Magnum PI:

August 5, 2024July 18, 2024 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

This is Reboot Month, and we are comparing and contrasting several shows that got rebooted after 2000. For the next three weeks we are traveling to Hawaii. Today we get to stop at the home of Magnum, P.I.

Tom Selleck starred as Thomas Magnum, a private investigator living in Oahu. The show first aired on CBS in December of 1980 and went off the schedule in May of 1988.

The role of Magnum was offered to Kevin Dobson who turned it down. Tom Selleck had been the star of six different pilots that were unsuccessful in becoming shows, but he was offered this role after Dobson declined. After Selleck was given the role of Magnum, he was offered the role of Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark. He had to decline due to his show, so the part was given to Harrison Ford. However, an AFTRA/SAG strike in 1980 delayed the production of the television show, so if he had a crystal ball, Selleck would realize that he could have finished filming Raiders before the television show began filming.

Magnum lives in a guest house on an estate, Robin’s Nest, owned by Robin Masters, a famous author. We understand that Magnum helped Masters out and now Masters allows him to live on the estate for no charge. Masters has also provided Magnum with his car to drive, a Ferrari 308 GTS. The only person he really reports to is “Higgy.” Higgy is ex-British Army sergeant major, Johnthan Quayle Higgins III (John Hillerman).

In the first show, Magnum is not a fan of Higgins but as the series continued, a respect and fondness was built between the two men. Other cast members include T.C. Calvin (Roger E. Mosley), a friend who owns a helicopter charter service and Rick Wright (Larry Manetti) who owns a local bar. Mosley was a licensed helicopter pilot, but he was banned from doing his own stunts. Both men help Magnum out on cases quite often. They are former Marines whom Magnum served with in Vietnam. The Vietnam connection was an important part of the show. Previously most shows about Vets portrayed them as dealing with post-traumatic syndrome, but this show featured three competent, close comrades from the war, and it changed the way the Vietnam War and the veterans were regarded by popular culture and American viewers.

Rounding out the cast were Lt. Yoshi Tanaka (Kwan Hi Lim), a police lieutenant in the homicide division and Agatha Chumley (Gillian Dobb), Higgins’ friend who obviously has a crush on him.

Higgins lives in the main house on the estate with two Dobermans named Zeus and Apollo. Higgins also bargains with Magnum for favors to get use of the tennis courts, wine cellar, and other amenities of the main house. Higgins considers Magnum an inconvenience; he was living at the estate to write his military memoirs.

In reality, the Masters estate was known to Hawaiians as the Anderson Estate, Pahonu, owned by a local politician. The grounds were used by the royal family to raise green sea turtles, and the pond is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It had an 11,000-square-foot house; a boat house, which served as the guest house on the show; a gatehouse; and private tennis courts.

In January 2014, the then owner Barbara Cox Anthony sold it and in April of 2018, the estate was demolished.

For the first nine episodes, the theme music was a jazzy piece written by Ian Freebaim-Smith. However, it was replaced by a more up-tempo theme by Mike Post and Pete Carpenter, and it hit the Billboard Hot 100, ranking 25^th in 1982.

The show was very popular with viewers. Men wanted to be Magnum and women wanted to date Magnum. The show received 17 Emmy nominations, picking up a win for Selleck in 1984 for Best Actor in a Drama and for Hillerman in 1989 for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama. It ranked in the top 20 for its first five seasons.

📷onlyinyourstate.com lagoon used on Magnum PI

One of the reasons the show was set in Hawaii is because CBS had its Hawaii production offices running for Hawaii Five-O. Since that show ended in 1980, it made sense to film Magnum there and continue the production division.

Thirty years later Magnum was back in Hawaii. This time it was Jay Hernandez as Thomas Magnum, former Navy seal. While he still lived at Robin’s Nest, he worked with Juliet Higgins (Perdita Weeks), an ex-MI6 Agent who runs the estate. Kumu Tuileta (Amy Hill) also lives onsite as the estate’s cultural curator. Magnum allows Robin Masters to write about his life as a Navy seal in exchange for living on the estate, but he has no income, so he becomes a private investigator with the help of “Higgie” who becomes his partner in season two.

In this version, Magnum also has use of Robin’s Ferrari. The shows were filmed in Hawaii. Robin’s Nest was Kualoa Ranch, a set where Jurassic World was also filmed. Several beaches throughout the island were also used, and the show received a traditional Hawaiian blessing before it began.

Like the original show, Rick Wright (Zachary Knighton) and T.C. Calvin (Stephen Hill) are friends and former Marines. Rick owns a bar the friends frequently visit and T.C. does island helicopter tours. They both pitch in to help Magnum when their skills are needed on a case. Another ally is Gordon Katsumoto (Tim Kang), a Honolulu police detective.

Magnum and Higgins have a definite sexual attraction and they become close friends working together, but for the first few seasons one of them is always involved with someone else. Eventually they realize they both have feelings for each other and start a relationship.

The series was on CBS for four years. When CBS and the producers couldn’t reach an agreement for a fifth season, the show was canceled. The cancellation was bad for the cast and crew, but it also affected many of the locals. Hawaii’s film industry planned on firing 350-400 employees.

I’m not sure why they could not come to an agreement. While the show never achieved the ratings of the earlier show, it had a decent following.

NBC picked it up with a two-season, twenty-episode contract. NBC ended up going with ten episodes per season. They showed the ten episodes of season five by April 2023 and then fans realized that the sixth season would not be shown until some time in 2024. The entertainment industry was facing a writers’ strike as well. It’s interesting that writers’ strikes affected both of the Magnum series.

The network had three options: renew the show for a sixth season, extend the cast’s options, or release the actors and cancel the series. NBC decided to cancel the show. Unfortunately, after the months-long break between the fourth and fifth season, the network change and schedule change, the show never did very well. You also have to consider that the “should we, shouldn’t we” relationship between the two stars had lost some of its magic when they got together and had to discuss more practical matters. The show was canceled again in June of 2023.

I’m not sure why the reboot of Hawaii Five-0 did so well (which we will talk about next week), but the reboot of Magnum did not. The original Hawaii Five-0 was definitely about the investigations while the reboot included the officers’ personal lives as well. I think people liked Jack Lord, but the show was about solving crimes. Magnum P.I. says it in the name, the show was about Magnum and, more specifically, it was about Tom Selleck as Magnum. It was hard for Hernandez to follow in those footsteps no matter how good of an actor he was. I’m guessing a lot of the fans who turned on the show the first time for nostalgic reasons did not bond with the show in the same way they did the original.

I will admit I watched some Hawaii Five-0 and Magnum episodes from the originals, but I was busy during those years, and I didn’t see many and they weren’t shows on my “must-watch” list, although I liked the episodes I did see.

I thought the rebooted Magnum was a decent show on its own. It probably would not be one I would have continued to watch, however, while Hawaii Five-0 definitely made me a fan of the new series.

Jo Anne Worley: What a Character

July 29, 2024March 14, 2024 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

We are winding up a blog series about Supportive Women. One of the women I wanted to include was Jo Anne Worley. I didn’t know much about her apart from her appearances on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In and being in my favorite made-for-television movie, The Feminist and the Fuzz.

Jo Anne was born in 1937 in Lowell, Indiana. Her loud voice was not an acting tool. She always felt she was loud. She said, “I have a big mouth, and I’m sorry to say I’ve always had one. When I was young, in church, I never sang with everybody else. I only mouthed the hymns, so I wouldn’t drown anyone else out. I have my quiet moments. But I don’t have many.” She was named school comedienne at her high school.

In one interview with a Lowell reporter, she said “I’ll never forget the place I’d work every summer while in high school. It was called Robert’s Hotel, Gas and Café, and it was at the intersection of US 41 and Highway 2. They had an old juke box in the café where I worked, and I’d sing and joke around whenever the business was slow, which seemed like most of the time.”

After graduation, Worley moved to Blauvelt, New York to work with the Pickwick Players. She was later offered a scholarship to Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas. After two years at the school, she moved to Los Angeles City College and enrolled at the Pasadena Playhouse. Her first musical role was in “Wonderful Town.”

In 1961 she was in the off-Broadway musical show “Billy Barnes Revue” with Charles Nelson Reilly and Larry Hovis (who was Carter on Hogan’s Heroes). The original show in 1959 featured Bert Convy, Joyce Jameson, Patti Regan, Ken Berry, Ann Guilbert, Jackie Joseph, and Len Weinrib.

Jo Anne was in two episodes of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis in 1961-2. During the rest of the sixties, she was offered several big-screen roles.

In 1964 she was given a role in “Hello, Dolly.” A year later she developed her own comedy and singing act in Greenwich Village where she was discovered there by Merv Griffin.

Griffin encouraged her to appear on his show which she did forty times. Like Marcia Wallace, who we learned about last week, her appearance on Merv Griffin was seen by someone who recommended her for a new show. In this case, George Schlatter cast her in Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In.

Worley left the show in 1970. She made guest appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. She also appeared on several game shows, including Super Password, Hollywood Squares, and many versions of Pyramid.

In 1971 she made the television movie I discussed above, The Feminist and the Fuzz. It starred David Hartman, Barbara Eden, Farrah Fawcett, Worley, Julie Newmar, and Henry Morgan. I would love to see it again.

For most of her career, Worley would be providing voices for animation. However, she appeared in a handful of shows during the seventies and eighties, including Adam 12, Love American Style, Hawaii Five-0, CHiPs, Murder She Wrote, The Love Boat, Mad About You, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and The Middle.

In 1975, Worley married Roger Perry. They would stay together for 25 years, divorcing in 2000. Perry has 95 acting credits and appeared in many popular shows in the seventies, eighties, and nineties. He was also in The Feminist and The Fuzz. After divorcing Worley, he would marry actress Joyce Bulifant.

During the seventies and eighties, Worley did a lot of regional theater in Milwaukee and several cities in California.

In the 1990s she got involved with Disney and provided her voice for Beauty and the Beast and A Goofy Movie. She also was on several Disney series including Kim Possible and the Wizards of Waverly Place.

She was in a limited run of a musical production of “The Wizard of Oz,” playing the wicked witch of the west in 1999. In 2007, she appeared on Broadway as Mrs. Tottendale in “The Drowsy Chaperone,” and she reprised the role in 2015 at The Cape Playhouse. She was also cast in “Wicked” as Madame Morrible in 2008.

Jo Anne Worley once said, “my goal in life is to be the kind of person my dog thinks I am.” That seems to be good advice for all of us. It was fun getting to know a little more about this funny woman. We love her as much as her dog did.

Marcia Wallace: What a Character

July 22, 2024March 14, 2024 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

When trying to decide who to include in our Supportive Women blog series this month, Marcia Wallace was a no-brainer. Carol was one of my favorite characters on television on The Bob Newhart Show, and I love the fact that her role carried over into an episode of Murphy Brown.

Marcia Wallace was born in 1942 in Iowa. Her father owned a general store where she and her siblings often worked. After performing in a school play, one of her teachers encouraged her to pursue an acting career. After graduation, Marcia enrolled in Parsons College in Fairfield, Iowa where she received a full scholarship. She majored in English and Theater.

Upon her college graduation, Marcia decided to move to New York. The country gal had $148 in her savings. When she arrived in the Big Apple, she took on a variety of part-time jobs including typing scripts and substitute teaching. She joined a summer stock company and did a few commercials. She worked in a Greenwich Village nightclub for a year before creating an improv group, The Fourth Wall, with several friends. While she kept the friends, she lost 100 pounds.

Eventually, Wallace was offered a job with The Merv Griffin Show. When Merv decided to move to LA, he asked Wallace to move with them. She was able to obtain a few roles in series after moving to California. During the sixties and early seventies, she was on Bewitched, The Brady Bunch, Columbo, and Love American Style.

After Bill Paley had seen her on Merv Griffin, Grant Tinker (producer) called her to offer her a role on a new sitcom, The Bob Newhart Show. The role of Carol was written specifically for her.

Marcia loved her time on the sitcom. She said Bob was the Fred Astaire of comedy, making it look so easy. She also praised Bob for being a treasure. Because of the way the scripts were written, the show doesn’t date itself. It was about human relationships and people struggling to make them work and make life better.

When The Bob Newhart Show went off the air six years later, Marcia jumped on the game show circuit. Shecould be seen on Password Plus; Super Password; Hollywood Squares; Crosswits; Hot Potato; The $25,000 Pyramid; Win, Lose, or Draw; Tattletales; To Tell the Truth; Family Feud; Card Sharks; and my favorite, Match Game.

Like so many actresses and actors who perform their role so well, Marcia was typecast after the show ended. In an interview, she said that “I have heard ‘You’re too recognizable for this part.’ I remember once, I desperately wanted to be on the series Nine to Five and they just weren’t going to see me because of that. Every once in a while, something would break my heart.”

Wallace also made appearances on The Love Boat and Fantasy Island in the seventies. During the eighties she would show up on CHiPs, Magnum PI, Taxi, Murder She Wrote, Night Court, and ALF, among other shows.

One of my favorite appearances of Wallace’s occurred in the mid-nineties on Murphy Brown. If you were a fan of that show, you know Murphy could not keep a secretary. There was even a support group that started of her former secretaries. However, when Carol Kester came to work for her, she was overjoyed. Carol was the role Wallace played on The Bob Newhart Show. Unfortunately for Murphy, at one point during the show, Bob Newhart shows up and convinces Carol to return to work for him and Jerry and Murphy lost her perfect assistant.

Most of Wallace’s work after 2000 was for voice work with one exception. In 2009, she had a recurring role on The Young and the Restless as Annie Wilkes for 14 episodes.

In 1985 Marcia was diagnosed with breast cancer. She survived it and became an activist and lecturer on the topic. In 2007, she won the Gilda Radner Courage Award for her work in this area.

In 1986 Marcia married Dennis Hawley in a Buddhist ceremony. Dennis renovated and managed hotels. The couple adopted a little boy, but Dennis passed away three years later.

In 1989, a new type of show debuted called The Simpsons. Marcia was asked to provide the voice of Edna Krabappel, school teacher. She probably did not realize she would be associated with that role for another 24 years. Her role as Edna did not end until her passing.

In addition to her television work, Wallace performed on stage. She produced and starred in “An Almost Perfect Person,” a female version of “The Odd Couple,” “Same Time, Next Year” and many others.

In 2004, Wallace published an autobiography, Don’t Look Back, We’re Not Going That Way. She honestly discussed her breast cancer, the loss of her husband, her nervous breakdown, being a single mother, and the ups and downs of her career.

Marcia died from pneumonia and sepsis in 2013. Her coworkers commented on her passing. Yeardley Smith, who voices Lisa on The Simpsons, said “Heaven is now a much funnier place because of you, Marcia.” Bob Newhart said that “Marcia’s death came as quite a shock, she left us too early. She was a talented actress and dear friend.”

I’m so sad that Marcia was typecast and unable to get the roles that she wanted. The networks were very shortsighted during those decades. They didn’t give television fans enough credit for being resilient enough to love the character of Carol while being able to love another character played by Wallace. You saw the same things happen to Adam West, Alan Alda, and Henry Winkler. If that perspective had continued, we never would have had Mary Richards on The Mary Tyler Moore Show or Jay Pritchett from Modern Family. If someone could be a hit as Al Bundy and then go on to star in another show, anyone can get beyond being stereotyped. Marcia Wallace proved that anyone could survive life’s disappointments with determination and a sense of humor, and perhaps that was her greatest role for us.

Virginia Sale: What a Character

July 15, 2024July 1, 2024 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

We are learning about some of our favorite female character actresses. Today we are learning more about the life of Virginia Sale.

Virginia was born in 1899 in Illinois. Her father Frank was a dentist, and her mother Lillie Belle was a poet and truant officer for the Urbana Illinois School District. After graduation, she attended the University of Illinois for two years and then transferred to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York where she graduated in the early twenties. Her brother Charles was a vaudeville comic, and he persuaded her to go to Hollywood to pursue a film career.

She began her career in Hollywood as an extra. In 1931, she did an interview for the Kansas City Star where she said “I had known an assistant director [named Ned] when I lived in New York. He introduced me to King Vidor, then casting for The Crowd. He gave me quite a good bit in the picture, although it lasted only five days. When asked how much salary I wanted, Ned told me to say $350 a week. ‘Well, I think you ought to work for us for $25 a day’ the casting director said. ‘That’s an awful comedown I protested,’ trembling in my boots. ‘All right then, let’s compromise on $35 a day,’ he said. I was awfully glad to get it.” That would be almost $600 a day currently.

During her first two years in Hollywood, Virginia lived at the Hollywood Studio Club. She appeared in 54 films between 1930 and 1935.

The Hollywood Studio Club was created as a safe place for starlets to live. Mary Pickford, along with several other women, was trying to raise money to construct a new building to house actresses. Will Hays gave $20,000 and soon after the studios contributed. Julia Morgan was hired as the architect. She designed an Italian Renaissance Revival style building that opened in 1926. The first floor had a spacious lobby, a library, writing rooms, a dining room, and a stage. The upper stories were single, double, and triple rooms. Men were only allowed to be on the first floor. You had to be between 18-35 years old, be seeking work as an actress, and could stay a maximum of three years. A hundred women lived there, paying $10-15 a week for room and board.

Barbara Hale, Donna Reed, Dorothy Malone, Ann B. Davis, Barbara Eden, Sharon Tate, and Sally Struthers were just a few of the women who lived there. The most famous resident was Marilyn Monroe. After the culture shift in the sixties and seventies, the residents decreased until the Club could no longer financially exist. In 1975 the doors were closed, and the contents were auctioned off.

In Hollywood Sale was often cast as an older woman, even though she was still in her twenties. She entered the movie entertainment business just as silent films were ending. Her first role was in Legionnaires in Paris in 1927. During her film work, she met actor and studio executive Sam Wren, and they married in 1935. In 1936 they had twins named Virginia and Christopher.

In the thirties, Virginia developed a one-woman show based on her life growing up in Illinois which she called “American Sketches.” She performed the piece more than 6000 times throughout the thirties, forties, and fifties, even touring Europe during WWII. This sounds like it would have been a fun show to see. Some of the different pieces of the performance included: “Traveling on the Illinois Central” where she portrays a mother trying to keep her son under control after a visit with relatives; “Life of the Party” where she is a giggling, talkative woman who annoys a young man she is trying to impress;
“Mealtime in Indiana” where she impersonates a housewife trying to get ready for the Ladies Guild while preparing supper for her family; “Three O’Clock in the Morning” as a weary hostess trying to get her guests to go home, and “I Remember Abraham Lincoln” where she is Grandma Willoughby reminiscing about her encounters with Lincoln.

She also received some radio work, including a serial, For Those We Love, playing Martha the maid every Sunday for eight years.

Her film career continued to develop during those decades and she appeared in Topper, When Tomorrow Comes, They Died with Their Boots On, and Night and Day.

Sam served in WWII as part of the Air Corps. When he returned home, he had a six-year position as executive secretary for the Actor’s Equity. He was an executive at both Warner Brothers and Columbia studios.

In 1949 as television was developing, she and Sam created a sitcom, Wren’s Nest which featured the life of the Wrens starring Virginia, Sam, and the twins. The show aired three times a week. Virginia took over writing duties on the show. Many of her scripts were based on real events that happened to the family. The series contained 47 episodes.

During the fifties, Sale took a break from the big screen, focusing on television shows and commercials. She appeared in several series in the fifties, but she hit her stride during the sixties. If you watch a lot of television from that decade, you can catch her in a variety of shows including The Many Lives of Dobie Gillis, Ben Casey, The Beverly Hillbillies, Wild Wild West, The Andy Griffith Show, Green Acres, and I Spy. She had a recurring role on Petticoat Junction where she played several characters. Her final television role was in Police Woman in 1975.

Sam passed away in 1962, and Virginia lived another thirty years, dying in 1992 from heart failure. Both Sam and Virginia are buried in Arlington National Cemetery. She spent her final years at the Motion Picture and Television Country Hospital in Woodland Hills, California.

Sale could thank Mary Pickford for her home once again. Pickford was part of the Motion Picture Relief Fund which she founded with Joseph Schenck and Reverend Neal Dodd. When several former Hollywood stars died destitute in the thirties, 48 acres were purchased in the San Fernando Valley to build a Motion Picture Country House. In 1948, the Motion Picture Hospital was dedicated on the grounds. Later television actors were invited to live there as well. By that time, the site included a retirement community with individual cottages, administrative offices, and a hospital. Fees are based on the ability to pay. Actors, artists, backlot men, cameramen, directors, extras, producers and security guards are all eligible to live there. To live there, residents must be at least 70 and have worked in the entertainment industry for at least 20 years.

It was fun to learn not only about Virginia Sales but also the places she lived at the beginning and the end of her career.

Vera Miles: What a Character

July 8, 2024July 1, 2024 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

During this month of Supportive Women, I am excited to learn more about Vera Miles. For four decades, Miles appeared in our homes as well as on the big screen. With 162 credits, she may have visited your living room more than most of your family members.

Vera Ralston was born in Boise City, Oklahoma in 1929. She grew up in Pratt, Kansas, and later she moved to Wichita where she graduated from high school and worked nights as a Western Union operator-typist. In 1948 she won the Miss Kansas pageant and was third runner-up in the Miss America contest that year. Miss Minnesota won the crown.

A year later she moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in television and movies. Not long after arriving in Hollywood, Vera married photographer and stuntman Bob Miles. One source said that she enrolled at UCLA, hoping to become a teacher.

Bob Miles has 13 acting credits and 14 stuntman credits. The cast of Bonanza must have liked him because he appeared as a stuntman 99 times and as an actor on the show 76 times.

After the birth of her children, she began doing some modeling and taking on a few roles to help provide income. Vera used her husband’s last name because there was already a Vera Ralston in the industry.

She appeared as a contestant in a 1951 episode of You Bet Your Life with Groucho Marx. Along with her partner, she won $8 in the quiz portion of the show but gave the wrong response to the De Soto-Plymouth question which was “Who was the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court?” When Groucho asked her what titles she had held as a beauty contestant, in addition to Miss Kansas, she mentioned that she was Miss Chamber of Commerce, Miss Wichita, Miss Texas Grapefruit, and Miss New Maid Margarine.

She received her first movie role in 1950 and her first credit in 1952. In The Rose Bowl Story, a romantic comedy, she played a Tournament of Roses Queen. She would appear in about 40 additional movies during her career and quite a few made-for-television movies as well. She often worked with Alfred Hitchcock and was cast in Psycho.

In 1951 she appeared on Fireside Theater, her first television role. While she had more than 100 credits performing on television, surprisingly she never starred in a series. The only recurring character she had was Ernestine Coulter on My Three Sons.

In 1956 she married Gordon Scott after divorcing Miles in 1954. They also divorced in 1960. Scott appeared to only work in Hollywood for a five-year period according to imdb.com. From 1960-1971 she tried marriage again with Keith Larsen, but their marriage also ended in divorce. Since the third time was not the charm, for two years in the mid-seventies, she wed Robert Jones but that ended in divorce as well.

During the fifties, she fit roles around her movie appearances, and you can see her in episodes of dramatic theater shows. In the sixties, she had no trouble finding work and she showed up on The Twilight Zone, Route 66, Wagon Train, I Spy, The Man from UNCLE, The FBI, and Mannix. Work did not slow down in the seventies, and you can spot her in a variety of shows including Gunsmoke, Hawaii 5-O, Bonanza, Cannon, Columbo, and Barnaby Jones. She might have taken thing a bit easier in the eighties, but she still worked on four or five shows a year, including Magnum, PI; Little House on the Prairie; The Love Boat; Hotel; and Murder She Wrote. Her last credit was for a movie titled Separate Lives in 1995.

Miles was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and visited Salt Lake City quite often.

Early in her career, Miles appeared to be almost a clone of Grace Kelly but that never materialized into a movie star career. Hitchcock hired her for Vertigo with Jimmy Stewart, but her pregnancy caused her to back out of the movie, and Kim Novak received the starring role. Perhaps, that movie would have changed the trajectory of her film career. I’m surprised that she was never given an opportunity to star in a television show. With 162 credits, she had a prolific and busy career. I will definitely try to spot her when I watch some of my favorite classic shows.

Joan Tompkins: What a Character

July 1, 2024July 1, 2024 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

We are starting a blog about Supportive Women, great actresses who made classic television so much better. I’m beginning with Joan Tompkins.

Tompkins was born in 1915 in Mount Vernon, NY. She began her career in stock theater companies in New York in the thirties before appearing on Broadway in several shows including “My Sister Eileen,” “Pride and Prejudice,” and “Fly Away Home.” Henry Fonda was in several the plays with Joan.

In 1936 she married actor Stephen Ker Appleby in New York, but five years later they divorced. Appleby was born in Wales and known best for his 1960s movies. He lived to be 100. From 1942-1951 she was married to Bruce MacFarlane before they divorced. McFarlane died in 1967 and had 28 acting credits in television and film. Joan would then marry a third actor in 1951, Karl Swenson, “the man of a thousand voices.” The two worked together on the radio. Many fans of Little House on the Prairie would recognize Karl as Lars Hanson. Swenson obtained an amazing 175 credits, primarily on television during the two decades before his death.

After WWII Joan became a foster parent for a crippled Polish boy, Tomasz Machcinski. He later became a photographer. In 1994, their story was made into a documentary, “Child from a Catalog.” Machcinski’s life story was very interesting. He was born in the Kampinos Forest in Gorki, Poland. He spent his childhood living in hospitals and orphanages. After developing a relationship with Joan, he graduated as a precision mechanic in 1963. In 1966, he took up photography and created thousands of self-portraits. Some were as historic characters. He chose the stories, make up, and costumes. He once said that he didn’t “use wigs, tricks, but I use everything that happens to my body, such as hair regrowth, tooth loss, diseases, aging, etc.” He has had exhibits in Copenhagen, Beverly Hills, Warsaw, New York, and Paris. Machcinski passed away in 2022.

Tompkins had a long radio career. She was the voice of Nora Drake on “This is Nora Drake” which was on CBS radio until 1959.

She began her television career in 1954 on an episode of Ponds Theater. Almost all of her 93 acting credits were for television shows. She had a recurring role on a soap, Valiant Woman, appearing in 176 of the 1027 episodes of the show as Marion Walker. Throughout the fifties, she showed up in several dramas as well as The Donna Reed Show, Bachelor Father, and Father Knows Best.

During the sixties, she had two recurring roles. She played Mrs. Brahms on Occasional Wife in 1966-67. I remember her on My Three Sons; between 1967-1970, she appeared as Lorraine Miller, Katie’s mom, nine times.

You can catch glimpses of her on many of your favorite shows from the sixties and seventies, including Hazel; The Danny Thomas Show; Perry Mason; Gomer Pyle: USMC; Dr. Kildare; The Man From UNCLE; Bewitched; Bonanza; The Brady Bunch; Marcus Welby, MD; The Mary Tyler Moore Show; The Mod Squad; and The Bob Newhart Show.

Her last television appearances were in 1980. She played Grandma Gertie in an episode of Eight is Enough and a physician in a made-for-tv film, The Night the City Screamed.

Karl and Joan moved to Beverly Hills where they founded an acting company. Karl directed the plays Joan appeared in. After Karl’s death in 1978, Joan joined a writing group and wrote several books. She died at home in 89.

Joan Tompkins is another one of those actresses that made television better during the fifties, sixties, and seventies. I’m glad we could learn a bit more about her and her career.

Supertrain: The Show That Derailed Before It Got Going

June 24, 2024May 20, 2024 / thewritelife61 / 4 Comments

We are winding up our series, Casting Celebrities. This month we have looked at several shows that relied on stars for their characters every week. We’ve checked out Love American Style, Fantasy Island, and The Love Boat. If you don’t remember today’s show, don’t beat yourself up about it. It was on the air for less than three months. That said, they still had a lot of stars show up. While Love American Style had 109 episodes, Fantasy Island claims 154, and The Love Boat includes 250, this show had 9!

Supertrain debuted on NBC in February of 1979. Here is part of the problem: it was described as a science fiction-adventure-drama. Sounds like a show that isn’t sure what it is.

Instead of an exotic island or a cruise ship, this show takes place aboard a nuclear-powered high-speed super train. However, it might as well have been a cruise ship. You could swim in the pool, go to the gym, or the library. There was plenty of shopping and nightlife including a discotheque. It ran between New York City and Los Angeles, with stops in Chicago, Denver, and for some strange reason, a fictional town of Desert Junction in Texas.

Problem number two for the show: it was the most expensive series to be produced at that time. NBC paid $10 million for three trains. There was a full-size train with passenger cars and two model trains for exterior shots.

Ned Parsons was brought on as art director to build the train. Parsons moved from his home in Newport Beach to the MGM studio lot for three months. He was on call 24 hours a day, supervising 200 construction workers who covered three shifts. The costs to do this averaged $60,000 a day for building materials. The lumber used for the set could have built 22 homes.

Before the show even aired, it was reported that the network had spent $12 million dollars. And despite the high cost of the train, there were a lot of complaints about it being unattractive and unrealistic. It was described as dark and dingy; one article said it was more of a superbus than a supertrain. Although they publicized this train as a high-speed one, viewers asked if it goes 200 mph, why does it take so long to go from New York to Los Angeles?

Problem number three: it was heavily advertised but received poor reviews and low ratings. More people tuned in to watch a 2-hour episode of Charlie’s Angels than the 2-hour debut of this show.

Problem number four: to help the quality and ratings, the producer was replaced, the cast was cut in half and some of them switched jobs, and it became more of a sitcom , and it was moved from Wednesdays to Saturdays. What? Remember this show only lasted nine episodes.

Once the cast shake up took place, five remaining characters were left. Dr. Dan Lewis (Robert Alda), nurse Rose Casey (Nita Talbot), conductor Harry Flood (Edward Andrews), relations officer Dave Noonan (Patrick Collins), and chief porter George Boone (Harrison Page). Seems like an experienced and quality cast, so I don’t think any of the blame falls on them.

The BBC bought the show for $25,000 an episode before it was shown on American television. Their plan was to begin airing the show in the fall of 1979, but remember by May of 1979 the show was off the network so BBC never aired any of the episodes.

One bright spot coming through the tunnel for the show was the music, with the exception of the second theme song which was listed as blah. Bob Cobert provided the primarily disco music. Cobert won an Emmy for his music in War and Remembrance.

Supertrain has been called one of the greatest television flops ever and that’s not an exaggeration. Here are a few of the reactions critics had to the show in 1979. A Variety review said “it’s a Love Boat on wheels which has yet to get on track.”

TV Guide reviewer Robert MacKenzie said that “in the long two-hour premiere, Steve Lawrence was a talent agent and gambling addict in debt to a gangster named Big Ed. Aboard the Supertrain, someone kept trying to put Lawrence away by planting a suitcase bomb in his room, dumping him into a pool when he was unconscious, and locking him in a steam room with friend Don Meredith. Our attention was called to several suspects . . . sometime in the second hour I wanted to get off and catch a bus home.”

Telefilm Review shared that “NBC’s highly promoted show Supertrain features a slick new train of tomorrow, with a script from yesterday . . . it seeks to overwhelm but underwhelms instead.”

Nothing I read gives me any reason to contradict any of these reviews. One fun story I could take away from this debacle was building the train and then what happened to such a behemoth and the model trains? We know one of the model trains crashed and was ruined during the show’s production. Were the others scrapped to recoup at least a small cost? Nope.

According to a Herald-Mail article from July of 2018, Ben Thoburn went to Hagerstown to pick up a jukebox he purchased and saw an old train in the guy’s barn. It was much bigger than a typical model railroad set. Plexiglass served as windows and it had a futuristic design.

Thoburn bought the train and then set about researching it. Jack Morrissey was a LA film producer who bought the train from Thoburn. According to Thoburn, NBC sold the model train to a manufacturer in Philadelphia. When the company went bankrupt (maybe the train is cursed), the train was left in its headquarters. A cabinet maker eventually bought the building and sold the train to the man Thorburn bought it from. Because some other items were stacked on some of the cars, there was a little bit of damage. Morissey didn’t have specific plans for the train; he just wanted a piece of television history. At least something good was salvaged from this otherwise not-good show.

While we are finished with our exploration of the four shows that featured stars in their casts, I did promise to provide one more fun fact. There are a lot of stars who were on Fantasy Island and The Love Boat. When you add in Love American Style, that number is still quite high. However, remember Supertrain was only one the air for nine episodes. So what stars appeared on all four of these series? Let’s find out.

That roster includes eleven stars. None of the crew or staff appeared on all four shows. Regular cast members Edward Andrews and Nita Talbot both appeared on all four shows. Henry Jones shows up on all of them, but I do have a disclaimer that he was on The New Love American Style, a reboot that happened in 1985. We are left with Billy Barty, Hans Conried, Steve Franken, Elaine Joyce, Bernie Kopell, Roddy McDowell, Abe Vigoda, and Keenan Wynn as the remaining stars who can be found on all four shows. Equally as fascinating was the fact that Ron Delaney, Al Hansen, Disco Flo, Michael Minor, Chris Moriana, Bob Shaw, and Annie Starr only appeared on Supertrain and they have no other acting credits at all. Was their affiliation with the show so bad they quit acting? Who knows without a lot more research.

I hope you enjoyed learning more about these celebrity shows and learning which stars managed to get jobs on all four of these shows.

The Love Boat: Overflowing with Celebrities

June 17, 2024May 20, 2024 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

This month in Casting for Celebrities, we are looking at some of the shows that used television and movie stars in their casts every week. The Love Boat was on the water from 1977 until 1986. An extension of the show, The Love Boat: The Next Wave, was on from 1998-1999 with many of the original characters. There were also four three-hour specials aired in 1986, 1987, and 1990.

If you are one of the five people in America that have never seen the show, it aired on ABC on Saturday nights. It was another Aaron Spelling production like Fantasy Island which we discussed last week.

A book, The Love Boats, by Jeraldine Saunders who was a cruise director for a passenger cruise line was used as the basis for the original made-for-tv movie in 1976.

The stars on this show played guests (and occasionally themselves) on the MS Pacific Princess run by Captain Merrill Stubing (Gavin MacLeod). His crew included Dr. Adam Bricker (Bernie Kopell), Purser Gopher Smith (Fred Grandy), bartender Isaac Washington (Ted Lange), and cruise director Julie McCoy (Lauren Tewes). In season three, Stubing’s daughter Vickie (Jill Whelan) came aboard. During the last three seasons, photographer Ace Covington Evans (Ted McGinley) joined the group and Judy McCoy (Patricia Klous) who was Julie’s sister took her place for the final two seasons.

Lucky crew, this series was sometimes set on board the Pacific Princess or the Island Princess, depending on their schedules. A handful of other boats were used in several episodes and movies as well. Many of the shows were filmed in California. Unfortunately, both the Pacific Princess and the Island Princess were sold for scrap in 2013 and 2015 respectively.

Each episode contained several stories and all three titles are combined in one series title; for example “Captain & the Lady/Centerfold/One If by Land.”

Jack Jones sang The Love Boat theme. (Note: Dionne Warwick recorded the song for the final season, but I never learned why.) The lyrics were written by Paul Williams and the music was composed by Charles Fox. The words were:

Love, exciting and new
Come aboard, we’re expecting you
Love, life’s sweetest reward
Let it flow, it floats back to you

Love Boat soon will be making another run
The Love Boat promises something for everyone
Set a course for adventure
Your mind on a new romance

Love won’t hurt anymore
It’s an open smile on a friendly shore
Yes, love
It’s love

Love Boat soon will be making another run
The Love Boat promises something for everyone
Set a course for adventure
Your mind on a new romance

Love won’t hurt anymore
It’s an open smile on a friendly shore
It’s love, it’s love, it’s love
It’s the Love Boat, it’s the Love Boat

For its first seven seasons, the show was very successful. It usually ranked in the top twenty. However, after falling out of the top thirty and then the top fifty the next year, the show was canceled after nine years.

Spelling offered McLeod the role of Captain Stubing. Ted Lange did not have to audition. He was offered the role after being seen on a previous show, That’s My Mama. Spelling’s first choice for Dr. Bricker was Dick Van Patten but because he was involved with Eight is Enough, Kopell got the role. Lauren Tewes was chosen from a group of more than a hundred actresses auditioning for the role.

More than 550 guest stars appeared on the show during its run. There were movie stars like Gene Kelly, Ginger Rogers, and Joan Fontaine. There were Broadway stars including Ethel Merman and Robert Goulet. TV stars abounded like Don Adams, Lorne Greene, Florence Henderson, and Eve Arden. Music was represented by The Pointer Sisters, Cab Calloway, and Janet Jackson. Sports stars were on board including Dick Butkus and Joe Namath. And then there were the celebrities like Bob Mackie and Andy Warhol. Marion Ross holds the record with 14 appearances.

For some reason, The Love Boat does not have the same “time warp” problems as Fantasy Island. It’s been translated into more than 29 different languages and appeared in more than 93 countries. It’s very popular in syndication.

Before the Hallmark Channel debuted, this is where you went to watch people fall in love every week. It’s hard to remember how many people just happened to run into an ex on the ship or meet the perfect soul mate after being mistreated.

Apparently, the cast is still close. In a recent interview, Lange said his experience on The Love Boat was life changing. He also said that the beauty of the show was that they are all still friends. “I just directed Fred in ‘Give ‘em Hell Harry’ in Indiana and I’m going to New York to stay with Bernie and his wife. . . . Bernie is more like my brother, and Fred is like my best friend.”

Whelan described McLeod as an “incredible, protective man. He was just like a dad.”

If you need a reminder that love is still alive and well, you can check out the show on DVD or on ME TV on Sundays.

Welcome to Fantasy Island

June 10, 2024June 17, 2024 / thewritelife61 / 4 Comments

This month our theme is Casting Celebrities. We are looking at a few shows that relied on a cast of famous stars for their weekly episodes. The world of island drama with Mr. Roarke and Tattoo was on television from 1977 to 1984 on Fantasy Island. Ricardo Montalban was Mr. Roarke and Herve Villechaize was his assistant Tattoo.

Instead of a vacation cruise, guests paid to travel to the island for their fantasy of choice.

Before airing as a regular series, the plot was developed for two made-for-tv movies in 1977 and 1978. The show was put on the fall schedule in 1978. All we knew about the island is that it was a mysterious place located somewhere near Devil’s Island in the Atlantic Ocean. (Most descriptions locate it in the Pacific Ocean but the show references being near Devil’s Island which is in the Atlantic.)

Even if you did not watch the show, you probably quoted Tattoo’s weekly comment, “De plane! De plane!” which is what he shouted when he rang the bell to indicate that the guests arrived. In 1981 Wendy Schaal joined the cast as Roarke’s assistant Julie, and we later learned she was his goddaughter. Villechaize was replaced in the fifth season by Lawrence (Christopher Hewett from Mr. Belvedere) who took on the role of an English butler type of character. Apparently Villechaize caused problems for the producers. He continually propositioned women and quarrelled with the staff. When he demanded the same salary as Montalban, he was fired.

Once the guests departed the plane, Roarke gathered them around and explained to his assistant what the nature of their fantasy was. He then lifted his glass and said, “My dear guests, I am Mr. Roarke, your host. Welcome to Fantasy Island.”

The writers were a bit secretive about Roarke’s age. Some episodes mention he was friends with Helen of Troy and Cleopatra; others discuss the fact that he knew mermaids, ghosts, genies and even the devil (played by Roddy McDowall).

Most of the time, the guests’ fantasies did not work out quite the way they had planned. Roarke tried to use this as a life lesson. However, Roarke did make it clear that he had no way of interfering in a fantasy once it began, and the guests had to finish out the story.

According to the first television movie, guests paid $50,000 to live out their fantasy which would be about $175,000 today. Somehow a few people who were not well off won trips or Roarke accepted much less money, even $10, from one young girl.

The plots of these fantasies varied quite a bit. Sometimes, someone was reunited with an old love. Sometimes they tracked down someone who had hurt, or even killed, a family member. Some had a tinge or more of supernatural elements.

The executive producer was Aaron Spelling. Spelling related a story that he and Leonard Goldberg were pitching some series ideas to ABC’s Brandon Stoddard. When he rejected all their ideas, a frustrated Spelling said, “What do you want? An island that people can go to for all their sexual fantasies will be realized?” Stoddard surprised them by saying yes.

The show was aired Saturday nights after The Love Boat for its entire run another Spelling show, which we’ll talk about next week.

Despite the exotic location, most of the series was filmed in Burbank, California.

The theme song behind the show was composed by Laurence Rosenthal.

The part of Roarke was first offered to Orson Wells, but Spelling put the kibosh on that because he knew Wells could be temperamental.

Like Love American Style, rather than each episode having a title, each individual fantasy story had its own title, which made for a lot of confusion.

Unfortunately, the show doesn’t hold up as well today as Love American Style or The Love Boat. It screams 1980s with the fashions and content echoing other shows of the era like Dynasty. Often lines were insensitive to specific people groups and cultural standards.

If I had to rate the four shows we are learning about this month, I have to admit that Fantasy Island would be the last one I would opt for. But if you have never seen the show, you should check out at least a couple episodes.

Love American Style: Love and the Celebrities

June 3, 2024March 22, 2024 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

This month we are starting a new blog series, Casting Celebrities. We’re going to take a look at four shows that featured a group of celebrities every week. We’ll learn more about Love, American Style; Fantasy Island; The Love Boat, and Supertrain. When we discuss Supertrain, we’ll also look at the small number of stars who appeared on all four shows.

Today we begin with Love, American Style. This show was an iconic 1970s show. Like Laugh In, the clothing, furnishings, and vocabulary do not make it timeless. But it was a lot of fun. This fast-paced anthology series featured two to four mini episodes each week, and between them were quick skits, often featuring a brass bed. Each smaller episode is titled “Love and the _______.”

A troupe of players was featured on each show for the in-between skits. These regulars included William Callaway, Buzz Cooper, Phyllis Davis, Mary Grover, James Hampton, Stuart Margolin, Lynn Marta, Barbara Minkus, and Tracy Reed. Margolin went on to a regular role in The Rockford Files; Tracy Reed was featured in McCloud and Knot’s Landing; Phyllis Davis was part of the cast of Vega$ and Magnum PI, and James Hampton will be familiar if you watched The Doris Day Show or F-Troop.

The show had a memorable and catchy theme song. Written by Arnold Margolin, the first year it was performed by The Cowsills. The snappy melody was set to the following words:

Love, Love, Love

Love, American Style,
Truer than the Red, White and Blue.
Love, American Style,
That’s me and you.

And on a star-spangled night my love,

My love come to me.
You can rest you head on my shoulder.
Out by the dawn’s early light, my love
I will defend your right to try.

Love, American Style,
That’s me and you.

During the second and subsequent years that Love, American Style was on the air, the theme song was performed by the Ron Hicklin Group. The Ron Hicklin Group could be heard in a variety of motion pictures and commercials, and they also appeared on recordings with stars such as Paul Revere and the Raiders and Cher. John and Tom Bahler, brothers who sang under The Charles Fox Singers were also part of this group. The band provided television theme song recordings including Batman, That Girl, Happy Days, and Laverne and Shirley. They also did the singing for The Partridge Family theme and songs performed on the show as well as the Brady Bunch Kids. Ron retired in the early 2000s, and Tom does a variety of things. He is also known for writing Bobby Sherman’s hit, “Julie Do You Love Me?”. John married Janet Lennon, one of the Lennon sisters who performed on The Lawrence Welk Show. He currently lives in Branson and conducts the “new” Lawrence Welk orchestra.

Paramount Television developed the show. The executive producer of the show was Arnold Margolin, Stuart’s brother. There were 53 different directors during the four-year run. The series received Emmy nominations for Outstanding Comedy Series in 1970 and 1971; Best Music Composition in 1971, 1972, and 1973, winning in 1973; and winning the Emmy in 1970 for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics.

Many people wrote for the show, but Garry Marshall and Jerry Belson received the most credits. One of the writers, Peggy Elliott, was interviewed by the Huffington Post in May of 2013, and she talked about her time writing for the show.

“But the show I loved writing the most, was Love, American Style. For every other show, I was writing for characters created out of someone else’s head. Sure, we could create the occasional guest-star role, and we had been told to make every role, no matter how small, a real person. ‘Think of the actor who’s playing that delivery boy,’ I can hear Billy Persky, the co-creator or That Girl, say: ‘This is a big break for him — it’s the biggest role he’s had so far. Give him something to work with.’

But with Love, American Style, every character was our very own; every situation came out of our heads. Each segment of the hour the show ran each week was a one-act play created entirely by us. Added to the attraction was the fact that we could say and do things that were taboo on every other TV show in the early ‘70s. Arnold Margolin, co-creator of the show with Jim Parker, told me recently that the creative side of the network wanted the show to be more daring, while the censors kept their red pencils ready. There was a full-time position on the show just to run interference.

We must have put both sides through the hoops with one episode we wrote: ‘Love and The Hand-Maiden.’ A young guy was dating a centerfold model. As their relationship developed, he discovered that she had no problem with shedding her clothes, but she always kept her hands covered — with artful poses in magazines, and with gloves in real life. He became obsessed with seeing her hands and came up with one ruse after another to get her to take off her gloves. We had a ball writing it, with one double-entendre after another.”

If you were a star of any kind in the early 1970s, you most likely were on Love, American Style. The show produced 108 episodes, and those shows featured 1112 different actors. Some of the famous names showing up in the credits include Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Phyllis Diller, Arte Johnson, Ozzie and Harriet Nelson, Regis Philbin, Burt Reynolds, Sonny and Cher, Flip Wilson, and Jo Anne Worley.

Brad Duke wrote a biography about Harrison Ford, and he said Ford had fond memories of appearing on Love, American Style. “He recalled that he had been given little time to prepare his wardrobe for the role of a philosophical hippie in the November 1969 episode, “Love and the Former Marriage.” He appeared on set with long hair and a beard thinking they were appropriate for the role. He was surprised when he was told he needed a haircut and trim and then was given a navy blue dress shirt and vinyl burgundy jeans with a large belt. They even had a scarf with a little ring to put around my neck. And I thought, someone has made a mistake here. So, rather than argue with the wardrobe people, I put on the clothes and went to find the producer. I walked on the set and he was pointed out. I tapped his shoulder and when he turned around he had on the same clothes I did. He was a hippie producer I guess. At least the check went through, and I got paid.”

The best way to get a good understanding of what the show was like is to look at a couple of the episodes.

January 23, 1970: Love and the Big Night

Starring Ann Elder, Buddy Lester, Frank Maxwell, Julie Newmar, and Tony Randall, this episode is often listed as a favorite of viewers. Randall is a married businessman who escorts his voluptuous secretary (Newmar) to her apartment after a late night at the office. Eager to get home to his wife, Randall hurriedly tries to open a stubborn jar of mayonnaise and winds up covered with mayo. Newmar cleans his suit, but while it’s drying, it’s stolen. After a series of amusing mishaps, Randall finally gets back to his own apartment and creeps into bed with his wife–only to find out she’s not there.

February 25, 1972: Love and the Television Set

It starred Harold Gould, Marion Ross, Ron Howard, and Anson Williams. Reading this list of names might give you a hint about what happened to this episode after it aired. Garry Marshall had written a pilot about a 1950s family that did not sell. He turned it into an episode for Love, American Style. George Lucas caught the episode and was impressed with Ron Howard and offered him a role in his new movie American Graffiti about 1950s teens. The movie was so popular that the network decided to put Marshall’s pilot in the fall line-up as Happy Days. Harold Gould’s role was given to Tom Bosley for the series. When Love, American Style went into syndication, this episode was retitled “Love and the Happy Days.”

October 22, 1970: Love and the Bashful Groom

This is the episode I recall when I think of the series. When I watched it originally, I was staying overnight at my grandparents’ house and my grandmother was shocked at the “vulgarity.” It really seems quite tame today, but back then it probably was unexpected. She would approve of Tom Bahler marrying Janet Lennon though because I watched Lawrence Welk with her and my grandfather whenever I was at their house.

In this episode, Paul Petersen, Christopher Stone, Meredith MacRae, Jeff Donnell, and Dick Wilson are featured. Harold (Petersen) and Linda (MacRae) are getting married. He learns that she grew up in a nudist colony and is not comfortable being naked for his wedding. After a soul-searching talk with his best friend, and realizing he loves Linda enough to be uncomfortable, he decides to go through with the ceremony. He gets to the church a bit late and walks in, only to see that everyone else is dressed in their Sunday best. His bride informs him that they always dress up for weddings. One of the congregation members says something like “Let’s not make him uncomfortable,” and they all begin to undress. Of course, you see nothing improper, no naked bodies, only clothes flying. This was probably not the best episode to “expose” my grandmother to as a first glimpse of the show.

The show lasted for four years and was cancelled in 1973. In 1985, a reboot was created, but it was on in the mornings and only lasted a few months. The show was on at the same time as everyone’s favorite game show, The Price is Right. For the 1998 fall season, a pilot was created for prime time, but it was never ordered. While doing my research for this blog, I noticed that there was a Love, American Style project in production, so we may see it resurface again. I’m not sure I would want to watch a contemporary version of the show though. It was such a product of its time, and I fear what a current version would be like after seeing the reboot of Match Game which has been airing the past few years.

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