The Jim Backus Show: It Was Hot Off the Wire

September 22, 2025July 16, 2025 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

This month we are in a blog series, “It’s Their Show.” Today we are taking a closer look at The Jim Backus Show. Most people know Backus today as Mr. Howell on Gilligan’s Island. While he did show up on several television series, cartoons, and made-for-tv movies for Gilligan’s Island, Backus had a long and successful career without any Gilligan appearances. He started in the movies in 1948 and wound up his career with an amazing 253 credits.

In addition to being the voice of Mr. Magoo, Backus starred in several other series including I Married Joan and Blondie.

In 1960, The Jim Backus Show debuted. It was one of the first syndicated shows, so it’s hard to gauge how it did against its competition. However, I will say what I can tell you is that there were still 13 westerns on the air during the week, so while the influence of the Plains was waning, it was still very popular. It was also a year that lots of stars had made the plunge to dip their toe into the television industry. There were 11 stars with their own shows that year in addition to Backus, including Jack Benny, Ann Sothern, Danny Thomas, Andy Griffith, and Donna Reed.

The series had a great cast. They had several good directors, including Gene Reynolds who produced MASH and Lou Grant and a lot of good writers, including Jay Somers who would go on to create and write Green Acres. However, they had 14 directors and more than 40 writers to produce those 39 episodes. They also had a great line up of guest stars including Ken Berry, Charles Lane, Jayne Meadows, Zasu Pitts, Tom Poston, and Bill Quinn.

Backus is Mike O’Toole, the editor and owner of a news service struggling to make a go of it. He often doesn’t have the money to pay his rent or his staff’s salaries. Working with O’Toole are reporters Dora (Nita Talbot) and Dave (Bill McLean) as well as Sidney (Bobs Watson), their office boy. When they weren’t working, they spent some time at Heartless Harry’s, a bar downstairs that was popular with newspaper people. He truly was heartless, because he wouldn’t let anyone from Mike’s company in the bar unless they put down a $10 deposit.

One of the episodes I watched for this blog was #5, “No Help Wanted.” The opening pans the big city before moving down to the office of the wire service with Mike in the window joined by Dora.

The episode begins with Mike and Dora’s car breaking down in the middle of nowhere. There’s a large estate in the distance, but Mike won’t let Dora ask them for help until he’s tried to fix the problem himself.

Directed by Gene Reynolds and written by Dick Chevillat and Jay Sommers, the plot is that a retired stage actress, Catherine Lyden (Linda Watkins), has lots of money and loves living a normal life. Her former agent keeps trying to lure her back into show business. She decides to clean the maid’s house so she can hire someone, but when Dora and Mike meet her, they recognize her, and they think she is destitute and try to help her. After they get back to the office, they buy her some groceries and clothes. She tries to tell them that she has plenty of things and she doesn’t need their help. O’Toole writes a story about her having to work as a maid to make ends meet and puts a photo in the paper with her holding a pail and looking disheveled. When the article appears, several people contact her to try to help her out. When Mike and Dora get her contract from the playwright who is trying to hire her, they tell her that it’s a form to get a retraction from the paper.

After she signs it, they tell her the truth, that it’s a five-year contract and she begins to cry. Surprisingly they never do find out she wasn’t down and out. They think she is crying from gratitude, and they leave.

There were some fun bits of dialogue especially between Dora and Mike, and the filming was very different from most sitcoms, but I was drawn in by it. One of the things that I found most interesting about this episode is the soundtrack. There is some laughter in the background, but you hear birds, the office machinery running, and the sounds of the city. It’s like you’re right in the location with the cast and hear what they would hear.

This was a tough episode for me though. First of all, I kept waiting for Lyden to be touched by the fact that they were trying to help her and maybe that made her realize the public missed her. However, she never cared that they were spending their hard-earned money on her. She truly was upset when they tricked her, and I found it tough to watch because they never learn she was not destitute and truly was happy and they have now made her miserable for five years. It just didn’t have that feel-good ambiance we expect our sitcoms to feature.

The series produced 39 episodes before being canceled. I’m guessing the fact that it didn’t make it had something to do with the fact that it was on different nights and times across the country.

Sometimes these shows are hard to find. They all had two names. The Tom Ewell Show was known as The Trouble with Tom, The Phyllis Diller Show was known as The Pruitts of South Hampton, and The Jim Backus Show went by Hot Off the Wire. With so much competition from other stars trying to vie for their spot on the schedule and being a syndicated show, I’m guessing it was hard to lure enough fans to make it worthwhile to produce a second season of the show.

Jo Anne Worley: What a Character

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Little House on the Prairie: Drama On and Off the Set

February 12, 2024December 5, 2023 / thewritelife61 / 4 Comments

This month we are visiting with some of our favorite families. I absolutely would have included The Waltons this month if we had not covered the show recently. However, another historic family, the Ingalls, is on the schedule. Little House on the Prairie was on the air for nine seasons. Many of us got to know the family through Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books.

Television producer Ed Friendly acquired the film and television rights from the books. Oddly enough, the other show Friendly is known for as producer is Rowan and Martin’s Laugh In. He decided to make Little House a two-hour pilot and asked Michael Landon to direct it. Landon agreed to do so if he could also play Pa, Charles Ingalls. The pilot aired in March of 1974, and in September the series began.

Along with starring in the show, Landon continued to direct as well; he directed 87 of the 204 episodes. The other directors included William F. Claxton, Victor French, Maury Dexter, and Leo Penn.

Landon also got in on the writing of several episodes. He had written several scripts for Bonanza when he appeared on that show, and several of them were recycled for Little House.

Like The Waltons, while this series was often happy with comedic notes, it dealt with many serious issues as well, including alcoholism, drug addiction, poverty, racism, child abuse, and rape. The show focused on the struggles and joys of a pioneer family living in the late 1800s.

Along with Landon, Karen Grassle played Ma, Melissa Gilbert played Laura, Melissa Sue Anderson was Mary, with Lindsay and Sidney Greenbush alternating as Carrie. In addition to the Ingalls family, other town folk on the show included Nellie Oleson (Alison Arngrim), Nels Oleson (Richard Bull), Harriet Oleson (Katherine “Scottie” MacGregor, and Miss Beadle (Charlotte Stewart).

Some of the guest stars included Willie Aames, Anne Archer, Lew Ayres, Hermione Baddeley, Ken Berry, Ray Bolger, Ernest Borgnine, Johnny and June Carter Cash, Burl Ives, Charles Lane, Vera Miles, Sean Penn, and Ray Walston.

The theme song, “The Little House,” was written and conducted by David Rose. Rose won two Emmys for his work on the show.Although the pilot ranked #3 for the 1974 ratings, the first two seasons were much lower. Season 3 found the show on Monday nights where it remained one of the highest-ranking series through season 7. Season 8 had a significant decline and season 9, with the loss of most of the family members, never really caught on with viewers. However, season two is the only year the show was not in the top 30. The schedule was a bit crazy when you analyze it. Although, this show did have to compete with The Jeffersons and WKRP in Cincinnati, because they were half-hour shows and this was an hour show, many people probably continued watching the second half. For many of these years, there were up to six different shows in this time spot on CBS and many of them changed from year to year, so there were rarely shows in this spot against Little House for more than a month or two.

After eight seasons, both Michael Landon and Karen Grassle were ready to move on; however, Landon did stay on as a director and writer. The show focused on Laura Almanzo and the younger generation for the ninth and final season.

The show was loved by critics as well as viewers and received sixteen Emmy nominations. The series won four of them, all for music and cinematography. The only cast member nominated was Melissa Sue Anderson; she lost to Sada Thompson for Family.

Viewers were not ready to leave the Ingalls for good. Three made-for-tv movies were written: Little House: Look Back to Yesterday in 1983, Little House: The Last Farewell and Little House: Bless All the Dear Children, both in 1984. In 2008 the Ingalls’ lives also became a musical at the Guthrie Theater.

One fun story is when the show moved from Paramount to MGM Studios in the late seventies, they were uncovering sets so they could build new ones and found the yellow brick road from the Wizard of Oz which delighted the kids in the cast; I’m guessing it delighted many of the adults as well.

Another fun story was learning what the cast ate on the show. Since beef stew was a popular meal in the 1800s, the family often had that for its meal and when they did, they were actually eating Dinty Moore Beef Stew. When they had chicken, it was KFC that appeared on their plates.

The kids must have been troopers because each episode took about seven days to shoot. They were on location at Big Sky Ranch for four days and in the studio for interior shots about three days. In addition, they were probably witnesses to off-air scenes that were not the best. Grassle and Landon were not close, probably because his role seemed much bigger than hers and he was directing as well. Unfortunately, both Grassle and Landon were alcoholics, and alcohol was part of their life on set. During season four, Grassle quit when she realized the seriousness of her problem. Landon was never able to kick his dependence and died from pancreatitis.

Gilbert said that Michael Landon had interesting ways to inspire his kids to get emotional on the set. He worked himself up to become very emotional and with eyes full of tears would ask her “Do you know how much I love you?” which would bring tears to her eyes as well.

It might have been a way to get her to cry, but it was not a lie. Gilbert lost her own father when she was eleven, and Landon became a second father to her. He often had Gilbert at his house on the weekends. She said it was a huge house and the kids ran through the house at will. Often Landon would hide behind doorways and jump out and scare them. Gilbert said Landon provided her with a lot of great advice. The most memorable for her was that nothing is more of a priority than home and family, and no success is as important as loving your people and contributing to a community. And to have fun above all in your career.

That is sage fatherly advice for us all to remember.

Dr. Kildare: The “Perfect” Doctor

July 10, 2023July 1, 2023 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

This month we are checking out a few favorites in a blog series: “Examining Our Favorite Medical Shows.” Last week we learned a bit about Ben Casey. Today we are looking at a similar show to Ben Casey, although in many ways it was very different: Dr. Kildare. Dr. Kildare was also on the air from 1961-66. MGM produced this show created by Max Brand in the 1930s. The show had previously been a movie and a radio series. Unlike Ben Casey who seemed to argue with everyone, Dr. Kildare (Richard Chamberlain) was a respectful intern at Blair General Hospital. He wants to help his patients and listens to his mentor, Dr. Leonard Gillespie (Raymond Massey). In season three, Kildare became a resident, and the episodes focused more on the stories about the patients.

In 1960 a pilot was filmed with Joseph Cronin in the Kildare role and Lew Ayres as Gillespie which did not sell. The role of Kildare was offered to William Shatner and James Franciscus who both turned it down. In 1961, a new pilot was produced with Chamberlin and Massey. One of the reasons Massey accepted the role is because he was certain the show would only last one season, and he wanted to continue with his movie career. The popularity of the show put his film career on hold for five years.

Other cast members who appeared on the show included Dr. John Kapish (Ken Berry), Nurse Fain (Jean Inness), Dr. Agurski (Eddie Ryder), Dr. Gerson (Jud Taylor), Dr. Lowry (Steve Bell) Nurse Conant (Jo Helton), and Nurse Lawton (Lee Kurty).

The guest stars on this show were amazing. I feel like this should be read in auctioneer mode but here goes: Eddie Albert, Jack Albertson, Fred Astaire, Ed Asner, Lauren Bacall, Ed Begley, Joan Blondell, Tom Bosley, Beau Bridges, Charles Bronson, James Caan, Robert Culp, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Angie Dickinson, Olympia Dukakis, Barbara Eden, Linda Evans, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Peter Falk, Beverly Garland, Ron Howard, Kim Hunter, Celeste Holm, Carolyn Jones, James Earl Jones, Brian Keith, Ted Knight, Harvey Korman, Cloris Leachman, Jack Lord, Walter Matthau, Gavin McLeod, Ricardo Montalban, Harry Morgan, Jack Nicholson, Leonard Nimoy, Carroll O’Connor, Suzanne Pleshette, Basil Rathbone, Robert Redford, Robert Reed, Cesar Romero, Gena Rowlands, William Shatner, Jean Stapleton, Gloria Swanson, Rip Torn, Sam Waterston, Dennis Weaver, and Robert Young. For a show that was only on five years, it was an impressive guest cast.

To add more realism to the show, writer E. Jack Neuman spent several months working with interns in a large hospital. Technical advice was provided by the American Medical Association.

The show was realistic in portraying all the drama that is truly found in a city hospital. The plots involved a lot of medical and social issues including smallpox, physician competency, drug addiction, malpractice, and euthanasia. Neuman definitely captured what life in a large, city hospital was like. Kildare makes about $60 a month, or $500 in today’s terms, works long hours, rotates through the various medical departments and has senior physicians overrule his diagnoses.

Just like Ben Casey, the first seasons produced stand-alone episodes and after the success of Peyton Place, storylines carried over from one show to another to entice the audience to tune in again the next week.

The theme music for the series was composed by Jerry Goldsmith. A CD set was released in 2009 which included the theme, the original music from the 1960 pilot, Richard Chamberlain’s recording of “Three Stars Will Shine Tonight,” and musical scores from the five seasons by Hurr Sukman, Richard Markowitz, Morton Stevens, Lalo Schifrin, John Green, and Burt Bacharach.

Airing on Thursday nights, the show was in the top ten during season one and the top twenty for seasons two and three. The show received about 12000 fan letters weekly, and, in addition, Chamberlain received letters personally asking for medical advice.

The network moved the show to Tuesday nights against Red Skelton and McHale’s Navy for season five and the viewers did not follow. The ratings declined, and the show was canceled.

This show really changed Chamberlain’s career. He had always been a small-role guy before this show, but he suddenly became a teen idol. He received more than 35,000 fan letters a month. Onscreen the idealistic Kildare and the wise, sometimes cantankerous, Gillespie don’t always agree but they had great chemistry on the set and apparently off the set as well. Unlike Ben Casey, the cast on this show did get along and Chamberlain mentioned that he always enjoyed working with Massey.

Richard said he grew up in a family where they all pretended to be perfect. So, he went through life trying to be perfect too. He said that philosophy did not work well for his life, but it did work well for Dr. Kildare.

Following the show he would take a turn on Broadway, in big-screen movies, and back on television where he specialized in mini-series like Shogun and The Thorn Birds, both in the 1980s.

One fact I found interesting was that the DVD release of the show included a never-aired pilot from a different medical show, The Eleventh Hour in 1962. The episode originally was written for Dr. Kildare. Drs. Kildare and Gillespie assist Dr. Bassett (Wendell Corey), a psychiatrist diagnosing one of his patients Ann (Vera Miles). Instead of airing on Dr. Kildare, Chamberlain and Massey were cut out of the film and it was submitted as a pilot for the show, with the title “Ann Costigan: a Duel on a Field of White.”

Even Mad Magazine got on the Kildare bandwagon. The 1962, #74 issue, featured “Dr. Killjoy,” a parody of the show.

Everyone seemed to like this show. Then again, what is not to like? You have a handsome doctor, exhilarating drama, a fun guest star every week, and realistic stories. The show would go on to inspire the talents behind a variety of medical series including Marcus Welby MD, ER, House, and Grey’s Anatomy.

Everyone Could Use A Private Secretary

May 10, 2021 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

After learning a bit about the career of Ann Sothern last week, today we take a look at two of her shows: Private Secretary and The Ann Sothern Show. Although they were two different shows, the second almost seemed like a continuation of the first. To make things even more complicated, when the shows went into syndication, Private Secretary was renamed Susie and all the episodes of Susie would air, followed by The Ann Sothern Show and then back to Susie.

As we learned last week, Ann suffered from hepatitis for three years. With her medical bills mounting and less film work coming in, she needed to make a living, so she turned to television to revive her career.

After appearing in series of ten Maisie films earlier in her career, Ann had a solid fan base. Ann was a smart business woman and she had a 42% ownership in her new show, Private Secretary. The show debuted in 1953.

*Sothern with Don Porter*–Photo: pinterest.com

Ann portrays Susie MacNamara, a former actress and WAC WWII veteran; she is the secretary to Peter Sands (Don Porter), a talent agent. Susie often complicates life for her boss, although she means well.

One of her best friends was Violet (Ann Tyrell), their receptionist. Cagey Calhoun (Jesse White) is always trying to cause trouble for Peter as a rival talent agent.

*Sothern with Ann Tyrell and Jesse White*–Photo: episodate.com

While the scripts weren’t ground-breaking, they were well written and witty. Some shows reference one of Mr. Sands’ clients, actress Harriet Lake, which was Ann’s real name.

The show was noted for its state-of-the-art set decoration featuring IBM typewriters and Western Electric phone systems, as well as stylish furnishings.

The show was on Sunday nights on CBS and alternated weeks with highly rated Jack Benny Show. I have never seen this with any other show but Lucky Strikes, the show’s sponsor also financed The Jack Benny Show on CBS and Your Hit Parade on NBC. So, when Your Hit Parade was on hiatus for summer, Private Secretary’s reruns were shown on that network and then new shows would begin in the fall back on CBS.

The show continued to have great ratings but in 1957, even though the show was renewed for the next year, Ann got into an argument with producer Jack Chertok and she left the series which ended. I could never find definitively why they argued, but it had to do with the show’s profits.

Sothern was nominated for Best Actress Emmy for 1955, 1956 and 1957, losing to Loretta Young, Lucille Ball, and Nanette Fabray.

Instead of a sixth year of Private Secretary on CBS, The Ann Sothern Show debuted in 1958 as a weekly show. Chertok kept the rights to the title, hoping to get another actress to fill the MacNamara role. This show was created by Bob Schiller and Bob Weiskopf. Desi Arnaz would produce the show which worked out as Ann and Lucille Ball were very close friends. They appeared on each other’s shows.

In The Ann Sothern Show, Ann now plays Katy O’Connor, the assistant manager of an upscale New York hotel, The Bartley House. Her secretary is Olive Smith (Ann Tyrrell), the front desk clerk is Paul Martine (Jacques Scott), and the bell boy is Johnny Wallace (Jack Mullaney). Later Ken Berry replaced Mullaney as Woody Hamilton.

Many of the cast members from the former show appear on the new series. Although Katy has a boss she answers to, she has a lot of authority running the hotel. Katy’s first boss is Jason Macauley (Ernest Truex), a man who is dominated by his nagging wife Florence (Reta Shaw). When ratings were not great, Truex was replaced by Don Porter as James Devery. As in Private Secretary, there are some romantic currents between Katy and James. Olive’s boyfriend, a dentist, Dr. Gray, is played by Louis Nye. In season two, Jesse White showed up as Oscar Pudney an unethical newsstand owner near the hotel.

*Sothern with Jacques Scott*–Photo: wikipedia.com

The storylines often revolved around the personal life of the staff and stories about guests staying at the hotel. The concept provided the opportunity to attract a variety of guest stars during its run. In addition to Lucille Ball, actors who appeared on the show included Jack Albertson, Frances Bavier, Constance Bennett, Eva Gabor, Joel Grey, Van Johnson, Jayne Meadows, Howard McNear, Janis Page, Cesar Romero, and Connie Stevens.

Once again Ann was nominated for an Emmy is 1959 but lost to Jane Wyatt for Father Knows Best.

Post Cereals and General Foods were sponsors for this show, and the cast would often appear in commercials at the end of the show. Ann would then sign off with “Well, goodnight everybody. Stay happy!”

For the second year, the show’s ratings were decent but not great. The show was moved to Thursday nights up against The Untouchables, a top ten show. The ratings declined, so it was cancelled.

The final episode ended in a cliffhanger. Mr. Devery finally realizes that he is in love with Katy and proposes to her. They kiss but the show ends before Katy can answer yes or no.

I remember watching the shows in syndication and I thought they were good. Ann Sothern appeared to be a likable person and a hard-working actress. Both shows were often in the top 25% of the ratings. With all the reboots that have been done, I have never heard of either of these shows as possibilities and they seem to be good options for a contemporary show.

If you want to check out the shows, Private Secretary has several DVD options. The only place I could find The Ann Sothern Show was on etsy, and the site specifically mentions that it is “not a retail set nor is this a commercial studio release.” Maybe with all the classic television networks debuting, we will see Private Secretary back on the air again soon.

Laughing and Crying with Charlotte Rae

January 25, 2021January 25, 2021 / thewritelife61 / Leave a comment

This week we are winding up our series of favorite female actors with Charlotte Rae. If you remember last week we learned about June Lockhart. Charlotte was born a year after June and died a year before her, and their careers were very similar. Both were actresses for more than six decades, appeared in Broadway, movies, and television.

Rae was born in Milwaukee, WI in 1926. Her parents were Russian Jewish immigrants. Her mother Esther had been friends with Golda Meir since childhood. For her first ten years, the family lived above her father’s tire business. In 1936 they moved to a home in Shorewood. At age 16, she became an apprentice with the Port Players, a professional theater company that came to Milwaukee for the summer. After graduation, Charlotte did some radio work and did some performing with the Wauwatosa Children’s Theatre.

Charlotte Rae Obituary - Death Notice and Service Information — Photo: legacy.com

Although she never completed her degree, Rae attended Northwestern University. She and Cloris Leachman became friends there. She also met Agnes Nixon, Charlton Heston, Paul Lynde, and Claude Akins. In later years she would always recommend wanna-be actors get a degree first.

See the source image — Photo: thejewishnews.com

In 1948, she moved to New York City where she performed in theater and nightclubs. She worked at a variety of clubs including the Village Vanguard and the Blue Angel. During her early days, a radio star told her that her last name of “Lubotsky” would not work well, and she replaced it with her middle name of Rae.

In 1951 she received her first television job on Once Upon a Tune. She would appear on ten other drama theater shows during the fifties. In an interview with Milwaukee Talks in 2016 she said, “When I started out, I wanted to be a serious actor, I never thought I’d get into comedy.”

The same year, Rae married composer John Strauss. They had two sons, but in the mid seventies he came out as a bisexual. Rae was not interested in an open marriage, so the couple decided to divorce in 1976.

Charlotte also loved singing, and she released an album in 1955, Songs I Taught My Mother. Rae also loved being on the stage. In the seventies, Vanguard Records went out of business, and Rae was able to buy back the album for $5000.

She would have stage roles in “Three Wishes for Jamie” in 1952, “The Threepenny Opera” in 1954, “Li’l Abner” in 1956, and “Pickwick” in 1965 among others. Later in her career she would also appear in several off-Broadway shows.

In 1958, she got a break with a guest spot on The Phil Silvers Show which led to her getting the part of Sylvia Schnauzer, the wife of Leo Schnauzer (Al Lewis) on Car 54 Where Are You when it debuted in 1961. Her husband John did the music for the show. Apart from that role, most of the other television work she did in the sixties was in drama series.

Rae also appeared in 14 big-screen movies. Can I take a shameless plug and say that one of my favorite Charlotte Rae roles is in Hello Down There? This movie from 1969 screams IT’S THE SIXTIES from the moment it starts until it ends, but it’s a great sit-back-and-just watch movie. If nothing else, it has an amazing cast including Tony Randall, Janet Leigh, Ken Berry, Jim Backus, Merv Griffin, and Richard Dreyfuss among others.

The seventies were her busiest decade of work. She started with a recurring role on Sesame Street as Molly the Mail Lady. During the early seventies you could see her on The Partridge Family, McMillan and Wife, Love American Style, and The Paul Lynde Show. I always appreciated her character on The Partridge Family. When Danny is thinking about quitting school to get on with life, she plays his very smart and creative guidance counselor.

In 1974 Rae moved to Los Angeles. She did guest spots on All in the Family and Good Times, both Norman Lear shows. In 1975, she became a regular on Lear’s show, Hot l Baltimore. She played Mrs. Bellotti, whose son lived at the hotel. The show was a bit controversial and was cancelled after the first season.

During the remainder of the seventies, Rae kept busy working for a variety of genres. You could have seen her on The Flying Nun, Barney Miller, The Rich Little Show, All’s Fair, CPO Sharkey, Family, The Eddie Capra Mysteries, and on her friend Cloris Leachman’s show Phyllis.

In 1978 Norman Lear was working on Diff’rent Strokes about a single father who adopts two brothers whom he raises along with his daughter with help from his housekeeper. Lear signed Rae on as the housekeeper. Charlotte wanted to do the series, but as she related in a Television Academy interview, she was under contract at CBS when NBC made the offer. She had a few weeks left on her CBS option. The network offered her the role of a lady sheriff on a new western but it didn’t ring true to her, and she didn’t want to do it. While she was filming an Eddie Capra Mystery episode, she drove over to explain her predicament to Lear. He said that Bud Grant owed him a favor and he did indeed get her out of the contract.

One episode on the first season was “The Girls’ School” when Edna Garrett is asked to help out at Kim’s private school called East Lake. She does but at the end of the episode decides she’d rather be working in the Drummond home.

In an interview with the Television Academy, Rae said she thought she was going to be fired from Diff’rent Strokes. She noticed her lines getting fewer and fewer and when she was called into talk with the producer, she thought that was it. However, they proposed a spinoff show for her based on “The Girls’ School” episode called The Facts of Life. They wanted Edna to become housemother for the boarding students at the school. It was a prestigious private school now called Eastland. The writers were focusing on issues affecting high school age girls including weight gain, dieting, depression, drug and alcohol use, dating, mental illness, and other subjects that kids that age deal with. Rae said the show was about growing up, family, love, and working out problems. “I had a lot of input with issues like suicide, divorce, death. I’m really very proud.”

Charlotte was a single mother and afraid to lose her Diff’rent Strokes income on a possibility that might not pan out. The producers wrote into her contract that if the show was cancelled, she could return to Diff’rent Strokes, so she agreed.

The first season gained some fans, but ratings were so-so. For the second season, some cast changes were made and the show was moved from Fridays to Wednesdays. The show finished in the top thirty that year, and Rae became a household name. In 1982, Rae received an Emmy nomination. (She lost to Carol Kane from Taxi.) During the 1984 and 1985 seasons, Rae asked to be used less. She felt that the girls were older and would rely more on each other than a housemother for discussions about life issues.

When discussing the character of Edna, Rae explained “I want to bring in as much humanity as possible, as well as humor. I’ve tried to make her a human being with dimensions. The way they write her now is with a great deal of sensitivity and understanding. But I don’t want her to be Polly Perfect, because she must have human failings and make mistakes. She’s also a surrogate mother to the girls. I told them I wanted to be firm with the girls because I know it’s important. Parents must lay down ground rules for their children to help them grow up and to learn responsibility for their actions. They must learn to stand on their own two feet.”

Rae wanted to do more theater and she wanted to travel. When she decided to leave the series, Cloris Leachman replaced her in the role. The two-part finale of the eighth season had Edna Garrett marrying and moving to Africa with her husband to work for the Peace Corps. Her sister Beverly (Rae’s real sister’s name) comes for the wedding and then decides to stay with the girls at school. Cloris Leachman was signed on for two seasons. At the end of her time, she was willing to continue for another season, but cast members Nancy McKeon and Mindy Cohn were ready to end the show and take on new projects. It was not the end of the show, however. In 2001 a television reunion movie aired with much of the original cast. In 2007 the entire cast was invited to the TV Land Awards where they sang their old theme song.

Charlotte took on several other roles after leaving the show. During the eighties and nineties, she appeared on The Love Boat, St. Elsewhere, Murder She Wrote, Sisters, and Alex Mack among others.

She was busy until she passed away, and continued to act throughout the 2000s, including an appearance on King of Queens, and a recurring role on ER. Her last acting credit on television was in 2014’s Girl Meets World.

FACTS OF MY LIFE (HARDBACK) By Charlotte Rae & Larry Strauss - Hardcover **NEW**

In 2015, Rae wrote her memoirs with her son Larry. At many of her book signings, adults came to purchase the book and told her over and over that they had been latch-key kids and saw Edna as a second mother to them. A description from Amazon sums up the book: “Charlotte Rae’s career spans more than seventy years, from the golden age of television to Shakespeare in the Park, the New York Cabaret scene of the late 1940s and 50s to her hit series, The Facts of Life and well beyond. Off stage and screen, Charlotte’s life has been one of joy and challenge, raising an autistic son, coming to terms with alcoholism, the heartache of a broken marriage, the revelation of a gay husband and the sudden challenge of facing middle-age with financial and emotional uncertainties–a crisis she ultimately turned into the determination that brought her stardom. The Facts of My Life is the first opportunity for Charlotte’s fans to explore the fascinating story of her extraordinary life: poignant and hilarious, a story of courage and triumph, one that speaks for a generation of women breaking barriers, taking on challenges, overcoming personal tragedy, and paving the way for others.”

Rae suffered from several health issues. In the early seventies, she joined Alcoholics Anonymous which was a critical part of the rest of her life. In 1982, she had a pacemaker implanted. It worked well for thirty years, but then stopped, requiring surgery for another smaller device. She also had open heart surgery to replace her mitral valve. Pancreatic cancer ran in her family, so she was screened often and when she was diagnosed with cancer, it was early so she had six months of chemotherapy and was then declared cancer free. In 2017, she was diagnosed with bone cancer. She died at her home in 2018. Todd Bridges from Diff’rent Strokes, tweeted, “You were loved by everyone on our show.”

Charlotte said she never minded fans coming up to her because she realized that in being a television actor you were in people’s homes. “It was an intimate relationship.”

She said she wanted to be remembered as someone who took people out of themselves into a different world and allowed them to laugh or cry, and that would make her happy because we need as many laughs as we can get.

THE-FACTS-OF-LIFE-TV-SHOW-PHOTO-E-19-CHARLOTTE-RAE

Thank you, Charlotte for making us cry a little and laugh a lot.

Laughing Every Day with Beverly Archer

January 18, 2021January 19, 2021 / thewritelife61 / 5 Comments

As we continue looking at some of our favorite actresses, today we get to spend some time with Beverly Archer. Beverly was born in Oak Park, Illinois in 1948 but grew up in California.

Beverly knew she wanted to enter the acting profession and studied at both San Francisco State University and UC Santa Barbara where she majored in drama. But once she graduated, she decided acting wasn’t for her. She worked for Wells Fargo for two weeks and then accepted a job with Abbey Rents in Los Angeles where she worked for three years. She says she was lonely and not having fun, so she started taking acting classes again and working with theater groups.

Unlike a lot of actors who have to spend decades before nabbing their first series, the first two television roles Beverly received were regulars. However, Beverly paid her dues working in commercials before appearing on a series. She said they gave her confidence that she could make a living acting, so she was able to quit her job.

In 1976, she appeared on The Nancy Walker Show. She played Nancy’s daughter, Lorraine. In a recent interview with Sitcoms Online, Beverly said she ran into a guy she had done some theater with who had become an agent. He signed her and got her the audition for the show. Archer was reading the script with several other actresses but apparently, she was the only one who found the scene very funny. Nancy then read with her and the producers felt they could be family. She says she was in the right place at the right time.

Unfortunately, the show only lasted one season, but in 1977, Beverly was offered the role on We’ve Got Each Other. The plot for this show was that Stuart Hibbard (Oliver Clark) worked at home, cleaning and cooking while his wife Judy (Archer) worked in LA for photographer Damon Jerome (Tom Poston). Stuart had to deal with domestic situations and his next-door neighbor Ken (Martin Kove) while Judy dealt with work situations and secretary Donna (Renn Woods). Like her first show, this sitcom only lasted one season as sell.

In 1976 she accepted another permanent role as Mrs. Robert Bernard. She met her husband through an acting teacher. He was also an actor, doing a lot of voice-over work.

During the 1980s, she would receive offers to play recurring characters on four shows.

On Spencer, she played Miss Spier, a divorced friend of Spencer’s mother. Most episodes show Spencer, played by a very young Chad Lowe, humorously dealing with the drama of high school.

In 1985 she was on ten episodes of Washingtoon. This is a little-remembered show that aired on Showtime. The plots centered around a senator who wasn’t too bright and Archer was his secretary on the show.

In 1988, she appeared on ALF as neighbor Mrs. Byrd.

One of her best-known roles occurred on Mama’s Family. Beverly portrayed Iola Boylen from 1986-1990. In the Sitcoms Online interview, Archer talked about being on Mama’s Family. She explained that the network version was cancelled, and Joe Hamilton decided to recreate it in syndication. At that time, no one really did syndication shows. Archer says he was a pioneer in the field. Betty White and Rue McClanahan moved over to Golden Girls, so there was a gap for a new character and Archer was hired for the syndicated show. She says some of her favorite moments on the show were working with Ken Berry. She described him as the funniest person on the planet.

Beverly tried her hand at writing and received credits for scripts for Mama’s Family, Working Girl and ALF.

In addition to these regular roles, she guest starred on a variety of shows, including It Takes Two, Family Ties, The Fall Guy, and My Sister Sam.

During the decade of the nineties, Beverly was again lucky enough to gain a recurring role on five additional shows: Married . . . with Children, Aahh Real Monsters, Jumanji, The Young and the Restless, and Major Dad. On Married . . . with Children, she was a sexually repressed librarian who falls in love with Bud.

On Major Dad, she played the role of Alva Bricker, gunnery sergeant. During an interview with Jerry Buck in 1992, Archer says she used John Wayne for her role model for Alva because he was the only Marine she could remember. Describing her character on the show, Archer says “She’s the best Marine on the base. I think the driving force behind the characters is that she’s the best. But the personal stuff is fun to play. She has a wild sex life, but the crux is that she’s incredibly efficient as administrative chief of the commanding general’s office.”

After portraying so many school-marm types of characters, she was happy to have a different sort of character to work with. Beverly says Gunny has a macho-style to her femininity. She treated relationships the way men typically did. She didn’t want to be tied down to one man.

Beverly joined the cast in season two. Once again, she benefitted from the fact that several characters from the first season were let go. The show was produced by Rick Hawkins who also worked with her on Mama’s Family. Archer loved the fact that Gunny was so different from Iola on that show.

She also guest starred on nine shows, including Full House, Love and War, and Grace Under Fire throughout the 1990s.

In 1995 she was part of the fun, satire, The Brady Bunch Movie, playing a teacher who gets caught stealing.

Beverly accepted that she was typecast in many of her roles. As she described it, “Nobody’s going to let me play a normal human being, certainly not a lead. Certainly not a normal next-door neighbor. I’m there to add a character twist. That’s my living and with this mug, what do you expect?”

Beverly retired in 2002. Beverly may have retired, but she was not sitting around the house twiddling her thumbs. She opened an antique shop in the Catskills in upper New York which she ran for about eight years, spending half the year in New York and half in California. She finally moved the shop to California to eliminate the bicoastal living.

She also wanted to do a lot of traveling. Now she is sculpting with clay and getting to travel. She studied her craft in Italy. In 2008, Beverly had an exhibit at the Xiem Gallery in Pasadena, CA, entitled “2008: A Year of the Pig: A Beginner’s Journal.” The exhibit included some of her thoughts on her art:

“There was so much to learn.
Despite the fact that I began with 365 pigs I never thought back then that I would be able to count on two hands the number of pieces I have made that are not critters. I cannot seem to divorce myself from them. Nor do I want to.
Our relationship to other animals is quite a complex one, of course. We tend to imbue them with attributes and feelings we admire. We find our domestic companions delightful, amusing, courageous and intelligent…..all attributes we would like to see in ourselves. We even find the critters we eat to be companionable as well as useful.
Perhaps I will branch out eventually. Perhaps to wild animals. We think them fascinating, noble and mysterious. And yet, we threaten them, hunt them or ignore them and fail them constantly.
One can’t know for certain but I imagine that in years hence I will still be working on the animal form.
There is so just much to learn.”

While I’m sad, her retirement took her out of our living rooms, she seems to have found a wonderful new career. Since writing my blog, and writing in general, has become my almost-retirement career, I understand the passion and satisfaction she is experiencing in her new art life.

When asked about the type of roles she wanted to play or would like to have if she had not retired, Beverly responded that “I loved doing comedy, and there is no greater gift than coming to work laughing every day.” I hope she is still laughing every day, and I thank her for the many days of laughter she provided for us.

Bert Convy: A Multi-Talented Star

November 2, 2020November 2, 2020 / thewritelife61 / 7 Comments

I’m calling this series “The Men of November.” We are taking a look at five actors who contributed to television during the classic decades of the 1940s-1980s. I’ve decided to take them in alphabetical order so we are starting with Bert Convy.

Born in St. Louis in 1933, Convy’s family moved to Los Angeles when he was seven. His focus was athletics, not acting, in school. When he was 17, the Philadelphia Phillies gave him a contract to play in their minor league system which he did from 1951-1952. In 1951 he played for the Klamath Falls Gems (Oregon), and in 1952 he split his time with the Salina Blue Jays (Kansas) and the Miami Eagles (Oklahoma).

Once he realized baseball was not going to be his career, he joined The Cheers, who released a top ten hit called “Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots” in 1955. Convy opted to enroll at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, earning a BA.

Like Ken Berry, he was a performer in the Billy Barnes Revues which was popular in the fifties and sixties. In 1956, he was an usher on Art Linkletter’s popular show House Party. He appeared in several early television series throughout the late fifties, including Those Whiting Girls.

In 1959 he married Anne Anderson. They had three children and were divorced in 1991.

He showed up on the small screen a lot during the sixties, primarily in detective shows including Perry Mason in 1960. His first feature role was in the big screen drama Susan Slade starring Troy Donahue and Connie Stevens in 1961. He also spent a part of this decade on Broadway in ten different productions.

The decade of the seventies found him balancing roles in both detective (Mission Impossible, McMillan and Wife, Police Story and Charlie’s Angels among many others) and comedy shows (including Bewitched, Love American Style, and Karen). He appeared on The Partridge Family as a politician who dates Shirley. You get the distinct impression that they ended up together once the kids were out on their own. He also portrayed one of Mary’s boyfriends on The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

As Paul Revere on Bewitched
Photo: fanpop.com

He received his first recurring role in 1974, playing Lt. Steve Ostrowski on The Snoop Sisters. The show starred Helen Hayes and Mildred Natwick as two sisters, one widowed and one never married, who are mystery writers that also get involved in real murders.

Silver Scenes - A Blog for Classic Film Lovers: The Snoop Sisters ... — Photo: silverscenes.com

Two years later he starred in a short-lived variety show with the convoluted title of The Late Summer Early Fall Bert Convy Show. The title alone probably doubled the advertising budget. When I say short-lived, I mean I could only find one episode of the show which featured Don Knots.

He was offered another permanent role in 1983 on It’s Not Easy. Originally Larry Breeding was given the role and made the pilot, but he passed away after a car accident. This show only lasted for 11 episodes. The plot is that Jack and Sharon have divorced. Sharon has remarried and she and her husband Neal (Convy) have decided to live across the street from Jack so it’s easier for the kids. Jack and Neal do not like each other.

He appeared in a few series during the eighties including Aloha Paradise, Fantasy Island, Murder She Wrote, Hotel, The Love Boat and The People Next Door.

Cannonball Run Poster
Photo: moviemarket.com

While he would make ten big screen and fifteen made-for-television movies, two of them involved his buddy Burt Reynolds. Convy appeared in Semi-Tough in 1977 and Cannonball Run in 1981. The two friends developed a production company, Burt and Bert Productions.

Convy was probably best known for his game show work. He was a panelist during the sixties and seventies on a variety of shows including What’s My Line, To Tell the Truth, Match Game, and Password. He hosted Tattletales, Super Password and Win, Lose or Draw. His emceeing of Tattletales resulted in an Emmy for Best Game Show Host in 1977.

In April of 1990, Convy collapsed and was diagnosed with cancer. The brain tumor was inoperable, forcing his retirement. His last credit was as himself on It’s Garry Shandling’s Show in 1990. He married his second wife Catherine Hills during the winter of 1991, and he passed away in July of 1991.

Sadly, Convy was never offered that perfect role that made him an icon, but he certainly had a full career. He had a lot of talents: acting, singing, and the personality to host game shows. I think it was his smile that always made him a favorite with me.

Elinor Donahue Through the Decades

August 7, 2017 / thewritelife61 / 6 Comments

Elinor Donahue always displays a warmth and comes across as a genuinely nice person. Her first sitcom became her most famous role. She played Betty in the iconic Father Knows Best. Although none of her later sitcoms reached the same popularity, she has had a long and full career.

She was born in April of 1937 in Tacoma, Washington. She began tap dancing at 16 months old. As a toddler, she did some acting and received a contract with Universal at the ripe old age of 5. From 1955-1961 she was married to Robert Smith. She was married her second husband, Harry Ackerman, from 1962-1991. Ackerman was a producer for shows including Leave It to Beaver, Gidget, and Bewitched. She married her third husband Louis Genevrino in 1992.

Donahue appeared in 18 movies between 1942 and 1952 including Tea for Two with Doris Day and My Blue Heaven. She made the transition to television in 1952 appearing in 8 shows in the 1950s. One of the shows I remember her in although I only saw it in reruns was one of my favorite shows, The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show. She was typically cast as the girl-next-door type. Her most famous role came in 1954 when she was cast in a new sitcom, Father Knows Best.

Father Knows Best – 1954-1960

This was one of the typical family shows of the 1950s. The Andersons lived in Springfield with three children: Betty, called Princess (Elinor Donahue), James Jr., or Bud (Billy Gray) and Kathy, usually called Kitten (Lauren Chapin). The show debuted in the fall of 1954 on CBS. The show was cancelled in 1955 and the public was furious. Letters came pouring in, so it was reinstated. NBC took over the next year until 1958 when it went back to CBS. In 1960, Robert Young decided he was done. These were warm and inviting parents, providing guidance and object lessons galore. Critics panned it later because it was not reality. We have reality shows today, and please, give me fiction. We did learn life lessons on the show – following through on promises, working for what you want, being yourself, and taking responsibility for your mistakes.

Shortly after Father Knows Best left the airwaves, Donahue accepted the role of Elly Walker in The Andy Griffith Show.

The Andy Griffith Show: Elinor Donahue http://www.andygriffithshow.net/gallery/displayimage.php?album=5&pos=3

The Andy Griffith Show – 1960-1961

Most of us are very familiar with The Andy Griffith Show and many of the characters who inhabit Mayberry: Widower Andy Taylor (Andy Griffith) and his son Opie (Ron Howard) live with Andy’s Aunt Bee (Frances Bavier) who takes care of them; Barney (Don Knotts) is the inept deputy but also Andy’s best friend; Helen Crump (Anita Corsaut), the school teacher and Andy’s girlfriend later in the series; Thelma Lou (Betty Lynn), Barney’s girl; Otis Campbell (Hal Smith), town drunk but nice guy; Gomer Pyle (Jim Nabors), who runs the gas station; and his cousin Goober Pyle (George Lindsey). Andy had several romances early in the show. He dated the county nurse Mary Simpson (played by several actresses), spent a limited amount of time with Daphne (Jean Carson) who had a crush on him; and in the first two seasons, he was sweet on Ellie Walker (Donahue), who ran the local drug store. Ellie cared about Andy, but she always stood up for herself and women’s rights. Andy and Ellie never had the chemistry they were hoping for but they respected each other and like each other. Elinor raved about the cast and her opportunity to be on the show. She said Andy was in charge and expected quality but was fair and a nice man. She described Ron Howard as the best child actor she ever worked with. She liked Frances Bavier and got along well with her. She had a huge respect for Don Knott’s comedic ability. She is still friends with Betty Lynn.

She appeared on a variety of shows in the mid-1960s including 77 Sunset Strip, Dr. Kildare, The Virginian, Dennis the Menace, Star Trek, and The Flying Nun. She tried her luck with one other sitcom in the 1960s.

Many Happy Returns – 1964-1965

This sitcom was also about a widower. Walter Burnley (John McGiver) ran the Complaint Department at a LA department store. The show also featured his daughter (Donahue) and a coworker Lynn Hall (Elena Verdugo). His boss (Jerome Cowan) did not want him to take in any returns, so he had to resolve complaints without making his boss mad. Apparently Burnley couldn’t solve the complaints that came in from viewers because the show was cancelled after 24 episodes.

Father Knows Best came out with two television movies in 1977: The Father Knows Best Reunion and Father Knows Best – Home for Christmas, and Elinor was in both. While still showing up in random shows during the 1970s such as The Rookies, Police Woman, and Diff’rent Strokes, Donahue found time to appear in two 70s shows on a regular basis.

The Odd Couple – 1972-1975

Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple came to Friday nights in 1970. Felix Unger (Tony Randall) and Oscar Madison (Jack Klugman), two divorced men who are complete opposites but best friends, try to live together without killing each other. The show had a great supporting cast including Donohue as Miriam Welby from 1972-1974, Felix’s girlfriend.

Mulligan’s Stew – 1977

This show from 1977 starred Elinor Donahue as Jane Mulligan. She and her husband Michael (Lawrence Pressman) are trying to raise three kids on his teacher’s salary when they suddenly add four orphaned nieces and nephews to their family. One of the kids was played by Suzanne Crough, Tracy from The Partridge Family, one of the few shows she was in. The series only lasted for seven episodes.

The 1980s found Donahue still working regularly. She was in Barnaby Jones, Mork & Mindy, One Day at a Time, Fantasy Island, The Love Boat, Newhart, and Golden Girls. One sitcom in the 1980s captured her attention about Beans Baxter.

The New Adventures of Beans Baxter – 1987

Here is the plot for this one: Beans Baxter’s (Jonathan Ward) father who he thought was a mailman disappears one day. Teenage Bean discovers that his dad worked for a secret government agency. He is then drawn into becoming a spy for the government. The show features his adventures as he tries to find the enemy agents who are holding his father hostage while his mother played by Donahue is completely oblivious that anything strange is happening. Viewers also didn’t realize anything was happening because the show was cancelled after 17 episodes.

Entering her 60s, Elinor joined the cast of three sitcoms in the 1990s. She also made several movies including Pretty Woman in 1990 and The Princess Diaries 2 in 2004.

Get a Life – 1990-1992

Shows don’t get much weirder than this one. Comedian Chris Elliot plays a 30-year-old paperboy Chris Peterson who lives with wacky parents (Donahue and Bob Elliott, Chris’s real father). Some of the strange things that happen during the 36 episodes include eating a space alien, beheadings, and a robot paperboy. In this bizarre series, Chris actually dies in a third of the episodes. During the run of the show, he died from old age, tonsillitis, a stab wound, a gunshot wound, was strangled, got run over by a car, choked on his cereal, was crushed by a giant boulder, and actually exploded.

Eek!stravaganza – 1992-1993

Donahue plays “The Mom” in this animated show about Eek, a purple cat who always finds himself in dangerous situations. The series was on the air for five seasons.

Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman – 1993-1997

During the six years the show was on the air, Donahue reprised her role as Rebecca Quinn ten times. The show followed the ups and downs experienced by a female doctor practicing in a wild western town.

Interestingly, Donahue appeared in three different soap operas toward the end of her career: Santa Barbara, Days of Our Lives, and The Young and the Restless. Elinor also appeared on a variety of documentaries and award shows. She was in the Match Game/Hollywood Squares Hour. In 1998, she wrote her memoirs titled, In the Kitchen with Elinor Donahue. The book included about 150 of her favorite recipes. Elinor’s career has been long and she appeared in many shows and movies over the years. She hasn’t appeared in a movie or television show since 2010, although she did do some theater. In September of 2015, she appeared in one of my favorite plays, “Harvey” in North Carolina.

Donahue’s career reminds me of many of the actors we have gotten to know in this blog including William Christopher, Betty White, Ken Berry, and Shelly Fabares. These actors and actresses all appear to be very nice, talented people who have careers they should be proud of. In a day when bad decisions and selfish actions are splattered across our television screens and newspapers, perhaps one of the best compliments we can give someone is that they had a long and fulfilling career and didn’t step all over other people to achieve it.

When a rainy day shows up this summer, take a moment to watch some of Elinor’s sitcom episodes. Thank you Elinor Donahue for the entertainment and memories you gave us.

July is the Perfect Time for Berry Picking

July 17, 2017 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

Ken Berry was born in Moline, IL in 1933. After watching a group perform when he was 13, he decided he wanted to be a dancer. He loved Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly movies, especially Easter Parade, Royal Wedding, and On the Town. At 16, he traveled with the Horace Heidt Youth Opportunity Program, performing in small towns for 15 months.

He went into the army at Fort Bragg and was in the artillery. He was then moved to an entertainment division under Leonard Nimoy. During his second year, he won the All-Army Talent competition which allowed him to appear on Ed Sullivan in 1948. Nimoy encouraged him to move to Los Angeles where he made some connections for Berry. Both 20^th Century Fox and Universal offered him jobs and he accepted the Universal contract. In 1956, he opened for Abbott and Costello for their stage act. In 1957, Berry enrolled in Falcon Studios to study acting. He worked at the Cabaret Theater, making $11 per week. The same year he won Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Show.

In 1958, he received an opportunity to join the Billy Barnes Revue. While in the Billy Barnes Revue, Berry met Jackie Joseph, and they married in 1960. His work in the BBR led to several lucrative connections. Lucille Ball saw him and offered him a job with Desilu Studios for $50 per week. Carol Burnett also watched a performance and had him on her variety show. (In 1972, she would offer him the co-starring role with her in Once Upon a Mattress, a television movie.)

The first Desilu show he had a regular role on was the Ann Sothern Show. On the air from 1958-1961, Ann played Katy O’Connor who worked at a New York hotel. Originally, Mr. Macauley (Ernest Truex) was her boss, but he was berated by his controlling wife (Reta Shaw). Katy’s best friend from her previous show Private Secretary, which aired from 1953-1957, was Ann Tyrrell as Vi. In this show, her name is Olive. The format wasn’t working, so Mr. Macauley the hotel owner, was transferred to Calcutta and James Devrey (Don Porter also from Private Secretary) took over. Ratings improved, and the show was renewed for another season. During this season, Louis Nye was introduced as a funny dentist in the hotel who dates and marries Olive, and Berry played bellboy Woody Hamilton, replacing Jack Mullaney. Most of the episodes revolve around the staff and guests of the hotel. As in Private Secretary, there is a lingering romance between Mr. Devrey and Katy throughout the run of the show. The ratings fell drastically in 1961 after the show was moved to Thursdays, and the network cancelled it.

In 1961, Berry obtained a job with Dr. Kildare, appearing in 25 episodes as Dr. John Kapish. Richard Chamberlin starred in the series about a doctor working in an urban hospital under his mentor Dr. Leonard Gillespie (Raymond Massey). In the third season, Dr. Kildare was promoted to resident and the series centered on his patients. The show aired until 1966, but Berry left the show in 1964. This was one of the shows that paved the way for Marcus Welby, MD and the medical dramas today including ER and Gray’s Anatomy.

He also appeared on several shows in the early 1960s: The Jim Backus Show, Hennesey, Ensign O’Toole, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Hazel, and No Time for Sergeants, among others.

In 1965, he was offered the lead in F-Troop. The show was set during the Civil War. Berry played Will Parmenter. At a critical moment during the Battle of Appomattox, Will gets credit for the defeat. He is a private and was sent to get his commanding officer’s laundry. He was sneezing continuously, but the men thought he was saying “Charge,” so they did. They won a decisive battle, and Will was promoted for his quick decision-making skills and bravery. He was then promoted to Fort Courage.

The cast had a crazy bunch of characters. The NCOs at the fort, Sergeant O’Rourke (Forrest Tucker) and Corporal Agarn (Larry Storch) are always scheming to raise money. The Hekawis tribe, with Chief Wild Eagle (Frank de Kova) worked on shady business deals with them. Although the officers manipulate Will, they are also protective of him. Melody Patterson plays Jane Thrift, Will’s girlfriend, who is always pressuring him to propose. The show relied on a lot of puns, slapstick, and running gags.

When F-Troop was cancelled two years later, Berry headlined the cast of Mayberry RFD as widower Sam Jones because Andy Griffith was leaving the show. Since Andy and Helen had married and moved away, Aunt Bee became Sam’s housekeeper. Sam and his son were introduced in Griffith’s final season when Sam is elected to the town council. Arlene Golonka plays Millie, Sam’s love interest. The show was rated as high as 4^th and only as low as 15th, so it continued to pull in good ratings, but in 1971, the show was cancelled in the general “rural house cleaning” that the network performed getting rid of any shows such as Green Acres, Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction, etc.

During the late 1960s and 1970s, he was on 14 shows including The Danny Thomas Show, The Lucy Show, Love American Style, The Brady Bunch, and The Love Boat.

The network developed a show Ken Berry WOW, a variety show that lasted five episodes that Berry was not wowed with. In 1973, Sherwood Schwartz wrote a pilot for a Brady Bunch spinoff called Kelly’s Kids. The concept of the show was that Berry adopts three boys, one white, one African American, and one Asian. No network showed an interest in the show.

One of the most unusual jobs he had occurred in 1976. An album called “Ken Berry RFD,” where he sang, backed by a full orchestra, was released. He and Joseph divorced that same year. Joseph later remarried and continued to have a long and full career. She appeared on a variety of sitcoms including Designing Women, Full House, Newhart, Love American Style, Petticoat Junction, That Girl, Hogan’s Heroes, McHale’s Navy, F-Troop, and the Andy Griffith Show. She also had a productive movie career, including Gremlins, The Cheyenne Social Club, With Six You Get Eggroll, Who’s Minding the Mint, and Little Shop of Horrors.

Taking a break from television, Ken went on the road, performing in stock shows around the country. He also played Caesar’s Palace between Andy Griffith and Jerry Van Dyke.

He returned to television to join the cast of Mama’s Family with Vickie Lawrence. The show derived from a skit on the Carol Burnett Show which led to a TV movie called Eunice. It featured the Harper family and their neighbors and friends. The matriarch is Thelma Harper (Lawrence) who speaks her mind freely. She is hot tempered and sarcastic, but she loves her family as she berates them. And they typically deserve a berating. They move back in with her and are happy to have her clean and cook for them as well.

For the first season and part of the second, the show was on NBC. Thelma lives with her spinster sister Fran (Rue McClanahan) who is a journalist. After Thelma’s daughter-in-law leaves her family, they move in with Thelma. Her son Vint began a relationship with Thelma’s next-door neighbor Naomi Oates (Dorothy Lyman). Her children from the Burnett sketch, Ellen (Betty White) and Eunice (Burnett), along with hubby Ed (Harvey Korman) are seen during this time.

The show was cancelled after two years and went into syndication. The reruns were so popular, 100 new episodes were ordered. A new set had to be constructed and some cast adjustments were made as well. Lawrence, Berry and Lyman were the only original characters on this new version. Since White and McClanahan were now starring on The Golden Girls, and Burnette and Korman chose not to return, a new character was created. Mitchel (Allan Kayser) was Eunice’s son who was always getting into trouble. Another addition was Beverly Archer who played Iola Boylen, Thelma’s neighbor and best friend.

Once Mama’s Family was cancelled the second time, Berry traveled around the country, appearing in “The Music Man”, “Gene Kelly’s Salute to Broadway”, and “I Do I Do” with Loretta Swit. He also went back to television for brief appearances on several shows including CHiPs, Fantasy Island, Gimme a Break, Small Wonder, Golden Girls, The New Batman, and Maggie Winters.

Berry also appeared in six movies including Two for Seesaw (1962), The Lively Set (1964), Hello Down There (1969), Herbie Rides Again (1974), Guardian of the Wilderness (1976), and The Cat from Outer Space (1978).

Guardian of the Wilderness was based on the life of Galen Clark who convinced Abraham Lincoln to make Yosemite Park the first public land grant. It covers a series of unusual adventures Clark had as he battled lumber companies to save wilderness land. One of my favorite quintessential 1960s movies was Hello Down There. Tony Randall and Janet Leigh star. Randall is an architect who creates an underwater home. To prove a family could live there, he cajoles his family to moving there for the summer. His kids are in a band so they force him to take the entire band or no one. Charlotte Rae is their housekeeper. Berry plays a rare role for him as the bad guy.

Early in his career, Ken appeared in a variety of commercials. From the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, he was the spokesman for Kinney Shoes.

He appeared in two game shows, Hollywood Squares and Tattletales. He also starred as himself on a variety of shows including Art Linkletter, Joey Bishop, Leslie Uggams, Jim Nabors, Julie Andrews, Sonny and Cher, Dean Martin, Laugh In, and Mike Douglas.

Berry retired in 1999. Berry loves cars and was an avid motorcyclist and camper.

Although Berry was never in a hugely successful series, he had a long and full career that any actor would be proud of. Hopefully his well-deserved retirement has been fun and full of memories.