My Sister Sam: Sisters in Every Way

May 6, 2024December 15, 2023 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

This month our blog is all about Sibling Rivalry. It’s a bit unusual because it features two sitcoms and two dramas. I thought it might be fun to start and end with the sitcoms, and today we are learning all about My Sister Sam.

From 1986 to 1988, My Sister Sam aired on CBS. Samantha Russell (Pam Dawber) is a freelance photographer who lives in San Franciso. Her life is turned upside down when her 16-year-old sister Patti (Rebecca Schaeffer) shows up on her doorstep to live with her. They are 13 years apart in age, and Patti had been living with their aunt and uncle in Oregon since the death of their parents. In real life, Schaeffer grew up in Oregon.

The cast is rounded out by coworkers Jordan Lucas, Sam’s agent (Joel Brooks); her assistant Dixie (Jenny O’Hara); and neighbor/photojournalist Jack (David Naughton), who is a ladies’ man.

The sisters have great chemistry, but they have very different personalities. Sam is a bit uptight and alphabetizes her juices in the refrigerator. Patti is a Valley girl, very laid back and a wanna-be rock star who plays the guitar.

In a Chicago Tribune interview in 1987, Dawber gave her philosophy of the show: “I see Sam as a woman who’s successful, who has a beautiful apartment but who doesn’t have the answers. Plus, she has to cope with a teenager who’d put her sister on a pedestal—she moved in because she thought Sam’s life was perfect—but finds out that she’s pretty neurotic. I mean, here is a woman, for openers, who’s compulsively neat, who needs to have control in her life.”

Their personal relationship mirrored their television one. Dawber said she considered Schaeffer a sister. She mentored her and even invited her to move into her home in LA where Dawber lived with Mark Harmon, her then-boyfriend, now husband. Dawber said that “We just kind of fell into this sisterly thing, . . . Cause I’d had a sister. My sister passed away when she was 22 and I was 25. And so having another young girl in the house was something I was very comfortable with. It was good for us.”

Pam Dawber’s production company, Pony Productions, developed the show created by Stephen Fischer. The screenplay was written by Fischer and Diane English. Dawber wanted to base her character a bit on Mindy from Mork and Mindy. She said that she was “not a comedian. I’m a reactor to all the zany people who revolve around me.” English and Mimi Weber took on the producer role, with the show filmed at The Burbank Studio. English would go on to write for Murphy Brown.

The theme song, which I admit I don’t remember, was called “Room Enough for Two,” and it was written by Steve Dorff and John Bettis. Kim Carnes, who had a hit with “Betty Davis Eyes,” sang the song. Dorff later was the composer for Murphy Brown and Murder She Wrote. Bettis worked on The Godfather, Part III and Star Trek V.

The show had a great time slot between Kate and Allie and Newhart on Monday nights. It ranked 21 overall. Of course, the networks rarely leave well enough alone, so they moved the show to Saturday nights opposite The Facts of Life. The end of the second season found the show down 50 points at 71overall. The network was toying with canceling the show, but after receiving a lot of fan letters, they brought it back in March of 1988. It moved to Tuesday nights and the ratings increased. However, the ratings did not stay that high, probably because the competition was Who’s the Boss and Matlock. In April, CBS canceled it outright, leaving 12 unaired episodes.

Sadly, a year after the show was canceled, Schaeffer was murdered in her home by an obsessed fan. After living with Pam, Schaeffer got her own place. She was living in West Hollywood when she was killed. Dawber said she told Schaeffer not to put her real name on her mailbox. Dawber had a scare with a stalker earlier in her career, and she learned not to put her real address on her driver’s license or anything that a fan could track you down with. Schaeffer didn’t listen and her name was on her mailbox.

The man who killed her, Robert Bardo, said he saw her in a promo in 1986 and began watching the show. He sent her fan letters. At one point, he flew from Arizona to LA to the studio to look for her. He took gifts to the studio several times, but studio security always stopped him. Bardo returned to Arizona. After the show was canceled, Schaeffer took on several movie roles which were very different from her role as Patti. One love scene enraged Bardo. Bardo was stopped from buying a gun due to mental health issues. He convinced his brother to buy him one for target practice. Then he boarded a bus to LA. He hired a private detective to find Schaeffer’s address; the detective located it through the Department of Motor Vehicles.

One morning Schaeffer was waiting for delivery of a script of The Godfather III for an audition with Francis Ford Coppola. Bardo rang her bell, and she answered thinking it was the delivery person. He introduced himself and told her she had sent him a card and photo after receiving fan mail. She explained she was busy that day, so he went to a local diner. He returned to her house, and she said he was wasting his time expecting any relationship with her. Then he shot her point blank. He got away and returned to Tucson but was apprehended a day later after running in and out of traffic, shouting that he was the one who killed Rebecca Schaeffer.

Dawber was filled with grief and anger. She reunited with the cast of My Sister Sam for a Public Service Announcement for gun control, and she testified before Congress for stricter gun laws. After Schaeffer’s death, California passed an anti-stalking law in 1990. Now all fifty states have one on the books. Bardo was sent to California where he was found guilty of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

My Sister Sam was a ground-breaking show having women in so many of the critical roles. During the Chicago Tribune interview, Dawber said that “the significant thing is that My Sister Sam is a show about women that is run by women. . . . Not only are three of our five regular cast members women, but we have a female executive producer, two writer-producers, and a director. It really wasn’t intentional. It just happened that way.”

It would have been interesting to see how the show fared if it had kept its original time slot and the plots that would have been written as Patti became an adult. Did she begin to resemble her sister more or did she keep her carefree personality? And would her sister adopt some of her less serious traits? Almost every review I read about the show said it was genuinely funny, adorable, relatable, etc. With all the moving around the schedule and “is it on the air or not” decisions, only 44 episodes were created, so there aren’t enough for syndication or DVDs.

And of course, it’s devastating what happened to Rebecca Schaeffer. She was a rising star, and you have to wonder what type of career she would have had if she had lived more than 22 years. Dawber had to experience the death of another sister much too young to die. I’m glad a lot of laws came out of the experience, but it was such a brutal murder. Now, 35 years later, our country is still dealing with devastating murders because not enough laws have been created.

Leslie Nielsen: Always One to Let ‘er Rip

April 29, 2024March 29, 2024 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

In this last blog in our series of Supportive Men, today’s actor might not be someone most people expect to see when talking about television. When most people think about Leslie Nielsen, they think of Airplane! and some of his other movies. While he did have a prolific movie career, he also has a well-deserved place in television. This guy amassed 259 (150 in television) acting credits during his six-decade long career.

Nielsen was born in Saskatchewan, Canada in 1926. His mother was from Wales, and his father was a Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman. His older brother served in politics, being a Canadian Member of Parliament, a cabinet minister, and a Deputy Prime Minister of Canada. I read several sources that said his father was abusive, and Leslie wanted to move out as soon as possible.

Leslie enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force, serving until the end of WWII. He was legally deaf, wearing hearing aids most of his life, but he was able to train as an aerial gunner.

After the war, he worked as a disc jockey in Calgary, Alberta before enrolling at the Lorne Greene Academy of Radio Arts in Toronto. He was offered a scholarship at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York.

He made five television appearances in 1950 with the first being on The Actor’s Studio. He continued working in television, primarily on dramatic theater series, through the 1950s. In 1956, he had his first big-screen roles, appearing in four movies that year including Ransom, Forbidden Planet, The Vagabond King, (Nielsen later referred to this film as the “Vagabond Turkey”) and The Opposite Sex.

Leslie discussed his role in Forbidden Planet: “Supposedly a science fiction version of Shakespeare’s The Tempest . . . The Trekkies today regard it as the forerunner of Star Trek. I just had to wear a tight uniform and make eyes at Anne Francis. I was pretty thin back then.”

He became an American citizen in 1958 but continued to be proud of his Canadian citizenship as well.

While most of his credits for the late fifties were movies, he jumped back into television in the sixties, appearing in forty different shows. Many of them were dramatic theater roles, but you can spot him in Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Route 66, Wagon Train, Daniel Boone, The Wild Wild West, Dr. Kildare, Bonanza, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., and Gunsmoke. His only recurring role during this decade was on Peyton Place where he played Kenneth and Vincent Markham in 18 episodes.

The seventies were almost a repeat of the sixties. His recurring role was on The Bold Ones. He also appeared in Medical Center, Mod Squad, M*A*S*H, Barnaby Jones, Hawaii Five-0, Kojak, Columbo, and The Love Boat.

1980 brought him the role of Dr. Rumack on Airplane!. Nelson’s deadpan delivery of lines in that movie is what most fans today remember about his career. Of course, his response to the line of “Surely you can’t be serious?” of “I am serious. And don’t call me Shirley” is still repeated today. Leslie said, “he was pleased and honored that he had a chance to deliver that line.” Film critic Roger Ebert once called him “the Laurence Olivier of spoofs.”

He continued in these types of roles in Police Squad and Naked Gun and the sequels. His movie roles increased in the eighties and nineties, but he continued to accept television roles off and on. You can catch him on Murder She Wrote, Highway to Heaven, Who’s the Boss, The Golden Girls, and Evening Shade.

His roles continued throughout the 2000s until his death, but the last decade included fewer memorable shows, although he worked less overall. When reflecting on this, Neilsen said that “I’m afraid if I don’t keep moving, they’re going to catch me . . . I am 81 years old, and I want to see what’s around the corner, and I don’t see any reason in the world not to keep working. But I am starting to value my down time a great deal because I am realizing there might be other things to do that I am overlooking.”

While Nielsen was very successful in his career, he was not as successful with his marriages. From 1950-56, he was married to Monica Boyar. His longest relationship was with wife Alisande Ullman from 1958-1973. He then married Brooks Oliver for two years from 1981-83 and then Barbaree Earl from 2001-2010.

One of his hobbies was golfing, and he later did some humorous instruction videos about the sport. He once said, “I have no goals or ambition. I do, however, wish to work enough to maintain whatever celebrity status I have so that they will continue to invite me to golf tournaments.”

Nielsen died in his sleep in 2010 from pneumonia.

He received two Walk of Fame stars: one in Hollywood in 1988 and one in Toronto in 2001. Nielsen was known for his flatulence gags, especially on movie sets, and his tombstone says “Let ‘er Rip.”

While Nielsen’s career is impressive, what I loved most about him is that he seemed to thoroughly enjoy life. That’s a great reminder for us all. Our best role should be enjoying life to the best of our ability.

Dick Van Patten: He Was Enough

April 8, 2024March 29, 2024 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

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, Robin Hood: 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 She Wrote, 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.

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.”

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.

Cesar Romero: Batman’s Most Joy-Filled Villain

March 25, 2024February 17, 2024 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

We are winding up our series: Bam! Pow! Batman Villains. Today it’s all about The Joker: Cesar Romero.

Romero was born in New York City in 1907. His father was an import/export merchant, and his mother was a concert singer. He grew up in Bradley Beach, New Jersey. His father lost most of his money during the 1929 Wall Street Crash.

Romero teamed up with dancer Lisbeth Higgins and they formed a professional dance partnership, appearing in nightclubs and theaters throughout New York City including the Ambassador Roof and the Montmartre Café. Although he had no professional training, he was often compared to Fred Astaire. He also was cast in several off-Broadway productions including “Stella Brady” and “Dinner at Eight.”

Later Romero would refer to himself as the Latin from Manhattan and he provided for his family members who followed him to Hollywood. He played the stereotypical Latin lover during the thirties and forties, including The Devil is a Woman with Marlene Dietrich in 1935. However, he also made westerns and did a bit of dancing during these decades on the big screen.

His friendship with Frank Sinatra brought him roles in Around the World in 80 Days, Pepe, Marriage on the Rocks, and Oceans’ 11.

In 1942, Cesar enlisted in the US Coast Guard, serving in the Pacific Theater of Operations. After his military career ended, Romero returned to his acting career.

His television career began in 1948 in the show, Variety. During the fifties he was primarily appearing on dramas, but he did show up on Private Secretary with Ann Sothern and continued his western roles on Wagon Train, Zorro, and Death Valley Days.

The sixties kept him extremely busy on television. He kept people laughing on Pete and Gladys, The Ann Sothern Show, Get Smart, and Here’s Lucy. He rode the range on Stagecoach West, Bonanza, Rawhide, and Daniel Boone. He stayed dramatic on shows including 77 Sunset Strip, Dr. Kildare, and Ben Casey.

However, the show he was best known for in the sixties, is the show that made him part of my blog series this month, Batman. He had to endure a long time in the make-up chair. He refused to shave his mustache for the role, so white face makeup was smeared all over his face until it was hidden.

Romero admitted that this role reinvigorated his career. When he was offered the role of the Joker, he was 59 years old. Romero said the role was “the kind of part where you can do everything you’ve been told not to do as an actor. You can be as hammy as you want.”

He discussed how surprised he was when William Dozier called him about the show. He said Dozier told him that “the important characters were all villains. They had done the first two with the Riddler and the Penguin with Frank Gorshin and Burgess Meredith, and now they were ready to do the third, and the villain was the Joker. He said, ‘I would like you to play the part.’ So, I said I would like to read the script and know what it is all about. He said, ‘Come on over to the studio, and I will show you the film of the first episode.’ Of course, it was great. I said, ‘Let me read this Joker part, and if it is as good as the first one, hell yes, I will do it.’ So I read the script, and I thought it was a gas, and I said, ‘Sure, I’ll do it.’”

No serious villain, the Joker was cheerful and extroverted. He oozed goofiness and always appeared to be having a great time carrying out his nefarious activities. Dressed in his famous purple costume, he had his own automobile that could rival the Batmobile.

While most of the villains saw Batman and Robin as roadblocks in their evil schemes and problems to take care of, the Joker found great joy in taking down the superheroes. In one episode he says “Oh, but I must, I must! Why, outwitting Batman is my sole delight, my heaven on earth, my very paradise!”

You couldn’t miss him if you watched almost any television in the 1970s and 1980s. He appeared on a ton of shows, just a few of which included Bewitched, Nanny and the Professor, Love American Style, The Love Boat, Night Gallery, Mod Squad, Ironside, Medical Center, Charlie’s Angels, and Hart to Hart.

From 1985-88, he was a regular on Falcon Crest. Earl Hamner Jr., the creator of The Waltons, created this show featuring the Gioberti family, owners of Falcon Crest Winery. Romero played the love interest of matriarch Angela Channing, played by Jane Wyman.

He finished his career in the 1990s. He was in his eighties when he appeared on The Golden Girls, and Murder She Wrote, his last television role.

Romero also played a role in politics. As a registered Republican, he was very involved in many campaigns. He worked for Nixon-Lodge in 1960 and later supported Lodge in his run for President. When Lodge did not get the results that he hoped for, Romero turned his support to Barry Goldwater for the general election. He also worked for his friend George Murphy in his run in the California senate race. He later helped Ronald Reagan in his gubernatorial runs in California as well as his presidential campaigns.

It was reported in many articles that Romero had 30 tuxedos and more than 500 suits. That is not surprising because he had a clothing line, Cesar Romero Ltd. He was also a model and spokesperson for Petrocelli suits in the sixties.

Romero stopped acting in 1990. He remained busy though with several ventures including hosting classic movie programs on television. In 1994, Romero died from complications of a blood clot on New Year’s Day. He was being treated for bronchitis and pneumonia.

I enjoyed getting to know a bit more about Cesar Romero, but, I have to admit, that I don’t feel like I know him much better than I did before. He seemed to have been stereotyped as a Latin lover and then again as the Joker. I would like to go back and watch some of his appearances on westerns. It was hard to find much information about Romero beyond his career and political interests.

I know The Joker was not his most challenging role, but he will always have a place in America’s heart for the work he did on Batman as will these fun super villains we got to know this month.

Frank Gorshin: Batman’s Most Puzzling Villain

March 18, 2024March 18, 2024 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

This month, our theme is Bam! Pow! Batman Villains. We have learned a bit about the careers of the Joker and Cat Woman, and today we are spending some time with the Riddler, portrayed by Frank Gorshin.

Gorshin started out as an impressionist and comedian before transitioning into acting.

Frank was born in Pittsburgh in 1933 into a blue-collar, middle-class family. His mom was a seamstress, and his father was a railroad worker. His paternal grandparents arrived in the US from Slovenia and his mother was born in Slovenia, coming to the Pittsburgh area as a young girl; his parents were very involved in the Slovenian community, both singing with the Preseren, a Slovenian singing society.

When he was 15, Gorshin got a part-time job as an usher at the Sheridan Square Theatre. He studied the mannerisms of the actors he watched in those movies and developed an impressionist act. Some of his favorite actors to mimic included James Cagney, Cary Grant, Al Jolson, and Edward Robinson. After entering a talent contest in 1951, he won a week-long engagement at the Carousel nightclub in New York.

Sadly, Gorshin’s older brother was hit by a car two days before and died. His parents convinced him to keep his performance schedule and sent him to New York.

After high school, Gorshin enrolled at the Carnegie Tech School of Drama (now Carnegie Mellon University).

At age 20, Frank was drafted into the US Army and sent to Germany. He was an entertainer in Special Services for a year and a half. When Gorshin left the Army, he began his acting career, appearing in four movies and on television in Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

I can’t imagine the horror Gorshin’s parents felt when getting a call in 1957 that their son had fallen asleep while driving from Pittsburgh to Hollywood, a 39-hour trip for a screen test. With their other son passing away from a car crash six years earlier, now they had to deal with the fact that their other son was in a coma with a fractured skull. Luckily, he made a full recovery.

Another big event occurring in 1957 was his marriage to Christina Randazzo. They had a son and separated later in life, but they never did divorce as far as I could tell.

Until his death, Gorshin would appear in more than sixty big-screen films. During the fifties, he only appeared in a handful of television series, but that would change in the 1960s. Some of the most memorable shows included The Defenders, The Munsters, Star Trek, and The High Chapparal. With his comedy act, he visited The Ed Sullivan Show four times. The first time he did his impressionist act on the series, he would be scheduled with this new band called The Beatles.

The sixties also found him on Batman, his reason for being in this month’s blog series. He said that he developed a fiendish laugh at Hollywood parties. “I listened to myself laugh and discovered that the funniest jokes brought out the high-pitched giggle that I use on the show. With further study, I came to realize that it wasn’t so much how I laughed as what I laughed at that created the sense of the menace.”

He did not love the unitards that many of the comic book villains wore, so he asked for a green business suit and bowler hat, covered with question marks since he always left riddles for Batman and Robin to solve. He often said “Riddle me this, Batman” which became a catchphrase of the mid-sixties.

Gorshin said “When I was first approached to play the Riddler, I thought it was a joke. Then I discovered the show had a good script and agreed to do the role. Now I am in love with the character.”

Gorshin was the only villain to be nominated for an Emmy. He got the nod in 1966 for the episode “Hi Diddle Riddle.” He had some tough competition, going against Werner Klemperer as Colonel Klink on Hogan’s Heroes, Morey Amsterdam on The Dick Van Dyke Show, and winner Don Knotts on The Andy Griffith Show.

Gorshin was in ten episodes of the show, but after appearing numerous times, he was unavailable, and the producers replaced him with John Astin. I realized hindsight is 20/20 as they say, so the producers were never considering the effect the show would have on pop culture and the decades it would be a fan favorite, but that switch seems extreme. However, they did it with Julie Newmar and Eartha Kitt as well, so maybe they figured if you have to replace a villain, let’s replace them with someone very different from the original. Gorshin, however, was not a fan of being replaced but did get over it enough to accept his tenth episode role in season three and appeared as Riddler in the 1979 made-for-television movie Legends of the Superheroes.

Frank made his Broadway debut in 1969 in the musical biography, “Jimmy” which was about the controversial life of New York mayor Jimmy Walker.

Gorshin was very busy in the seventies and eighties. Among the twenty plus shows he appeared on were The Virginian, Martin and Rowan’s Laugh In, Ironside, Hawaii Five-0, Charlie’s Angels, and Murder She Wrote.

In the last three decades of his life, he spent more time making big-screen films. One thing I found surprising is that Gorshin appeared in three soap operas, all at different times in his career: General Hospital in 1963, The Edge of Night in 1982, and The Bold and the Beautiful in 1999.

In the early 2000s, Gorshin did a one-man Broadway show, portraying George Burns. He was reunited with his Batman cast in a made-for-tv movie, Return to the Batcave: The Misadventures of Adam and Burt. His last appearance was on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation on “Grave Danger” on which he played himself. The episode was directed by Quentin Tarantino and was dedicated to Gorshin.

Unfortunately, Gorshin was a heavy smoker throughout his life. Adam West once said that “Frank could reduce a cigarette to ash with one draw” and his nightclub performances warned patrons they would be exposed to a lot of second-hand smoke if they attended. Not surprisingly, he died from lung cancer, complicated by emphysema and pneumonia.

I enjoyed getting to know Frank Gorshin in this blog. While I was much more familiar with the careers of Burgess Meredith and Julie Newmar, Gorshin and Cesar Romero are actors I knew very little about. I hope you are also enjoying getting to know these fun “villains.”

Eddie Albert: The John Muir of Hollywood

October 2, 2023November 20, 2022 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

This month we are looking at some of our favorite classic television actors. If you are a big fan of Oklahoma or Green Acres, you will be well acquainted with our star today, Eddie Albert. Let’s learn a bit more about his life and career.

Eddie was born Edward Albert Heimberger in 1906 in Illinois. When he was one, his family moved to Minneapolis. When he was six, he became a paper boy. He and his schoolmate, Harriet Lake, were in the drama club. Harriet would later change her name to Ann Sothern. After graduating in 1926, Albert enrolled at the University of Minnesota to major in business.

He began his career in earnest, but the stock market crash derailed his job search. He worked a variety of jobs including singer, trapeze artist, and insurance salesman.

In 1933 he moved to New York City and cohosted a radio show called “The Honeymooners-Grace and Eddie Show,” with costar Grace Bradt. He was on the show three years and then Warner Brothers offered him a contract.

Albert also had an early career on Broadway with lead roles in “Room Service” and “The Boys From Syracuse.” He also began working on television. In 1936, NBC hosted a play of his “The Love Nest” on their experimental television station W2XBS, now WNBC.

His first movie role occurred in 1938 in Brother Rat. He would make 25 additional films during the next decade and then another 50 big-screen movies before his career ended, with his last one being the Narrator in Death Valley Days in 1995.

During his odd-job era, Albert had toured Mexico as a clown and trapeze artist with the Escalante Brother Circus while working for the US Army intelligence, photographing German boats in Mexican harbors. In 1942, he enlisted in the US Coast Guard. In 1943, he resigned in order to accept an offer as a lieutenant in the US Naval Reserve. He rescued 47 marines under heavy enemy fire in 1943 and was awarded a Bronze Star.

After returning from the War, Albert married Mexican actress, Margo. Their son also became an actor and their daughter took on the role of Eddie’s business manager. His son had more than 130 credits, the first being in 1963. You probably saw him on many of your favorite shows. Unfortunately, he passed away from lung cancer only a year after his father died.

During the late forties to the early sixties, Albert returned to Broadway for roles in “Miss Liberty,” “The Seven-Year Itch,” and “The Music Man.”

Albert had a long and active television career. During the fifty years that he was working in the industry, he appeared in almost 100 different shows. His first appearance was in the Ford Theater Hour in 1948.

Throughout the fifties, Eddie showed up in many of the early drama series on television. The sixties found him, along with most other actors of that decade, showing up on a variety of westerns, including Laramie, Tales of West Fargo, The Virginian, and Wagon Train. He was offered roles in several dramas as well, including Dr. Kildare, The Outer Limits, and The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

In 1965 he received the starring role of Oliver Douglas in Green Acres. For six seasons, he extolled the virtues of farming over the big city rat race. While Oliver had a harder time fitting into Hooterville life, his elegant wife Lisa was accepted immediately. If you have been reading my blog for a while, you know I love this show. I am more impressed with it now, fifty years later. There is so much sophisticated humor and wit in the show and I love getting to know the quirky characters who live in the Hooterville community. As Oliver Douglas, Albert was also on The Beverly Hillbillies and Petticoat Junction. The show was purged with the other rural comedies, even though the ratings were still quite high.

The seventies and eighties kept Albert busy on television and in films. He appeared on many shows including Columbo, McCloud, Here’s Lucy, Simon & Simon, Hotel, Murder She Wrote, and thirtysomething.

He opted to star in one more television series in Switch from 1975-78. He starred as ex-cop Frank McBride who started a detective agency with ex-con Pete Ryan (Robert Wagner).

Much of Eddie’s life was spent as an activist for social and environmental causes. He participated in the first Earth Day. He founded the Eddie Albert World Trees Foundation and was national chairman for the Boys Scouts of America’s conservation program. From 1985-1993, he was the spokesperson for the National Arbor Day Foundation. He was a trustee of the National Recreation and Park Association and became a member of the U.S. Department of Energy’s advisory board.

In addition, he was involved with Meals for Millions and was a consultant for the World Hunger Conference. Meals for Millions was a project that created nutritional meals for three cents each! They were sent to 129 different countries and added up to more than 6.5 million pounds of food. He and Albert Schweitzer participated in a documentary about malnutrition in Africa, and he often campaigned against DDT. He was also a director for the U.S. Council on Refugees and promoted organic gardening. Albert was also the founder of City Children’s Farms, a program to get inner-city kids involved in gardening.

I’m not sure when he had any other time for leisure and recreation, but he loved jogging, swimming, golfing, traveling, sculpting, beekeeping, sailing, reading, making wine, gardening, and playing guitar.

He 1995, Albert was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. His son temporarily retired from acting to care for his father. In 2005, Eddie passed away from pneumonia.

When Albert passed away, we lost much more than an actor, although we did lose a great actor. I was so impressed with how much he did for the economy. He told a great story about his former costar Eva Gabor. She loved her fashion. They were great friends and like any couple, married or not, they had their differences. She never understood his passion for wildlife conservation. She asked him, “Every time you hear about a sick fish, you make a speech, vy?” And he patiently explained that we needed to preserve nature and save wild animals. A few days later she showed up in a gown made of feathers. He told her she should not be wearing it, and she said it was so chic. Albert told her that she was a role model, and when other women saw her gown, they would want one and many birds would die just to supply the feathers. Lisa just laughed and seriously said, “But Eddie, feathers don’t come from birds.” So he asked her where they did come from and she said, “Dahlink, Pillows! Feathers come from pillows.” In addition to being a great actor and an amazing activist, he was also a good and patient friend.

Not Anyone Can Pull a Stunt Like This

May 15, 2023May 12, 2023 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

Since this month is a Potpourri Month, I thought it might be fun to look at the career of stuntmen on television. I’m calling this one “Propourri” because you have to be well trained to do these types of stunts.

Left to right: stuntmen Bob Miles, Bob Herron, Whitey Hughes, actor Michael Dunn, stuntman John Hudkins, Bill Shannon, and actor Quintin Sondergaard. Photo: famousfix.com

A stuntman or stuntwoman is a person who performs dangerous action sequences in a movie or television show. They have usually had extensive training to do these perilous moves safely. Sometimes they are hired as a team with a stunt crew, rigging coordinator, and special effects coordinator.

Stuntmen like Evel Knievel are daredevils who perform for a live audience. If someone fills in for a specific actor all the time, they are stunt doubles. So, what type of stunts do these professionals perform? Sometimes it’s car crashes, explosions, fights, or falls.

The first stuntmen to entertain audiences were performers who traveled around, often in circuses. Later these types of performers worked with Buffalo Bill and in shows that celebrated the Old West.

Today we are going to concentrate on television performers. Currently, stunt professionals must be certified to obtain the insurance producers need to obtain.

The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences now awards Emmys for stunt coordinators but there is no Oscar for this work.

Life-threatening injuries are not uncommon in this work and sadly, deaths do still occur. While most of my research found stuntmen killed in movies, I only found one relating to television. In 1985, Reid Rondell was killed in a helicopter explosion filming Airwolf.

I thought it would be fun to look at the careers of a few stuntmen from the golden age of television. Most of these men made their money in films, but all three of them had successful careers working on television shows as well.

Whitey Hughes

Whitey Hughes was born in 1920 in Arkoma, Oklahoma. He grew up on a farm, so in addition to working with plows and horse teams, he learned to break horses with his father. When he was sixteen, the family moved to Los Angeles. After graduating from high school, Whitey became a Screen Actors Guild member in 1947.

Whitey began his movie career in 1946. During the fifties, he worked on a lot of western films. Hughes said that in the early part of his career, he often had to be a double for the leading lady. (We’ll come back to this subject later in the blog.) He did stunt work for a variety of actresses including Anne Baxter, Rita Hayworth, Barbara Hershey, Virginia Mayo, Stephanie Powers, and Lana Turner.

Speaking of women, one of the roles, Whitey loved best was being the husband of Dotti; they were married for seventy years.

During the fifties, Whitey worked on a lot of westerns including Cheyenne. In the sixties, you would see him on Rawhide or as Kurt Russell’s double on The Magical World of Disney. If you want to see him in action, the best show to watch would be The Wild Wild West; his crew did some amazing things on that show and Whitey coordinated the stunt work for 1965-1968.

The eighties found him in Fantasy Island, Wonder Woman, and BJ and the Bear while in the nineties he was part of Little House on the Prairie and The Fall Guy. His last work was in a movie in 1998. In 2009, Whitey died in his sleep. It is good he died peacefully; I can’t imagine the toll that this type of work took on his body for fifty years.

Hal Needham

Hal Needham was born in 1931 in Memphis, Tennessee. He served as a paratrooper in the US Army during the Korean War. After the war, he worked as an arborist doing tree-topping services. He was also the billboard model for Viceroy Cigarettes while he was trying to establish his career in Hollywood.

Hal’s first big job was the stunt double for Richard Boone on Have Gun, Will Travel. From 1957-63 he was in 225 episodes. During the sixties, he would show up in many television series including Laramie, Wagon Train, Laredo, The Wild, Wild West, Star Trek, Gunsmoke, Big Valley, and Mannix.

Hal was the highest-paid stuntman in the world. That seems fitting because during his career he broke 56 bones, broke his back twice, punctured a lung, and lost a few teeth.

Needham was responsible for wrecking hundreds of cars, fell from many buildings, was dragged by horses, perfected boat stunts and was the first human to test the car airbag.

He revolutionized the work of stuntmen and worked to get his craft recognized and appreciated. He mentored up-and-coming professionals.

His career transitioned from a stuntman to a stunt coordinator to a second unit director to a director. In all, he would work on 4500 television episodes and in 310 films, according to imdb.com. He made his directing debut on a movie he wrote called Smokey and the Bandit with Burt Reynolds and would go on to direct Hooper and The Cannonball Run for Reynolds among other series and films.

In 1977 Gabriel Toys debuted the Hal Needham Western Movie Stunt Set with a cardboard saloon movie set, lights, props, a movie camera, and an action figure that could break through a balcony railing, break a table and crash through the window. They have become highly collectible.

Needham owned a NASCAR race team. He also set a Guinness World Record as the financier and owner of the Budweiser Rocket Car which is now on display at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.

He also managed to win both an Emmy and an Oscar. Reynolds and Needham were close friends; Needham lived in Reynold’s guest house for 12 years and their relationship was used as the basis for the plot in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Bob Herron

Bob Herron was born in 1924 in California. When his parents divorced, he moved to Hawaii with his father. The swimming and high diving he did there was a boost to his stunt career. His mother married Ace Hudkins who was a supplier of horses to the movie industry. Herron helped his stepfather in this business before enlisting in the Navy.

In 1950 he began doing stunt work. His first job was on Rocky Mountain with Errol Flynn and he was shot off horses. This would be a piece of cake compared to his role in Oklahoma Crude where he fell 55 feet from the top of an oil derrick into a stack of boxes.

In the sixties, he began his stunt work on television. He was in Gunsmoke, I Spy, I Dream of Jeannie, The Man from UNCLE, The Girl from UNCLE, Star Trek, Mission Impossible, Get Smart, and Bonanza. He doubled for Ross Martin in The Wild, Wild West. During the seventies, he appeared on Petrocelli, Little House on the Prairie, Marcus Welby, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Rockford Files, Kojak, and Charlie’s Angels among other shows. He was still going in the eighties doing his stunts on Hart to Hart, Magnum PI, Remington Steele, the Dukes of Hazzard, Matt Houston, Airwolf, The A-Team, and MacGyver. Despite being almost seventy, he continued in the nineties on shows like Father Dowling’s Murder Mysteries, The Wonder Years, and Murder She Wrote.

I did smile a bit to see shows like I Dream of Jeannie and The Mary Tyler Moore Show on this list. The Jeannie episode is one where she brings her great-grandfather to Cocoa Beach to show Tony how to desalinate water and the Mary episode is one where Sue Anne falls in love with someone who doesn’t return the feelings. I guess it proves you never know where a stunt person will show up.

I don’t know how he managed to survive sixty years performing dangerous stunts but he must have been in amazing physical shape.

I did promise to come back to men having to double for women in the forties and fifties. Thankfully, that is no longer the case, and women’s numbers are increasing among the 3400 stunt performers in SAG.

Former gymnast Shauna Duggins did the hard fighting work in Jennifer Garner’s show Alias. Because pay is determined by union contracts, stuntwomen do not suffer from the pay discrimination that sometimes shows up in the industry. Stunt performers are paid a minimum of $1005 for one day of work and they can negotiate higher pay based on their experience.

Shauna Duggins and Jennifer Garner
Photo: broadwayworld.com

Duggins was at the University of California Davis when she first thought about being a stuntwoman. She learned more about martial arts and spent hours working out in gyms after graduation. In 2000 she auditioned for stunt work in The X Files as Krista Allen’s double and got the job. Then she was in Charlie’s Angels for Kelly Lynch and Cameron Diaz.

It was after that movie that she got the role on Alias where she worked for five years. To protect these women, SAG has a 24/7 hotline for performers to phone if they feel they have been the victim of sexual abuse.

In 2018 Duggins won an Emmy after twenty years in the business. Her advice to young women who decide to make this their career: “train as much as you can in various skills. Go to different gyms with stunt performers, train with all of them and just learn from each other.”

I’m glad we took some time to learn about the tough and dangerous job these performers do. It was so interesting to learn a little bit about some of these industry stars.

Morgan Fairchild: Queen of the Soap Operas

April 17, 2023November 11, 2022 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

This week we are finishing up our “Supportive Women” blog series. If you watched a lot of television in the sixties and seventies, you will remember today’s blog star very well: Morgan Fairchild.

Morgan Fairchild was born Patsy Ann McClenny in 1950 in Dallas, Texas. In grade school, she was too shy to read her book report in class, so her mother, an English teacher, signed her up for drama lessons. At age ten, she began performing in dinner theater and stock productions in Dallas which led to several local commercials.

In 1967 she married Jack Calmes; they would divorce in 1973.

In 1967, a young Morgan was hired as a double for Faye Dunaway in Bonnie and Clyde. At age 20 she was cast in her first movie where we could see her face, A Bullet for a Pretty Boy. She would receive roles for another 35 big-screen features during her career.

However, most of her work was on the small screen. Her first role was Jennifer Pace on Search for Tomorrow. She stayed with that show for four years but she would come back to soap operas on and off throughout her acting time and could be seen on The Bold and The Beautiful, Days of Our Lives, General Hospital, and most recently as Sydney Chase in The City in 1996. Most of her roles were the stereotype of an elegant and wealthy woman who will do whatever it takes to get what she wants.

In between work on soap operas, Morgan showed up on many of the most popular shows as a guest star or regular cast member. In 1976 she was on Kojak. After her time on Search for Tomorrow, during the 1970s she appeared on other dramas including Police Woman, Barnaby Jones, and Dallas and on sitcoms like The Bob Newhart Show, Happy Days, and Mork and Mindy.

During the 1980s she did make a few guest appearances on The Love Boat, Simon and Simon, Magnum PI, and Hotel. Morgan received an Emmy nomination for her appearance on Murphy Brown in 1989. However, it was during this decade that Fairchild was a regular cast member on three different shows: Flamingo Road, Paper Dolls, and Falcon Crest (attorney Jordan Roberts), all night-time soap operas.

Flamingo Road was based on a novel written in 1949. It features the small town of Truro, Florida. The wealthy citizens live on Flamingo Road in their mansions, while the lower classes do what they have to do to make that street their address. Morgan played a woman with one of the longest names on television: Constance Weldon Semple Carlyle. After two years, the show was done.

Paper Dolls was about the modeling world. Fairchild played Racine, an agent, and the show is about the jobs that her models take on including a perfume company that uses her models exclusively. The series only lasted for thirteen episodes.

Morgan played Jordan Roberts, an attorney, on Falcon Crest. This long-running drama from 1981-90 featured the Gioberti family who operates the Falcon Crest Winery in California.

In the nineties, she appeared on a variety of shows including Roseanne, Empty Nest, Murder She Wrote, Diagnosis Murder, Cybill, and Home Improvement.

Her career continued during the 2000s where you could see her on Dharma and Greg and Hot in Cleveland, as well as five appearances on Friends as Chandler Bing’s mother Nora. She also had another series, Fashion House, in 2006 as Sophia Blakely. The concept of the show was another fashion-themed one where a ruthless executive played by Bo Derek defends her company against a hostile takeover.

With so many movie channels, we forget today that for a few decades we could not watch movies on television. The networks came up with a solution: made-for-tv movies, and Morgan was a queen of the genre with thirty movies and six miniseries.

Morgan has continued to stay busy. She has two finished productions listed on imdb that have not been released yet.

Fairchild has used her platform as a celebrity to advocate for AIDS research, the pro-choice movement, and many environmental issues. She collects movie memorabilia, especially Marilyn Monroe items, and antique clothing. She seems to have had a long-lasting career. It would have been fun to see her star in a sitcom instead of just playing ruthless women who just care about fame and money.

Orson Bean Likes to Tell the Truth

February 6, 2023February 5, 2023 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

This month we are looking back at a few of the game show celebrities from To Tell the Truth. These are four individuals who were stars in their own right before they did the game show circuit. Although I know the game shows were typically at the end of their illustrious careers, for better or worse, it is how most of us know these interesting personalities.

We are beginning the month with Orson Bean. Bean expressed the sentiment I was discussing above by saying that the was a “neocelebrity,” someone who is famous for being famous for his appearances on prime-time game shows. While I agree with this conclusion, part of what I want us to learn today is why he is a memorable star even without the game show fame.

Bean was born in 1928 in Vermont as Dallas Frederick Burrows. Silent Cal Coolidge was a first cousin twice removed. His father was one of the founding members of the ACLU and chief of police on the Harvard campus. When Bean was sixteen, his mother committed suicide, and he left home.

Bean attended the Rindge Technical School in Massachusetts, and after graduation, he joined the army and was sent to Japan. He spent some time at the HB Studio in New York, studying drama. After returning to the US, Bean began working as a stage musician before trying his hand at stand-up comedy in the early fifties.

Bean tells a fun story about how he came up with his stage name on The Tonight Show. When he was performing at a nightclub in Boston, the piano player would give him a different silly name to use every night. One night it was Orson Bean, and it went over great with the crowd.

In 1952 Bean started his radio career with an appearance on The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street. When the show was renewed for 13 weeks, Bean was the full-time host.

In 1954 he was the house comedian at the Blue Angel Comedy Club in New York. Unfortunately, Bean was dating a girl who was a member of the Communist Party, and he was blacklisted as well. Ed Sullivan canceled his appearance on his show; he did later book him years later for five different episodes.

In 1956 Bean married Jacqueline de Sibour (stage name Rain Winslow). They had one child before divorcing in 1962.

In the fifties and sixties, Orson also was a regular on the Broadway stage. His first production was Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter with Walter Matthau and Jayne Mansfield. He continued on Broadway shows throughout the sixties, getting a Tony nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Musical for “Subways Are for Sleeping.”

The Twilight Zone Photo: wikimediacommons.com

It was also during this decade that Bean began appearing on television where he earned 84 acting credits. He started in the many drama and playhouse series that were on television in the fifties and sixties. He also had his fair share of sitcoms including The Phil Silvers Show, Love American Style, Will and Grace, Becker, Two and A Half Men, How I Met Your Mother, and Modern Family. His dramatic appearances included The Twilight Zone, Ellery Queen, The Fall Guy, Murder She Wrote, Diagnosis Murder, and Seventh Heaven. During his career he was a regular cast member on Doctor Quinn Medicine Woman, Normal Ohio, and Desperate Housewives.

In 1965 he tried marriage again to fashion designer and actress Carolyn Maxwell. They had three children before they divorced in 1981.

The same year he married Maxwell, he entered into another new relationship. He was one of the founding members of The Sons of the Desert, an international organization that was started to share information about the lives of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy and to preserve their films.

In 1966 Bean founded the 15^th Street School, a primary school in New York City. It was modeled on the Summerhill School in England.

He also showed up on the big screen for 23 movies, the two-best known being Innerspace in 1987 and Being John Malkovich in 1999.

In the 1970s, Bean moved his family to Australia to live in a commune with a hippie lifestyle. They later became bored and returned to the US where he resumed his career.

Orson was popular on the talk and variety shows. In addition to Ed Sullivan, he appeared on The Mike Douglas Show, The Dick Cavett Show, The David Frost Show, The Merv Griffin Show, and was on The Tonight Show more than 200 times.

With wife Alley Mills Photo: soaphub.com

Bean was a competitor on many game shows including I’ve Got a Secret, What’s My Line, Super Password, Tattletales, $10,000 Pyramid, and Match Game. He was best known for being a regular on To Tell the Truth. In addition to being in 317 episodes of To Tell the Truth with Peggy Cass, the two were also regulars on two other game shows: Keep Talking and Call My Bluff.

In 1993, Bean tried marriage again. He wed Alley Mills, best known as the mom on The Wonder Years. They were married until his death. The couple were members of the First Lutheran Church in LA and participated in the church’s annual production of “A Christmas Carol.”

Bean had a terrible death. In February of 2020 when he was 91, he was crossing Venice Boulevard when he was struck by a car. He fell down and a driver of another vehicle, distracted by people trying to tell him to slow down, hit him again before realizing what they were trying to tell him and that hit caused Bean’s death.

Certainly, game shows were only a small part of this celebrity’s career. However, I admit before I wrote this blog, I only knew him for his To Tell the Truth appearances. Now I have a much better appreciation for his long and successful career. I’m glad we are getting a chance to know some panelists from that show this month in more detail.

Honey West: Quality Over Quantity

November 21, 2022July 31, 2022 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

As we look back at some favorite crime dramas, this week we are traveling back sixty years. From 1965-1966, Honey West appeared in our living rooms. Only thirty episodes were produced, but the show was respected and worth remembering.

The show was based on a novel series. Married couple, Gloria and Forrest “Skip” Fickling wrote the books. Skip had been a gunner in the US Army Air Force. According to Skip, they combined Marilyn Monroe and Mike Hammer for the character of Honey West. The novels were published from the late fifties to 1971, with eleven total.

West was one of the first female private eyes on tv. In an episode of Burke’s Law, Ann Francis showed up as Honey West which led to a spin-off. The series was developed by Gwen Bagni and Paul Dubov, writers on Burke’s Law. Aaron Spelling was listed as the producer.

West has a partner Sam Bolt (John Ericson). Ericson never received another starring role in a series, but he was a successful actor, amassing 105 acting credits.

Honey is an interesting character. She has a hidden radio in her lipstick case, has a pet ocelot named Bruce, a colorful animal-print wardrobe, and a Cobra convertible. She shares an apartment with her Aunt Meg (Irene Hervey) who shows up in about half of the episodes.

West owns her own investigation firm which she inherited from her father. Her base of operations was behind a fake wall in her living room. She’s very smart and experienced in electronic surveillance. Bolt creates many of the gadgets she uses. They go undercover in a specially equipped van which had a sign “H.W. Bolt & Co., TV Service.” She and Sam could be the inspiration behind Maddie and David from Moonlighting.

Like James Bond, or Max Smart, she uses a number of high-tech instruments: an exploding compact, a garter belt gas mask, tear gas earrings. You don’t have to worry about Honey’s safety. Sam is an ex-Marine, and Honey attained a black belt in judo.

Several of the episodes were written by Richard Levinson and William Link who would go on to write for Columbo and Murder, She Wrote.

The show was canceled after the first year for two primary reasons, one understandable and one which makes me shake my head. I understand that the network determined that it would be cheaper to import The Avengers and show it in the time slot. The second reason is a bit harder to understand: the show was in competition with Gomer Pyle USMC and could not hold its own in the ratings war. I say this with great respect to Jim Nabors whom I love and while Gomer Pyle was an ok show, it’s hard for me to picture it as a show that would draw more viewers than a crime drama.

Francis did receive Golden Globe and Best Actress Emmy nominations that year. She was beat out by Barbara Stanwyck for The Big Valley. The show was described as “sexy, sophisticated and delightfully funny.” According to most of the reviews of the DVDs, it holds up very well after sixty years and is still fun to watch.

They had some clever details in the show. There is often at least one instance when the last word of a sentence leads into a funny new scene. The actors often discuss television shows, wondering about their ratings. Honey pulls down an imaginary shade, so viewers won’t watch her sleep. It also had a jazzy theme written by Joseph Mullendore. He had created a lot of the music for Burke’s Law and would go on to provide music for other series, including Land of the Giants and Daniel Boone.

There were several drawbacks mentioned, most notably the lack of color. Not only was color becoming the norm by this time, but Honey West was a show that would have been enhanced by color. It was also criticized for being a 30-minute show. There was not enough time to truly develop both the plot and the characters’ relationships in such a short time.

This show reminds me a bit of Barbara Eden’s show How to Marry a Millionaire and Bachelor Father, starring John Forsythe, in that both debuted in 1957; two series that I thought had clever writing, fun characters, witty dialogue, and elegant interiors. On one hand, it is sad it wasn’t given more of a chance to get established with viewers. On the other hand, it sounds like it has thirty mostly great episodes to watch. Maybe an early cancellation allowed the best shows to be saved. I think about I Dream of Jeannie which was released the same year as Honey West. The shows from the first year are fun to watch. Jeanne is witty, clever, mischievous, and smarter than she lets on. During the following years, the episodes were average at best and often sub-par. If I only had the first year’s episodes to watch, I would not feel like I was missing anything.

For less than $20, you can buy the entire DVD season of Honey West. And if it makes you want to go out and get a pet ocelot, who am I to judge?