This month we are learning about sitcoms with one name, and today is Angie. Angie had a short run from February 1979 until September of 1980, producing 36 episodes. It was one of the few Garry Marshall shows not to be a long-running hit. He created it with Dale McRaven. We all know Marshall’s amazing career with Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, The Odd Couple, not to mention all of his great movies. McRaven also had a prolific career as a producer and writer. He’s listed as producer for The Partridge Family, The Betty White Show, Mork and Mindy, and Perfect Strangers. His writing credits includes all of these shows, as well as The Dick Van Dyke Show, That Girl, Get Smart, The Odd Couple, and Room 222 among others.
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The cast was quite talented: Donna Pescow played Angie, Robert Hays was her boyfriend-later-husband, the amazing Doris Roberts was her mother Theresa before Raymond came along, and Debralee Scott played her sister Marie.
Bradley Benson is a young pediatrician who comes from a wealthy family comprised of his stuffy father Randall (John Randolph), his overbearing sister Joyce (Sharon Spelman), and her daughter Hillary (Tammy Lauren). The show is set in Philadelphia.
Angie is a coffee-shop waitress who falls in love with Brad. Many scenes are set in the diner with Angie’s friend and co-waitress Didi (Diane Robin). When their families argue about wedding plans, Brad and Angie elope. Later Angie’s mother plans a small family wedding for the two families to get to know each other, and Brad buys the coffee shop for Angie.
At the beginning of the second season, Angie sells the coffee shop to buy a salon with her mother.
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The theme song was “Different Worlds,” written by Norman Gimbel and Charles Fox. Gimbel is still hard at work and has amassed 494 credits so far while Fox has 131 credits for many impressive television series and big-screen films. Maureen McGovern sang it; she’s best known for her top-forty hit “The Morning After.”
The show was sandwiched between Happy Days and Three’s Company on Tuesday nights, which ensured great ratings. This one was fifth its first week. The show just could not find its fan base. By the end of the season, the Nielsen ratings had fallen drastically, and the show had moved to Monday nights following Monday Night Football. Angie wasn’t the only show to struggle in this time slot. Once it was moved, three other shows—One in a Million, Goodtime Girls, and Laverne and Shirley—all tried this scheduling spot. I’m not sure if the shows were just not very good in 1979, if people were too busy to watch television, or the network heads were inexperienced, but when you look at the schedule from 1979 most prime times had a different show in the slot every season of the year. When it’s not only one show on a network moving, but many shows on a network moving and then all networks having a bunch of shows moving, how are viewers supposed to figure out where anything was? Out of the 54 new shows debuting in 1979, by the next season every network basically had one hit show out of the bunch: ABC-Hart to Hart, CBS-Trapper John MD, and NBC-The Facts of Life. While these are all decent shows, none of them were classics in my opinion. In 1980 another 30 shows were brand new.
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The show was put on hiatus. It did return in April on Saturday nights, but it was officially canceled in May.
When you look at this show on paper, it had all the right elements. First of all, we have Garry Marshall and Dale McRaven, very successful creators and writers. The cast was amazing. Even the theme song was composed and sung by extremely talented people. Then you have the fact that there were not a lot of great shows debuting this year; a decent show should have crushed it. So, what happened here?
I think I’m putting the blame for this one on the network. I watched the pilot and while pilots are meant to pull you back for the next one, most pilots aren’t the best of the series. Some of the pilots for shows I love are almost dreadful. This pilot was not dreadful. The characters were likable, the writing was funny, and the theme was not overdone over the years. It was similar to The Mothers-In-Law from a decade earlier but more of a Dharma and Greg (which came two decades later) where they fall in love despite their economic differences.
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This series was better than a lot of shows that are currently on the air. I did watch another later episode where the couple elopes. Once again, the writing was good and the characters were a bit eccentric, but the writers knew how far to go to keep them likable and charming rather than odd. If ABC had kept it in a time slot for more than a month or two and given it a bit of time, it might have been a big hit.
If you want to check it out, let me know what you think. For a late seventies/early eighties show, it’s aged very well.
As we continue with our “Favorite Crime Solvers of the Past,” we turn to 77 Sunset Strip. Even if you never watched the show, you might be familiar with the theme song where they snapped and kept repeating “77 Sunset Strip.”
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Created by Roy Huggins, the show debuted on ABC in 1958 and ran until spring of 1964. This was the third appearance by Detective Stuart Bailey. In 1946, Huggins’ novel, The Double Take, was published. In 1948, Bailey stepped into the big screen, starring in I Love Trouble played by Franchot Tone. A decade later he showed up on television played by Efrem Zimbalist Jr.
Bailey, a former WWII secret agent and foreign languages professor, works with former government agent Jeff Spencer (Roger Smith). Their office is at 77 Sunset Strip, Suites 101 and 102. Suite 103 is occupied by Suzanne Fabry (Jacqueline Beer), a French switchboard operator who handles phones for several clients including Bailey and Spencer. Occasionally she helps them solve a crime.
Other characters come and go from the offices including Roscoe (Louis Quinn), who gives out horse-racing tips when he’s not at the track; he often is an operative for the duo.
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Gerald “Kookie” Kookson (Ed Byrnes) is a bit of a kook. He loves rock and roll, is witty, appreciates looking good, and works as a valet at the club next door. But he wants to be a private detective and makes full partner during the show. Kookie provides some comedy with his slang like “ginchiest” for coolest or “piling up Zs” for sleeping. During season 2, Byrnes asked for more money with his character expanding his role, but the answer was a firm no, so he left the show. Warner Brothers eventually settled with him, and he returned in May of that year.
Other occasional visitors include Lt. Roy Gilmore (Byron Keith) and the Frank Ortega Trio (played by themselves), a jazz band, who perform next door. They recorded for Warner Brothers who was also behind the television show.
The show had a fun, witty edge to it making it interesting to watch the interactions of the characters in addition to the crime solving. Bailey and Spencer were updated versions of forties’ noir detectives. Some of the shows had very different plots, something like the shows Moonlighting would feature a few decades later. “The Silent Caper” had no dialogue and, in another one, Bailey finds himself in a ghost town and he’s the only main character in the episode. During the last season in “The Target,” roles were played by crew members who were usually behind the camera including director William Conrad, associate producer James Lydon, and writer Tony Barrett.
Guest stars were plentiful and included Robert Conrad, Dyan Cannon, Cloris Leachman, Shirley MacLaine, Elizabeth Montgomery, Mary Tyler Moore, Roger Moore, William Shatner, Marlo Thomas, Robert Vaughn, and Adam West.
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Mack David and Jerry Livingston wrote the famous theme which became a top 10 hit on the Billboard chart. The duo worked on several other Warner Brothers crime shows including Surfside Six, Bourbon Street Beat, and Hawaiian Eye, all based on the 77 Sunset Strip formula and exotic location.
By 1963, ratings were declining and the show revamped. If you read my blog often, you realize this is one of my pet peeves. If they want to change the casts, I understand that. However, in this one, like so often, Bailey is suddenly working alone and there is no mention made of any of the other characters, just as if they never existed. They did this on Happy Days, The Doris Day Show, and several other popular series.
In addition to booting the cast, Jack Webb was brought in as executive producer and William Conrad as director. And if the name William Conrad sounds familiar, yes, it is the same person as the man who starred on Cannon. During the fifties and sixties, Conrad racked up 32 directing credits.
Bailey is now a solo investigator. The title didn’t change, but the old office is no longer there nor the club nor the theme song. A new one written by Bob Thompson was used, and the show took on a darker, more serious nature. Bailey gets a secretary named Hannah who we rarely see.
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The show was on Fridays for its entire run, just switching time slots now and then. By season two it was in the top ten. In seasons three through five, it got its biggest competition from Route 66, which it beat in the ratings. The final season, the show got moved to a later slot, going up against The Alfred Hitchcock Hour but, neither of them were in the top thirty.
Big surprise, viewers weren’t fans of the changes or the more serious tone of the show, and they drifted away. The show was cancelled in February. Efrem Zimbalist Jr. moved over to the FBI. Roy Huggins had a hugely successful career. He would write for and create more top shows including Run for Your Life, Maverick, Alias Smith and Jones, The Rockford Files, and The Fugitive. Viewers at least got the satisfaction of knowing that making such drastic changes to the show caused the end of that story. Stream a few of the early seasons on Philo, Roku, or Pluto TV and let me know what you think.
This month our blog series is titled “All About The Bill Dana Show.” The first week in March we learned about the show and now we have been spending time with some of the cast. We end our series with Don Adams.
Adams was born Donald James Yarmy in Manhattan in 1923. Don was a blend of cultures, Hungarian Jewish on his dad’s side and Irish-American on his mom’s. Don was raised Catholic while his brother Dick was raised Jewish. I could not find out what their sister decided to do. She later became a writer under the name Gloria Burton and wrote a script for Get Smart. His brother was also an actor. Dick has about 50 acting credits and appeared in many of the most popular sitcoms during the sixties and seventies, including three appearances on Get Smart.
Adams dropped out of high school and went to work as a theater usher. In 1941 he joined the US Marine Corp. At one point he was injured during a Japanese assault on Tulagi. He was the only survivor from his platoon. While recovering, he came down with blackwater fever, a side effect from malaria and was evacuated to New Zealand. He was not expected to recover, but when he did, he was sent back to the US as a Marine drill instructor.
After his discharge, he moved to Florida to work as a comedian. He refused to do material he considered “blue” and was fired.
In 1947 he married Adelaide Efantis, and her stage name was Adelaide Adams. Don decided to take the name Adams as well for his stage name. He worked as a commercial artist and cashier to support their family.
In 1954, Don was the winner of Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts with a comedy act written by Bill Dana. He began making appearances on The Steve Allen Show, where Dana was a writer. In 1961 he became a regular on the Perry Como Show.
About this time, Don and Adelaide divorced, and Adams married Dorothy Bracken, another actress. They split up in 1977 when he married Judy Luciano, also an actress but that marriage also ended in divorce. (I could only find one credit for his last two wives; Bracken was on Get Smart, while Luciano appeared on The Love Boat.)
While discussing his marriages, Don said “I’m no longer independently wealthy. I guess it’s the result of too many wives, too many kids and too much alimony. I’ve been paying alimony since I was 14 and child support since 15. That’s a joke, but not by much. . . I like getting married, but I don’t like being married.”
In 1963 Adams was offered the role of Byron Glick, hotel detective on The Bill Dana Show. As we’ve discussed this month, the show was on the air for a season and a half. While working on the show, Don was also the voice of cartoon Tennessee Tuxedo which he continued doing until 1973.
During those years he also made an appearance on The Danny Thomas Show and on Pat Paulsen’s Comedy Hour.
In 1965 he was offered the role of Maxwell Smart in a new spy satire, Get Smart.
The sixties saw westerns being overtaken by spy shows such as The Man From U.N.C.L.E., I Spy, The Pink Panther, and The Avengers. Mel Brooks and Buck Henry decided to try their hand at writing a campy sitcom and Get Smart was born.
The role of Smart was created for Tom Poston, but ABC turned it down, and NBC said yes. They had Adams under contract, so he got the part. Rounding out the cast was Edward Platt as the Chief and Barbara Feldon as Agent 99.
Smart and 99 had great chemistry and married in a later season. Feldon and Adams remained life-long friends.
One of the most memorable parts of the show was all the catch phrases Adams created on the show including “Sorry about that Chief,” “Would you believe,” and “Missed it by that much.”
In addition to acting, Adams worked as a producer and director on the show. He was nominated for an Emmy from 1966-1969. He won three of those, losing to William Windom for the little-remembered one-season show, My World and Welcome to It. Lloyd Haynes from Room 222 and Bill Cosby for The Bill Cosby Show were also nominated that year.
The show moved to CBS for the final season, but the ratings never recovered, and the show was canceled after that year.
Like so many of our successful actors with unusual characters, Adams suffered from typecasting after the show ended. He did become part of two additional sitcom casts during his career.
In 1971 he was on The Partners. According to imdb.com, the plot is that “Lennie Crooke and George Robinson are inept detectives teamed up to solve crimes. Captain Andrews is their exasperated boss, Sgt. Higgenbottom is a smarmy co-worker, and Freddy confesses to most of the neighborhood crimes.” Adams played Crooke, but the show only produced 20 episodes.
In 1985, Adams tried a sitcom again on Check it Out. This one was about a grocery store and its employees. Adams played Howard Bannister. The show lasted three seasons, ending in 1988. The show was not very popular in the US but was a hit in Canada.
In between those two shows, Adams appeared in a handful of series including Fantasy Island, The Fall Guy, The Love Boat, Empty Nest, and Nick Freno: Licensed Teacher. He made most of his salary appearing in nightclubs. He also had his Smart character resurrected in several big screen films and television series.
Because of the typecasting, he returned to animation and found a lot of success, especially with Inspector Gadget which he voiced from 1983-1999.
He also tried his hand at a game show. Called Don Adams’ Screen Test, it had an interesting concept. The show was filmed in two 15-minute parts; Adams would randomly select an audience member to recreate a scene from a Hollywood movie such as From Here to Eternity with Adams as director. It ended after 26 episodes.
In his spare time, it sounds like he visited the racetracks, betting on horses. He also spent a night a week at the Playboy Mansion playing cards with Caan and Rickles. He loved history and studied Abraham Lincoln and Adolf Hitler in depth. He also wrote poetry and painted.
Don passed away in 2005 from a lung infection and lymphoma. The eulogists at his funeral included James Caan, Bill Dana, Barbara Feldon, and Don Rickles.
It’s hard to know what to make of Adams’ career. Obviously, he was hard working, an excellent Marine, and a man of many interests. He was fired for not performing blue material but then put horse racing and gambling above the needs of his family, according to several of his friends. He created the amazing role of Maxwell Smart, one of the best characters in television history, but that feat kept him from achieving other great roles in the following decades due to typecasting. It sounds like Check It Out was very popular in Canada, so maybe if he had been given a few chances to create characters different from Smart in a couple other sitcoms, it would have helped.
I feel bad for those actors who are so successful in the characters they help create that they are barred from future jobs, but then again, those characters are some of the best actors in television: George Reeves as Superman, Ray Walston as My Favorite Martian, Henry Winkler from HappyDays, Frank Cady from Green Acres, and Jack Klugman from The Odd Couple. I guess you trade being warmly remembered for fewer quality roles.
Apart from Get Smart, I knew little about Adams before writing this blog, so it was fun to get to know him a bit.
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 _______.”
📷gms.com The regular cast
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 TheRockford 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.
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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.
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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.”
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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
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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
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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
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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.
This month we are celebrating some of our favorite Supportive Men, actors who usually are not the star of a show but add the special flavor only they can to some of our favorite shows.
Before we move on to our topic today, can I just say a huge THANK YOU to all of you who have joined me on this journey through classic television. Today is my 400th blog and it has been so much fun. Next week will be 401, but for today we are looking at the career of Vic Tayback.
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Most of us probably know him best as Mel on Alice; he played Mel Sharples in both the original movie, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, as well as the television show that was on for nine years.
Tayback was born in Brooklyn in 1930. His parents settled there after leaving Aleppo, Syria. During his teenage years, the family moved to California where he attended Burbank High School. He loved sports and played on a variety of teams, his favorite being football.
After high school, he enrolled at Glendale Community College. He also spent some time with the US Navy.
With his love of sports, he decided to attend the Frederick A. Speare School of Radio and TV Broadcasting to be a sports broadcaster. While there he was required to perform in a production of “Stalag 17” for one of his classes. He wasn’t thrilled about doing so, but he realized that he loved making people laugh and decided to switch his career to acting. While trying to break into the industry, he paid his dues driving a cab and working as a bank teller.
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The first of Tayback’s astounding 151 acting credits occurred in 1958 in a little-remembered series, Buckskin. This western was set in Annie O’Connell’s boarding house in Buckskin, Montana in 1880 and the stories were told by ten-year-old Jody. Vic continued to receive a few other appearances on television in the late fifties, as well as two films.
In the sixties, Tayback’s career took off. He would show up on 32 television episodes and 9 big-screen films, including With Six You Get Eggroll with Doris Day and Brian Keith. His tv roles were in comedies such as F-Troop, I Dream of Jeannie, Family Affair, Get Smart, The Monkees, and That Girl. He also could be seen in a variety of dramas that included 77 Sunset Strip, Dr. Kildare, Rawhide, Cimarron Strip, Star Trek, and Mission Impossible.
📷newyorkdailynews.com The Cheap Detective
The sixties also found Vic in the role of groom. In 1963, Tayback married Sheila Barnard, and they remained married until his death.
During the seventies, his appearances escalated to more than forty television series and ten movies. Some of his television shows included Bonanza, TheMary Tyler Moore Show, Bewitched, Columbo, Mannix, Ironside, Mod Squad, The Partridge Family, All in the Family, Barney Miller, Cannon, Medical Center, Family, and Hawaii Five-0. His movies included a few genres running from Disney’s The Shaggy DA to Papillon (Papillon was the story of a French convict who befriends a fellow criminal in South America in the 1930s, and he plans an escape).
It was during the mid-seventies that he was offered the role of Mel Sharples. In 1974 the movie was released, and the television show aired in 1976. The show was very popular with viewers. Vic said he and Mel were somewhat similar characters. While people still quote Flo on the show with her “Kiss my grits,” Tayback had his own tagline on the show, “Stow it.”
📷imdb.com Alice
If you didn’t see the show, it featured a greasy-spoon diner in Phoenix, Arizona. Alice moves there after the death of her husband with her son Tommy. She becomes a waitress at Mel’s along with sassy Flo and shy, gullible Vera. Despite the bad food, they have a lot of regulars who come in for a meal. If you want to visit the restaurant, the building it was based on is at 1747 NW Grand Ave in Phoenix and was called Pat’s Family Restaurant. (It was also featured in American Graffiti.) It is now called Mel’s Diner. According to Trip Advisor, it is ranked #448 out of 1795 restaurants in Phoenix.
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The role of Mel won Tayback Golden Globe awards in both 1979 and 1980. In 1978 he was nominated for an Emmy as Supporting Actor in a Comedy. While he did not win, he was in some amazing company. That year, fellow nominees included Harry Morgan and Gary Burghoff for M*A*S*H, Tom Bosley in Happy Days, and Rob Reiner from All in the Family, who took home the win that year.
The series aired on Saturday nights and the first year was in the top thirty. In 1977, its second season, it was moved to Sunday nights, following All in the Family where it rose into the top ten. In 1979, All in the Family left the airwaves, and Alice then followed One Day at a Time. Seasons three-five, it continued to be in the top thirty. In 1981, the show was moved to Monday nights up against M*A*S*H where it fell out of the top 30. However, season seven found it back on Sundays following The Jeffersons where it rose back into the top thirty. However, it took another dive in ratings the next year and then was cancelled. I think it probably stayed on the air a year or two beyond when it should have. However, interestingly enough, the year it was cancelled, CBS introduced 15 new shows. I’m not sure most people have ever heard of any of them; they were all gone by 1986 with the exception of The Twilight Zone (reboot) and West 57th, which was a news show aimed at younger audiences.
Vic was also an avid horse-racing fan and owned quite a few thoroughbreds. On Alice, Mel was also a track fan, and sometimes the writers asked Mel for names of horses they could use, and he often gave them names of his horses.
On the show, Vic was often made fun of for his bad cooking. In a 1985 interview he said, “If I walked into a restaurant, the other diners would look around and say, ‘I hope you’re not cooking.’” Heinz then offered him the role of spokesperson for their Heniz 57 sauce and his line in the commercials, was “I used to be a lousy cook.” He was also remembered for an Aqua Velva commercial he did with Pete Rose.
Unfortunately, Tayback was a heavy smoker which caused heart trouble for him. While doing Alice, he had a triple-bypass surgery. While he did try to quit numerous times, he just could never kick the habit. In 1990, he died from a heart attack at age 60.
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While we were cheated of several decades of performances from Vic with his early death, he did leave an amazing legacy in the Company of Angels theater in Los Angeles. According to its website, “In 1959, a group of actors, including Tayback, Leonard Nimoy, Richard Chamberlin, and Vic Morrow founded the theater to provide a space for actors and other theater artists to work on their craft free of commercial constraints.”
Thank you, Vic Tayback, for deciding to make people laugh in your career and investing in the future of acting so those memories continue in the future.
This month we are discussing Supportive Men, and I thought it was time to look at the career of Ted McGinley. He’s never been the star of a show, so he often sneaks under the radar, but he is someone we all recognize and appreciate.
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McGinley was born in Newport Beach, California in 1958. He could definitely pull off the California Surfer boy image, so it’s no surprise that he was into athletics, especially swimming, in high school. He worked as a lifeguard at the beach in the summer. USC gave him a scholarship for water polo, and he majored in urban planning and real estate.
Even though he was the MVP of his team, his scholarship was not renewed. He had been doing some modeling work on the side and with the lack of a scholarship, he decided to move to New York for more opportunities.
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His modeling career spurred his acting career when he was spotted in GQ and cast as Roger Phillips, a Cunningham nephew from 1980-1984 on Happy Days. After winning the nationwide talent search, he had to face a steep learning curve with no acting experience at all. He doesn’t watch his early work on Happy Days because he hates to be reminded of his awkward performances. He said he “had to work on his lines at home and concentrate on the set before my cues. It was all so new. I’m bumbling away, and I hear stories of Ronny Howard, who forgot his lines just twice in seven-and-a-half- years.”
He studied his costars Henry Winkler, Marion Ross, and Tom Bosley. He also joined an improv class. He learned timing and great tips for developing acting skills.
He also spent four years on The Love Boat as Purser Ace Covington Evans from 1983-1987.
📷metv.com On The Love Boat
This was the decade his movie career began when he was cast in Revenge of the Nerds as Stanley Gable; McGinley reprised his role in the third and fourth Nerd movie franchise hits as well.
After The Love Boat ended, he made the rounds, appearing on shows that were popular including Dynasty, Hotel, and Perfect Strangers. He also took on several movie roles every year.
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In 1989, he joined the cast of Married . . . with Children as Al Bundy’s best friend Jefferson D’Arcy, which he called a great, great gig.” It was during this time, Ted married Gigi Rice.
McGinley kept busy for the rest of the 1990s and early 2000s, never going long in between movies or television appearances; he had recurring roles on several shows including Sports Night, The West Wing, and Charlie Lawrence. Many people don’t recall the last show, because it was only around for a short time in 2003. It starred Nathan Lane as a freshman congressman from New Mexico who lives near Graydon Ford, played by McGinley, a neighbor from the opposing political party.
He got another break from 2003-2005 when he starred on Hope & Faith.
📷tvseriesfinale.com Hope & Faith
McGinley has continued his busy streak since 2005, although he has not been part of a cast during the past two decades. He’s amassed 96 acting credits since 1982. In 2008, he took a stab at Dancing with the Stars, paired with pro dancer Inna Brayer. Unfortunately, he was the second contestant to be eliminated.
Considering McGinley got his first job without any acting experience and had to learn this skill thrown into the fire, he has developed a very successful career. His years on The Love Boat get lost because he is not part of the original crew. I have to admit, when I think of McGinley, I think of Jefferson D’Arcy. No surprise to those of you who have gotten to know me during these past eight years, Married . . . with Children was not a favorite of mine, but I appreciate the place it has in television history. I know a lot of people remember it fondly. I do remember McGinley fondly though for his supporting roles over the years.
We are discussing some of our favorite actors who were typically supporting actors. In the case of today’s subject, he did star in a television show, but he was so great in other assisting roles, we are including him here as well. Today we get to know Dick Van Patten.
📷nypldigitalcollections.com Off Broadway
Van Patten was born in 1928 in Queens, New York. His father was an interior decorator, and his mother worked in advertising. Joyce Van Patten is his sister. Van Patten began working as a model and actor while he was still a child. He was only four when he joined John Robert Powers, a modeling agency, where made $5 an hour.
His first Broadway appearance was in “Tapestry in Gray” when he was seven, and he appeared in many plays by the time he graduated from the Professional Children’s School in New York City.
At that time, he moved to Hollywood. In 1949 he accepted the role of Nels Hansen on the early sitcom, Mama, about a Norwegian family living in San Francisco. The show was on the air until 1957, for a total of 327 episodes.
In 1954 Van Patten married Patricia Poole. She was a professional dancer, part of the June Taylor Dancers on The Jackie Gleason Show. Their son Vincent was on Apple’s Way in the mid-seventies, with 65 credits to his name. He is married to Eileen Davidson, who is Ashley Abbot in The Young and the Restless.
📷wikipedia.com On the set with friend Dick Van Dyke
Van Patten’s sister Joyce also began her career as a child. With 160 acting credits, she also has been very busy for decades, starring in The Good Guys. She was married to Martin Balsam from 1957-1962, another prolific actor. Van Patten’s niece Talia, who has also amassed more than 100 acting credits, was married to George Clooney and then John Slattery, star of several shows including Mad Men. So, this is a well-known family in entertainment.
In the fifties and sixties, most of Van Patten’s roles on television were in dramas and a few westerns. In the seventies, he took on his first comedy roles, appearing on I Dream of Jeannie, The Governor and JJ, Arnie, That Girl, Sanford and Son, The Doris Day Show, The Paul Lynde Show, Love American Style, The New Dick Van Dyke Show, Maude, Phyllis, Happy Days, and One Day at a Time, among others. He also accepted a few drama roles on shows such as Cannon, Adam-12, The Streets of San Francisco, Medical Center, and Barnaby Jones. After appearing on The New Dick Van Dyke Show in 1971, Van Patten and Van Dyke became life-long friends.
He appeared in 36 movies, his first being Violent Midnight in 1963. Spaceballs, RobinHood: Men in Tights, and High Anxiety, all with Mel Brooks, were probably his best-known films. In 2014, Van Patten said working with Brooks was “great. It’s like a game. It’s not like work. He keeps you laughing the full day on the set. He’s just a funny man.” Van Patten also accepted 28 made-for-tv movie roles.
In 1977, he took on the role that would make him a household name: that of Tom Bradford on Eight is Enough. He played a newspaper publisher with eight kids. His wife dies early in the series, and Tom remarries.
Van Patten auditioned for the role of Tom Bradford but was not given the part. When the producers watched the first day of shooting, they scrapped the entire production. Fred Silverman then hired Van Patten.
📷showbizcheatsheet.com Cast of Eight is Enough
It’s interesting to wonder what his career would have been like if he had declined Eight is Enough and accepted the role he was offered of Dr. Adam Brinker on The Love Boat. Since he had already agreed to appear on Eight is Enough, the role went to Bernie Kopell.
In an interview with the St. Petersburg Times in 1989, Van Patten discussed his character on Eight is Enough: “Tom Bradford is a lot like the real me. He’s a man who always put his career second to his family. As long as everything was OK at home, he was OK too.”
Sadly, the cast did not learn of the cancellation of Eight is Enough from the network. Van Patten said “nobody called me to tell me it was canceled. I read it in the paper.”
Van Patten never received a starring role again, but he did keep very busy in the eighties and nineties appearing in many popular shows, including Love Boat, Murder SheWrote, The Facts of Life, Growing Pains, and Diagnosis: Murder.
He was in a handful of shows in the 2000s with Hot in Cleveland in 2011 being his last appearance on television.
He published a book in 2009 titled Eighty is Not Enough!, his memoir. He had also written Launching Your Child in Show Biz: A Compete Step-By-Step Guide and Totally Terrific TV Trivia. In 2001, he was honorary mayor of Sherman Oaks, California.
Van Patten was an animal advocate, and he created Natural Balance Pet Foods and the National Guide Dog Month to raise awareness and money for nonprofit guide dog schools.
Van Patten also participated in a variety of hobbies. Like Tom Bradford, he loved spending time with this family. He also owned thoroughbreds and attended horse racing events. He enjoyed playing poker, golf, swimming and reading. Most Sundays he headed to the tennis courts to meet Alan Alda, Mel Brooks, and Gene Wilder.
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In 2006, Van Patten suffered a diabetic stroke. He made a full recovery and lived another nine years, passing away in 2015 from diabetes complications. He was still married to Patricia.
His son Tommy on Eight is Enough, Willie Aames, said Van Patten “was truly a gem who will be missed.” His second wife, Abby, on the show played by Betty Buckley, recalled that “every day on the set he was a happy, jovial person, always generous and ready to play, tease, and always keep us laughing. He was the consummate professional, a wonderful actor, master of comedy, and a kind and generous human being.”
📷imdb.com
Van Patten had an extremely successful career. For more than seven decades he was part of the entertainment community. In addition to his stage productions, films, and television work, he appeared in more than 600 radio show episodes and was in Weird Al Yankovic’s music video “Smells Like Nirvana.” He said that he had “fun doing this and going through my life. I’ve had a great life. It was exciting. I worked with the most interesting people, and I traveled all over the country.”
His reflection on his work is great advice for all of us. Van Patten said that he wanted to express the “single idea that has governed my entire life, that every moment of life is precious, that every step we take is an adventure, that every day on earth is a gift from God.” Thanks, Dick Van Patten, for leaving us with this inspiration and for taking your gifts and presenting them to us in the form of many wonderful memories.
This month we are learning a bit about the Batman villains and their careers. No study of Batman’s favorite nemesis would be complete without Cat Woman, Julie Newmar. Julie shared the role of Cat Woman with Eartha Kitt who appeared the final television season and Lee Meriwether who was so catty in the Batman movie. What else did Julie Newmar do during her career? Let’s find out.
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Born Julia Chalene Newmeyer in 1933, Julie Newmar as she is known in the acting world, was a television and film actress, dancer, singer, and stage performer. But, as they say in the commercials, that’s not all. She also was known for writing, designing lingerie, and managing real estate investments.
Newmar was born in LA. Her father Don was head of the physical education department for the Los Angeles College. Her mother, of both Swedish and French descent, was a fashion designer under the name Chalene and later worked in real estate.
Julie began dancing early in life and performed as a prima ballerina with the Los Angeles Opera when she was only 15. With an IQ of 135, Newmar graduated from John Marshall High School at age 15. She continued dancing in films in the early fifties. At age 19, she was also working as a dancer/choreographer for Universal Studios. In 1954, she appeared in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers as Dorcas, one of the seven brides.
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In 1955 she got her first Broadway appearance in “Silk Stockings.” She continued her movie and Broadway careers throughout her years in entertainment, appearing in 33 films in all.
Television is where Newmar gained most of her fame. Her first television appearance was on The Phil Silvers Show in 1957 and then Ominbus in 1959. But it was in the sixties that she became a household name. She started the decade in Adventure in Paradise in 1960, followed by a variety of shows including The Defenders, Route 66, and TheTwilight Zone in the early sixties.
In 1964 she was offered the role of Rhoda on My Living Doll, where she played a robot. She was not enthralled with the choice of Bob Cummings as her costar and did not seem to enjoy her time on this show. She said that “They originally wanted Efrem Zimbalist Jr. It was not a flip part—it needed a straight actor who could play opposite this bizarre creature so the comedy would come off. That quality was lost when they hired Bob. The show could have been wonderful. I think it would have run for many seasons had they hired Efrem because he had the right qualities.”
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After appearing in several comedies including The Beverly Hillbillies and F Troop, she received another recurring role as Cat Woman in Batman. She would appear in the series 13 times, 12 as Cat Woman, the only villain to make Batman question his morals, because we knew he was in love with her, and if she showed any sign of remorse, who knows where things might have gone. Her Cat Woman costume now lives at the Smithsonian Institution.
Newmar lived in Beekman Place in New York in the mid-sixties. One weekend her brother had come to visit her from Harvard. They were sitting around chatting when the phone rang. She was asked if she would like to play Cat Woman on the Batman series. She was a bit miffed because they said they were casting in California, and the role started on Monday. Her comment was “That’s how television is done: they never know what they are doing until yesterday.” When her brother heard Batman, he jumped up and said that was the favorite show at Harvard and they even skipped classes to watch it. He told her to take the role, so she did.
📷firstforwomen.com
After Batman, she finished out the sixties in The Monkees, Star Trek, Get Smart and It Takes a Thief. With 11 seventies offers, you can see her in shows such as Bewitched, Columbo, McMillan and Wife, Love American Style, The Bionic Woman, and The Love Boat. One of my favorite made-for-tv movies was The Feminist and the Fuzz. It had an exceptional cast, including Newmar who appeared in the movie along with Barbara Eden, David Hartman, Jo Anne Worley, Farrah Fawcett, Harry Morgan, Herb Edelman, Penny Marshall, and John McGiver. This ensemble was directed by Jerry Paris, who directed so many great shows from The Dick Van Dyke Show to Happy Days.
Her other starring role in the seventies was a marriage to J. Holt Smith, an attorney. After the wedding, Newmar moved to Forth Worth, Texas until 1984 when they divorced.
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The eighties was a more quiet decade for the actress but she did accept roles on CHiPs, Fantasy Island, and Hart to Hart. In 1992, she appeared in George Michael’s music video, “Too Funky,” She was still working in 2016 and 2017 in Batman animation features.
If you were a fan of Batman and Dark Shadows in the sixties, you were in luck when Newmar took on the role of Dr. Julia Hoffman (played in the original series by Grayson Hall) in Dark Shadows: Bloodline, the audio drama miniseries.
She was not just a pretty face, however. She received two US patents for pantyhose and one for a bra, under the name Nudemar. She also began investing in LA real estate and was credited with helping to improve the neighborhoods of La Brea Avenue and Fairfax Avenue. In one episode of My Living Doll, Rhoda is asked to play Chopin’s “Fantasie Impromptu” on the piano. Newmar played the piece herself. She had studied under concert pianist Dr. MacIntyre, and she said that scene is the only one she’s done with her playing the piano which had been her career choice before acting. One of Julie’s comments about herself was “Tell me I’m beautiful, it’s nothing. Tell me I’m intellectual—I know it. Tell me I’m funny, and it’s the greatest compliment in the world anyone could give me.”
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Julie also enjoys art and gardening. She has a rose, a day lily, and an orchid named for her. Her gardens are often chosen as a spot for holding charity events.
Like Barbara Feldon from Get Smart, Julie Newmar is beautiful, bright, and funny. I hope she enjoyed her career. Obviously, she could have been a brain surgeon or any other profession of her choice. She seems like she would be a fun person to just hang out with and the conversation would never run out. Thank you, Julie Newmar for choosing the entertainment business over medical science for our sakes.
As we continue with our “Work It Out” blog series, today we are taking a long ride with Taxi. This show was created for ABC by James L. Brooks, Stan Daniels, David Davis, and Ed Weinberger and produced by John Charles Walters Co. The show was apparently inspired by an article in The New Yorker, “Night Shifting for the Hip Fleet” by Mark Jacobson in 1975. The article profiled several drivers who worked the night shift for a New York cab company. Taxi was in business from the Fall of 1978 to the Spring of 1982 on ABC and then drove over to NBC for a year.
The show is set primarily at the Sunshine Cab Company in Manhattan. Louie De Palma (Danny DeVito) is the dispatcher that everyone loves to hate. Brooks said that when they went to visit a company as the night drivers were just coming back from their shifts, they saw a dispatcher taking a bribe from a driver for a clean cab. That gave them the idea of Louis. DeVito described Louie as someone who “made life miserable for everyone. The manifestation of what was going on inside of him came out in a mean-spirited way to those around him. Deep down he just wanted people to love him.”
Photo: vodkaster.com
Drivers included Alex Reiger (Judd Hirsch) who considers cab driver his profession as opposed to a temporary get-by job. Elaine Nardo (Marilu Henner) is a single mother who also works at an art gallery. In the first episode when Elaine is hired, Reiger introduces the crew by saying, “You see that guy over there? Now he’s an actor. The guy on the phone? He’s a prize fighter. This lady here: She’s a beautician. The guy behind her? He’s a writer. Me? I’m a cab driver. I’m the only cab driver in this place.”
Tony Banta (Tony Danza) a boxer, and Bobby Wheeler (Jeff Conaway) a struggling actor are other coworkers. We also get to know the Reverend Jim Ignatowski (Christopher Lloyd), an aging hippie who gets a job driving and Latka Gravas (Andy Kaufman), an immigrant mechanic. Latka was a weird character, and I have to say that I did not enjoy him on the show. Andy Kaufman invented the character for a comedy act. During the show, he met and married Simka (Carol Kane).
The person who probably had the easiest audition was Danza. He said that when he went to read for the show, he had broken his third metacarpal on his right hand and had a black eye from knocking out a guy in the ring in Brooklyn. He had never acted before and didn’t really know what he was doing.
Although the show was a sitcom, there were a lot of important issues tackled during the run of the show including addiction, parenthood, obesity, animal abuse, homosexuality, racism, gambling, grief, divorce, and sexual harassment, among others.
Ruth Gordon Photo: ebay.com
This show had more than its share of important guest stars. Ruth Gordon and Eileen Brennan both were nominated for Emmys for their guest appearances, with Gordon winning hers. Other stars who showed up included Marcia Wallace, Penny Marshall, Dr. Joyce Brothers, Edwin Newman, George Wendt, Ted Danson, Tom Selleck, Tom Hanks, and Bubba Smith.
Brooks wrote for The Simpsons and The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Daniels also wrote for The Mary Tyler MooreShow and was best known for The Tonight Show. Davis was one of the writers behind The Bob Newhart Show and Weinberger would go on to write for The Cosby Show. It was no surprise that this show was known for its amazing writing, and the series was nominated for 31 Emmys during its five seasons, it won 18 of them, most impressively it won Outstanding Comedy in 1979, 1980, and 1981. Kane, Hirsch, DeVito, and Lloyd and all won Emmys for acting. James Burrows won two for directing.
Taxi had one of the most-recognized theme songs from the 1980s. “Angela” was written and performed by Bob James.
I did not hear much about conflict on the set, although several performers, including Hirsch, indicated they did not care much for Kaufman. Kaufman had it written in his contract that he only work two days a week, so for most of the filming a guy with a sign around his neck that said “Andy” worked with the cast, so I don’t think there was necessarily a lot of bonding with him anyway.
Conaway was fired after 69 episodes. It was apparently well-known that he had a major addiction problem, and when one of the producers discovered him passed out when he was supposed to be filming, they wrote him out of the episode and then wrote him out of the show.
The cast seemed very happy and like a family. Henner said that they could always express an opinion about their character and thoughts on a scene. Brooks said Burrows was able to bridge the two worlds of writers and actors. He spent time with actors all day and then went to the writers’ room to talk to them and was the liason between the two. Henner agreed and said that Burrows was brilliant at adding memorable moments to a scene. She said in one episode she was losing her mind a bit and someone says the champagne is flat and the producer had her bend over and blow bubbles in the glass. She said it was brilliant.
Photo: rottentomatoes.com
DeVito also mentioned a scene that was special for him. One night when Louie was all alone in the garage, he took out the mic and sang a song. Then he said, “I always wanted to do that.” It was a very heart-warming moment and made Louie more interesting and gave him more depth.
Burrows said that most of the cast was young and they all bonded so well. Sometimes they went roller skating, to dances, and they even had a softball team. Rhea Perlman was on the show off and on and during one of their lunch breaks, she and DeVito got married.
Henner talked about their weekly parties. She said everyone at Paramount wanted to hang out with them including the cast of Happy Days, Mork & Mindy, Laverne & Shirley, and Bosom Buddies. She said that John Travolta and Frances Ford Coppola stopped by. John Belushi hung out with DeVito a lot and was there for one of their get-togethers and he died the next day.
Photo: tvguide.com
Hirsch said the group wanted something to do after the show because they didn’t want to go home; they wanted to hang out together more than anything else.
Brooks probably summed up the show the most eloquently. He said that “there’s a lot of things that take a glow in retrospect. The great thing about Taxi was that there wasn’t a moment on the show they didn’t appreciate how lucky there were to have it. That was the show’s energy. I’ve never seen anything like it. . . People show up at the right time and everyone’s lucky enough to have each other at a certain point. It becomes a beautiful team sport.”
Isn’t that the best tribute anyone could give a show? I’m glad they all had an appreciation for it, and I’m glad they included us in their family.
Today we are learning about the career of Henry Winkler. Although he was typecast for many years following Happy Days, he managed to continue his career with a variety of roles.
Photo: wikifandom.com
His parents were German Jews who lived in Berlin during the occupation of Nazi Germany. His father knew they would not be safe there and left in 1939. Winkler described what happened in an interview with Terry Gross on NPR in 2019: “My father knew that it was time. He got a six-week visa from Germany to come and do work in New York but was expected to come right back. I have told this story–that he took his mother’s jewelry, bought a box of chocolate, melted the chocolate down, put the pieces of jewelry in the chocolate box, melted–poured the chocolate over the jewelry, put the box under his arm, so when he was stopped by the Nazis and they said, are you taking anything of value out of Germany, he said, no, you can open every bag; we’ve got nothing. And the jewelry that he encased in chocolate, he sold when he came out of Ellis Island into New York and was able to start a new life here, slowly but surely. I have the actual letters from the government each time my father requested to stay a little longer, and they would say yes. And I was born.”
Photo: goodhousekeeping.com
Although his family did not keep kosher, Henry and his sister Beatrice were raised with the traditions of Conservative Judaism.
Winkler struggled with his studies but he was popular and very funny. His parents were frustrated by his inability to learn. Apparently, his father spoke eleven languages and could easily do math in his head. Henry’s self-esteem began to suffer during these years. Because his grades weren’t better, he was banned from most theater productions, which was what he was most interested in. He was able to appear in “Billy Budd” in eighth grade and in “Of Thee I Sing” in high school.
Photo: imdb.com
When Winkler gave a talk at the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity, he tried to describe what it had been like for him in school: “You want so badly to be able to do it and you can’t. And no matter how hard you try, it’s not working . . . I would study my words. I would know them cold. I would know them backwards and forwards. I would go to class. I would pray that I had retained them. Then I would get the test and spend a lot of time thinking about where the hell those words went. I knew them. They must have fallen out of my head. Did I lose them on the street? Did I lose them in the stairwell? Did I lose them walking through the classroom doorway? I didn’t have the slightest idea of how to spell the words that I knew a block and a half away in my apartment the night before.”
Photo: understood.org
After high school, he attended Emerson College to study theater. He applied to 28 colleges but his grades kept him from being accepted at 26 of them. He majored in theater and minored in child psychology. During his time there he was a member of the Alph Pi Theta fraternity. He had a role in “Peer Gynt” as Peer Gynt. Although he also struggled with college courses, he stayed the course for four years and graduated in 1967. He was admitted to the Yale School of Drama in 1967. He appeared in a number of productions there. He received his MFA in 1970. Twenty-six years later he spoke at Graduation Day at Yale.
He began doing commercials in New York after graduation and starred in TheLords of Flatbush and Crazy Joe, two independent films. He appeared one day on Broadway; the show opened and closed on the same day. He also performed with an improv group, Off the Wall in New York.
Photo: usajacket.com
In 1973 he moved to California. His first role there was on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Although he paid his dues in New York, he was hired as Arthur Fonzarelli on Happy Days his second week in Hollywood. He would portray the Fonz for a decade. The part was originally written a minor role on the show. Winkler did not want to portray the character as a stereotyped role which is probably why he became so popular. He was allowed to wear a black leather jacket only on his motorcycle the first year. Winkler never drove the cycle because the first time he tried, he crashed. His motorcycle on the show was the same one Steve McQueen used in the last scene of The Great Escape in 1963.
During his time on the show, he was diagnosed with dyslexia, explaining his tough time at school.
During the middle of season two, his character became a regular cast member. Many fans attribute to his performance in the episode “Guess Who’s Coming to Christmas.” By season three, he was considered one of the leads in the show.
Both Ron Howard who played Richie and Winkler told writer Stephanie Nolasco of Fox News how they felt about each other and their time on Happy Days. Winkler had a hard time dealing with his sudden fame, and Howard was able to provide some grounding for him. Winkler described this time, “It’s unnatural—the human condition does not prepare you for stardom. That’s just the way it is. So, you have to hold on to yourself and then you’ve got friends like Ron who doesn’t take it all seriously. I learned from him; he was my teacher. And Garry Marshall never took bad behavior from anybody. He was a father figure. He was very funny and very idiosyncratic, and then he was very strict.”
With Ron Howard Photo: decider.com
Winkler also discussed his friendship with Howard. “I think people gravitate to the Fonzie/Richie relationship because Ron and I are ten years apart. He was 19 and I was 27. We had a connection that you cannot describe in real life, and it was similar off-camera. He gave me my first mitt; I’d never played baseball before. He’s my brother.”
Howard echoed the sentiments. “We were fast friends from the beginning. It continues all these years later. It was exciting for me to work with Henry because he was really a trained actor who attended Yale Drama School; just a trained New York actor. And, I’d grown up sort of through the Hollywood television system, so for me to work with this guy who was so thoughtful, so creative, and yet so hilarious, was really an opportunity for me to learn and grow and we just clicked, you know.”
Happy Days Photo: ew.com
The sudden fame for Fonzie might have damaged the friendship Winkler had with Ron Howard, but they were both professionals and never had their egos inflated. They honestly discussed what was happening and while Howard had a harder transition with the show, he understood that Fonz had become a national icon. Even now decades after the show ended, people recognize his “Ayyy” and “correctamundo” catch phrases and his thumb’s up gesture.
After the show was canceled, his leather jacket was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution for the National Museum of American History. A bronze statue of the Fonz was erected in Milwaukee in 2008 along the Milwaukee Riverwalk.
Photo: ew.com
Fonzie was adored by many kids, especially kids who needed some extra help or attention. Marshall was asked if the show could do something to help kids realize how important reading was. In one of the episodes, The Fonz went to the library and checked out a book, saying “Everybody is allowed to read.” That week, library card registrations increased by 500%. In another situation, one day a call came to Paramount Studios. It was from a teenage boy who was contemplating suicide. He wanted to talk to Fonzie. Winkler picked up the call and gave the boy hope, convincing him not to take his life.
Tom Bosley and Marion Ross Photo: ebay.com
He received 50,000 letters a week. He also received $50,000 an episode. Winkler described The Fonz as his alter ego; he said that Fonz was everything he had always wanted to be: in charge, confident, and adored by others. Winkler credits Marion Ross and Tom Bosley, Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham on Happy Days, with being his acting mentors. He loved them for what they taught him and for being great people. When Bosley died, Winkler said “Tom was a family member, both on and off the sound stage. We acted together, traveled together, and played charades together. He was a loving husband, a doting father, and a fantastic grandfather.”
During his years on Happy Days, Winkler was able to tackle several other roles in the off season. He was a Vietnam War vet with PTDS in Heroes for which he received a Golden Globe nomination. He was in Carl Reiner’s The One and Only and in Ron Howard’s Night Shift.
Henry and Stacey Photo: wideopencountry.com
He also tackled the role of husband, when he married Stacey in 1978. After two years of dating, they married in the same synagogue where Winkler had his bar mitzvah. Together they raised three children, and they have been involved with a variety of children’s charities including the Children’s Action Network, the Annual Cerebal Palsy Telethon, the Epilepsy Foundation of America, the Toys for Tots, the National Committee for Arts for the Handicapped, and Special Olympics.
Even with these roles and several other television appearances under his belt, when Happy Days ended, Winkler was typecast and could not get quality roles. Winkler went the route of producer and director. He was one of the developers of MacGyver and produced and directed Sabrina the Teenage Witch. He worked on two movies: Memories of Me with Billy Crystal and Cop and a Half with Burt Reynolds. He also had appearances in Scream in 1996 and The Waterboy in 1998 and on television in The Practice in 1997 and Arrested Development in 2003.
In 2003, he added writer to his resume, creating a new series of children’s books, Hank Zipzer about a dyslexic boy, with co-author Lin Oliver. The BBC televised the series, and Winkler appeared as Mr. Rock in the show. Winkler and Oliver went on to create Here’s Hank, the Ghost Buddy series and the Alien Superstar series. Queen Elizabeth appointed him Honorary Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2011, and he was named one of the United Kingdom’s Top Ten Literary Heroes in 2013. In 2019, he was awarded the Bill Rosendahl Public Service Award for Contributions to the Public Good for his book series. In 2016, the award was renamed after Bill Rosendahl, a progressive political leader, Los Angeles’ first openly gay City Council member, an educator, a Vietnam veteran, an award-winning host of thousands of public affairs programs, and president of the Los Angeles Press Club.
In 2016 he joined the ranks of actors participating in reality shows on Better Late Than Never. During season two, Winkler traveled to Berlin and shared his family’s story. This was a quirky 12-episode reality show. NBC described it as: “This hilarious fish-out-of-water comedy/reality show follows cultural icons Henry Winkler, William Shatner, Terry Bradshaw and George Foreman on their greatest adventure yet. Deciding it’s Better Late Than Never, these four national treasures embark on the journey of a lifetime, traveling across Asia on their own with no schedule and no itinerary. The only “help” will come from Jeff Dye, a young, strong, tech-savvy comedian with an agenda of his own – who isn’t above leading the men off track. Each stop is packed with hilarious cultural experiences, heartwarming spectacles and unexpected twists as our legends take on this unforgettable adventure.”
Photo: entertainmentweekly.com
Photo: vanityfair.com
In 2018, Winkler starred in the show Barry and won his first Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series Emmy. The plot features a hit man from the Midwest who moves to Los Angeles and becomes fascinated with the city’s theater life.
The show was on HBO for two seasons and Bill Hader, one of the creators and star of the show, wanted Henry for the part of acting teacher Gene Cousineau. Winkler mentioned he was 27 when he got the regular role on Happy Days and 72 when he got the role on Barry. Stage 19 of Paramount was where Barry was filmed; it was also the same sound stage used for Happy Days. Hader wrote Cousineau as a dark, cold character and while he could humiliate his students, Winkler brought some warmth to the character as well.
Winkler is a loyal Democrat and has campaigned for, and financially supported, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, and Barack Obama.
With Friend John Ritter Photo: outsider.com
In addition to being lifelong friends with Ron Howard, Winkler was a close friend of John Ritter. They met at an ABC party in 1978 and became close friends. Winkler was actually on the set of John’s show when he collapsed and had to be taken to the hospital shortly before his death.
I do like to add some personal stories to my blogs when possible. I found a fun article in New York Magazine that looked at what famous people like to buy. One of the pieces was about Henry Winkler from October 2021. So, what did the famous Mr. Winkler purchase?:
Penn Ultra-Blue racquetballs to play with his dog Sadie. ($4); A Sony Alpha a6000 Mirrorless Camera ($650); Landmark Theatre Gift Cards ($5); Katz’s Pastrami and Rye food boxes ($155), a reminder of his youth; Munster Cheese from The Cheese Store of Beverly Hills ($15); Winston Boron fly fishing rod ($825); Knudsen’s heavy whipping cream ($4); Gotham Coffee Roasters Brooklyn Blend Coffee ($18) which needs the above cream, no half ‘n half for Henry; and Lavley I’d Rather Be Fly Fishing socks ($12), because no one likes the socks where the elastic stops working after two wash cycles. A bit of fun trivia about an icon’s shopping list.
Perhaps one of the best stories that displays the importance of Henry Winkler comes from journalist Anderson Cooper. Cooper is also dyslexic and said that one of the books that influenced his life was The Fonz: The Henry Winkler Story. He keeps it in his office at CNN. He also mentioned that in meeting Winkler in person as an adult, he realized what a kind and gracious person he is. That is something I read over and over; everyone described Winkler as kind, level-headed, grounded, unbelievably nice, and many other similar sentiments.
Photo: sandiegocountynews.com
Henry Winkler would be amazing just based on what he did with the character of The Fonz. He would be amazing just based on what he has done for his children’s charity work. He would be amazing just based on how seriously he takes his roles as husband and father. He would be amazing just based on his directing and producing work. He would be amazing just based on his later roles on Arrested Development and Barry. He would be amazing just based on his friendships with coworkers including Ron Howard, Marion Ross, Tom Bosley, Adam Sandler, and John Ritter. He would be amazing just based on his book series as an author. And he would be amazing just based on the work he has done to help others understand dyslexia. Put them all together and add the fact that no one can talk about him without describing what a genuine and kind person he is, and he is well, just simply amazing. Thank you, Henry Winkler, for all the ways you have amazed us over the decades.
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