Welcome to February! This month we are learning about some Bewitching characters, four actors who appeared on the show Bewitched: Dick Sargent, Dick York, George Tobias, and Alice Pearce. We are beginning with Dick Sargent.
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Richard Cox was born in California in 1930. He later changed his name to Dick Sargent for his career. Sargentâs mother, Ruth McNaughton, was an actress using the name Ruth Powell. His father was a manager for many famous Hollywood actors including Douglas Fairbanks and Erich von Stroheim.
Dick majored in drama at Stanford University, appearing in a couple of dozen plays with the Stanford Players. After graduation, he began his movie career with his first film, Prisoner of War in 1954 starring Ronald Reagan. He had small roles in 35 films during his career including Love Me Tender with Elvis Presley, Operation Petticoat with Cary Grant, and That Touch of Mink with Doris Day. 1954 was also the year he began his television career in I Married Joan. Sargent would go on to appear in another 78 series before his career ended.
In the sixties he had his first roles as a cast member. He was in One Happy Family in 1961, Broadside in 1964, and The Tammy Grimes Show in 1966.
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He was cast as Darrin Stephens in Bewitched from 1969-1972.
Sargent was originally asked to play Darrin in the pilot of Bewitched, but he was under contract with Universal, so he had to turn it down. I will admit, he had great credentials and a great career, and I appreciated his acting ability and admired him for his charitable work, but to be honest, I never liked him as Darrin, much preferring Dick York. I felt the same way about Sandra Gould who replaced Alice Pearce; she was a fine actress, but she just wasnât Gladys.
It was more than the fact that they were both replacements. Dick York just seemed to have all the great traits of Darrin, and I understood why Samantha fell in love with him, even when he was being stubborn and unreasonable. However, with Sargent, he seemed to have a touch of arrogance and impatience. I also think Yorkâs mannerisms gave more depth to the role and provided more humor. However, I do think the writing was much better in the early years, so if Sargent had been free to accept the role from the beginning, maybe his character would have been more likable.
Sargentâs only other regular cast role came in 1984 in Down to Earth. There were a lot of weird plots on sitcoms in the eighties, and this was one of them. After being struck down by a trolley in 1925, Ethel MacDoogan, a flapper, waits in heaven for a chance to help a family and earn her wings. That chance arrives in the form of the Preston family with Sargent as the father.
In between 1972 and 1984 he continued his television roles appearing on I Dream of Jeannie, Hereâs Lucy, Taxi, Alice, Fantasy Island, Charlieâs Angels, The Waltons, and Murder She Wrote.
Sargent was an advocate for many charities. He and Sally Struthers raised money for the Christian Childrenâs Fund. He also worked on behalf of Special Olympics, World Hunger, AIDS Project Los Angeles, and the American Foundation for AIDS Research.
Sargent was a closeted gay man for much of his career, but in 1991 on National Coming Out Day, he admitted that he was gay. He said he felt he had to open up because he was concerned about the high rate of suicide among young, gay men. Sargent said when he finally came out at age 61, âIt was such a relief. I lived in fear of being found out. Now itâs given me a whole new mission in life.â
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In 1989, Sargent was diagnosed with prostate cancer and passed away five years later.
Despite my preference for Dick York as Darrin, Sargent had an amazing career. He was able to continue in both film and television until he passed away in 1989. He gave back to the community and tried to make the world better for children, which I greatly appreciate. Whether you prefer York or Sargent, they were both Bewitching characters who helped make the show a favorite for decades.
We are winding up our blog series âWhat a Characterâ with Sandra Gould. I have to be honest, I had an unfair bias against Sandra Gould. I didnât know a lot about her career, I just knew that she replaced Alice Pearce as Gladys Kravitz, and it was a bad replacement. It wasnât Sandraâs faultâI blame the showâs producers.
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Some actors truly are irreplaceable. Eartha Kitt, while a great Cat Woman, just wasnât Julie Newmar. Imagine trying to replace Henry Winkler as the Fonz halfway into the show. Can you picture tuning into MASH and finding Hawkeye was now played by someone other than Alan Alda? Pearce was perfect in that role and, despite her being nosy and annoying, she was likable and that is hard to do. Gouldâs Gladys was loud and brash, and I felt like I heard fingernails on a chalkboard whenever she was in a scene.
As long as Iâm oversharing, I never cared for Dick Sargent either. While he was able to replace Dick York in some ways, York was just Darrin. Okay, Iâm done and ready to talk about the good aspects of Sandra Gould and her long career.
Gould was born in Brooklyn in 1916. She entered the entertainment business early becoming a kid dancer in the Cat Skills by age 13.
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Gould found a lot of success on radio, appearing on âMy Friend Irmaâ and âDuffyâs Tavern.â Her first radio job came along when she was only 9 on âThe Danny Thomas Show.â Gould was with Jack Benny for almost fifteen years.
In 1938 she married Larry Berns, a broadcasting executive. They were married until his death in 1965. Berns joined CBS in 1942 writing and producing radio and TV series including Our Miss Brooks. He later worked on McHaleâs Navy and Broadside.
Sandraâs first role was in the big screen T-Men in 1947. Most of her roles were inept or gabby women, typically a telephone operator, nurse, receptionist, landlady, or saleswoman. Gould once mentioned that she played an operator more than any other actress. I did notice 10-15% of her roles mentioned switchboard operators.
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While she continued to appear in movies, most of her acting credits came on television. She appeared in Oboler Comedy Theater in 1949. In the early days of television, many of the series were drama or comedy reenactments of movies or plays. Sometimes, new stories were written for these episodes. Gould continued with these roles into the mid-fifties.
From 1952-55 she appeared as Mildred on I Married Joan. This series starred Joan Davis and Jim Backus. He was a judge, and she was another âLucy Ricardoâ always getting into mischief or causing hardships for her husband.
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Gould was kept very busy with offers during the end of the fifties and throughout the sixties. She could be seen doing comedy on Our Miss Brooks, I Love Lucy, The Jack Benny Program, My Three Sons, The Brady Bunch, and I Dream of Jeannie among others. She also tried western life on Wagon Train. Her drama performances included Hawaiian Eye and I Spy. She even dipped her toe into animation on The Flintstones.
At the end of the sixties, she was given the Glady Kravitz role. Pearce and Gould split the characterâs appearances: Pearce had 27 episodes with Gould having 29.
Gould had stepped away from acting for a time. She published two books for girls: Always Say Maybe and Sexpots and Pans. They both seem quite dated today in their advice to girls to get the right type of husband. At the time she accepted the role of Gladys she said she had gone through a very rough year. Her husband died. Then her writing partner Peter Barry died. Then Alice Pearce, who was a good friend of hers. She had no desire to take over the role, but George Tobias who played Abner and was also a friend, called her to come in for an audition.
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I could not find any information about she and Barry collaborating. One article specifically mentioned that they wrote scripts for Honey West, Tammy, and The John Forsythe Show, but I donât see either of their names as writers for these shows. Barry is listed as a writer for 23 shows in the late fifties and early sixties, and he was a radio scriptwriter. Perhaps they had written some scripts that were never filmed.
I guess I am in the minority on the Bewitched issue because most sites I visited described her role similarly, usually something like Hollywood Spotlightâs description: âher over-the-top performance and shrill voice were popular with viewers, and she succeeded ultimately in making the character her own.â She also reprised her role as Gladys in the sitcom Tabitha in 1977 which was about Darrin and Samanthaâs daughter as an adult.
Some time during her stint on Bewitched, she got married again to Hollingsworth Morse, and they were together until his death in 1988. Hollingsworth was a director and assistant director on almost 90 programs and movies including McHaleâs Navy, Dukes of Hazzard, and Mork and Mindy.
The seventies and eighties found her primarily in drama roles, although she could be spotted in a handful of sitcoms. You can catch her on Columbo, Marcus Welby MD, Ironside, Crazy Like a Fox, and MacGyver. During the nineties, she took on roles that were described as âold ladyâ on Friends and on her last appearance which was Boy Meets World in 1999.
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Not long after filming this episode, Gould passed away from a stroke following heart surgery.
Gould had a long and successful career and certainly made the nosy, gabby character her own. Iâm glad the job on Bewitched helped her get through a very sad and difficult time in her life. However, I still am claiming she was not right for Gladys who should have been written off the show and just replaced with a new neighbor. But I respect Gould and the characters she made her own on the big and little screens.
Itâs November and itâs time for one of my favorite blog series, âWhat a Character.â Up today is Cosmo Sardo. Born in 1909 in Boston, he was lucky to keep his foot after an accident at age 14 when a car hit his bike and ran over his foot. After high school he majored in theatrical arts at the University of Massachusetts. Sardo began his career as a model in print ads for many companies including Sears Roebuck, Eddie Bauer, and Pepsi Cola.
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Sardo made a reputation for himself in Boston theatrical circles before being cast in Oscar Wildeâs âThe Importance of Being Earnestâ in a downtown Los Angeles Theater in 1934.
In 1939 he made his way to Hollywood where he began a career in the film industry. If you can think of a profession, he probably played it: bartenders, retail clerks, postmen, bankers, waiters, detectives, reporters, businessmen, con artists, butlers, tailors, military men, cosmetologists, and barbers, which he perfected in real life. He even played a corpse in The Corpse Came COD.
Sardoâs father told him if he moved to Hollywood, he had to have a trade to fall back on. He got a job at Johnâs Barbershop which just happened to be located under Central Casting. And one day it paid off when he was offered a job. Sardo had always wanted to be an actor, so he left his barbershop to take acting classes. He said that his wife thought he was crazy and left him, but I could never find any source showing his marriage. Iâm guessing this is one of those articles publicists made up. He signed with Warner Brothers in 1946 to play a barber in Humoresque because they knew he had owned a barber shop.
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Later, he opened Cosmoâs Hairstyling Salon of Hollywood where so many famous clients were taken good care of. It was around the corner from Schwabâs Drugstore, the famous spot where so many careers were apparently launched. He would cut hair between his acting assignments. In an interview in the sixties, he said that most actors âusually donât want their hair cut. They want it trimmed. I can make a man look like he never had a haircut at all.â Sardo also offered massage, face contouring, and mud packs.
This guy had an amazing 578 acting credits. His first job was the big-screen film Brother Orchard in 1940. His last was as a priest in Hill Street Blues in 1984.
His first television appearance was in 1952 in The Adventures of Superman. He would go on to make tons of appearances on shows. He never was a regular cast member for a show, but he often starred as many different characters on many episodes for the most popular shows. For example, he appeared on Charlieâs Angels 6 times, Columbo 7 times, The Love Boat 10 times, Bewitched 13 times, Batman and Man from UNCLE 14 times, The Untouchables and Have Gun Will Travel 15 times, and a whopping 81 Bonanza appearances where he often portrayed a bartender.
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When he wasnât cutting hair or making movies or television episodes, he could be found instructing at the Pasadena Playhouse, worshiping at his Catholic church, working for the Democratic party, and dining or golfing at the Los Angeles Country Club.
After his death, his biography said that he never married, so he devoted his retirement to help charitable and religious organizations. He passed away in 1989.
It is frustrating trying to tell the stories of these great character actors. There is almost no personal information about them apart from their birth, their death, and their career. As a barber, Iâm sure Cosmo had a lot of great stories he could share.
I donât know how many haircuts he gave, but with 578 acting credits which translated into 878 individual appearances, this was one busy man. How fun that he had a trade and attained his dream job and kept doing both successfully until his retirement.
As we wind up our âGo West Young Manâ blog series, we turn our attention to CimarronStrip for the last blog of the series. This show was only on the air for one season, from 1967-68. It was produced by the creators of Gunsmoke, Americaâs most beloved western. Like The Virginian, it was a 90-minute show.
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Set in the Oklahoma in 1890, the series occurred in a geographical region called No Manâs Land, an ungoverned area for several decades. Marshal Jim Crown (Stuart Whitman) tries to bring law and order there. Crown arrives only to learn that the sheriff has resigned, and itâs up to him to bring peace to the area with no Army support. We get to know Dulcey Coopersmith (Jill Townsend) who comes to live with her father, but upon her arrival, she discovers he is dead. Her fatherâs partner MacGregor (Percy Herbert) has let their Wayfarerâs Inn become a bit dilapidated, but Dulcey is determined to bring it back. Marshal Crown stayed there when he was in Cimarron City. Francis Wilde (Randy Boone) often served as Crownâs deputy.
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Rounding out the cast is the bartender at the Inn, Fabrizio (Jack Braddock); Major Covington at a nearby Army fort (Andrew Duggan); a Dr. Kihlgren (Karl Swenson); and Hardy Miller (Robert J. Wilke).
The show was on Thursday nights, up against Batman, The Flying Nun, and Bewitched on ABC. It faced Daniel Boone and Ironside on NBC. Definitely some tough competition.
The theme song was composed by Maurice Jarre, who was the scorer for the films Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago for which he won two Oscars.
The show never attained the ratings numbers it needed to keep its place on the schedule. From what I have been able to find out, it was well written and well cast. Guest stars kept it interesting, and the scenery was beautifully filmed.
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Iâm guessing the main reason the show didnât make it was just viewer fatigue with the western genre. There were already shows like Bonanza and Gunsmoke which were hugely popular. One more western might just have been one too many, no matter how good it was. In addition to the western series, some of the shows that were on the air when Cimarron Strip debuted included That Girl, Hoganâs Heroes, Mannix, Batman, Lost in Space, Get Smart, and Rowan and Martinâs Laugh Inâvery different choices than westerns. I do remember Arnold the pig on Green Acres always wanting to watch westerns on television. We still fall prey to this on the major three networks. After ER became popular, the next season featured ten new medical shows. And then most of them get cancelled, not necessarily because theyâre bad but because it’s just an overload of medical shows.
Most people donât want the same supper every night even if itâs steak or lasagna. That said, this seemed to be a steak kind of show, so just because it couldnât survive the mass onslaught of westerns in the sixties doesnât mean itâs not worth watching. If you check it out, let me know what you think.
This month we are checking out a few sitcoms that are rarely remembered anymore. Today we are exploring the show Camp Runamuck. It debuted on NBC in 1965 and featured campers for 26 weeks before being cancelled.
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Dave Madden was counselor Pruett; Commander Wivenhoe was played by Arch Johnson, and senior counselor Spiffy was played by David Ketchum. In the pilot, one of my favorites, Frank DeVol, played Doc Joslyn but illness forced him to hand over the part to Leonard Stone. Bobby Darrin sang the theme song.
If you are a fan of The Partridge Family, you will appreciate that this show was the introduction of actor Dave Madden, later Rueben who would manage the Partridges. Johnson began on television in the fifties, but this was his first cast role. Ketchum started his career a decade after Johnson and this was his second starring role after being in I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster in 1962. One camper who is featured in two of the 26 episodes is Maureen McCormick. This was the year she started her acting career, also appearing in Bewitched, The Farmerâs Daughter, and Honey West. Before becoming Marcia Brady, she would also show up in My Three Sons and I Dream of Jeannie.
Wivenhoe was an interesting camp leader. He didnât like kids, didnât like to part with his money, and didnât appreciate the 6am morning wake-up song sung by the girls across the lake accompanied by a bugle. He did like playing golf and enjoying a quince for breakfast.
Across the lake was Camp Divine owned by Eulalia (Hermione Baddeley) who was helped by counselors Mahalia May (Alice Nunn) and Caprice Yeudleman (Nina Wayne).
The opening featured a peppy tune with fifes and you see the lake and hear the music before you see the camp counselors leading the campers (all in white; the poor laundry crew) marching down the road.
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Most of the plots featured the counselors as opposed to the campers. Typical plots were the female campers being ordered to steal Wivenhoeâs bathtub so they could take a real bath and the boys getting it back. In another episode, the campers learn a civics lesson. They are given the task of electing a camp commander. However, the candidate who gets in becomes a dictator and tries to put everyone who had been in charge, namely the adults, in jail. This sounds vaguely familiar from the recent news.
In the credits I learned Cal Howard was in charge of visual gags. I never had seen that designation before in a sitcom. Howard, who was born in 1911 and passed away in 1993, had a long career as an actor and writer. He received 178 writing credits, mostly in animation. He worked for Walter Lanz and Walt Disney and wrote a few Bugs Bunny and Alvin and the Chipmunks episodes.
Just to add a sense of weirdness and whimsy to the series, two bears named Irving and Virginia would share their opinions of what was going on around the camp.
The series was up against The Wild Wild West and The Flintstones, pretty tough competition for the time. First of all it was on Friday nights when many viewers might be starting their weekend celebrations. The Flintstones was originally written for adults, but by 1965 families were watching the show together. The Wild Wild West was new, but immediately hit the top 30, and it was followed by another new CBS show, Hoganâs Heroes, and then Gomer Pyle, USMC, so most television fans were glued to that network Friday nights. Other new NBC shows included Get Smart, I Dream of Jeannie, and I Spy so competition was tough to retain a schedule spot. ABC didnât have a lot of hits that year but they did debut three shows that I liked but all faded away within two seasons: Batman, Honey West, and Gidget.
Camp Runamuck might have gotten a second season if it didnât have so much competition to deal with. If you loved camp as a kid, or hated camp as a kid, it might be worthwhile to watch a few shows and see what you think.
This month our blog series is âAll About The Bill Dana Show,â and we are learning about the careers of some of the cast members. Last week we looked at the life of Maggie Peterson, and today we are getting to know Jonathan Harris.
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Harris was born Jonathan Daniel Charasuchin in the Bronx in 1914. His father worked in Manhattanâs garment district. His family often took in borders to make ends meet, and when they did, the border got Jonathanâs room, and he slept on a couple of dining room chairs.
By age 12, Harris was working at a pharmacy as a stockboy. Although money might have been short, Harrisâs familyâs love of music and theater was not. As a family they listened to opera in the dining room. Whenever they had some extra cash, they would take in a Broadway play. Harris was interested in archeology, poetry, and Shakespeare. He disliked his Bronx accent and taught himself to develop a British one.
Harris was able to graduate at age 16 from James Monroe High School. His pharmacy job paid off when he graduated from Fordham University with a pharmacology degree in 1936. Before entering college, Jonathan took the name âHarrisâ in place of his birth name.
In 1938 Harris married his high school sweetheart, Gertrude Bregman. They were married until his death.
While working in several pharmacies, Harris also worked on his acting skills. He created a phony resume which he used to land a spot in a local acting company. In 1942 he played a Polish officer in the Broadway production, âThe Heart of a City.â He was persistent. He said that he went to Mr. Millerâs office to audition for a part in the play for two weeks, and everyday Mr. Millerâs secretary sent him away. Finally, she let him in, and Mr. Miller gave him his first part. Then he lied and said he could do a Polish accent. He then went to the Polish Consulate to listen to how they talked. So, despite a fake resume, being turned away for weeks, and then lying about an accent, he was a success in the play.
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In 1949, Harris made his television debut in The Chevrolet Tele-Theatre. Throughout the fifties he would continue to appear in dramatic playhouse series.
In 1959 he had a recurring role in Zorro as Don Carlos Fernandez as well as an appearance on Father Knows Best.
The sixties brought him roles in several well-known series including The Twilight Zone, Bonanza, and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.
In 1963 he was offered the role of Mr. Phillips, the hotel manager on The Bill Dana Show. I wonât elaborate on this series, but if you missed the first blog in March, you can read about this show which was on the air for a season and a half.
Harris did an interview with the Television Academy. He said that when he read the script for The Bill Dana Show, he decided he had to come up with some other characteristics for Mr. Phillips. He made him devoid of humor. But he said he was a different man with his wife on the show, played by Amzie Strickland. Harris said Bill Dana was wonderful to work with. He also said that the writing was so good on that show that he never had to re-write anything. However, if something felt off, he would ask Sheldon Leonard about changing it, and Leonard was always open minded about revisions.
Harris continued to appear on dramatic shows while waiting for his next role.
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In 1965 Lost in Space was put on the fall schedule. Harris played Dr. Zachary Smith. Neither his role nor the Robot were in the pilot of the series, but they were both brought in before the show began.
The show was a big hit with viewers. Harris felt his character, who was not trusted by the family, needed a bit of comedy, so he began to adlib his dialogue. Irwin Allen, creator of the show, approved the changes and allowed him to be considered a writer. Harris said he was a good re-writer, but he was never a writer.
Bill Mumy, who played the son on the show and interacted with Smith quite a bit said that Harris âtruly, truly singlehandedly created the character of Dr. Zachary Smith that we knowâthis man we love to hate, coward who would cower behind the little boy, âOh the pain! Save me, William! Thatâs all him.â
The show was still high in the ratings during its third season, but the writers were running out of ideas, and the show was canceled after 83 episodes.
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In the seventies, Harris joined the casts of two Saturday morning series, Space Academy and Uncle Crocâs Block. Uncle Crocâs Block was a very weird show in my memory. Even though it was on Saturday mornings, he parodied kidsâ shows. Uncle Croc, played by Charles Nelson Reilly, butts heads with his program director Basil Bitterbottom, Harrisâs role; Phyllis Diller played Witchy Goo to round out the cast. Uncle Croc has a sidekick Rabbit Ears and introduced the cartoons.
He also continued to appear on other series, and you can spot him in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Land of the Giants, Get Smart, Bewitched, McMillan and Wife, Love American Style, and Vega$.
After the mid-seventies, most of his work was in the animation field.
He also became a drama coach, and Chuck Norris was one of his students.
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In 1990, the cast of Lost in Space reunited for the 25th anniversary. More than 30,000 fans attended the event.
Harris also spent time on his hobbies, which were many. He loved gourmet cooking, watching movies, reading, traveling, painting, magic, playing piano, gardening, dancing, knitting, and spending time with this family. He also kept his interest in listening to opera that he cultivated as a child.
He passed away in 2007 from a blood clot that traveled to his heart.
Harris was a talented actor. Iâm not sure why he was never offered another sitcom or a chance to play a different type of character. Iâm glad he found a home in animation, but I wonder if he regretted leaving Broadway for television. It was fun to learn more about this man and his career.
This month we are learning to love Lucy. We have looked at the career of Lucille Ball, and today we are taking a peek back at the well-loved sitcom, I Love Lucy.
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The show starred Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, and William Frawley. The series featured a young housewife, Lucy Ricardo, who lived with her husband Ricky, a nightclub bandleader. Their landlords, Fred and Ethel Mertz, were also their best friends. Lucy and Ethel get involved in a variety of schemes to get into show business. Lucy relies on Ethel and Fred who were in vaudeville earlier in their career. Eventually Lucy and Ricky have a son which coincided with the birth of their son Desi Jr. Lucy and Ethel try Desiâs patience often with their antics. When he gets upset, he starts speaking Spanish. Fred doesnât have much time for the womenâs plots either. After living through the Depression, he is considered cheap and doesnât tolerate nonsense. In season six, the quartet move to Connecticut.
In 2012, ABC News and People did a joint survey, listing I Love Lucy as the Best TV Show of All Time.
The theme music was composed by Eliot Daniel with lyrics by Harold Adamson.
The show had three directors: Marc Daniels was director from 1951-53; William Asher, who would later produce Bewitched among other shows, was director from 1952-57, and James V. Kern directed 39 episodes from 1955-57.
Jess Oppenheimer was producer for the first 153 episodes; Desi Arnaz was executive producer for the first 124 episodes and producer for the final 26.
Oppenheimer was credited with writing for seasons 1-5, Madelyn Pugh Davis and Bob Carroll Jr. assisted him.
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Lucille Ball had been starring in âMy Favorite Husbandâ on the radio and in 1950, CBS wanted her to transition to television. Richard Denning had been her costar on the radio, but now she wanted to do a series with her real-life husband, Desi Arnaz. CBS did not think visitors would buy in to Lucy, the all-American girl, married to a Cuban musician. To prove them wrong, Lucy and Desi created a vaudeville act written by Carroll and Pugh that they performed with Arnazâs orchestra in New York. The act was a big hit, so Harry Ackerman approved the couple doing the show.
The pilot was ordered in 1951. Oppenheimer, Pugh, and Carroll also made the move from radio to television. Philip Morris decided to sponsor the show. Ball wanted to continue her film career along with television show which was set to air biweekly. Philip Morris wanted the show to air weekly, and they wanted it filmed in New York. Because Lucy and Desi were expecting their first child, they wanted to stay in Hollywood. The couple agreed to reduce their pay by a $1000 a week in order to stay in California and cover the additional expenses of filming. They asked for 80% ownership in the films, with the remaining 20% going to Oppenheimer who shared 5% with Pugh and 5% with Carroll. Desilu (combining Desi and Lucy) became their production company.
The couple hired Carl Freund, who had worked on many big-screen movies, to film the show. He uniformly lit the set so all three cameras would pick up the same quality of the image. He also pioneered âflat lighting,â which lit everything with bright lights to get rid of shadows. The three-camera method became the standard sitcom technique.
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A live audience produced a more authentic laugh than the canned laughter some shows used. Both Desi and Lucyâs mothersâ laughter can be detected in these early episodes.
When Lucy needed some rest after having her baby, the company could not finish their 39-episode commitment, so Oppenheimer and Desi decided to rebroadcast some of their favorite episodes instead. This out-of-the-box thinking proved to be so popular that it eventually led to the syndicated market.
When Lucy decided to transition her show from radio to television, Gale Gordon and Bea Benaderet were offered the roles of Fred and Ethel. However, both of them were already transitioning from radio to other televisions series. Gordon had already committed to Our Miss Brooks and Benaderet had agreed to star in The George Burns and Grace Allen Show.
The role of Ethel was then offered to Barbara Pepper, who was a good friend of Lucyâs. However, she was known to have a drinking problem; Wiliam Frawley also was a heavy drinker, so the production staff did not feel comfortable having two cast members with alcoholic issues, so the offer to Pepper was rescinded. Pepper would appear quite often in I Love Lucy and eventually she settled in Hooterville, married to Fred Ziffel.
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Frawley never appeared drunk during filming or caused any problem on the show. I did think it was funny though that he had a clause in his contract that he did not have to film when and if the New York Yankees were in the World Series. They made it to the big show every year the series ran except for 1954.
Mary Wickes was then offered the role, but she was afraid working with Lucy would harm their friendship. Director Marc Daniels suggested Vivian Vance who was performing in âThe Voice of the Turtle.â Oppenheimer and Arnaz went to watch her performance and hired her on the spot. Lucy was not thrilled with the idea of Vance. She thought she was prettier than her vision of what Ethel would look like. Vance was only two years older than Ball, but the producers agreed to dress her in frumpier clothing. Eventually Ball and Vance became good friends. Vance was the first actress to win an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress. When I Love Lucy ended, Ball asked Vance to star in her new series, The Lucy Show.
Unfortunately, Vance and Frawley never warmed to each other the way she and Lucy did. They barely tolerated each other, although they were both always professional on the set.
Lucy and Desi had several miscarriages and when they were able to sustain a pregnancy which resulted in daughter Lucie, they filmed Lucy without ever mentioning that she was pregnant. The sponsors thought it would be in poor tasted to talk about pregnancy. However, in the second season, they were pregnant once again, and the pregnancy was written into the show. They had to use the word âexpectingâ when talking about the baby. The episode âLucy Goes to the Hospitalâ in 1953 was watched by almost 72% of families with televisions, the highest rating for quite some time. It was surpassed by Elvis Presleyâs first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.
The show was on for from 1951-1957 on CBS, resulting in 180 episodes.
I Love Lucy aired on Mondays for its first run. In 1967 the network began offering the show in syndication and it has never been off the air.
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I Love Lucy was nominated for Best Comedy/Sitcom in 1952, 1953, 1954, and 1955, winning in 1953. Ball was nominated for Best Comedienne in 1953-1958, winning in 1953 and 1956. Vance was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in 1954, 1955, 1957 and 1958, winning in 1954. Frawley was also nominated for his role in 1954-1958. He never won but he lost to some great actors including Art Carney and Carl Reiner. Only Arnaz was denied a nomination for his comedy skills.
In 1957, Lucille Ball decided to end the show. She and Desi created a new show that wasnât really new. It took the four main characters from I Love Lucy and moved them to Connecticut. Arnaz changed the format and length of the show, now an hour long, because he said he wanted to change it up before people got tired of the characters. He said this format kept the cast intact but also allowed for a celebrity guest star for Lucy to meet in every episode. In 1960 the show ended, the same year the coupleâs real life marriage ended.
Unfortunately, the coupleâs marriage dissolved in 1960, and in 1962, Lucy bought Desiâs shares of Desilu becoming the sole owner. She sold the company to Gulf+Western who owned Paramount Pictures.
We all remember the merchandising that accompanies shows in the sixties and seventies like dolls, board games, lunch boxes, etc, but I Love Lucy had more than its share of memorabilia. In 1952 a baby doll was released. Believe it or not, you could purchase an I Love Lucy bedroom set for $199 in the fifties, as well as I Love Lucy his and her pajamas.
The way it ended, I Love Lucy never had a proper finale. I wish I had the time to devote to how much this show changed the course of television, but a weekly blog just canât contain as much history as there is to tell. Iâm sure Lucy would be amazed if she knew that more than seventy years after the show began, we are still watching it and talking about it. Legacy doesnât get any better than that.
This month we are looking at some of our favorite character actors. As we wrap up the series, we are ending on a high note with the amazing Burt Mustin. Like Charles Lane, Mustin had a prolific career in Hollywood and television. However, unlike Lane, Mustin was offered his first acting job at age 67 after he had retired.
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Mustin was born in Pittsburgh in 1884. His father was a stockbroker. After high school, Mustin enrolled in the Pennsylvania Military College (now Widener University) with a degree in civil engineering. During his college career he played trombone in the band and played goalie for his hockey team.
After graduation, Mustin toured Europe, planning to work at his fatherâs brokerage firm. However, a financial panic destroyed the company.
One of Burtâs university classmates was Charles Spinney. According to Burt, Spinney displayed lots of photographs of young ladies from his hometown of Memphis, Tennessee. One day, he was showing them to Burt when he spotted the photo of what he referred to as âthe prettiest girl in the room.â Mustin traveled to Memphis to meet her and in 1915 he married Frances Robina Woods. The couple had no children and remained together for their entire lives, with Frances passing away in 1969.
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After working as an engineer for a few years, Mustin decided to try to sell automobiles. In an interview, Mustin admitted, âI was the worst engineer the school turned out.â He began selling Oakland Sensible Sixes and later Franklins, Lincolns, and Mercurys. WWII put an end to car sales for a few years, so Mustin began working for the Better Business Bureau and then the Chamber of Commerce. He stayed in Pittsburgh until he retired.
He did a bit of amateur acting and continued his passion for music. He was part of the oldest Gilbert and Sullivan troupe in the country, the Pittsburgh Savoyards; the Pittsburgh Opera; and an officer in the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America.
He was a founding member of the Pittsburgh Lions Club in 1921 and a life member in the Fellows Club of Pittsburgh. Mustin served as an announcer for the first weekly variety show on radio station KDKA.
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After retiring, Mustin and his wife moved to Tucson, Arizona for her health where he continued acting. William Wyler saw him in a stage production of âDetective Storyâ and told Mustin to let him know if he ever wanted to pursue a film career. When Wyler was casting for Detective Story in 1951, Mustin reached out to him. The couple later moved to Los Angeles. Mustin would appear in 67 films overall.
In 1968 Mustin was cast in Speedway with Elvis and Nancy Sinatra. In one scene the stars have a loverâs quarrel in a coffee shop. When they make up, Elvis sings a song for his girl. Mustin is in the background cleaning the cafĂŠ and working at the counter. The producers felt the scene needed something else. That something else ended up being Mustin singing and dancing with a mop. No one on the set realized that Burt could sing before that adlibbed scene.
1951 was also the year that Mustin appeared on television in The Adventures of Kit Carson. He would find a new career in television for the next two decades, appearing in more than 130 series (which would equal more than 400 actual episodes).
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During the fifties, he would be attracted to many westerns and dramas; however, he found his way onto a few comedies including The Great Gildersleeve, December Bride, and Our Miss Brooks.
If I listed half of the 1960s shows he appeared on, you would still be reading this blog next Monday when my new one is dropped. Take my word for it that he was on almost every popular sixtiesâ sitcom, including 14 episodes as Gus the fireman on Leave it to Beaver. Other sixties hits you can find him on include The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Joey Bishop Show, The Jack Benny Show, The Beverly Hillbillies, Get Smart, TheAndy Griffith Show, The Lucy Show, Bewitched, Gomer Pyle USMC, PetticoatJunction, and My Three Sons, not to mention many dramas and westerns including Bonanza and Gunsmoke. He was no less busy in the seventies where we could catch him in Marcus Welby, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Brady Bunch, Love American Style, Adam-12, All in the Family, and Phyllis.
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Johnny Carson loved having Mustin on The Tonight Show, where he was a fan favorite. He shared a lot of fun stories on the show. One of them was about him being at the first World Series for baseball in 1903 when the Pittsburgh Pirates played the Boston Red Sox. Unfortunately for Burt, Boston came back to win the series, but as a bonus he did get to see Honus Wagner play on the diamond.
Mustin passed away eight years after his wife at the age of 92. He left a gift to the college he was loyal to his entire life, enabling Widener University to renovate their theater. It is now named the Burton H. Mustin Theatre and Lecture Hall.
Itâs hard to wrap your head around what a busy film and television career Mustin had. He was an actor for the last 25 years of his life, and with 67 movies and more than 400 episodes, that means that he accumulated about 20 credits per year which is almost two a month from age 67 to 92. Talk about an amazing career. Mustin proved that itâs never too late to find your next passion. Thanks for so many great memories Burt Mustin.
This month we are right in the middle of one of my favorite blog series, What a Character. This week we are delving into the career of Noam Pitlik; in addition to his acting, he won an Emmy for his work as a director. Which show? Letâs find out.
Pitlik was born in Philadelphia in 1932. After graduating from high school, he enrolled at Gratz College and later was a theater major at Temple University in 1954. Pitlik had a two-year stunt in the Army and earned a masterâs degree in theater at New York University.
He began his acting career on WCAU in a western. In 1951, he was hired for the set design and construction crew for the Philadelphia Experimental Theater. He carried a bit of his hometown with him when he was part of the Summer Theater Guild in Indiana, Pennsylvania in the âPhiladelphia Story.â He was hired for his Broadway debut in an off-Broadway production of The Threepenny Opera.â
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In 1961 he moved to Los Angeles and received his first television roles, appearing on Cainâs Hundred and Dr. Kildare. Cainâs Hundred was not a show I remembered hearing much about. It was about a former underworld lawyer who works with the federal government to bring the top 100 criminals to justice. The show lasted one season. Pitlik had a variety of offers for shows throughout the sixties. Most of them were dramas and westerns, but we also see him on My Favorite Martian, The Munsters, Gidget, The FlyingNun, The Monkees, The Andy Griffith Show, The Doris Day Show, Get Smart, That Girl, and I Dream of Jeannie.
During the sixties, he married for the first time. His marriage with Jesse Blostein in 1967 would only last three years.
Pitlik also appeared in fourteen films and eight made-for-tv movies. The most memorable films are The Graduate, Fitzwilly, and The Fortune Cookie.
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The seventies were his most prolific decade of acting. He appeared in 26 different series, often in 2-5 different episodes. Youâll see Pitlik in reruns in a variety of genres including Hoganâs Heroes, Room 222, Bewitched, LoveAmerican Style, All in the Family, The FBI, Cannon, Mannix, The PartridgeFamily, The Bob Newhart Show, The Odd Couple, and Barney Miller. His last acting appearance was in Becker in 1998.
The seventies were also when he tried the role of husband again, marrying Linda Hirsch in 1974; this marriage also lasted three years.
He began directing in the seventies and obtained 39 directing credits throughout the next two decades.
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In an interview with Temple University for the Alumni Review in 1979, Pitlik said that the switch in his career was not âa case of my needing to change functions for economic reasons. I used to figure out what I made a day as an actor, and it was obscene. I changed for emotional reasons. I had become very frustrated by the kinds of things I was doing in acting, and I was looking for a change in my life that would be more challenging. I enjoyed acting, but I never seemed to get enough to do.â His first episode as director was on The New Dick Van Dyke Show. He directed 12 episodes for The Practice and 11 for Taxi.
However, Barney Miller was where he perfected his skill as director for 102 of its 171 episodes. In 1979, he won an Emmy as Director for the show. He beat out Paul Bogart for All in the Family, Alan Alda and Charles Dubin for M*A*S*H, and Jay Sandrich for Soap. He also received a Peabody Award and a Directors Guild of America Award for his work on Barney Miller. He lost the Emmy in 1981 to James Burrows for Taxi. His co-nominees included Jerry Paris for Happy Days, Linda Day for Archie Bunkerâs Place, Burt Metcalfe and Alan Alda for M*A*S*H, and Rod Daniel for WKRP in Cincinnati.
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In the Temple interview, Pitlik said that his âmain responsibility is to create an atmosphere in which each of the people involved in the production can conform to their best work. Although a director oversees all aspects of the production, there are many people involved, and heâs dependent on all of them. Thereâs no more collaborative business than the television business. Each person contributes to the success or failure of a show whether he or she is a writer, actor, cameraman, or whatever.â
In 1995 he began directing episodes of The Home Court and did so for 14 of the 20 episodes. I must admit I do not remember this show at all. The synopsis was Sydney Solomon was a family court judge who had to deal with the toughest prosecuting attorneys and repeat offenders. However, her biggest challenges came when dealing with her kids, four boys aged 11-19.
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Pitlik had better luck with his third marriage to Susan Whittaker which lasted from 1986 until his death in 1999. Whittaker was a television producer. Noam passed away from lung cancer at age 66.
Like Jerry Paris, Pitlik had a very successful acting career before finding his passion behind the camera. If you are responsible for directing a series, Barney Miller is a great accomplishment. It was fun to learn more about his career both in front of and behind the camera.
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.
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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 doesnât date itself. It was about human relationships and people struggling to make them work and make life better.
When The Bob NewhartShow 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.
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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 âI have heard âYouâre too recognizable for this part.â I remember once, I desperately wanted to be on the series Nine to Five and they just werenât going to see me because of that. Every once in a while, something would break my heart.â
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.
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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 âAn Almost Perfect Person,â a female version of âThe Odd Couple,â âSame Time, Next Yearâ and many others.
In 2004, Wallace published an autobiography, Donât Look Back, Weâre 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 âHeaven is now a much funnier place because of you, Marcia.â Bob Newhart said that âMarciaâs death came as quite a shock, she left us too early. She was a talented actress and dear friend.â
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Iâm so sad that Marcia was typecast and unable to get the roles that she wanted. The networks were very shortsighted during those decades. They didnât 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 ModernFamily. 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 lifeâs disappointments with determination and a sense of humor, and perhaps that was her greatest role for us.
