Vic Tayback: Cooking Up Some Fun

April 22, 2024March 29, 2024 / thewritelife61 / 4 Comments

This month we are celebrating some of our favorite Supportive Men, actors who usually are not the star of a show but add the special flavor only they can to some of our favorite shows.

Before we move on to our topic today, can I just say a huge THANK YOU to all of you who have joined me on this journey through classic television. Today is my 400th blog and it has been so much fun. Next week will be 401, but for today we are looking at the career of Vic Tayback.

Most of us probably know him best as Mel on Alice; he played Mel Sharples in both the original movie, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, as well as the television show that was on for nine years.

Tayback was born in Brooklyn in 1930. His parents settled there after leaving Aleppo, Syria. During his teenage years, the family moved to California where he attended Burbank High School. He loved sports and played on a variety of teams, his favorite being football.

After high school, he enrolled at Glendale Community College. He also spent some time with the US Navy.

With his love of sports, he decided to attend the Frederick A. Speare School of Radio and TV Broadcasting to be a sports broadcaster. While there he was required to perform in a production of “Stalag 17” for one of his classes. He wasn’t thrilled about doing so, but he realized that he loved making people laugh and decided to switch his career to acting. While trying to break into the industry, he paid his dues driving a cab and working as a bank teller.

📷embarrassingtreasures.com Family Affair

The first of Tayback’s astounding 151 acting credits occurred in 1958 in a little-remembered series, Buckskin. This western was set in Annie O’Connell’s boarding house in Buckskin, Montana in 1880 and the stories were told by ten-year-old Jody. Vic continued to receive a few other appearances on television in the late fifties, as well as two films.

In the sixties, Tayback’s career took off. He would show up on 32 television episodes and 9 big-screen films, including With Six You Get Eggroll with Doris Day and Brian Keith. His tv roles were in comedies such as F-Troop, I Dream of Jeannie, Family Affair, Get Smart, The Monkees, and That Girl. He also could be seen in a variety of dramas that included 77 Sunset Strip, Dr. Kildare, Rawhide, Cimarron Strip, Star Trek, and Mission Impossible.

📷newyorkdailynews.com The Cheap Detective

The sixties also found Vic in the role of groom. In 1963, Tayback married Sheila Barnard, and they remained married until his death.

During the seventies, his appearances escalated to more than forty television series and ten movies. Some of his television shows included Bonanza, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Bewitched, Columbo, Mannix, Ironside, Mod Squad, The Partridge Family, All in the Family, Barney Miller, Cannon, Medical Center, Family, and Hawaii Five-0. His movies included a few genres running from Disney’s The Shaggy DA to Papillon (Papillon was the story of a French convict who befriends a fellow criminal in South America in the 1930s, and he plans an escape).

It was during the mid-seventies that he was offered the role of Mel Sharples. In 1974 the movie was released, and the television show aired in 1976. The show was very popular with viewers. Vic said he and Mel were somewhat similar characters. While people still quote Flo on the show with her “Kiss my grits,” Tayback had his own tagline on the show, “Stow it.”

If you didn’t see the show, it featured a greasy-spoon diner in Phoenix, Arizona. Alice moves there after the death of her husband with her son Tommy. She becomes a waitress at Mel’s along with sassy Flo and shy, gullible Vera. Despite the bad food, they have a lot of regulars who come in for a meal. If you want to visit the restaurant, the building it was based on is at 1747 NW Grand Ave in Phoenix and was called Pat’s Family Restaurant. (It was also featured in American Graffiti.) It is now called Mel’s Diner. According to Trip Advisor, it is ranked #448 out of 1795 restaurants in Phoenix.

The role of Mel won Tayback Golden Globe awards in both 1979 and 1980. In 1978 he was nominated for an Emmy as Supporting Actor in a Comedy. While he did not win, he was in some amazing company. That year, fellow nominees included Harry Morgan and Gary Burghoff for M*A*S*H, Tom Bosley in Happy Days, and Rob Reiner from All in the Family, who took home the win that year.

The series aired on Saturday nights and the first year was in the top thirty. In 1977, its second season, it was moved to Sunday nights, following All in the Family where it rose into the top ten. In 1979, All in the Family left the airwaves, and Alice then followed One Day at a Time. Seasons three-five, it continued to be in the top thirty. In 1981, the show was moved to Monday nights up against M*A*S*H where it fell out of the top 30. However, season seven found it back on Sundays following The Jeffersons where it rose back into the top thirty. However, it took another dive in ratings the next year and then was cancelled. I think it probably stayed on the air a year or two beyond when it should have. However, interestingly enough, the year it was cancelled, CBS introduced 15 new shows. I’m not sure most people have ever heard of any of them; they were all gone by 1986 with the exception of The Twilight Zone (reboot) and West 57^th, which was a news show aimed at younger audiences.

Vic was also an avid horse-racing fan and owned quite a few thoroughbreds. On Alice, Mel was also a track fan, and sometimes the writers asked Mel for names of horses they could use, and he often gave them names of his horses.

On the show, Vic was often made fun of for his bad cooking. In a 1985 interview he said, “If I walked into a restaurant, the other diners would look around and say, ‘I hope you’re not cooking.’” Heinz then offered him the role of spokesperson for their Heniz 57 sauce and his line in the commercials, was “I used to be a lousy cook.” He was also remembered for an Aqua Velva commercial he did with Pete Rose.

Unfortunately, Tayback was a heavy smoker which caused heart trouble for him. While doing Alice, he had a triple-bypass surgery. While he did try to quit numerous times, he just could never kick the habit. In 1990, he died from a heart attack at age 60.

While we were cheated of several decades of performances from Vic with his early death, he did leave an amazing legacy in the Company of Angels theater in Los Angeles. According to its website, “In 1959, a group of actors, including Tayback, Leonard Nimoy, Richard Chamberlin, and Vic Morrow founded the theater to provide a space for actors and other theater artists to work on their craft free of commercial constraints.”

Thank you, Vic Tayback, for deciding to make people laugh in your career and investing in the future of acting so those memories continue in the future.

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.

Burgess Meredith: America’s Favorite Villain

March 4, 2024March 4, 2024 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

Bam! Pow! It’s Batman Villain Month. We will be looking at the career of an actor who played a Batman baddie every week this month. We are beginning with my favorite, The Penguin, played by Burgess Meredith.

Oliver Burgess Meredith was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1907. His father was a physician, and his mother was born into a family of Methodist revivalists. Burgess followed his Methodist faith for his entire life. After high school, he enrolled at Amherst College, until 1932 when he became a reporter for the Stamford Advocate. He worked in a variety of jobs while getting started in acting including retail, an editor, a merchant marine, and a runner on Wall Street.

He joined Eva Le Gallienne’s Civic Repertory Theatre in New York City. His Broadway debut was in this company’s “Romeo and Juliet” in 1930. His film debut came in 1935 in Winterset. Later in his career, he would return to Broadway as a director. He shared a Tony Award with James Thurber for their collaboration on “A Thurber Carnival” in 1960, and he earned a Tony nomination for his staging of “Ulysses in Nighttown” in 1974. In the late seventies, he directed Fionnula Flanagan’s one-woman play, “James Joyce’s Women” which toured for several years.

Meredith had more success in acting than marriage. Helen Derby Merrien Burgess was his wife from 1932-1935. His marriage to actress Margaret Perry only lasted two years, ending in 1938.

In 1942, Burgess enlisted in the US Army Air Forces for WWII, reaching the rank of captain. He was discharged in 1945. Meredith married another actress, Paulette Goddard, and they were together from 1944-1949. However, in 1951 he married Kaja Sundsten and they were together until his death.

Meredith would appear in 80 movies during his career, as well as a number of made-for-television movies. He might be best known in the past few decades for Grumpy Old Men and Grumpier Old Men in the 1990s.

However, it was television where he found the most acclaim. His first appearances came in 1949 on the Ford Theater Hour and The Silver Theater. Throughout the fifties he continued receiving offers for theatric roles on these types of programs. During the early sixties, he was everywhere. You could catch his appearances on dramas such as The Naked City, Ben Casey, The Twilight Zone, The Bold Ones, Room 222, Ironside, and Mannix. He rode onto many western sets including Wagon Train, Rawhide, The Wild, Wild West, Bonanza, Daniel Boone, and The Virginian. He found his way onto several comedies such as Please Don’t Eat the Daisies and The Monkees.

Given the astounding number of drama shows that he chose roles on, it is a bit surprising that one of his best-known roles was the campy, humorous 1960s series Batman. From 1966-1968, he made 21 appearances as the Penguin. When he appeared on The Monkees, it was also as the Penguin. Originally the producers wanted Spencer Tracy for the role of Penguin. Tracy said he would not accept the offer unless his character was allowed to kill Batman. So, Meredith got the role. The cast loved him, and the producers made sure there was always a Penguin script waiting so whenever Burgess was free, it could be filmed.

He was perfect for the role with his raspy voice and that iconic Penguin laugh. The laugh came about because Burgess had given up smoking but had to smoke for his role on Batman. When he coughed, he covered it up with his trademark laugh. When asked why he did Batman, he replied that he did it “for two reasons, one of which was the salary. The other was that, after the first few episodes, Batman became the in-thing to do. Everybody would either play a villain or appear as himself in that cameo showcase where a celebrity would poke his head through the window of a building that Batman and Robin were climbing. Actually, we didn’t get as much money from the show as you might think, although we were paid decent money for the feature film version. The main impetus to continue appearing on Batman—beyond the desire to get some TV work—was that it was fashionable.”

Later in his career, Burgess continued appearing on the big screen and provided voice-over work and a bit of animation. Unfortunately, he was named as an unfriendly witness by the House Un-American Activities Commission which ended his studio work for several decades. Burgess also did commercial work and was known for his roles for Skippy Peanut Butter and United Air Lines.

Meredith was a life-long Democrat and was generous to the Democratic party. He was an environmentalist and tried to end pollution. He was also fascinated by intelligent animals, especially dolphins. One night he said he felt a dolphin needed help while staying at a friend’s beach house. He ran out to the beach and found a dolphin caught in a net under a dock and was able to save its life. He was nominated for two Academy Awards, both for Supporting Actor in Rocky and The Day of the Locust. A 21-acre park in Pomona, New York was named for him; he provided the funding to incorporate the village.

In 1997, Meredith died from complications of Alzheimer’s. His former Batman costar, Adam West, spoke at his memorial service.

While almost all of the bad guys on Batman were memorable, the Penguin and Cat Woman were by far my favorites. We will look at the career of Julie Newmar next week.

Buddy Ebsen: From The Tin Man to King of the Hill

December 25, 2023November 20, 2022 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

As we wind up our blog series, “Time for Some Texas Tea,” we are also reading the last blog of the year. We have been learning about the careers of several actors who appeared on The Beverly Hillbillies and today we have saved Buddy Ebsen who had the most successful career of the cast.

Ebsen was born Christian Ludolf Ebsen Jr. in 1908 in Illinois. He was the only son of four children born to his parents who had immigrated from Germany. His father was a choreographer and owned a dance studio. He was also a physical fitness advocate and operated a gym for the local school district. His mother was a painter.

When Buddy was ten, his family moved to Florida for this mother’s health, eventually ending up in Orlando where he took dance at his father’s studio. Ebsen was a member of the swim team all four years and became a Florida State Champion. He graduated in 1926. Originally, he chose a career in medicine and attended the University of Florida at Gainesville. He transferred to Rollins College in Winter Park for a year to be closer to home and save money. They had no science courses, so his mom suggested he take an acting class. When the Florida land boom crashed, Ebsen could no longer afford his tuition and he had to drop out.

He moved to New York City and worked at a soda fountain to get by. Ebsen began his career in the entertainment industry as a dancer. He and his sister were known as The Baby Astaires and they performed in supper clubs and on vaudeville. They were booked at the Palace Theater in New York City after Walter Winchell saw them perform in Atlantic City and gave them a rave review.

In 1933 Buddy married Ruth Cambridge; their marriage ended in divorce in 1945 after having two daughters.

His first film was Broadway Melody of 1936. In that same year, he danced with Shirley Temple in Captain January. In 1938 he appeared with Judy Garland as his dance partner. Walt Disney brought Ebsen in to be filmed dancing in front of a grid so the animators could use it to draw the Silly Symphonie with Mickey Mouse.

MGM offered Buddy an exclusive contract but he turned it down, and Louis Mayer told him he would never work in Hollywood again. In 1939 the same MGM cast him as the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz. Ebsen and Ray Bolger swapped roles and Buddy became the Tin Man. He recorded the songs, went through all the rehearsals, and then began filming the movie. He began experiencing body aches, cramps, and shortness of breath which eventually landed him in the hospital. Doctors diagnosed him with an allergy to the aluminum dust in the makeup, and he had to give up the role and was replaced by Jack Haley.

Ebsen took up sailing after he recovered and learned it so well that he taught it to naval officer candidates. He was turned down every time he tried to enlist in the Navy. The US Coast Guard did accept his application, and he was made a lieutenant, junior grade. He served on the USS Pocatello which was a weather ship, recording weather 1500 miles west of Seattle. He was honorably discharged in 1946.

Ebsen received permission from the Pocatello’s commanding officer to bring aboard costumes, props, and musical instruments. He wrote, cast, and directed vaudeville shows, concerts, and plays while on the sea. Rehearsals were held in the cramped steering room.

In 1945, Ebsen married fellow lieutenant Nancy Wolcott. They had four daughters and a son. Their marriage lasted 39 years but also ended in divorce.

In 1949, he made his television debut on The Chevrolet Tele-Theater. During the fifties, he continued to make films and to appear on television series.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s Photo: pinterest.com

During the decade of the sixties, he was very busy in both mediums. He made four big-screen films including Breakfast at Tiffany’s. He appeared primarily on television, with appearances on a variety of shows including Maverick, The Twilight Zone, The Andy Griffith Show, Gunsmoke, Bonanza, and Rawhide.

From 1962-71, Buddy became Jed Clampett, the head of the family who moves them to Beverly Hills after they earn millions from oil on their Tennessee land. The critics did not like The Beverly Hillbillies one bit. However, the viewers made the number one show several times. I have to side with the critics. Although the show still had high ratings in 1971, it was canceled by the network because they wanted to move their shows in a more “urban” direction.

Nancy Kulp seemed to be close to most of the cast especially Irene Ryan as Granny and Raymond Bailey, and Ebsen seemed to be close to most of the cast, especially Donna Douglas and Max Baer. However, Kulp and Ebsen were definitely not close. He was very much a conservative and she was decidedly liberal. Donna Douglas related that “they had a different view, so they had some heated discussions about that. They would go on for weeks.” In 1994, Kulp ran for US House of Representatives in her native Pennsylvania. Ebsen not only supported her opponent, he offered to make commercials talking about how liberal she was. He had no connection with Pennsylvania at the time. She claims he was just being spiteful, and he claims she did not know the issues.

After the cancellation of The Beverly Hillbillies, Ebsen appeared in Hawaii Five-0 and then in quite a run of made-for-television movies. In 1973, Buddy was offered his second starring role in a show as Barnaby Jones, a detective who comes out of retirement to investigate the death of his son. Lee Meriwether played his widowed daughter-in-law Betty. Barnaby Jones stayed out of retirement until 1980 when the show was canceled. The show was still receiving decent ratings, but Buddy decided he was ready for retirement.

When asked about Ebsen, Meriwether said, “He really worked at being at the top of his game. You had to keep up with him. I adored him. I think he had feelings for me too.” She later said that “he loved the idea of being a detective. We had CSI-type equipment in the office on the set and he liked doing his own tests.”

Despite a rumored relationship with Meriwether, in 1985, Ebsen married his third wife, Dorothy Knott, and they remained together until his death.

Except for a few credits here and there, Ebsen did not have a lot of acting credits after the mid-eighties. He did accept a recurring role on Matt Houston during season three of that show when he played Matt’s uncle for 22 episodes.

His last movie was a cameo in the big-screen film, The Beverly Hillbillies, and he played Barnaby Jones. His last acting role as a person was Burke’s Law in 1994. His last television appearance was a voice only for King of the Hill in 1999.

In addition to sailing, Ebsen had a lot of other interests. He was an avid coin collector. He also wrote several novels and books. He also released three albums, The Beverly Hillbillies with Irene Ryan in 1993, Buddy’s Originals in 2001, and Buddy Ebsen Says Howdy in 2003.

If that was not enough, he played the guitar, golfed, rode horses, painted, gardened, fished, and traveled.

Ebsen passed away in 2003. His Coast Guard papers are stored at the US Coast Guard Historian’s Office in Washington DC.

Many of the rest of his records were given to the University of Wyoming American Heritage Center by his wife after he passed away. The gift included papers from all stages of his career, artwork created by him, his sailing trophies, and athletic medals among other items. The AHC has a large Hollywood and entertainment collection.

In October of 2022, a new exhibit was unveiled, “The Entertaining Life of Buddy Ebsen.” He certainly did have an entertaining life. While Jed Clampett made him famous, his career was much more interesting than that one role.

Thanks for getting to know Buddy Ebsen better and for taking this journey in 2023 to learn more about classic television and all the people who were important in that evolution.

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.

Gavin MacLeod: Murray Slaughter Takes Up Sailing

October 31, 2022July 31, 2022 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

As we wind up our up close and personal blog series, we are focusing on Gavin MacLeod. I have mentioned Gavin MacLeod’s name a lot in my blogs, but I have never devoted an entire to blog to him, so today is the day. Gavin had an impressive career; he starred in three sitcoms but those three garnered him almost 500 episodes. In addition, he took on more than a hundred guest roles on both the small and big screen.

MacLeod was born Allan George See in 1931 in New York. His mother worked for Reader’s Digest, and his father was an electrician. In 1952, MacLeod graduated from Ithaca College with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts, studying acting.

He served in the US Air Force where he wrote, produced, and directed plays. After his service, he moved to New York City. While tackling acting auditions, he worked at Radio City Music Hall. While working as an usher there, he met Joan Rootvik, a Rockette. They married in 1955 and had four children. About this time, he took on the name Gavin MacLeod. MacLeod was a tribute to his acting coach at Ithaca, Beatrice MacLeod.

His movie career began with three movies in 1958. He would make 20 more before 2005, including Operation Petticoat and The Gene Krupa Story.

His television appearances began in 1957 on The Walter Winchell File. He would make another lucky 13 performances during the fifties including The Thin Man and Whirlybirds.

The sixties kept him busy. He took on comedy in The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Munsters, Gomer Pyle USMC, The Andy Griffith Show, My Favorite Martian, The Flying Nun, and several different characters on Hogan’s Heroes. Westerns called him for Rawhide, The Iron Horse, Death Valley Days, and The Big Valley. He landed dramas including The Man from UNCLE, Perry Mason, Ironside, Hawaii Five-0, and Ben Casey.

From 1962-1964 he starred as Happy in McHale’s Navy. The show continued until 1966, but Gavin left the show halfway through. He was dealing with alcoholism, and he received an offer to make the movie The Sand Pebbles with Steve McQueen. However, he remained close friends with Ernest Borgnine, the star of the show, until his death in 2012. (He quit drinking in 1974.)

Murray and Mary Photo: showbizcheatsheet.com

During the 1970s, he appeared on Love American Style, Charlie’s Angels, and Wonder Woman, but the character we loved best during that decade was Murray Slaughter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. From 1970-1977, Murray sat next to Mary, helping her through the ups and downs of life. Gavin was originally auditioning for the role of Lou Grant, but ended up reading for Murray. He and Ted Baxter were enemies on the show, but he and Ted Knight were dear friends in real life. They had lived near each other before being cast in the show.

During the run of the show, Gavin and his first wife divorced, and he married his second wife Patti Steele. That marriage also ended in divorce in 1982. Patti became part of a Bible Study group after their divorce and became a Christian. Gavin reached out to her, also became a Christian, and they remarried in 1985.

Upon the ending of Mary’s show, he was immediately hired as Captain Stubing on The Love Boat. This time he was in charge of his coworkers. One of his best friends was Bernie Kopell who played Dr. Adam Bricker on the show. Gavin was on the seas for a decade. His best friend Telly Savalas (the lollipop-loving Kojak star) popped up on The Love Boat; the two were very close until Telly’s death in 1994.

When the show ended in 1987, he got a well-deserved break, but he still managed to find time to tour with Michael Learned in “Love Letters.”

Celebrating on Murder She Wrote Photo: imdb.com

He landed a variety of television show appearances in the 1990s and 2000s, including Murder She Wrote, King of Queens, JAG, and That 70s Show. His final appearance was in 2014 on The Comeback Kids; then he decided to retire. He also did several musicals after The Love Boat including “Gypsy,” “Annie Get Your Gun,” and “Gigi.”

MacLeod and his wife hosted a show on marriage on Trinity Broadcasting Network for 17 years. He also served as the honorary mayor of Pacific Palisades from 2006-2011 when Sugar Ray Leonard took over.

The Love Boat was a big part of his life. Instead of being bitter about being typecast, he embraced the role. He celebrated his 80^th birthday in 2011 aboard the Golden Princess with his family, celebrating with a 3D replica cake of The Pacific Princess, his boat on the show.

In 2013, MacLeod joined his former coworkers on The Talk for a cast reunion. Several members of the cast including Gavin took part in The Rose Bowl Parade in 2015.

The cast apparently was very close. Ted Lange who played bartender Isaac Washington mentioned the crew in an interview in 2017 with “The Wiseguyz Show,” saying “Oh yeah, sure, Gavin was wonderful. Gavin lives down here in Palm Springs and we’re still tight, all of us, Gavin and Bernie and Jill; we still see each other. Fred [who played Gopher] lives in a different state, we’re still close, we’re still good friends.”

In his spare time, Gavin enjoyed traveling, playing tennis, dancing, golfing, sailing, reading the Bible, and watching movies. Gavin passed away in May of 2021 at his home.

During the past decade, he released a memoir, This is Your Captain Speaking: My Fantastic Voyage Through Hollywood, Faith & Life. He explained his goal for writing this book: “My life has taken one incredible turn after another,” writes MacLeod. “I’ve gotten to do what I wanted to do. I’ve been a captain! I’ve been given this incredible gift of life and now I want to use it to give back. That’s why I’m sharing my story here, the fun parts and even some not-so-fun parts, in the hopes that maybe someone will take a nice walk down memory lane with me – and maybe I’ll even give someone a little bit of hope.”

Good memories and a little bit of hope is all we can ask for; thanks, Gavin, for giving that to us.

The Hathaways: Getting Paid to Monkey Around on TV

May 2, 2022May 2, 2022 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

This month we are taking a look at our favorite unusual pet sitcoms. We start our series with a show that began in 1961: The Hathaways.

This one-season show was on ABC. Elinore (Peggy Cass) and Walter (Jack Weston) Hathaway were a suburban Los Angeles couple who took in a trio of chimps (Candy, Charlie, and Enoch) which they were surrogate parents for. Walter was a real estate agent, while Elinore looked after the chimps. The chimps had their own bedroom and a full wardrobe of children’s clothing. Before becoming sitcom stars, the chimps had appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Jack Benny Show, and a variety of commercials.

Rounding out the cast were the great Mary Grace Canfield as housekeeper Amanda; Elinore’s best friend and neighbor, Thelma Brockway (Barbara Perry); theatrical agent Jerry Roper (Harvey Lembeck); and Belle Montrose who was another neighbor (and in real life was the mother of Steve Allen). Montrose’s only other acting credits were for the two Disney movies, Son of Flubber and The Absentminded Professor.

Eleven different writers wrote the 26 episodes and four men took on the role of director. The show was on Friday night before The Flintstones but it went up against Clint Eastwood’s western, Rawhide.

The storylines were similar to other sitcoms from the early sixties. In the first episode, the Brockways move in next door and don’t like pets. In the succeeding episodes, Elinor winds up in jail for an unpaid parking ticket that Charlie pocketed before she saw it, Elinor is worried when they leave the chimps with a babysitter while they vacation in Palm Springs, and Elinor and Walter try to find their housekeeper a boyfriend.

The Hathaways with Jack Weston and Peggy Cass | Classic tv, And peggy, 60s sitcoms — Photo: pinterest.com

It sounds like the type of show that would have been very popular in that era, but ratings were extremely low. In 1982, critics Castleman and Podrazik called the show “possibly the worst series ever to air on a network,” due to the “utterly degrading” premise, bad scripts, inept production, and the “total worthlessness” of the program. The pair wrote seven books about pop culture.

The show was specifically created to star the Marquis Chimps, and when that was shared in 1961, TV columnist Bill Fiset, wrote, “Heaven help us all? It may be that by the time you read this I’ll have taken the gas pipe, a victim of sheer frustration from trying to work as a serious essayist on a subject matter put into the hands of monkeys.”

Star Peggy Cass had mixed feelings. She admitted that she took the job for the money because she did not think the pilot would sell. While the show was on the air, she did an interview, stating that “Those chimps are natural comics. And believe me, they’re hard to top.”

TV When I was Born: 07/09/16 — Photo: tvwhenIwasborn.com

Cass would go on to a variety of television series and guest appearances. She was a regular on the game show circuit and might best be remembered for more than 270 episodes of To Tell the Truth. Weston also stayed very busy on television till the 1980s. And the chimps? Don’t feel too bad for them. They continued to show up on variety shows, including numerous appearances with Ed Sullivan. Ironically, they appeared on more Ed Sullivan episodes than they did their own sitcom. When they weren’t working, they could relax on their Las Vegas ranch. I’m sure they were treated to many luxuries there since they were making a quarter of a million dollars at the peak of their career!

Please Don’t Eat the Daisies and Other Parenting Advice

December 21, 2020 / thewritelife61 / 3 Comments

We are in the middle of our series, “The Movie Came First,”and today we look at a show from the mid-sixties, Please Don’t Eat the Daisies.

Based on a book by humorist Jean Kerr, Please Don’t Eat the Daisies was featured on the big screen in 1960. Doris Day and David Niven star in this movie about a former professor who becomes a drama critic named Larry McKay and his wife Kate. The couple, along with their four sons, moved from Manhattan to an older home in the country. Kate settles into the community, warmly received by the local citizens while Larry continues his social life in New York City. Their lifestyles clash when she thinks he is having an affair and he has to figure out his priorities. In real life, Jean Kerr’s husband Walter was a theater critic for the New York Herald Tribune, and they did indeed have four boys.

If you have wondered where the title comes from, it’s a song Doris Day sings to a group of kids in the original movie.

The television series which aired in 1965 was loosely based on the movie. In this version, the Nashes live in Ridgemont, New York. Jim (Mark Miller) is a college English professor and Joan (Patricia Crowley) is a newspaper columnist. The four boys are played by Kim Tyler, Joel Nash, Jeff Fithian, and Joe Fithian, the latter two being twins. Rounding out the cast was neighbor Marge (Shirley Mitchell) and the Nashes’ huge sheep dog, Ladadog.

Joan was not the happy homemaker many sitcom wives were during this era; she actually disliked housework and her column was a humorous look at family life. Her four mischievous boys gave her a lot of material.

The episodes had some funny moments but were pretty typical for 1960s television. In one episode, the Nash family is the subject of a University-produced show, “At Home with the Faculty.” Joan wants to decrease their normal confusion and chaos by creating an unrealistic look for the family. Another episode, “Just While You’re Resting,” features Joan trying to please too many community residents by getting involved in too many organizations. Ellen Corby as the housekeeper makes one of her first appearances on the show trying to maintain order in the Nash household.

The Nash Family Four Years Before the Brady Bunch
Photo: ebay

The show was on NBC for two years and produced 58 episodes. In season one it was on Tuesday nights against Rawhide and Combat!. It did well in the ratings which makes sense to me considering the other two shows probably split the same audience. For season two, the network moved the show to Saturday nights where it was up against The Jackie Gleason Show on CBS and The Newlywed Game on ABC. When the ratings fell, NBC cancelled the show.

I always wonder a bit when I see a show that had 58 episodes but 40 writers. Kerr was given credit for all 58 episodes, but I could not find anything to indicate if she just received credit because of her book or if she actually participated in the writing. Of the other 39 writers, only 3 of them worked on more than two episodes and 80% of them only wrote one storyline. While I think having a community of writers for a show is a good idea, when you have that many different voices in two years, I think the scripts become more plot driven than character driven and we don’t get to know the characters intimately.

A rare quiet moment
Photo: 50plusworld.com

I do remember watching reruns of this show when I was younger and I remember liking it, but it was not one I specifically made time to watch. When I watched the opening on YouTube, I was immediately taken back to my childhood hearing the bouncy theme music. It begins with an animated sheepdog and then introduces each of the family members, landing back on the animated dog again. I could not find anywhere to watch the original episodes or buy DVDs of the show.

I admit I love all the Doris Day comedies, and Please Don’t Eat the Daisies is no exception. I feel like this is a running refrain this month, but all the movies we are looking at for this series were successful and fun-to-watch movies, so you’ll never feel that you wasted time watching these big screen treasures instead of their television cousins.

Learning How to Marry a Millionaire Can Be Fun

December 7, 2020 / thewritelife61 / 3 Comments

Today starts a fun, new blog series, “The Movie Came First.” For the month of December, we’ll be learning about shows that began life as a big-screen movie. Our first sitcom is How to Marry a Millionaire.

In 1953, Betty Grable, Marilyn Monroe, and Lauren Bacall starred in a comedy romance about three women who make a pact to help each other find millionaires to marry but end up finding love instead. Their love interests are played by Cameron Mitchell, David Wayne, and Rory Calhoun.

An interesting fact about this movie is that it was the first one filmed in Cinemascope. In order to highlight the incredible sound, the movie begins with an orchestra performance. It was a bit awkward because it has nothing whatsoever to do with the movie, but is an interesting intro. It was also the first movie to air on television when it appeared on NBC Saturday Night at the Movies in September of 1961.

Another fun fact about the movie is that Merry Anders who would appear in the television show had a bit part as a model in the film.

In 1958, the movie came to the small screen with Merry Anders (Mike) filling Lauren Bacall’s role, Barbara Eden (Loco) is the sexy bombshell Monroe played, and Lori Nelson (Greta) is the neutral one in between played by Grable. Greta is the co-host of a quiz show, Go for Broke. Mike, whose real name is Michelle, works as a secretary on Wall Street, and Loco is a fashion model. One of the weekly gags is that Loco has terrible eyesight, but thinks men don’t like girls in glasses, so she often has mishaps not seeing correctly.

In order to find a wealthy husband, they found a chic penthouse apartment while wearing designer clothing even if they could not afford to eat. I guess that’s why they went on a lot of dinner dates.

The girls are often short of money and have trouble paying the rent on time. Mr. Blandish (Dabbs Greer), their landlord, is always threatening to evict them. The elevator operator Jesse (Jimmy Cross) sometimes helps and sometimes hinders the trio with their get-rich-husbands schemes.

The pilot was filmed in 1957 with Lori Nelson as Greta but her roommates at the time were played by Charlotte Austin (Loco) and Doe Avedon (Mike, who had been married to photographer Richard Avedon). By the time the show was sold in 1958, the roles had been recast and after looking at more than seventy auditions, the producers picked Eden and Anders.

Anders discussed the camaraderie of the three stars. She said they were amazingly similar. She said they all wore size 8, all drove Thunderbirds, and all had French poodles and this was before they met. Anders had tested for the role of Mike and Loco because she had been playing a lot of ditzy blonde roles. When she was given the role of Mike, Eden was brought on board as Loco. Anders said the cast worked hard. After filming all week, they did late night interviews and early morning shows. One weekend they were sent to New York for a personal appearance. They got back late Sunday night and still had to be at work early Monday morning.

The second season found Nelson out with Lisa Gaye as Gwen in. Nelson claims she was the best actress and that she decided to move on, disliking her character’s development. Other sources say she was fired because she gave an interview criticizing her role. Nelson said her role wasn’t defined well with Anders getting the “Eve Arden wisecracks” and Eden being the sexy, bubbly personality. Greta supposedly married a gas station owner and then moved to California. Only thirteen episodes were aired for season two and then the show was cancelled.

Barbara Eden was interviewed for the Television Academy and discussed her time on the show. She said she was doing a play in LA when director Mark Robson saw her. He offered her a role in his new movie Peyton Place. However, the studio gave the part to another actress who was under contract at the time; but because of Robeson’s interest, they brought Eden in for a test at Fox. One of the television executives called her and said he had seen the test and read her notices for the LA play and was wondering if she was interested in doing a television series. He asked her to go to the Fox Western studios for some still shots. When she got there, she thought the part was still in the process of being cast, but realized the stills were being taken because she had the part and the other girls were her costars.

Eden said she was a huge fan of Marilyn Monroe and had seen the original movie. She felt trying to take on the part by imitating Marilyn would have ended badly because she could never compete with Marilyn’s version, so she took the part and made it her own. Like Anders, she also said the three costars were close and became good friends.

Eden said the time on the show was her “finishing school.” She learned so much about filming before the cameras, lighting details, and building stamina. The stars sometimes filmed up to thirteen hours a day in three-inch heels which she said was painful. After long days, they would be given new dialogue to learn for the next day’s shooting. It was a very tough job but prepared her for film work.

If you like cultural history, the show is fun to watch just to see the wardrobes and settings. The clothing was provided by Mr. Mort. Mortimer Goldman owned his design business in 1952, producing mid-priced stylish dresses. During the run of the show, Stan Herman came on board as a designer. Throughout the sixties, Herman’s designs were the height of fashion. Stan Herman later opened his own design studio, producing items under his label as well as for other companies. In the 1990s he began appearing on QVC with his design line of comfortable clothing and sleep ware.

The show was pitched to the three major networks, but they all passed on the series. So, in 1958, NTA Film Network sold the show into syndication to 115 stations. It packaged a three-series deal including Man Without a Gun and This is Alice.

Both critics and fans liked the show, but it had some tough competition. The show aired Friday nights against The Adventures of Ellery Queen, The Wide World of Disney, and Rawhide. Eden said she never knew exactly why the show was cancelled. She assumes that because Fox was trying to be the fourth network and it didn’t work out at the time, all the Fox shows were just dropped.

So, what happened to the NTA network? The company that referred to itself as the fourth network launched in 1956 with 100 affiliate stations. Twentieth Century Fox bought half of the company with the intention of producing original programming. The shows were filmed and then mailed to each station. By 1961, the network was losing money and the flagship station was sold to the Educational Broadcasting Corporation which later became National Educational Television and eventually PBS. One of their largest stations, KTTV in Los Angeles became part of the Fox television network, co-owned by Twentieth Century Fox, part of 21^st Century Fox.

I was able to watch a few of these shows online. I’m not sure how the fourth network’s ownership affected syndication. Youtube has four episodes available. For this blog, I watched the first episode again. The jokes were a bit overdone and the laugh track was annoying, but I’ve seen worse. There were some charming moments in the show, and Barbara Eden’s comic ability was obvious with some funny scenes about her failure to wear glasses. Take some time to check out one of these four episodes to see what tv looked like in the mid fifties.

Milton Frome: What a Character!

February 17, 2020June 5, 2021 / thewritelife61 / 12 Comments

As we continue looking at some of our well-known character actors, today we consider the career of Milton Frome. Frome was born in Philadelphia in 1909. He began acting in his mid-20s.

His first major movie role was in Ride ‘em Cowgirl in 1939. Frome would go on to appear in 55 movies (including The Nutty Professor, Bye Bye Birdie, and With Six You Get Eggroll), as well as five made-for-TV movies. He also had a thriving television career beginning with Chevrolet Tele-Theatre in 1950.

Appearing in 34 different shows during the fifties, he performed in a variety of genres including dramas, comedies and westerns.

Photo: jimnolt.com
The Adventures of Superman

During that decade you would have seen him on I Love Lucy, Lassie, The Adventures of Superman, Playhouse Theater, The Thin Man, and The Gale Storm Show. He also worked with many comic legends on television, including Milton Berle, Red Skelton, and Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.

His career escalated in the sixties when he would accept roles in 48 programs. He showed up in dramas, including The Twilight Zone, 77 Sunset Strip, and Dr. Kildare. He also found his way into many westerns such as Bat Masterson, Death Valley Days, Gunslinger, Big Valley, Rawhide, and Wagon Train. However, he seemed to excel at comedies and during the 1950s you could have spied him in many sitcoms. He accepted parts in Bachelor Father, Pete and Gladys, The Jim Backus Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Mister Ed, The Joey Bishop Show, I Dream of Jeannie, My Favorite Martian, The Donna Reed Show, Gomer Pyle USMC, Bewitched, The Monkees, The Patty Duke Show, Petticoat Junction, and The Andy Griffith Show.

Frome was never offered a permanent role in a series, but he did have a recurring role in The Beverly Hillbillies, appearing eight times as Lawrence Chapman, who managed Jed Clampet’s Mammoth Studios.

Photo: imdb.com
St. Valentine’s Day Massacre

His television career slowed down a bit in the 1970s and became nonexistent by 1983, but he did make appearances in shows like Ironside, Columbo, Here’s Lucy, The Streets of San Francisco, Sanford and Son, and Trapper John MD. He also appeared in two Love American Style episodes in 1971 and 1973. In the 1973 episode, “Love and the Anniversary,” he played “The Man” and his son Michael played a bellhop.

Photo: sitcomsonline.coom
The Jerry Lewis Show

At some point, Frome married Marjorie Ann Widman, but I could not verify when they married. I also could not verify if Michael was their son, or his son from another relationship.*

Frome passed away in 1989 from congestive heart failure.

While it is now easy to analyze and detail an actor’s professional career, it was very tough to find any information about Frome’s personal life or his working relationships with other actors. It makes me sad that these hard-working actors who provided so much to our classic television-watching experiences are just not well known. Hopefully blogs like mine keep them in television viewers’ memories, and some day maybe I will have time to write a book about these unsung heroes of our pop culture history. Thanks for all you contributed to the golden age of television Milton Frome!

*In June of 2021, I heard from Jane Wallace Casey who provided some additional information for us: “I am Milton Frome’s niece. His first wife was Barbara Wallace with whom he had his son Michael.”