldigitalcollections.com Off Broadway

Van Patten was born in 1928 in Queens, New York. His father was an interior decorator, and his mother worked in advertising. Joyce Van Patten is his sister. Van Patten began working as a model and actor while he was still a child. He was only four when he joined John Robert Powers, a modeling agency, where made $5 an hour.

His first Broadway appearance was in “Tapestry in Gray” when he was seven, and he appeared in many plays by the time he graduated from the Professional Children’s School in New York City.

At that time, he moved to Hollywood. In 1949 he accepted the role of Nels Hansen on the early sitcom, Mama, about a Norwegian family living in San Francisco. The show was on the air until 1957, for a total of 327 episodes.

In 1954 Van Patten married Patricia Poole. She was a professional dancer, part of the June Taylor Dancers on The Jackie Gleason Show. Their son Vincent was on Apple’s Way in the mid-seventies, with 65 credits to his name. He is married to Eileen Davidson, who is Ashley Abbot in The Young and the Restless.

📷wikipedia.com On the set with friend Dick Van Dyke

Van Patten’s sister Joyce also began her career as a child. With 160 acting credits, she also has been very busy for decades, starring in The Good Guys. She was married to Martin Balsam from 1957-1962, another prolific actor. Van Patten’s niece Talia, who has also amassed more than 100 acting credits, was married to George Clooney and then John Slattery, star of several shows including Mad Men. So, this is a well-known family in entertainment.

In the fifties and sixties, most of Van Patten’s roles on television were in dramas and a few westerns. In the seventies, he took on his first comedy roles, appearing on I Dream of Jeannie, The Governor and JJ, Arnie, That Girl, Sanford and Son, The Doris Day Show, The Paul Lynde Show, Love American Style, The New Dick Van Dyke Show, Maude, Phyllis, Happy Days, and One Day at a Time, among others. He also accepted a few drama roles on shows such as Cannon, Adam-12, The Streets of San Francisco, Medical Center, and Barnaby Jones. After appearing on The New Dick Van Dyke Show in 1971, Van Patten and Van Dyke became life-long friends.

He appeared in 36 movies, his first being Violent Midnight in 1963. Spaceballs, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, and High Anxiety, all with Mel Brooks, were probably his best-known films. In 2014, Van Patten said working with Brooks was “great. It’s like a game. It’s not like work. He keeps you laughing the full day on the set. He’s just a funny man.” Van Patten also accepted 28 made-for-tv movie roles.

In 1977, he took on the role that would make him a household name: that of Tom Bradford on Eight is Enough. He played a newspaper publisher with eight kids. His wife dies early in the series, and Tom remarries.

Van Patten auditioned for the role of Tom Bradford but was not given the part. When the producers watched the first day of shooting, they scrapped the entire production. Fred Silverman then hired Van Patten.

📷showbizcheatsheet.com Cast of Eight is Enough

It’s interesting to wonder what his career would have been like if he had declined Eight is Enough and accepted the role he was offered of Dr. Adam Brinker on The Love Boat. Since he had already agreed to appear on Eight is Enough, the role went to Bernie Kopell.

In an interview with the St. Petersburg Times in 1989, Van Patten discussed his character on Eight is Enough: “Tom Bradford is a lot like the real me. He’s a man who always put his career second to his family. As long as everything was OK at home, he was OK too.”

Sadly, the cast did not learn of the cancellation of Eight is Enough from the network. Van Patten said “nobody called me to tell me it was canceled. I read it in the paper.”

Van Patten never received a starring role again, but he did keep very busy in the eighties and nineties appearing in many popular shows, including Love Boat, Murder She Wrote, The Facts of Life, Growing Pains, and Diagnosis: Murder.

He was in a handful of shows in the 2000s with Hot in Cleveland in 2011 being his last appearance on television.

He published a book in 2009 titled Eighty is Not Enough!, his memoir. He had also written Launching Your Child in Show Biz: A Compete Step-By-Step Guide and Totally Terrific TV Trivia. In 2001, he was honorary mayor of Sherman Oaks, California.

Van Patten was an animal advocate, and he created Natural Balance Pet Foods and the National Guide Dog Month to raise awareness and money for nonprofit guide dog schools.

Van Patten also participated in a variety of hobbies. Like Tom Bradford, he loved spending time with this family. He also owned thoroughbreds and attended horse racing events. He enjoyed playing poker, golf, swimming and reading. Most Sundays he headed to the tennis courts to meet Alan Alda, Mel Brooks, and Gene Wilder.

In 2006, Van Patten suffered a diabetic stroke. He made a full recovery and lived another nine years, passing away in 2015 from diabetes complications. He was still married to Patricia.

His son Tommy on Eight is Enough, Willie Aames, said Van Patten “was truly a gem who will be missed.” His second wife, Abby, on the show played by Betty Buckley, recalled that “every day on the set he was a happy, jovial person, always generous and ready to play, tease, and always keep us laughing. He was the consummate professional, a wonderful actor, master of comedy, and a kind and generous human being.”

Van Patten had an extremely successful career. For more than seven decades he was part of the entertainment community. In addition to his stage productions, films, and television work, he appeared in more than 600 radio show episodes and was in Weird Al Yankovic’s music video “Smells Like Nirvana.” He said that he had “fun doing this and going through my life. I’ve had a great life. It was exciting. I worked with the most interesting people, and I traveled all over the country.”

His reflection on his work is great advice for all of us. Van Patten said that he wanted to express the “single idea that has governed my entire life, that every moment of life is precious, that every step we take is an adventure, that every day on earth is a gift from God.” Thanks, Dick Van Patten, for leaving us with this inspiration and for taking your gifts and presenting them to us in the form of many wonderful memories.

David White: The Man Behind McMahon and Tate

April 1, 2024March 29, 2024 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

This month our blog series is Supportive Men. These actors were not the stars of the series, but they contributed a lot of fun to the show. First up is David White who we know best as Larry Tate from Bewitched.

White was born near Denver, Colorado, in 1916. His family moved around a bit. He lived in Pennsylvania and Missouri and graduated from Los Angeles City College. He worked at the Pasadena Playhouse before enlisting in the Marine Corps during WWII. After his four years in the military, he began acting again with the Cleveland Play House.

In 1949, White found himself living in New York where he made his Broadway debut in “Leaf and Bough.” The theater critics were not kind in their reviews, and the show closed after three performances. The following year, he tried the stage again in “The Birdcage” with Maureen Stapleton. He was then given a role in “The Anniversary Waltz,” co-starring Macdonald Carey and Kitty Carlisle which ran for 611 nights. He paid his dues, working in a variety of jobs while trying to establish his acting career. His resume included a farm laborer, a truck driver, a doorman at the Roxy Theater, and working at the J.H. Taylor Management Co.

In the 1950s, David began his long television career. His first appearance was in The Philco Playhouse production of “Rich Boy” with Grace Kelly. While most of his roles were in dramatic shows and westerns, he did a few comedies including Father Knows Best, My Favorite Martian, The Farmer’s Daughter, and My Three Sons. Most of his roles were as corrupt businessmen or arrogant politicians.

In 1952, David married actress Mary Welch. Welch appeared in several successful plays on Broadway. She was a member of Lee Strasberg’s Actor’s Studio before opening her own school called The Welch Workshop. White and Welch worked together in only one production, at a regional theater, in “Tea and Sympathy.” In 1958 she died of complications from their second pregnancy. They had a son Jonathan and sadly, he died in 1988 in the bombing of the Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. (This was a tragic incident when Libyan terrorists planted a bomb on a plane flying from London to New York. It exploded 35 minutes into the trip and killed all 259 people on board and 11 people in the neighborhood where it landed.)

After his wife died, White and his son moved to Hollywood where White launched a big-screen career. His film debut was in 1957 with Tony Curtis, Barbara Nichols and Burt Lancaster in The Sweet Smell of Success. He only had 16 movies in his credits, but they included The Apartment, Sunrise at Campbello, and Brewster’s Millons.

From 1964-1972, he perfected the comedic role of Larry Tate on Bewitched. As president of McMann & Tate, he was constantly firing Darrin for one reason or another, usually related to some circumstance caused by Samantha’s family. White also directed one episode of the series, “Sam’s Double Mother Trouble.”

During an interview with Herbie J. Pilato (author of Bewitched Forever), White said he “got the part because I was an honest man, and that’s how Larry and I were different. I’m not two-faced, and he was. I had more integrity than Larry ever had. I was smarter and had a deeper sense of values. I had to diminish who I was to play Larry, whom I viewed as a very insecure person who only had a certain brilliance in certain areas. He was smart enough to hire people who possessed the skills he did not—like Darrin. I wasn’t born to play Larry. I had to create him. He was a make-believe character of his own truth slated in a comedy series. When playing humor and farce you take that truth and stretch it as far as it will go. But not any farther. When I was playing Larry, though he was a funny character, I never tried to be funny. To me, acting has to do with fulfilling the needs of the character you’re playing, not the actor who’s playing him. Although the one thing the actor and the character have in common is that both have needs. A real heavy is a man who doesn’t have any moral structure whatsoever; one who ends up cheating or even killing someone. Larry was selfish, but he was never that extreme. If anything, he was still a little kid who never matured.”

In that same interview, White said his favorite Bewitched episodes were “Moment of Truth” (Season 3, Episode 2 when Samantha has to tell Darrin Tabitha is also a witch and they try to keep the secret from the Tates), “Bewitched, Bothered and Infuriated” (Season 3, Episode 31 when Clara tells them about a future newspaper article that says Larry broke his leg on their trip, so Darrin and Samantha try to protect him while causing a lot of annoyance to Larry and Louise), and “Toys in Babeland” (Season 4, Episode 2 when Endora brings one of Tabitha’s toys to babysit her while she runs a quick errand which leads Tabitha to bring a lot of toys to life).

After the show ended, White continued both his television and film careers. He also continued in the theater, primarily with Theatre West and the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles.

During the seventies and eighties, he showed up in a variety of popular shows including Adam-12, Cagney and Lacey, Cannon, Columbo, Dallas, Dynasty, Love American Style, Mission Impossible, Qunicy M.E., Room 222, The Odd Couple, The Love Boat, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and The Rockford Files.

After his son’s death, White became a bit of a recluse. He had just begun working again when he passed away from a heart attack in 1990 at the age of 74. Certainly, David White had a successful career, amidst his personal heartbreaks, appearing on the stage, in films, and on television. It would have been wonderful if he had another chance to be part of the cast of another hit show, maybe a dramatic role. However, if you only costar in one show, the role of Larry Tate and the memories we have of him on Bewitched is a great one to have.

Cesar Romero: Batman’s Most Joy-Filled Villain

March 25, 2024February 17, 2024 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

We are winding up our series: Bam! Pow! Batman Villains. Today it’s all about The Joker: Cesar Romero.

Romero was born in New York City in 1907. His father was an import/export merchant, and his mother was a concert singer. He grew up in Bradley Beach, New Jersey. His father lost most of his money during the 1929 Wall Street Crash.

Romero teamed up with dancer Lisbeth Higgins and they formed a professional dance partnership, appearing in nightclubs and theaters throughout New York City including the Ambassador Roof and the Montmartre Café. Although he had no professional training, he was often compared to Fred Astaire. He also was cast in several off-Broadway productions including “Stella Brady” and “Dinner at Eight.”

Later Romero would refer to himself as the Latin from Manhattan and he provided for his family members who followed him to Hollywood. He played the stereotypical Latin lover during the thirties and forties, including The Devil is a Woman with Marlene Dietrich in 1935. However, he also made westerns and did a bit of dancing during these decades on the big screen.

His friendship with Frank Sinatra brought him roles in Around the World in 80 Days, Pepe, Marriage on the Rocks, and Oceans’ 11.

In 1942, Cesar enlisted in the US Coast Guard, serving in the Pacific Theater of Operations. After his military career ended, Romero returned to his acting career.

His television career began in 1948 in the show, Variety. During the fifties he was primarily appearing on dramas, but he did show up on Private Secretary with Ann Sothern and continued his western roles on Wagon Train, Zorro, and Death Valley Days.

The sixties kept him extremely busy on television. He kept people laughing on Pete and Gladys, The Ann Sothern Show, Get Smart, and Here’s Lucy. He rode the range on Stagecoach West, Bonanza, Rawhide, and Daniel Boone. He stayed dramatic on shows including 77 Sunset Strip, Dr. Kildare, and Ben Casey.

However, the show he was best known for in the sixties, is the show that made him part of my blog series this month, Batman. He had to endure a long time in the make-up chair. He refused to shave his mustache for the role, so white face makeup was smeared all over his face until it was hidden.

Romero admitted that this role reinvigorated his career. When he was offered the role of the Joker, he was 59 years old. Romero said the role was “the kind of part where you can do everything you’ve been told not to do as an actor. You can be as hammy as you want.”

He discussed how surprised he was when William Dozier called him about the show. He said Dozier told him that “the important characters were all villains. They had done the first two with the Riddler and the Penguin with Frank Gorshin and Burgess Meredith, and now they were ready to do the third, and the villain was the Joker. He said, ‘I would like you to play the part.’ So, I said I would like to read the script and know what it is all about. He said, ‘Come on over to the studio, and I will show you the film of the first episode.’ Of course, it was great. I said, ‘Let me read this Joker part, and if it is as good as the first one, hell yes, I will do it.’ So I read the script, and I thought it was a gas, and I said, ‘Sure, I’ll do it.’”

No serious villain, the Joker was cheerful and extroverted. He oozed goofiness and always appeared to be having a great time carrying out his nefarious activities. Dressed in his famous purple costume, he had his own automobile that could rival the Batmobile.

While most of the villains saw Batman and Robin as roadblocks in their evil schemes and problems to take care of, the Joker found great joy in taking down the superheroes. In one episode he says “Oh, but I must, I must! Why, outwitting Batman is my sole delight, my heaven on earth, my very paradise!”

You couldn’t miss him if you watched almost any television in the 1970s and 1980s. He appeared on a ton of shows, just a few of which included Bewitched, Nanny and the Professor, Love American Style, The Love Boat, Night Gallery, Mod Squad, Ironside, Medical Center, Charlie’s Angels, and Hart to Hart.

From 1985-88, he was a regular on Falcon Crest. Earl Hamner Jr., the creator of The Waltons, created this show featuring the Gioberti family, owners of Falcon Crest Winery. Romero played the love interest of matriarch Angela Channing, played by Jane Wyman.

He finished his career in the 1990s. He was in his eighties when he appeared on The Golden Girls, and Murder She Wrote, his last television role.

Romero also played a role in politics. As a registered Republican, he was very involved in many campaigns. He worked for Nixon-Lodge in 1960 and later supported Lodge in his run for President. When Lodge did not get the results that he hoped for, Romero turned his support to Barry Goldwater for the general election. He also worked for his friend George Murphy in his run in the California senate race. He later helped Ronald Reagan in his gubernatorial runs in California as well as his presidential campaigns.

It was reported in many articles that Romero had 30 tuxedos and more than 500 suits. That is not surprising because he had a clothing line, Cesar Romero Ltd. He was also a model and spokesperson for Petrocelli suits in the sixties.

Romero stopped acting in 1990. He remained busy though with several ventures including hosting classic movie programs on television. In 1994, Romero died from complications of a blood clot on New Year’s Day. He was being treated for bronchitis and pneumonia.

I enjoyed getting to know a bit more about Cesar Romero, but, I have to admit, that I don’t feel like I know him much better than I did before. He seemed to have been stereotyped as a Latin lover and then again as the Joker. I would like to go back and watch some of his appearances on westerns. It was hard to find much information about Romero beyond his career and political interests.

I know The Joker was not his most challenging role, but he will always have a place in America’s heart for the work he did on Batman as will these fun super villains we got to know this month.

Frank Gorshin: Batman’s Most Puzzling Villain

March 18, 2024March 18, 2024 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

This month, our theme is Bam! Pow! Batman Villains. We have learned a bit about the careers of the Joker and Cat Woman, and today we are spending some time with the Riddler, portrayed by Frank Gorshin.

Gorshin started out as an impressionist and comedian before transitioning into acting.

Frank was born in Pittsburgh in 1933 into a blue-collar, middle-class family. His mom was a seamstress, and his father was a railroad worker. His paternal grandparents arrived in the US from Slovenia and his mother was born in Slovenia, coming to the Pittsburgh area as a young girl; his parents were very involved in the Slovenian community, both singing with the Preseren, a Slovenian singing society.

When he was 15, Gorshin got a part-time job as an usher at the Sheridan Square Theatre. He studied the mannerisms of the actors he watched in those movies and developed an impressionist act. Some of his favorite actors to mimic included James Cagney, Cary Grant, Al Jolson, and Edward Robinson. After entering a talent contest in 1951, he won a week-long engagement at the Carousel nightclub in New York.

Sadly, Gorshin’s older brother was hit by a car two days before and died. His parents convinced him to keep his performance schedule and sent him to New York.

After high school, Gorshin enrolled at the Carnegie Tech School of Drama (now Carnegie Mellon University).

At age 20, Frank was drafted into the US Army and sent to Germany. He was an entertainer in Special Services for a year and a half. When Gorshin left the Army, he began his acting career, appearing in four movies and on television in Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

I can’t imagine the horror Gorshin’s parents felt when getting a call in 1957 that their son had fallen asleep while driving from Pittsburgh to Hollywood, a 39-hour trip for a screen test. With their other son passing away from a car crash six years earlier, now they had to deal with the fact that their other son was in a coma with a fractured skull. Luckily, he made a full recovery.

Another big event occurring in 1957 was his marriage to Christina Randazzo. They had a son and separated later in life, but they never did divorce as far as I could tell.

Until his death, Gorshin would appear in more than sixty big-screen films. During the fifties, he only appeared in a handful of television series, but that would change in the 1960s. Some of the most memorable shows included The Defenders, The Munsters, Star Trek, and The High Chapparal. With his comedy act, he visited The Ed Sullivan Show four times. The first time he did his impressionist act on the series, he would be scheduled with this new band called The Beatles.

The sixties also found him on Batman, his reason for being in this month’s blog series. He said that he developed a fiendish laugh at Hollywood parties. “I listened to myself laugh and discovered that the funniest jokes brought out the high-pitched giggle that I use on the show. With further study, I came to realize that it wasn’t so much how I laughed as what I laughed at that created the sense of the menace.”

He did not love the unitards that many of the comic book villains wore, so he asked for a green business suit and bowler hat, covered with question marks since he always left riddles for Batman and Robin to solve. He often said “Riddle me this, Batman” which became a catchphrase of the mid-sixties.

Gorshin said “When I was first approached to play the Riddler, I thought it was a joke. Then I discovered the show had a good script and agreed to do the role. Now I am in love with the character.”

Gorshin was the only villain to be nominated for an Emmy. He got the nod in 1966 for the episode “Hi Diddle Riddle.” He had some tough competition, going against Werner Klemperer as Colonel Klink on Hogan’s Heroes, Morey Amsterdam on The Dick Van Dyke Show, and winner Don Knotts on The Andy Griffith Show.

Gorshin was in ten episodes of the show, but after appearing numerous times, he was unavailable, and the producers replaced him with John Astin. I realized hindsight is 20/20 as they say, so the producers were never considering the effect the show would have on pop culture and the decades it would be a fan favorite, but that switch seems extreme. However, they did it with Julie Newmar and Eartha Kitt as well, so maybe they figured if you have to replace a villain, let’s replace them with someone very different from the original. Gorshin, however, was not a fan of being replaced but did get over it enough to accept his tenth episode role in season three and appeared as Riddler in the 1979 made-for-television movie Legends of the Superheroes.

Frank made his Broadway debut in 1969 in the musical biography, “Jimmy” which was about the controversial life of New York mayor Jimmy Walker.

Gorshin was very busy in the seventies and eighties. Among the twenty plus shows he appeared on were The Virginian, Martin and Rowan’s Laugh In, Ironside, Hawaii Five-0, Charlie’s Angels, and Murder She Wrote.

In the last three decades of his life, he spent more time making big-screen films. One thing I found surprising is that Gorshin appeared in three soap operas, all at different times in his career: General Hospital in 1963, The Edge of Night in 1982, and The Bold and the Beautiful in 1999.

In the early 2000s, Gorshin did a one-man Broadway show, portraying George Burns. He was reunited with his Batman cast in a made-for-tv movie, Return to the Batcave: The Misadventures of Adam and Burt. His last appearance was on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation on “Grave Danger” on which he played himself. The episode was directed by Quentin Tarantino and was dedicated to Gorshin.

Unfortunately, Gorshin was a heavy smoker throughout his life. Adam West once said that “Frank could reduce a cigarette to ash with one draw” and his nightclub performances warned patrons they would be exposed to a lot of second-hand smoke if they attended. Not surprisingly, he died from lung cancer, complicated by emphysema and pneumonia.

I enjoyed getting to know Frank Gorshin in this blog. While I was much more familiar with the careers of Burgess Meredith and Julie Newmar, Gorshin and Cesar Romero are actors I knew very little about. I hope you are also enjoying getting to know these fun “villains.”

Julie Newmar: Batman’s Most Beautiful Villain

March 11, 2024February 17, 2024 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

This month we are learning a bit about the Batman villains and their careers. No study of Batman’s favorite nemesis would be complete without Cat Woman, Julie Newmar. Julie shared the role of Cat Woman with Eartha Kitt who appeared the final television season and Lee Meriwether who was so catty in the Batman movie. What else did Julie Newmar do during her career? Let’s find out.

Born Julia Chalene Newmeyer in 1933, Julie Newmar as she is known in the acting world, was a television and film actress, dancer, singer, and stage performer. But, as they say in the commercials, that’s not all. She also was known for writing, designing lingerie, and managing real estate investments.

Newmar was born in LA. Her father Don was head of the physical education department for the Los Angeles College. Her mother, of both Swedish and French descent, was a fashion designer under the name Chalene and later worked in real estate.

Julie began dancing early in life and performed as a prima ballerina with the Los Angeles Opera when she was only 15. With an IQ of 135, Newmar graduated from John Marshall High School at age 15. She continued dancing in films in the early fifties. At age 19, she was also working as a dancer/choreographer for Universal Studios. In 1954, she appeared in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers as Dorcas, one of the seven brides.

In 1955 she got her first Broadway appearance in “Silk Stockings.” She continued her movie and Broadway careers throughout her years in entertainment, appearing in 33 films in all.

Television is where Newmar gained most of her fame. Her first television appearance was on The Phil Silvers Show in 1957 and then Ominbus in 1959. But it was in the sixties that she became a household name. She started the decade in Adventure in Paradise in 1960, followed by a variety of shows including The Defenders, Route 66, and The Twilight Zone in the early sixties.

In 1964 she was offered the role of Rhoda on My Living Doll, where she played a robot. She was not enthralled with the choice of Bob Cummings as her costar and did not seem to enjoy her time on this show. She said that “They originally wanted Efrem Zimbalist Jr. It was not a flip part—it needed a straight actor who could play opposite this bizarre creature so the comedy would come off. That quality was lost when they hired Bob. The show could have been wonderful. I think it would have run for many seasons had they hired Efrem because he had the right qualities.”

After appearing in several comedies including The Beverly Hillbillies and F Troop, she received another recurring role as Cat Woman in Batman. She would appear in the series 13 times, 12 as Cat Woman, the only villain to make Batman question his morals, because we knew he was in love with her, and if she showed any sign of remorse, who knows where things might have gone. Her Cat Woman costume now lives at the Smithsonian Institution.

Newmar lived in Beekman Place in New York in the mid-sixties. One weekend her brother had come to visit her from Harvard. They were sitting around chatting when the phone rang. She was asked if she would like to play Cat Woman on the Batman series. She was a bit miffed because they said they were casting in California, and the role started on Monday. Her comment was “That’s how television is done: they never know what they are doing until yesterday.” When her brother heard Batman, he jumped up and said that was the favorite show at Harvard and they even skipped classes to watch it. He told her to take the role, so she did.

After Batman, she finished out the sixties in The Monkees, Star Trek, Get Smart and It Takes a Thief. With 11 seventies offers, you can see her in shows such as Bewitched, Columbo, McMillan and Wife, Love American Style, The Bionic Woman, and The Love Boat. One of my favorite made-for-tv movies was The Feminist and the Fuzz. It had an exceptional cast, including Newmar who appeared in the movie along with Barbara Eden, David Hartman, Jo Anne Worley, Farrah Fawcett, Harry Morgan, Herb Edelman, Penny Marshall, and John McGiver. This ensemble was directed by Jerry Paris, who directed so many great shows from The Dick Van Dyke Show to Happy Days.

Her other starring role in the seventies was a marriage to J. Holt Smith, an attorney. After the wedding, Newmar moved to Forth Worth, Texas until 1984 when they divorced.

The eighties was a more quiet decade for the actress but she did accept roles on CHiPs, Fantasy Island, and Hart to Hart. In 1992, she appeared in George Michael’s music video, “Too Funky,” She was still working in 2016 and 2017 in Batman animation features.

If you were a fan of Batman and Dark Shadows in the sixties, you were in luck when Newmar took on the role of Dr. Julia Hoffman (played in the original series by Grayson Hall) in Dark Shadows: Bloodline, the audio drama miniseries.

She was not just a pretty face, however. She received two US patents for pantyhose and one for a bra, under the name Nudemar. She also began investing in LA real estate and was credited with helping to improve the neighborhoods of La Brea Avenue and Fairfax Avenue. In one episode of My Living Doll, Rhoda is asked to play Chopin’s “Fantasie Impromptu” on the piano. Newmar played the piece herself. She had studied under concert pianist Dr. MacIntyre, and she said that scene is the only one she’s done with her playing the piano which had been her career choice before acting. One of Julie’s comments about herself was “Tell me I’m beautiful, it’s nothing. Tell me I’m intellectual—I know it. Tell me I’m funny, and it’s the greatest compliment in the world anyone could give me.”

Julie also enjoys art and gardening. She has a rose, a day lily, and an orchid named for her. Her gardens are often chosen as a spot for holding charity events.

Like Barbara Feldon from Get Smart, Julie Newmar is beautiful, bright, and funny. I hope she enjoyed her career. Obviously, she could have been a brain surgeon or any other profession of her choice. She seems like she would be a fun person to just hang out with and the conversation would never run out. Thank you, Julie Newmar for choosing the entertainment business over medical science for our sakes.

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