The Life of a Makeup Artist: All Made Up and Somewhere To Go

October 12, 2026March 10, 2026 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

Welcome to our blog theme for the month, “Behind the Scenes.” We are going behind the camera to check out careers of those people working behind the camera to bring our favorite characters to life. Last week we learned a bit about costumer designers, and today we are heading to the makeup counter.

So, what do makeup artists do? Obviously, they apply cosmetic products to enhance the appearance of the stars, but they do so much more. Artists also fit prosthetics and create the effects of blood, wounds, burns, and general aging; adjust colors and textures to work with high-definition cameras and bright lights; assure consistency for multiple-day filming; manage sweating; and sometimes choose and fit wigs for characters. Let’s look at a few of the best in the field to learn more about their life and careers.

William Tuttle

William Tuttle was the first makeup artist to win an Academy Award. He created many innovative techniques and trained generations of makeup artists.

He was born in Florida in 1912. After dropping out of school early to support his mother and younger brother, he held a variety of jobs including forming his own band. In 1930, he moved to Los Angeles, enrolling in an art school and working as a page at Fox Studios. That younger brother, Thomas Tuttle, would also become a makeup artist working on The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Joey Bishop Show, Gomer Pyle USMC, and That Girl among others.

Tuttle was hired at Twentieth Century Pictures to work under Jack Dawn. In 1934, Dawn took a job at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Tuttle moved with him. Tuttle was still working under Dawn but began taking on more responsibilities. He supervised the makeup in many popular movies including The Wizard of Oz and Father of the Bride. Eventually, he became the head of the makeup department.

He received a special Oscar for his work on 7 Faces of Dr. Lao in 1965. In this film, Tuttle transformed Tony Randall into seven different characters including Dr. Lao; an aged, bearded Merlin the Magician; and a Medusa with a feminine appearance. Randall said “he shaved my head and eyebrows . . . gave me an unborn look. But professionally it was a masterstroke.” He went on to say that “all my preconceived notions on how I would play the characters vanished. As soon as Tuttle applied his makeup magic, I felt myself actually become these strange people.”

The Oscar category of makeup artist would not become an official category until 1982. That year Rick Baker won the first Oscar for makeup. He would go on to win another five and he credited Tuttle: “His work greatly influenced me.” He said as a young boy, he often tried to re-create the makeup techniques Tuttle used in The Twilight Zone.

Tuttle was the artist behind one of my favorite Twilight Zone episodes, “Eye of the Beholder.” When the episode begins, doctors and nurses are working with a bandaged patient who just wants to look like everyone else. After some time, the bandages are slowly peeled away. We see the beautiful face of Donna Douglas. As she picks up the mirror to look at her new face, she screams, cries and covers her face. Then the camera pulls away and we see all the people Tuttle did makeup on – doctors and nurses with deformed faces and pig snouts.

With 393 credits, most of Tuttle’s work was in the movies, but he contributed to television as well. From 1960-62 he provided all the makeup for National Velvet. He also spent time on Mr. Novak, My Favorite Martian, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. as well as The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., The Phyllis Diller Show, and The Courtship of Eddie’s Father, among others.

Later in his career, Tuttle created his own line of makeup, Custom Color Cosmetics. Naimie Ojeil, owner of a beauty supply store in Hollywood said his brand was “the most popular makeup among Hollywood professionals for at least two decades.”

Tuttle would create molds of actors he worked on which allowed him to create their looks beforehand. He donated them to the University of Southern California where he taught from 1970-1995. Herbert Farmer, a USC archivist said Tuttle “was interested in passing on all he could to the students. He had a real following.”

Gene Hibbs

Gene Hibbs was born in Normal, Illinois in 1912.

I couldn’t find a lot of information about him. I did read several times that he was often hired because he had a unique talent for making older actresses look younger than they were with a technique he called “painting.”

His first television series was The Lone Ranger from 1954-1955. He worked on many television shows following that including with Ann Sothern on Private Secretary and The Ann Sothern Show, The Judy Garland Show, Here’s Lucy, and Green Acres.

He was working on Green Acres when Judy Garland passed away. She had stipulated in her will that Hibbs was supposed to do her makeup one last time. Her daughter Liza Minelli phoned Hibbs and he agreed to do that. When the network said no, Eva Gabor said she would not work unless he was allowed to leave for a few days. The producer pleaded with the network, but they held firm and said they would lose $30,000 of time and he could not leave the set.

Ben Lane

Ben Lane was born in 1912 in Chicago, Illinois, the same year as both Gene Hibbs and William Tuttle. Lane was one of the founding members of the Motion Picture Guild, but many of his 236 credits were spent in television.

Lane’s first television series was in 1957 for Sergeant Preston of the Yukon. His career would continue with many popular shows. Get ready to take a long breath because this sample is far from a comprehensive listing of his work. Ready? He was part of the cast for The Lone Ranger, Dennis the Menace, The Farmer’s Daughter, Hazel, Gidget, The Monkees, Bewitched, The Flying Nun, I Dream of Jeannie, Bridget Loves Bernie, The Partridge Family, Police Woman, and Fantasy Island.

In addition to keeping busy with his career, he was involved in several charities: City of Hope and Shriner’s circus. He became a nationwide clown advisor. He also was a consultant for the Los Angeles Police Department, the US Department of Justice, and the FBI for disguises.

Bud Westmore

📷abebooks.com Westmore working on the film The Lost Moment

Born in 1918 in New Orleans, Westmore and his brothers—Ern, Frank, Monte, Perc, and Wally–were all makeup artists in the entertainment business. At one time, there was a Westmore heading up almost every studio makeup department.

After school, Bud was an apprentice under Perc at Warner Brothers to learn hair design and makeup before taking a job at Twentieth Century Fox. He left to serve three years with the Coast Guard. When he returned to Hollywood, he worked for the Eagle Lion before he was hired as the head of the Universal Studios makeup department in 1947. The largest building on the Universal studio back lot is named for Bud.

His marriages and divorces also kept him busy. He was married to actress Martha Raye for four months in 1937. A few years later he married Rosemary Lane, another actress, and they were together for fourteen years. His divorce to Lane was on March 31, 1955, and on April 1, 1955, he married Jeanne Shores, a former Miss California in 1952. They would remain together until his death from a heart attack in 1973.

In 1957 Bud was asked to create makeup for a new doll that was coming on the market. In 1959 Barbie debuted. Bud had based her on a German doll Mattel found named Lili. He modified “the bee-stung lips, heavy eyelashes, and widow’s peak to give her an All-American Girl look” and he rooted her hair.

With more than 600 credits on both the big screen and the small screen, Bud’s first television project was Playhouse 90 in 1957. During the sixties he was involved in quite a few shows including The Jack Benny Program, McHale’s Navy, The Munsters, It Takes a Thief, Ironside, Marcus Welby MD, and The Virginian.

It was fun to learn a little bit about these make-up professionals and the shows they worked on to help create some of our favorite television land characters.

Dick York: His Job Was Back-Breaking Work

February 9, 2026October 26, 2025 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

This month we are learning about some Bewitching characters and their careers. Today we get to learn more about Dick York, the first actor to portray Darrin Stephens.

York was born in 1928 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, part of a working-class family; his father was a salesman, and his mother was a seamstress. During his younger years, the family relocated to Chicago, and at 15 he began acting on the radio in “That Brewster Boy.”

He would appear in hundreds of radio episodes and instructional films before heading to New York City in 1951 where he lived at the YMCA. In New York, he appeared on Broadway and then began his film career. That same year, York married Joan Alt. While he was doing the radio show “Jack Armstrong, All-American Boy,” they met when she came in to do a commercial.

In 1959, he was filming They Came to Cordura with Gary Cooper and Rita Hayworth when he suffered a back injury on the set. As York described it, “Gary Cooper and I were propelling a handcar carrying several wounded men down a railroad track. I was on the bottom stroke of this sort of teeter-totter mechanism that made the handcar run. I was just lifting the handle up as the director yelled ‘Cut’ and one of the wounded cast members reached up and grabbed the handle. Now, instead of lifting the expected weight, I was suddenly, jarringly, lifting his entire weight off the flatbed—180 pounds or so. The muscles along the right side of my back tore. They just snapped and let loose. And that was the start of it all: the pain, the painkillers, the addiction, the lost career.”

However, the injury didn’t catch up with him at that exact moment. A year later he was offered a role in Inherit the Wind. He would end up in ten films during his career, but it was television where he spent most of his time.

A couple of years later he was part of the cast of Going My Way for a season. His television career continued, and you’ll see him in episodes of The Twilight Zone, Dr. Kildare, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Route 66, and Wagon Train, among others.

In 1964 he was offered the role that made him a house-hold name, Darrin Stephens on Bewitched. York was with the series for five years and was nominated for an Emmy in 1968. York was nominated along with Richard Benjamin from He and She and Brian Keith and Sebastian Cabot from Family Affair, but they were all beat by Don Adams from Get Smart.

His back caused him a lot of pain while on the Bewitched set. The crew constructed a wall where he could lean between scenes, but half-way through season three, he was diagnosed with a degenerative spine condition which often sent shooting pains through his body. Watching seasons three and four, Darrin often can be found lying down or on the couch in many of his scenes.

Things escalated during the fifth season. York fell ill with a temperature of 105 degrees. He was feeling awful but decided to try to get through a few scenes. He was sitting on a scaffolding with Maurice Evans, Samantha’s dad on the show, when he told a crew member that he thought he should get down. “He started to help me down and that’s the last thing I remember until I woke up on the floor. That’s about all I remember of the incident . . . I’d managed to bite a very large hole in the side of my tongue before they could pry my teeth apart.” While he was in the hospital, he and William Asher had the tough talk about his future, and he agreed he needed to quit; he was then replaced with Dick Sargent.

In his autobiography, York says the next 18 months found him bedridden and dependent on painkillers. He got off the meds, but it took six months. He was able to beat his addiction. He and Joan had five children that needed care.

The family struggled economically after his addiction. In the mid-seventies, a real estate investment of theirs failed, and they were forced to go on welfare. In the early eighties the couple moved to Michigan to help care for York’s mother-in-law; they were surviving on a $650 monthly pension from the Screen Actors Guild.

York always kept a positive attitude. While he was bedridden, he made phone calls to help raise money for the homeless. He said, “I’ve been blessed. I have no complaints. I’ve been surrounded by people in radio, on stage, and in motion pictures and television who love me. The things that have gone wrong have been simply physical things.” He tried to revive his career, appearing on Simon & Simon and Fantasy Island, but it was just too late.

In addition to his back issues, York smoked three packs of cigarettes a day, and he eventually was diagnosed with emphysema. By 1989, he needed oxygen to help him breathe. He passed away from complications of the disease in 1992 at the young age of 63.

What a sad and painful ending to such a promising career. It’s amazing that someone in that kind of torment could still reach out to help others and try to spin a positive attitude about what he was grateful for. Thank you, Dick York, for leaving us with 68 great roles and the chance to get to know Darrin Stephens.

Cheyenne: Introducing Jim Baumgartner

June 2, 2025June 1, 2025 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

In June, we are advising “Go West Young Man” as we peek back at a few of our favorite westerns. First up is Cheyenne. Cheyenne debuted in 1955; it was the first hour-long Western. It would remain on the air for eight years, producing 108 episodes.

Clint Walker starred as Cheyenne Bodie, a cowboy who explores the wild west after the Civil War. Early in the show, we learn that Bodie’s parents were killed by an unknown Native American tribe. A Cheyenne tribe found him and raised him till he was 12 when they sent him to live with a White family.

Because Cheyenne is traveling, guest stars change from week to week. The series was part of Warner Brothers Presents which alternated a weekly show with Cheyenne, Casablanca, and Kings Row.

For the first four seasons, the show was on Tuesday nights; then it moved to Mondays for the final four years. It was in the top thirty, and often the top twenty, for most of its television life, despite being up against The Phil Silvers Show; Richard Diamond, Private Detective; Dragnet; and the game shows To Tell the Truth and I’ve Got a Secret. Because Warner Brothers was used to making movies, the television show was produced with a movie feel to it.

In 1958, Walker went on strike. His contract stipulated that he had to give Warner Brothers 50% of his personal appearance fees, and he could only record music with the Warner Brothers label. He wanted 100% of his fees and to be able to record wherever he chose. I never learned what they settled on, but Walker returned to the show.

During his travels, Cheyenne often advocates for justice in the places he visits, sometimes working as a sheriff or deputy. Another theme of the show is the distrust of Native Americans. Cheyenne is sympathetic to their plight and is loyal to the Cheyenne tribe that raised him. Many of the plots were taken directly from Warner Brothers movies of the past and reworked a bit.

The theme song was composed by William Lava and Stanley Davis Jones. They both worked on The Mickey Mouse Club with Jones composing for the Spin and Marty shorts. Lava also provided music for Zorro, The Twilight Zone, and 77 Sunset Strip.

During Clint Walker’s interview with the Television Academy, he talked about his time on the show. He said he became aware of how many people liked the show when they sent him out to functions, and he started to realize how many fans he had in each town and then thinking of all the towns in the United States. He received a lot of fan mail from people who liked the values of the show. Some young men told him they no longer had fathers or uncles, and he was their role model.

I also heard a fun story about casting during this show. Richard Bare explained during his interview that he was in a bar one night and a friend introduced him to an actor. The next day a meeting was called where Jack Warner informed them that he wanted some new faces introduced during the show. Bare remembered the young actor he met at the bar the night before but couldn’t remember his name. He called the bar and was told that the actor’s name was Jim Baumgartner, so he asked them to tell him to come to the studio when he showed up again. Finally, Baumgartner called Bare the day before they began shooting. He came in and did an audition. The crew was going on location the next day, so they had to decide immediately if he was part of the show. When Jack Warner saw the clips, he said to give that kid a seven-year contract, and that’s how James Garner started working in westerns.

There is no doubt Cheyenne was a popular show. It was interesting enough to keep viewers’ attention for an hour. The episodes seem to be well written. In an era when there were tons of westerns to watch, this one was in the top section of that list. The show still can be streamed on several places. If you want to live in the Old West for a bit, why not join Cheyenne and see what it was like.

Jonathan Harris: Oh the Pain

March 24, 2025November 13, 2024 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

This month our blog series is “All About The Bill Dana Show,” and we are learning about the careers of some of the cast members. Last week we looked at the life of Maggie Peterson, and today we are getting to know Jonathan Harris.

Harris was born Jonathan Daniel Charasuchin in the Bronx in 1914. His father worked in Manhattan’s garment district. His family often took in borders to make ends meet, and when they did, the border got Jonathan’s room, and he slept on a couple of dining room chairs.

By age 12, Harris was working at a pharmacy as a stockboy. Although money might have been short, Harris’s family’s love of music and theater was not. As a family they listened to opera in the dining room. Whenever they had some extra cash, they would take in a Broadway play. Harris was interested in archeology, poetry, and Shakespeare. He disliked his Bronx accent and taught himself to develop a British one.

Harris was able to graduate at age 16 from James Monroe High School. His pharmacy job paid off when he graduated from Fordham University with a pharmacology degree in 1936. Before entering college, Jonathan took the name “Harris” in place of his birth name.

In 1938 Harris married his high school sweetheart, Gertrude Bregman. They were married until his death.

While working in several pharmacies, Harris also worked on his acting skills. He created a phony resume which he used to land a spot in a local acting company. In 1942 he played a Polish officer in the Broadway production, “The Heart of a City.” He was persistent. He said that he went to Mr. Miller’s office to audition for a part in the play for two weeks, and everyday Mr. Miller’s secretary sent him away. Finally, she let him in, and Mr. Miller gave him his first part. Then he lied and said he could do a Polish accent. He then went to the Polish Consulate to listen to how they talked. So, despite a fake resume, being turned away for weeks, and then lying about an accent, he was a success in the play.

In 1949, Harris made his television debut in The Chevrolet Tele-Theatre. Throughout the fifties he would continue to appear in dramatic playhouse series.

In 1959 he had a recurring role in Zorro as Don Carlos Fernandez as well as an appearance on Father Knows Best.

The sixties brought him roles in several well-known series including The Twilight Zone, Bonanza, and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.

In 1963 he was offered the role of Mr. Phillips, the hotel manager on The Bill Dana Show. I won’t elaborate on this series, but if you missed the first blog in March, you can read about this show which was on the air for a season and a half.

Harris did an interview with the Television Academy. He said that when he read the script for The Bill Dana Show, he decided he had to come up with some other characteristics for Mr. Phillips. He made him devoid of humor. But he said he was a different man with his wife on the show, played by Amzie Strickland. Harris said Bill Dana was wonderful to work with. He also said that the writing was so good on that show that he never had to re-write anything. However, if something felt off, he would ask Sheldon Leonard about changing it, and Leonard was always open minded about revisions.

Harris continued to appear on dramatic shows while waiting for his next role.

In 1965 Lost in Space was put on the fall schedule. Harris played Dr. Zachary Smith. Neither his role nor the Robot were in the pilot of the series, but they were both brought in before the show began.

The show was a big hit with viewers. Harris felt his character, who was not trusted by the family, needed a bit of comedy, so he began to adlib his dialogue. Irwin Allen, creator of the show, approved the changes and allowed him to be considered a writer. Harris said he was a good re-writer, but he was never a writer.

Bill Mumy, who played the son on the show and interacted with Smith quite a bit said that Harris “truly, truly singlehandedly created the character of Dr. Zachary Smith that we know—this man we love to hate, coward who would cower behind the little boy, ‘Oh the pain! Save me, William! That’s all him.”

The show was still high in the ratings during its third season, but the writers were running out of ideas, and the show was canceled after 83 episodes.

In the seventies, Harris joined the casts of two Saturday morning series, Space Academy and Uncle Croc’s Block. Uncle Croc’s Block was a very weird show in my memory. Even though it was on Saturday mornings, he parodied kids’ shows. Uncle Croc, played by Charles Nelson Reilly, butts heads with his program director Basil Bitterbottom, Harris’s role; Phyllis Diller played Witchy Goo to round out the cast. Uncle Croc has a sidekick Rabbit Ears and introduced the cartoons.

He also continued to appear on other series, and you can spot him in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Land of the Giants, Get Smart, Bewitched, McMillan and Wife, Love American Style, and Vega$.

After the mid-seventies, most of his work was in the animation field.

He also became a drama coach, and Chuck Norris was one of his students.

In 1990, the cast of Lost in Space reunited for the 25^th anniversary. More than 30,000 fans attended the event.

Harris also spent time on his hobbies, which were many. He loved gourmet cooking, watching movies, reading, traveling, painting, magic, playing piano, gardening, dancing, knitting, and spending time with this family. He also kept his interest in listening to opera that he cultivated as a child.

He passed away in 2007 from a blood clot that traveled to his heart.

Harris was a talented actor. I’m not sure why he was never offered another sitcom or a chance to play a different type of character. I’m glad he found a home in animation, but I wonder if he regretted leaving Broadway for television. It was fun to learn more about this man and his career.

Welcome To the Twilight Zone

October 28, 2024October 4, 2024 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

As we wind up our Eerie Shows blog series, we are ending with a show I remember being both fascinated by and totally creeped out by – The Twilight Zone. In 1958 CBS purchased a teleplay written by Rod Serling called “The Time Element.” It was introduced by Desi Arnaz. It became an anthology series called The Twilight Zone and was on the air from 1959-1964.

This show had more lives than The Brady Bunch. A second version debuted in 1985 and was on four years on CBS. From 2002-2003, it appeared again on UPN hosted by Forest Whitaker. But that still was not the end. In 2019, a fourth reboot was on for a season. In addition to the reboots, Steven Spielberg produced Twilight Zone: The Movie in 1983 starring Dan Aykroyd, Albert Brooks, and John Lithgow. Leonardo DeCaprio was rumored to be putting together a current film and Aron Eli Coleite was hired to write the screenplay. Four years later, Christine Lavaf was brought on to write a script. I could not find any information whether this movie was still in the works or not.

In this blog, I am focusing on the original series. While the show could be described as fantasy or science fiction, the episodes covered a lot of genres including absurdism, dystopian fiction, suspense, horror, and psychological thrillers.

The opening is one many of us remember: “There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space, and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call The Twilight Zone.” The “Twilight Zone” was a term used by US Air Force pilots when crossing the day and night sides above the world.

The series was produced by Cayuga Productions, Inc., owned by Serling. There were a lot of other famous writers who penned episodes on this show. Of the 156 episodes, Serling, Charles Beaumont, and Richard Matheson wrote 127 of them. Other famous writers included Ray Bradbury, Earl Hamner Jr., George Clayton Johnson, and Jerry Sohl. Many of the episodes were social commentaries about nuclear war, McCarthyism, racial inequality, and the greed of capitalism.

One of the earliest shows, “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street,” is a great example of the Cold War and McCarthy subthemes. It aired in 1960, and the themes are still relevant today. The residents of Maple Street are alarmed when they hear rumors of monsters from outer space in their neighborhood. After a shadow passes by and a loud roar is heard, the citizens start accusing each other of being aliens. One man dies, another is physically attacked, and rioting occurs. We watch the residents destroy each other without seeing aliens involved. The twist is that there are aliens. They cut the power, but they let the humans destroy themselves. The message was if we think communists are in our midst, we’ll invent evidence to prove it and attack each other while Russia simply sits back and watches us destroy each other.

All the shows were filmed in black and white. Seasons one, two, three and five were half-hour shows, while season four was an hour long. The Twilight Zone was never very high in the ratings, and the show struggled to find sponsors during its run. To save some money in season two, the network decided to shoot episodes on videotape instead of film. I’ve heard of this happening with several television shows in the sixties, but I wasn’t sure what the difference was. Apparently, videotape was very primitive at that time. Using videotape meant that the show was “camera-cut” which means using four cameras on a sound stage. Location shooting was not possible, and editing the tape was almost impossible. These disadvantages, along with the poor visual quality, made it hard to work with, and the technology was abandoned after a brief trial period.

The original theme for season one was composed by Bernard Herrmann. Season two switched to a theme by Marius Constant which is the most-remembered theme song. (The Grateful Dead performed the theme in 1985 for the reboot, Johnathan Davis of Korn composed the 2002 version, and Marco Beltrami was on board for the 2019 revival. The 1983 movie used composer Jerry Goldsmith.)

Several actors were in more than one episode and are noted for their appearances in the show: Jack Klugman, Burgess Meredith, Warren Oates, William Shatner, Jack Warden, Fritz Weaver, and William Windom.

Everyone has their favorite scary episode. “The Dummy” from 1962 is about ventriloquist Jerry Etherson who thinks his dummy Willie is alive and evil. He locks Willie in a trunk, deciding to write a new act with another dummy, but Willie doesn’t like the plan.

In “The After Hours,” a woman is locked in a department store after hours and it seems as though the mannequins have come to life. Even though no one is left in the store, she is treated badly by several “salespeople.”

My most-remembered episode was “Eye of the Beholder.” Donna Douglas stars in this one about a young woman lying in a hospital bed with her head wrapped in bandages. She is waiting to see the outcome of a surgical procedure that was supposed to make her look “normal.” We see the bandages come off, we see the beautiful face of Donna Douglas, we see her look into a mirror, and then we hear her scream. When the scene pans out, everyone else has the face of a distorted pig and Douglas is devastated by her “ugliness.”

Also, like The Brady Bunch, the show has never been off the air since it debuted thanks to syndication. The episodes, despite being in black and white, have stood up to the test of time very well. Many things have changed in society since 1959, but people really have not changed much, and the stories are still applicable today. Newton Minnow who headed the FCC in 1961 is the person who called television a “vast wasteland.” The only series he praised was The Twilight Zone. (The US Minnow on Gilligan’s Island was named for Newton.)

There are some shows that are classics for their writing, some are classics for the quality of actors on the show, some are classics for their ability to transcend time and stay relevant for decades, and some are classics for the novelty they bring to the television schedule. The Twilight Zone is a classic because it does all these things and is as enjoyable to watch today as it was more than 60 years ago.

You Are About to Experience The Outer Limits

October 21, 2024March 14, 2024 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

It’s Eerie Shows month. Last week we learned about Alfred Hitchcock Presents, a thriller anthology show. Today we have another anthology series of science fiction themes – The Outer Limits. The show examined the nature of man every week and included many classic science fiction themes such as life in outer space, time travel, and human evolution.

The original title of the show was Please Stand By. It was on ABC from 1963-65. Joseph Stefano was the producer for season one and the creative guiding force, writing more episodes than anyone else. He was the writer of Hitchcock’s film, Psycho. Harlan Ellison, a prolific writer, wrote two episodes for season two. Robert Towne wrote a script for the show and later received an Oscar for his writing for Chinatown.

The show also employed a well-known cinematographer in Conrad Hall. He worked on a variety of television shows and in film, winning Oscars for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, American Beauty, and Road to Perdition; he was nominated for another seven movies.

The shows began with a Control Voice saying:

“There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image, make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. We repeat: There is nothing wrong with your television set. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to The Outer Limits.”

Seasons one and two were a bit different with season two focusing more on hard science. Sometimes we forget that special effects were not something these crew members had much experience with on television. Often, the cast was experimenting, just trying to find solutions to creating these new effects. Robert Justman, who was one of the assistant directors on the show, talked about how they created monsters on the show in his Television Academy interview. He said for one of the first monsters, they had planned to use a negative image instead of a positive one, but that was not enough. He got the idea to rub the image with Vaseline and it created these iridescent spots on it which gave them their monster.

The music for season one was by Dominic Frontiere and season two was supplied by Harry Lubin. Frontiere was credited with 59 shows and films, including Matt Houston and Vega$. Lubin was best known for his music on The Loretta Young Show and One Step Beyond.

Season one garnered good ratings and their fans were very loyal. However, the ratings dipped in season two after changing focus and moving from Monday to Saturday night. Stefano knew that competing with The Jackie Gleason Show on Saturday night meant the show was over, and he left before season two started.

The episodes of The Outer Limits were often confused with The Twilight Zone, not only by viewers but by actors appearing in them. We’ll learn more about The Twilight Zone next week.

Another fan of the show was Gene Roddenberry. He was often on set, and the show would become a big influence on Star Trek later in the decade. A lot of the crew, cast, costumes, and props on The Outer Limits made their way into Star Trek episodes.

Like so many shows, this one was revived in 1995, and it ran for seven seasons.

I’m not sure why but I don’t remember watching this show in reruns the way I did The Twilight Zone. Maybe it was not shown as often or maybe it was on when our family was watching other shows, but it was interesting to learn what made it different from The Twilight Zone. I’m not sure how many of the “monster” episodes would compete with the special effects of today, but it’s worth taking a look at a few of them and the science they not only developed but the technology that was invented.

Vera Miles: What a Character

July 8, 2024July 1, 2024 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

During this month of Supportive Women, I am excited to learn more about Vera Miles. For four decades, Miles appeared in our homes as well as on the big screen. With 162 credits, she may have visited your living room more than most of your family members.

Vera Ralston was born in Boise City, Oklahoma in 1929. She grew up in Pratt, Kansas, and later she moved to Wichita where she graduated from high school and worked nights as a Western Union operator-typist. In 1948 she won the Miss Kansas pageant and was third runner-up in the Miss America contest that year. Miss Minnesota won the crown.

A year later she moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in television and movies. Not long after arriving in Hollywood, Vera married photographer and stuntman Bob Miles. One source said that she enrolled at UCLA, hoping to become a teacher.

Bob Miles has 13 acting credits and 14 stuntman credits. The cast of Bonanza must have liked him because he appeared as a stuntman 99 times and as an actor on the show 76 times.

After the birth of her children, she began doing some modeling and taking on a few roles to help provide income. Vera used her husband’s last name because there was already a Vera Ralston in the industry.

She appeared as a contestant in a 1951 episode of You Bet Your Life with Groucho Marx. Along with her partner, she won $8 in the quiz portion of the show but gave the wrong response to the De Soto-Plymouth question which was “Who was the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court?” When Groucho asked her what titles she had held as a beauty contestant, in addition to Miss Kansas, she mentioned that she was Miss Chamber of Commerce, Miss Wichita, Miss Texas Grapefruit, and Miss New Maid Margarine.

She received her first movie role in 1950 and her first credit in 1952. In The Rose Bowl Story, a romantic comedy, she played a Tournament of Roses Queen. She would appear in about 40 additional movies during her career and quite a few made-for-television movies as well. She often worked with Alfred Hitchcock and was cast in Psycho.

In 1951 she appeared on Fireside Theater, her first television role. While she had more than 100 credits performing on television, surprisingly she never starred in a series. The only recurring character she had was Ernestine Coulter on My Three Sons.

In 1956 she married Gordon Scott after divorcing Miles in 1954. They also divorced in 1960. Scott appeared to only work in Hollywood for a five-year period according to imdb.com. From 1960-1971 she tried marriage again with Keith Larsen, but their marriage also ended in divorce. Since the third time was not the charm, for two years in the mid-seventies, she wed Robert Jones but that ended in divorce as well.

During the fifties, she fit roles around her movie appearances, and you can see her in episodes of dramatic theater shows. In the sixties, she had no trouble finding work and she showed up on The Twilight Zone, Route 66, Wagon Train, I Spy, The Man from UNCLE, The FBI, and Mannix. Work did not slow down in the seventies, and you can spot her in a variety of shows including Gunsmoke, Hawaii 5-O, Bonanza, Cannon, Columbo, and Barnaby Jones. She might have taken thing a bit easier in the eighties, but she still worked on four or five shows a year, including Magnum, PI; Little House on the Prairie; The Love Boat; Hotel; and Murder She Wrote. Her last credit was for a movie titled Separate Lives in 1995.

Miles was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and visited Salt Lake City quite often.

Early in her career, Miles appeared to be almost a clone of Grace Kelly but that never materialized into a movie star career. Hitchcock hired her for Vertigo with Jimmy Stewart, but her pregnancy caused her to back out of the movie, and Kim Novak received the starring role. Perhaps, that movie would have changed the trajectory of her film career. I’m surprised that she was never given an opportunity to star in a television show. With 162 credits, she had a prolific and busy career. I will definitely try to spot her when I watch some of my favorite classic shows.

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.

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

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

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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.

Julie Newmar: Batman’s Most Beautiful Villain

March 11, 2024February 17, 2024 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

This month we are learning a bit about the Batman villains and their careers. No study of Batman’s favorite nemesis would be complete without Cat Woman, Julie Newmar. Julie shared the role of Cat Woman with Eartha Kitt who appeared the final television season and Lee Meriwether who was so catty in the Batman movie. What else did Julie Newmar do during her career? Let’s find out.

Born Julia Chalene Newmeyer in 1933, Julie Newmar as she is known in the acting world, was a television and film actress, dancer, singer, and stage performer. But, as they say in the commercials, that’s not all. She also was known for writing, designing lingerie, and managing real estate investments.

Newmar was born in LA. Her father Don was head of the physical education department for the Los Angeles College. Her mother, of both Swedish and French descent, was a fashion designer under the name Chalene and later worked in real estate.

Julie began dancing early in life and performed as a prima ballerina with the Los Angeles Opera when she was only 15. With an IQ of 135, Newmar graduated from John Marshall High School at age 15. She continued dancing in films in the early fifties. At age 19, she was also working as a dancer/choreographer for Universal Studios. In 1954, she appeared in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers as Dorcas, one of the seven brides.

In 1955 she got her first Broadway appearance in “Silk Stockings.” She continued her movie and Broadway careers throughout her years in entertainment, appearing in 33 films in all.

Television is where Newmar gained most of her fame. Her first television appearance was on The Phil Silvers Show in 1957 and then Ominbus in 1959. But it was in the sixties that she became a household name. She started the decade in Adventure in Paradise in 1960, followed by a variety of shows including The Defenders, Route 66, and The Twilight Zone in the early sixties.

In 1964 she was offered the role of Rhoda on My Living Doll, where she played a robot. She was not enthralled with the choice of Bob Cummings as her costar and did not seem to enjoy her time on this show. She said that “They originally wanted Efrem Zimbalist Jr. It was not a flip part—it needed a straight actor who could play opposite this bizarre creature so the comedy would come off. That quality was lost when they hired Bob. The show could have been wonderful. I think it would have run for many seasons had they hired Efrem because he had the right qualities.”

After appearing in several comedies including The Beverly Hillbillies and F Troop, she received another recurring role as Cat Woman in Batman. She would appear in the series 13 times, 12 as Cat Woman, the only villain to make Batman question his morals, because we knew he was in love with her, and if she showed any sign of remorse, who knows where things might have gone. Her Cat Woman costume now lives at the Smithsonian Institution.

Newmar lived in Beekman Place in New York in the mid-sixties. One weekend her brother had come to visit her from Harvard. They were sitting around chatting when the phone rang. She was asked if she would like to play Cat Woman on the Batman series. She was a bit miffed because they said they were casting in California, and the role started on Monday. Her comment was “That’s how television is done: they never know what they are doing until yesterday.” When her brother heard Batman, he jumped up and said that was the favorite show at Harvard and they even skipped classes to watch it. He told her to take the role, so she did.

After Batman, she finished out the sixties in The Monkees, Star Trek, Get Smart and It Takes a Thief. With 11 seventies offers, you can see her in shows such as Bewitched, Columbo, McMillan and Wife, Love American Style, The Bionic Woman, and The Love Boat. One of my favorite made-for-tv movies was The Feminist and the Fuzz. It had an exceptional cast, including Newmar who appeared in the movie along with Barbara Eden, David Hartman, Jo Anne Worley, Farrah Fawcett, Harry Morgan, Herb Edelman, Penny Marshall, and John McGiver. This ensemble was directed by Jerry Paris, who directed so many great shows from The Dick Van Dyke Show to Happy Days.

Her other starring role in the seventies was a marriage to J. Holt Smith, an attorney. After the wedding, Newmar moved to Forth Worth, Texas until 1984 when they divorced.

The eighties was a more quiet decade for the actress but she did accept roles on CHiPs, Fantasy Island, and Hart to Hart. In 1992, she appeared in George Michael’s music video, “Too Funky,” She was still working in 2016 and 2017 in Batman animation features.

If you were a fan of Batman and Dark Shadows in the sixties, you were in luck when Newmar took on the role of Dr. Julia Hoffman (played in the original series by Grayson Hall) in Dark Shadows: Bloodline, the audio drama miniseries.

She was not just a pretty face, however. She received two US patents for pantyhose and one for a bra, under the name Nudemar. She also began investing in LA real estate and was credited with helping to improve the neighborhoods of La Brea Avenue and Fairfax Avenue. In one episode of My Living Doll, Rhoda is asked to play Chopin’s “Fantasie Impromptu” on the piano. Newmar played the piece herself. She had studied under concert pianist Dr. MacIntyre, and she said that scene is the only one she’s done with her playing the piano which had been her career choice before acting. One of Julie’s comments about herself was “Tell me I’m beautiful, it’s nothing. Tell me I’m intellectual—I know it. Tell me I’m funny, and it’s the greatest compliment in the world anyone could give me.”

Julie also enjoys art and gardening. She has a rose, a day lily, and an orchid named for her. Her gardens are often chosen as a spot for holding charity events.

Like Barbara Feldon from Get Smart, Julie Newmar is beautiful, bright, and funny. I hope she enjoyed her career. Obviously, she could have been a brain surgeon or any other profession of her choice. She seems like she would be a fun person to just hang out with and the conversation would never run out. Thank you, Julie Newmar for choosing the entertainment business over medical science for our sakes.

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.