As we look at a few little-remembered shows from the past, today we are learning about My Sister Eileen. The series was adapted from short stories by Ruth McKenney published in The New Yorker. The stories became a book in 1938, a play in 1940 and two movies in 1942 and 1955.
In the 1955 Hollywood movie, two small-town sisters — an aspiring writer, Ruth (Betty Garrett), and a would-be actress, Eileen (Janet Leigh) — move to New York City. They find lodging in a shabby apartment and struggle to locate promising gigs. Ruth eventually meets magazine editor Bob Baker (Jack Lemmon), who tells her to write about her life experiences rather than fiction. As it turns out, Eileen’s life, with her various romantic encounters, is far more interesting, so Ruth steals the stories for herself.
This show joined the television schedule in 1960 and featured Elaine Stritch and Shirley Bonne (Ruth and Eileen Sherwood), who move to New York City. Like the movie, one is a writer and one is an actress. Living in a Greenwich brownstone, they become friends with a reporter Chick Adams (Jack Weston) and Ruth’s coworker Bertha (Rose Marie). Rounding out the cast is Eileen’s agent Marty Scott (Stubby Kaye), their landlord Mr. Appopoplous (Leon Belasco), Ruth’s boss D.X. Beaumont (Raymond Bailey), and their Aunt Harriet (Agnes Moorehead). The sisters are stereotyped with Ruth being the smart, plain one and Eileen being the beautiful and naïve one.
The pilot was seen on the Alcoa-Goodyear Theater with Anne Helm portraying Eileen.
Earl Hagen who composed “The Fishing Hole” for The Andy Griffith Show composed this theme as well.
Rose Marie talked about being on this sitcom for the Television Academy. She said she was friends with the producer Dick Wesson. She said her character Bertha was a wise-cracking one similar to Sally on The Dick Van Dyke Show. Rose Marie didn’t like working with Elaine Stritch. She felt she was not very professional on this show; she said she came to work late and goofed off a lot.
In 1960 it appeared on the schedule on CBS opposite Hawaiian Eye and Perry Como’s Kraft Music Hall. Hawaiian Eye was on the air four years, and this was it’s second season. With Connie Stevens, Robert Conrad and Poncie Ponce, it was about two private investigators in Hawaii, a Korean war vet and a former police detective.
I don’t think the writing helped the show stay on the air too long. During the first season some of the plots included: Ruth’s boss ignores her pleas for a pay increase until he encounters her working as a waitress in a German restaurant — and in a skimpy costume and the Sherwood sisters decide to break their lease with a wild party to which they invite a one-man band, a junior Tarzan, and a fireman with his siren.
I’m guessing part of the problem was that it had appeared in so many versions already. Many people read the book. Lots of people saw one, if not two, of the movies. And the play was being featured around the country. I can see that having a television series which has to expand the hour-and-a-half play and film might not have enough material to draw out the same old plot and keep it interesting for more than a few episodes.
This one is another one that you’re probably better off watching the 1955 silver screen adaptation and skipping the television series.
thewritelife61 