One of the pioneering examples of the television
situation-comedy,
The Danny Thomas Show
was conceived, as documented in
Danny Thomas' biography below, as a way to get
the real-life Thomas off the road as a traveling nightclub entertainer so that
he could be more involved in the lives of his growing children, who referred to
him as "Uncle Daddy" because he was away from home so much.
"Uncle Daddy" would be the name of the pilot episode for the series
Make Room for Daddy, which premiered in
the fall of 1953. In a way,
Make Room for
Daddy borrowed from other, more-established television comedies. Filmed at
Desilu Studios, it borrowed some of the broad slapstick comedy conventions that
were the trademark of
I Love Lucy.
And Thomas played a fictionalized version of himself, as did
Desi Arnaz on
I Love Lucy, and
Jack Benny did on
The Jack Benny Program, though Thomas'
character has a different last name and is not portrayed in such sharply
unflattering terms as Benny. Though he was not the show's producer at the
outset, it should be noted that director and later producer
Sheldon Leonard
also had a Benny connection in playing a semi-recurring bit as The Tout who
would provide Benny with unsolicited advice on conducting mundane activities.
Jean
Hagen was cast as Danny Williams' wife Margaret with
Sherry Jackson and
Rusty
Hamer playing his children Terry and Rusty, respectively. However, after
Hagen's contract expired at the end of Season 3, she left the show, being
unhappy with her character and working with Thomas. Thomas and Leonard decided
to have Hagen's character killed off to explain her absence at the beginning of
Season 4--reportedly the first time this had been done on a sit-com. The show
was also renamed in Season 4 as
The Danny
Thomas Show and muddled through a season of Thomas playing a widower trying
to raise his children, but since ratings suffered, Thomas and Leonard decided
they needed to have Danny Williams remarry, so late in Season 4 they had Rusty
come down with the measles and so that Williams is forced to hire nurse Kathy
O'Hara, played by
Marjorie Lord, to take care of Rusty while he works. O'Hara
is a widow herself and has a daughter Linda, played initially by
Leilani
Sorensen, from her previous marriage. Naturally, Williams and O'Hara become
attracted to each other and by the end of the season are engaged.
Due to the disappointing ratings from Season 4,
The Danny Thomas Show was dropped by
ABC, but because CBS had just lost
I Love
Lucy, they picked up
The Danny Thomas
Show and inserted it into the old
Lucy
time slot, which made it an instant ratings winner. By the time Season 5 began,
Williams and O'Hara were already married and now on their honeymoon, and
Sorensen as Linda was replaced by
Angela Cartwright. Sherry Jackson, who later
said she was a close friend of Hagen and wanted out of her contract after
Season 3, left the series at the end of the fifth season when her contract
expired.
Penney Parker was brought in briefly to replace her in 1959 and then
had her character married off in 1960, never to be heard from again. However,
as the series continued over the years and Thomas became busier handling
off-screen business affairs, including producing other series with Leonard,
more and more characters were added, some regular cast members, others
occasional recurring roles. Midway through Season 6
Sid Melton was introduced
as Charley Halper, owner of the Copa nightclub where Williams is the star
attraction. Then early in Season 9
Pat Carroll was added as Halper's wife
Bunny. In Season 3
Hans Conried first appeared as Williams' eccentric Lebanese
uncle Tonoose and would show up 20 more times in the role over the series'
duration. Leonard himself would appear 16 times as Williams' agent Phil Brokaw
beginning in Season 4. And
Bill Dana, who had exploded in popularity as Jose
Jimenez after a 1960 appearance on
The
Garry Moore Show, was added as an elevator operator at the end of Season 8,
though after 8 appearances over 2 years, he was spun off into his own series.
There were a number of other semi-recurring characters added and then deleted
in the years prior to 1962, which is the focus of this post. In short, either
because of the off-screen demands on Thomas or the feeling that the show would
benefit from a wide cast of characters who offer more comic possibilities
beyond that of a nightclub entertainer and his family, the series tried to stay
fresh by providing abundant variety.
And, in fact, casting Williams as a nightclub entertainer
provided a built-in mechanism to exploit the benefits of the variety show in a
sit-com format. Thomas himself frequently sings a number during many episodes,
often in the context of trying out a new number he wants to add to his
nightclub act, such as in "Hunger Strike" (March 12, 1962) in which
he rehearses "The Nearness of You." Other times he bursts into song
in response to what is happening in that episode's story, such as "Useless
Charley" (January 8, 1962) in which he sings a song to Halper about what a
wonderful thing a daughter is after Halper insists that the baby he and Bunny
are about to have needs to be a boy. We also get occasional episodes in which
we see Williams performing at the Copa, which provides another excuse to
introduce other well-known guest stars who just happen to be performing there.
When Rusty runs for class president on "Rusty for President"
(November 5, 1962), Williams gets the grand idea of holding a rally for Rusty
at the Copa headlined by
The Smothers Brothers, who just happen to be booked
there, and we, the audience, are treated to an abbreviated version of a typical
Smothers Brothers performance. In "Jose's Protege" (March 26, 1962)
we get a performance from then-popular child flamenco dancer
Michael Davis, who
is cast as Jose Jimenez's nephew hoping to break into show business, and Jose
manipulates Williams into giving him an audition at the Copa. Davis is just the
sort of act that was a staple on variety shows such as
The Ed Sullivan Show at the time. Speaking of nephews, Williams'
own nephew
Don Penny, playing a brash young stand-up comic, gets his own
audition, courtesy of Tonoose, in "The Smart Aleck" (April 30, 1962),
which does not go well, but after he and Williams come to terms, we get to see
his stand-up routine at the Copa that evening. As part of the Season 10 story
arc about Williams traveling to England for a series of performances at the
Palladium, his agent Brokaw hires as his temporary replacement at the Copa
legendary stand-up comedian
Jack Carter in "Danny's Replacement"
(October 8, 1962). Carter not only demonstrates that he thinks Danny is an
inferior comedian but then completely upstages him on his home turf when Danny
introduces him as his fill-in at the Copa. Carter's manic, zinger-filled
routine is the exact opposite of Thomas's slow-building story-telling that
leads up to his single punch line, but the point of his appearance is to
provide a contrast, i.e., variety, from the show's normal fare. Undoubtedly the
best stand-up routine from the 1962 episodes comes in "Danny and Bob Get
Away From It All" (April 2, 1962), which begins like a variety show sketch
featuring Danny and his old pal
Bob Hope deciding to hide out from the
pressures of show business in a remote rural town, only to discover that no one
notices them, which severely bruises their egos. Oh so coincidentally, they
happen to be staying in this small village on the evening when the yearly local
talent show is held, and they can't resist entering the contest, during which
Hope gives a fantastic stand-up routine much funnier than one would imagine
from someone considered these days to be an old-school corny comic.
Even with the plethora of ringer talent that the series was
able to draw on, and the large cast of characters on which to base a number of
different plot situations, the series continued searching for ways to keep its
lofty ratings position with new story arcs to break out of its normal routine.
In Season 9, the last two-thirds of the season center around the Halpers
anticipation of their first child, beginning with "A Baby for
Charley" (January 1, 1962) in which Bunny discovers that she is pregnant
but is afraid to tell Charley because he has expressed disparaging opinions
about what a nuisance children are. This story is followed by "Useless
Charley" (January 8, 1962) in which Charley tries to follow ridiculous
advice about babies from his sister, "Charley Does It Himself"
(February 5, 1962) in which Charley tries redecorating a room in their
apartment as a nursery for the baby, and finally "Baby" (May 7, 1962),
which employs the well-worn comic cliches about the nervous expectant father
who is more stressed out than the mother and closes with Thomas giving a
sentimental fireside chat telling us that the Halpers had a boy followed by a
syrupy ode to what a wonder boys are. Though Season 10 opens with another baby
story--"The Baby Hates Charley" (October 1, 1962)--it quickly
transitions to the story arc suggested by Leonard in which Danny goes to
England to play the Palladium, beginning with the aforementioned episode
"Danny's Replacement." This is followed by "What Are Friends
For?" (October 15, 1962), an overstretched rationalization to set up the
Halpers baby-sitting the Williams children while living in the Williams'
apartment, and Danny and Kathy finally arriving in England in "The British
Sense of Humor" (October 22, 1962). The trip to England also allowed the
series to introduce a whole new series of characters played by British actors
not familiar to American audiences, thereby expanding its variety troupe, such
as Cecil Parker, Dennis Price, and Richard Wattis in this first British
episode. Veteran British comic actor Jimmy Edwards plays a rascally poacher in
"A Hunting We Will Go" (November 12, 1962), and we meet Kathy's Irish
relations in "The Ould Sod" (December 3, 1962), played by Noel
Purcell, J.G. Devlin, and Barbara Mullen. But in "Danny's English Friend"
(December 17, 1962) we first meet another character who will be brought back on
a semi-recurring basis, Alfie Wingate, played by Bernard Fox. Wingate is an
inept waiter who leaves his brother's pub, which Danny and Kathy visit on their
trip, and moves to America to seek his fortune. Alfie's brother asks Danny if
he can help his brother get started in America, so Danny hands him a business
card with Charley's name, thinking that the recommendation is only for Alfie
getting a nice table when he visits the Copa. But naturally the intention is
completely bungled into Alfie thinking Danny is providing a job reference,
leading to Charley hiring Alfie as a waiter at the Copa, and hilarity ensues. Fox
would appear in 3 more episodes as Alfie in Season 11. However, the series
still had a sizable cast to keep employed on the home front, so the British-set
episodes are interspersed with others showing what is going on back in New
York, usually introduced with flimsy devices such as telephone calls or letters
from the children, or in one case Danny and Kathy feeling homesick and Danny
imagining that a bulldog he sees being walked in the park below their hotel
looks a lot like Charley in "Jose Rents the Copa" (October 29, 1962).
While the series certainly broadened its palette in juxtaposing the
England-based episodes with the ones set in New York, it also made the series a
bit disjointed since the atmosphere and characters were radically different
from week to week. But the strategy didn't hurt the program in the Nielsen
ratings, as it finished in a tie for 7th in 1962-63, essentially unchanged from
finishing in 8th place for 1961-62.
One more episode from 1962 deserves its own separate
examination. We noted above that the show's origins were based on a problem Thomas
faced in his personal life--trying to balance a hectic but successful
professional life with the need to be a father to his children at home. Doubtless
many of the themes treated in the fictional Danny Williams' home life had some
equivalent in Thomas' real home life, which is what makes the episode "A
Nose by Any Other Name" (February 19, 1962) so interesting. In this
episode Williams tries out a new series of jokes about his prominent nose for
his wife Kathy, but she finds them upsetting because she thinks they are
demeaning to her husband (never mind that jokes about Thomas' nose are
sprinkled throughout many other episodes). Williams mistakenly feels that she
is upset because she is embarrassed by his nose, and he goads his children into
saying things that he can interpret as meaning they are also embarrassed. So he
decides that he is going to get a nose job to spare his family any more
embarrassment and visits a plastic surgeon to insist on having the surgery
performed immediately. The surgeon is reluctant but finally agrees when
Williams threatens just to find anybody who will do the job. When Williams
returns home with his nose heavily bandaged, his family is even more upset at
what he has done without letting them know. They offer profuse testimony that
they loved him just the way he was and were never embarrassed of him. Linda
tells him he is no longer the daddy she loved, and the entire family refuses to
speak to him for several days, but when the surgeon shows up at the family
apartment to remove the bandages, we see that he never performed the surgery
because he recognized that Danny was in emotional turmoil and not in the right
frame of mind to make such a life-altering decision. The entire family is
overjoyed that the Danny they have always known and loved has not changed. While
it is possible that this episode could be alluding to Thomas being told at the
beginning of his movie career by
Louis B. Mayer that he needed a nose job to be
a successful leading man, the timing of this episode airing in 1962
might be also connected to Thomas'
daughter
Marlo deciding to get a nose job somewhere between her role as Stella
Barnes on
The Joey Bishop Show in
1961-62 and the launch of her own hit TV series
That Girl in the fall of 1965. Marlo Thomas has never publicly
commented about her plastic surgeries, so it's unclear exactly when she had her
surgery or for how long she was considering it before having it done. Still, it
could have been upsetting to her father that she would want to change her
appearance to be less like his, given that his nose was his most commented-upon
facial feature and his own history of standing up to Mayer. Of course, it is
pure speculation that this episode is in any way connected to Marlo's decision
or the timing of it, but it would be understandable if there were such a
connection.
The music for The
Danny Thomas Show was composed and arranged by Herbert W. Spencer and Earle
Hagen. Spencer is profiled in the 1961 post on The Joey Bishop Show, and Hagen is profiled in the 1960 post on The Barbara Stanwyck Show.
The complete series can be streamed on Tubi TV (with
commercials).
The Actors
For the biography of Hans Conried, see the 1960 post on Rocky and His Friends.
Danny Thomas
Born
Amos Muzyad Yaqoob Kairouz on January 6, 1912 on his
family's horse farm in Deerfield, Michigan, Thomas was the fifth of nine
children of Maronite Catholic immigrants from Lebanon. His family was so poor
that Thomas was baptized without shoes, and was raised by an aunt because his mother
was in poor health. When the aunt and her husband moved to Rochester, New York,
they insisted on taking Thomas with them at a time when he didn't realize who
his real parents were. He would later recount that he didn't know he had
siblings until he was 7 years old. By the time he was returned to his natural
family, they had moved to Toledo, Ohio where he attended school while also
working from the age of 11 selling candy at a burlesque theater, where he
decided he wanted to pursue a career in show business. Also in Toledo Thomas
first met Catholic
Bishop Samuel Stritch, who performed his sacrament of
confirmation and would be a lifelong spiritual mentor who would figure
prominently in his later charitable endeavors. Thomas and his brother
Raymond
developed a vaudeville act that they performed in Toledo, but when Raymond grew
up and got married, then moved away, Thomas was not deterred in his career
ambitions and worked a number of jobs, including as a punch-press operator's
assistant and a busboy, to save enough money for some suits and shoes to be
used as an entertainer. He hitch-hiked his way to Detroit, eventually finding
work as a singer on a radio program called
The
Happy Hour Club in 1932 using an anglicized version of his birth name Amos
Jacobs Kairouz. There he met
Rose Marie Mantell and escorted her home every
night from work for three years before finally proposing marriage. They were
married in 1936, and Thomas began working as a dialiect comedian in low-rent
clubs for $2 a night. Around the time of the birth of his first daughter
Margaret (now Marlo)--accounts differ whether this happened before or shortly
after her birth--his wife pleaded with him to leave show business for more
stable and lucrative work, so Thomas prayed to St. Jude, the patron saint of
the hopeless, to show him the direction he should choose for his life and vowed
that if he found success he would open a shrine to St. Jude. Shortly
thereafter, Thomas met
Maury Foldare, who would serve as his publicist for
nearly 50 years, and his fortunes improved with better-paying gigs at more
reputable venues. In 1940 the family moved to Chicago, where Thomas took his
celebrated stage name after two of his brothers' first names, reportedly so
that his family back in Toledo would not know he was back working in
nightclubs. From there he moved on to New York, working his way up to
$500-a-week engagements before being brought to Hollywood to play the character
Jerry Dingle on
Fanny Brice's
The Baby Snooks Show radio program. He also
hosted his own 30-minute variety program on ABC from 1942-43 and on CBS from
1947-48. Then the movie studios came calling, but
Louis B. Mayer told him that
in order to become a leading man in pictures he would have to get a nose job. Thomas
was taken aback and asked his agent
Abe Lastfogel what he should do. Lastfogel
advised him there would still be plenty of opportunities with his unaltered
nose, and by 1947 he made his feature film debut in
The Unfinished Dance. In 1948 he appeared in
Big City, and had two more feature films in 1951--
Call Me Mister and playing songwriter
Gus Kahn opposite Doris Day in
I'll See
You in My Dreams. In 1952 he starred in a remake of
The Jazz Singer opposite
Peggy Lee but afterward largely turned to
television, beginning with the variety program
All Star Revue hosted by
Jimmy Durante which Thomas left
disgruntled in 1952, calling television a "workplace for idiots." He
returned to performing in nightclubs, but a year later he had already grown
tired of being away from his family and missing his children growing up. When
he was visited by producer
Lou Edelman and writer
Mel Shavelson with a script
for a proposed TV series, he turned down the script they brought but pleaded
with them to help him find a way to work from home so that he could spend more
time with his family. When he described to them how his children had taken to
calling him Uncle Daddy because he was home so infrequently, how he didn't know
things like what size clothes they wear, and how Marlo had written an essay for
school about how he was always promising to do things with them tomorrow but
that when tomorrow finally comes it will be empty, Edelman said he had just
described the perfect premise for a TV series, and from there they quickly
created
Make Room for Daddy (whose
pilot episode was titled "Uncle Daddy") with Thomas playing a
fictionalized version of himself named Danny Williams.
During the series' 11-season tenure, Thomas made good on his
vow to St. Jude, but in his conversations about the project with Bishop
Stritch, they decided to make the "shrine" a hospital for children
with cancer, turning no child away because of financial need. At the suggestion
of Stritch, born in Nashville, the hospital was founded in his home state in
Memphis. Thomas campaigned tirelessly for financial contributions, contributed
his earnings as a TV commercial pitch man for Maxwell House Coffee, and
enlisted the help of pathologist
Dr. Lemuel Diggs and auto tycoon
Anthony
Abraham for additional support. The hospital opened in 1962 at a time when the
survival rate for children with acute lymphocytic leukemia was 5%. At the time
of Thomas' death in 1991, that rate had risen to above 50%. Thomas' eponymous
TV series was the highpoint of his acting career. He won his first Primetime
Emmy in 1955 for Best Actor Starring in a Regular Series (his second Emmy, the
Bob Hope Humanitarian Award, was awarded posthumously) and was nominated in the
same or equivalent category three more times. The series itself ran for 11
seasons, while none of Thomas' later series lasted more than a single season. Still,
despite placing high in the Neilsen ratings until the very end, the demands of
anchoring a weekly series began to weigh on Thomas at least by Season 9, and
his time was increasingly being taken up as a producer on other successful
series, beginning with
The Real McCoys
and continuing with
The Andy Griffith Show,
The Dick Van Dyke Show,
The Joey Bishop Show,
Gomer Pyle: USMC, and
The Mod Squad. There were also some
duds:
The Bill Dana Show,
The Tycoon, and
Rango, to name a few. But Thomas couldn't stay away from the
camera--he hosted specials on his roots in
The
Wonderful World of Burlesque in 1965 and
On the Road to Lebanon in 1966. He followed these with a variety
show,
The Danny Thomas Hour, in 1967-68.
And in 1970 he reunited much of
The Danny
Thomas Show cast for a sequel series
Make
Room for Granddaddy, but this also lasted only a single season.
Five years later he tried playing a character
not based on himself in
The Practice,
a medical sit-com co-starring
Shelley Fabares. After that show was canceled
after one season in 1977, he returned in 1980 with
I'm a Big Girl Now in which he played a divorced dentist whose
daughter also gets divorced and moves in with him. Thomas made one more stab at
sit-coms in 1986, this time playing a retired comic who inherits a household of
orphaned kids in
One Big Family.
After that he made but a few guest appearances on the series
It's a Living and
Empty Nest, the last being in 1991, the year he died from a heart attack
at age 79. His producing credits had mostly stopped at the end of the 1970s. He
was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by
Ronald Reagan in 1983, had two
different PGA golf tournaments named after him, and was an original co-owner of
the Miami Dolphins professional football team. As a member of the Catholic
church, he was knighted by two different popes. He was elected into the
Television Hall of Fame in 1990.
Marjorie Lord
Marjorie Wollenberg was born in San Francisco on July 26, 1918.
She began taking ballet lessons at age 5, and acted in school plays and
little-theater productions growing up in San Francisco. When she was 15,, her
father, a cosmetics executive, was transferred to New York, and Marjorie was
enrolled at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts to study acting and the
Chaliff School of Dance to continue her ballet studies. In 1935 at age 16 she
landed a replacement role in the Broadway production of
The Old Maid starring
Judith Anderson. She stayed with the
production for over a year, including when it was taken on the road, but during
this time she also signed a contract with RKO Pictures, making her feature film
debut in 1937 in
Border Cafe starring
Harry Carey, Sr. She appeared in four more features that year, including two
Bert Wheeler &
Robert Woolsey comedies--
On
Again-Off Again and
High Flyers.
She then played in a traveling stock production of
Edward Everett Horton's
Springtime for Henry, with the tour
ending in San Francisco. There she immediately joined another theatrical
production of
The Male Animal where
she met actor
John Archer. The two would marry in 1941 and have two children--son
Gregg Bowman and daughter
Ann Archer, who would become an Oscar-nominated
actress for her role in
Fatal Attraction.
Meanwhile, Lord's performance in
Springtime
for Henry caught the attention of director
Henry Koster, who signed her to
a contract with Universal Studios, with her first feature for her new studio coming
in 1942's
Escape From Hong Kong with
Andy Devine. She appeared in a number of B movies for Universal over the next
two years, the most notable being
Sherlock
Holmes in Washington with
Basil Rathbone, and starred in what she termed in
a 1961
TV Guide cover story
"some Broadway flops and some pretty bad shows on the road." After a
4-year hiatus during which she gave birth to her two children, Lord returned to
movies in 1947 and made her television debut on an episode of
Public Prosecutor. By 1949 she began
appearing on a number of drama anthology series such as
Lucky Strike Theater and
Your
Show Time and by the early 1950s her work in television began to outstrip
her feature film work, which continued to be mostly of the B-grade variety. In
1951 she and Archer separated and were finally divorced in 1954 or
1955--accounts differ. Now the primary breadwinner for her two children, she
pursued and landed more and more television work on series such as
Ramar of the Jungle,
Hopalong Cassidy,
Climax!, and
The Lone Ranger
in addition to racking up hundreds of theatrical performances in San Francisco,
Los Angeles, and La Jolla, California from a long-running production of
Anniversary Waltz. It was during a Los
Angeles performance of this play that she was spotted by Danny Thomas when he
was searching for a replacement for Jean Hagen, who had left
Make Room for Daddy in 1956. During this
time she also met producer and theater owner
Randolph Hale, but the two delayed
getting married until she was firmly ensconced on
The Danny Thomas Show in 1958.
Lord struggled when she first joined
The Danny Thomas Show in part because she wasn't used to the sort
of loud, aggressive criticism dished out by Thomas and producer Sheldon
Leonard, and partly because the writers on the show were still providing her
with material more suited for Hagen, a bigger, more brash actress. Eventually
Lord and the rest of the crew grew familiar with each other's style and
strengths, and she remained with the show for the rest of its run, which ended in
1964. During this time, her only other work came as playing her role of Kathy
Williams on other programs such as
The Joey Bishop Show and
The Lucy-Desi Comedy
Hour. When the show's termination was announced, Lord remarked in a
newspaper interview that she looked forward to future acting opportunities but
not another role as a wife. She considered television wives too meek and wanted
something more assertive. That never really materialized. After playing
Bob
Hope's wife in the 1966 feature film
Boy,
Did I Get a Wrong Number! she largely kept busy on the dinner theater
circuit with an occasional appearance as Kathy Williams on
The Danny Thomas Hour and the series reboot
Make Room for Granddaddy. After Hale died in 1974, she returned to
occasional TV work on TV movies and series such as
Fantasy Island and
The Love
Boat. In 1976 she married banker
Harry J. Volk and largely retired from
acting to devote herself to charitable work for cultural organizations in the
Los Angeles area, but she did return to TV in a semi-recurring role as Joyce
Holden on
Sweet Surrender in 1987,
starring
Dana Delaney, though the series lasted only 6 episodes. After a role
in the 1988 TV movie
Side by Side,
Lord was officially done with acting. After Volk passed away in 2000, Lord appeared
at fan conventions and published her memoirs,
A Dance and a Hug, in 2005. She passed away at age 97 on November
28, 2015.
Rusty Hamer
Rusty Hamer was the prototypical child actor unable to
transition to life off-screen, and his suicide prompted another former child
actor, Paul Peterson of
The Donna Reed
Show, to found his support group A Minor Consideration to help other former
child actors adjust to life outside of show business. Born
Russell Craig Hamer
in Tenafly, New Jersey on February 15, 1947, Hamer was the son of a shirt
salesman and a former silent movie actress
Dorothy Chretien. Since his parents
were active in local theater productions, Rusty and his two older brothers were
also trained as performers, with Rusty reciting stories and performing in skits
from when he was a toddler. The family moved to Los Angeles in 1951, and by
1953 Rusty
and his older brother
John
had been noticed by an agent, who attended one of their Santa Monica theatrical
productions, and signed to contracts. Rusty had made his feature film debut that
same year in
Fort Ti and on
television in an episode of
Fireside
Theatre. Rusty was also noticed by Danny Thomas' secretary
Janet Roth when
casting was underway for what would be
Make
Room for Daddy and brought in for an audition, which he won due to his
precocious ability to memorize lines and his innate sense of timing. Thomas
would later remark that Hamer was the best boy child actor he had ever seen.
However, about 8 months after Hamer was cast as Rusty Williams, his father died,
and Hamer looked to Thomas as a kind of second father. Like most of the rest of
the cast, Hamer didn't do much work elsewhere during the show's 11-year run,
the one exception being a supporting role in the 1956
Abbott & Costello
feature film
Dance With Me, Henry. He
did briefly attempt a singing career with the release of a single on Mercury
Records in early 1960, but the review of the record in
Billboard Magazine said that Hamer sounded about 8 years old when
he was actually then nearly 13.
When
The Danny Thomas
Show was coming to an end in 1964, Hamer was quoted in a newspaper
interview published in
The Reading Eagle
that he hoped he wouldn't fall into obscurity. He was then 17 and finishing his
senior year at Palisades High School with plans to enter college the next fall
on Thomas' advice. Hamer was also hoping for more dramatic roles on series such
as
Dr. Kildare,
Ben Casey,
Arrest & Trial,
and
Mr. Novak, but all that
materialized was more appearances as Rusty Williams on
The Joey Bishop Show, Danny Thomas' variety show
The Danny Thomas Hour, and the many
reunion specials. In 1965 he was resigned to making public appearances at
tourist attractions such as the Western theme park Six-Gun Territory in Ocala,
Florida. On December 27, 1966 he was rushed to the emergency room in Santa
Monica after accidentally shooting himself in the abdomen when a gun of his
slipped from its holster and fired as he was returning from a hunting trip. Since
acting roles were few and far between, Hamer took whatever odd jobs he could
find--working for a messenger service and as a carpenter's apprentice, for
example. In June 1968 he married actress and stunt woman
Regina Parton, but the
marriage lasted less than a year. After a one-off appearance in a 1969 episode
of
Green Acres, Hamer's only acting
role was again playing Rusty Williams, now a married medical student, on the
sequel series
Make Room for Granddaddy.
When he could no longer find acting work of any kind, he moved to Deridder, Louisiana
where his brother John was running a cafe and caring for their
Alzheimer-afflicted mother. John would later describe Rusty as embittered over
the end of his acting career. He took more odd jobs working on oil rigs,
delivering newspapers, and as a short-order cook in John's cafe, but also
became reclusive, alcoholic, and delusional. John also noted that he suffered
from debilitating back pain but refused to see a doctor about it. Finally, on
January 18, 1990, he shot himself in the head in his trailer at the age of 42.
Angela Cartwright
Angela Margaret Cartwright was born in Altrincham, Cheshire,
England on September 9, 1952. When she was 1 year old, her family moved to Los
Angeles, and despite being 3 years younger than her actress sister
Veronica,
Angela broke into show business first at age 3 when she was
"accidentally" sent on an interview for a child model for Sparkletts
Water and got the job. She had many more modeling jobs thereafter, continuing
through her teens and into early adulthood. Also at age 3 she made her feature
film debut playing
Paul Newman's daughter in
Somebody Up There Likes Me. In 1957 she had an uncredited part in
the
Rock Hudson &
Sidney Poitier feature
Something of Value. Shortly thereafter she auditioned for and was
cast as Danny Thomas' soon-to-be step-daughter Linda on
The Danny Thomas Show, staying with the program through its
remaining 7 years on the air. During these early years Angela and Veronica both
took dance lessons from famed teacher
Ernest Belcher, father of actress and
dancer Marge Champion.
During her tenure on
The
Danny Thomas Show, Cartwright was limited in outside projects, but she did
release an LP of children's songs,
Angela
Cartwright Sings, in 1959 and had two TV guest appearances in 1960--one
with Veronica in an episode of
Alfred
Hitchcock Presents and another on
Shirley
Temple's Storybook. In 1962 during a hiatus from
The Danny Thomas Show, she had a starring role in the
children-oriented feature film
Lad: A Dog,
which also included
Carroll O'Connor. Just before
The Danny Thomas Show ended, Angela auditioned and won the part of
Brigitta Van Trapp in
The Sound of Music,
even getting permission from Thomas to skip his show's last episode to begin
work on the film. But unlike her castmate Rusty Hamer, Angela had no difficulty
finding more roles after
Danny Thomas,
though she was a good deal younger and perhaps more popular due to an entire
line of clothes and toys promoted while she was playing Linda Williams. After
guest starring on
My Three Sons and
The John Forsythe Show, she was cast as
Penny Robinson on
Lost in Space,
which ran for three seasons from 1965-68. Another appearance on
My Three Sons plus one on
Medical Center proceeded a temporary
move to Italy, where she did more modeling, but she came back Stateside to
reprise her role as Linda Williams on
Make
Room for Granddaddy in 1970. After that series was canceled, she found
occasional guest spots on
Adam-12,
Room 222, and the TV series version of
Logan's Run as well as some theatrical
productions (one of which reunited her with
Marjorie Lord) before her next big
feature film--1979's
Beyond the Poseidon
Adventure. Meanwhile, she married
Steve Guillon in 1976 and the couple had
two children, a son
Jesse, a screenwriter and actor, and a daughter
Becca, a
producer. With the birth of her children, Cartwright's film work decreased
dramatically, she had only 4 credits in the 1980s, the most notable being the
1983 TV movie
High School U.S.A.
alongside many other former TV stars such as
Dwayne Hickman,
Bob Denver,
Dawn
Wells,
Tony Dow,
Elinor Donahue,
David Nelson,
Ken Osmond,
Frank Bank, as well
as more recent stars like
Michael J. Fox and
Crystal Bernard. Since then she
has had only a couple of cameos in
Lost
In Space reboots (including the 1998 feature film and 2019 TV series) as
well a couple of voice roles in animated productions. From 1977 to 1999 she ran
a boutique in Toluca Lake called Rubber Boots filled with what she called
"unusual things." But after closing the store, she devoted much more
time to her artwork, photography and painted photography, which she had begun
creating back when she was 16. Her work began to be featured in art and
craft-related magazines in 2004 as well as studios in the Los Angeles area. More
recently, she has co-authored a number of books including scrapbooks for
The Sound of Music and
Lost in Space (with
Bill Mumy), a
fantasy novel (also with Mumy), two books about fashion from the Twentieth
Century Fox film archives, and several books about her artwork and the
techniques she uses. She has also led tours in 2024 and 2025 of
The Sound
of Music film locations in Austria and Bavaria, Germany.
Sid Melton
Sidney Meltzer was born in Brooklyn on May 23, 1917, the son
of Yiddish comedian
Isidor Meltzer. At age 22 in 1939 he made his theatrical
debut in a traveling production of
See My
Lawyer, the same year his older brother
Lewis had his first screenplay
produced for
Golden Boy. Thanks to
his brother's Hollywood connections, an agent got Melton an interview with MGM
which led to a supporting part in the 1941 feature
Shadow of the Thin Man. From then on, Melton would never lack for
work, racking up nearly 150 credits over a nearly 60-year career. Many of
Melton's screen appearances in the 1940s were uncredited, such as in
Blondie Goes to College,
Hey, Rookie,
A Wave, a WAC and a Marine,
Lady
at Midnight,
White Heat, and
On the Town, to name but a few. He also
had credited parts in
Dr. Broadway,
Girls in Chains, and
Kilroy Was Here. After returning from
entertaining the troops during World War II, Melton was sent by fellow actor
Harry Berman to see screenwriter
Aubrey Wisberg for a part in the feature
Treasure of Monte Cristo for low-budget
studio Lippert Pictures. After Melton appeared in a nightclub revue at Ciro's
in Hollywood, he was summoned for another Lippert 1949 production
Tough Assignment. Melton then returned
to New York and found work in the play
The
Magic Touch only to be contacted by Lippert associate
Murray Lerner to tell
him that
Robert Lippert wanted to sign him to a contract. So he returned to
Hollywood and thereafter served as comic relief in a variety of roles for
nearly every Lippert production, including the 1951 science fiction cult
classic
Lost Continent. He would also
occasionally be loaned out to other studios for features such as
Bob Hope's
The Lemon Drop Kid, though Melton would
later reveal that Lippert continued paying him his measly salary of $140 per
week and pocket the difference from what he got from Paramount for Melton's
services. Melton also appeared in
Samuel Fuller's
The Steel Helmet in 1951. But by 1954 he began finding more work in
television on
Our Miss Brooks, a
number of anthology series, and his first recurring role as Ichabod
"Icky" Mudd on
Captain Midnight.
At the same time he made 4 appearances as Harry Cooper on
It's Always Jan, and by 1956 had also returned to feature film
work, often uncredited in films such as
Designing
Woman,
This Could Be the Night,
The Joker Is Wild, and
The Geisha Boy. He had frequent guest
spots in the later 1950s on programs such as
Date With the Angels,
The
Silent Service,
The Jack Benny Program,
Alfred Hitchcock Presents,
and
Dragnet. His first appearance as
Charley Halper on
The Danny Thomas Show
came during Season 6 in 1959, though at the same time he was also playing Hal
Miller 3 times on
The Gale Storm Show,
Harry 4 times on
Bachelor Father, in
addition to a number of other appearances on
M Squad,
The Millionaire,
Whirlybirds, and
The Tab Hunter Show.
Melton would stay with
The
Danny Thomas Show through the rest of its run, only appearing once on
another program during that span playing, naturally, Charley Halper on
The Joey Bishop Show. After
The Danny Thomas Show finished, he
appeared on other Thomas/Leonard-affiliated productions as a guest star, such
as
The Andy Griffith Show,
The Dick Van Dyke Show,
That Girl,
Mod Squad, and 4 times as incompetent con man Friendly Freddy on
Gomer Pyle: USMC. After a single
appearance as Ed Ferguson in Season 1 of
Green
Acres, he was added to the cast as semi-recurring character Alf Monroe,
appearing 30 times in the role from 1965-69. He also found time to guest star
on other programs during the later 1960s such as
The Phyllis Diller Show,
Daktari,
and
I Dream of Jeannie. He reprised
his role as Charley Halper on
Make Room
for Granddaddy while also showing up on
Love,
American Style,
The Chicago Teddy
Bears, and
The Doris Day Show. In
1972 he had a supporting role playing the character Jerry in Diana Ross'
feature film debut
Lady Sings the Blues,
which led to other feature film roles in the early 1970s in
Hit!,
Sixpack Annie, and
Game Show
Models. Though the amount of work slackened beginning in the late 1970s,
Melton continued working mostly in television up through the end of the 1990s,
with his most significant role playing
Estelle Gettys' late husband Salvatore
Petrillo in flashback scenes on
The
Golden Girls from 1987-91. He also had multiple appearances in different
roles on
Nurses,
Blossom,
Empty Nest, and
Brotherly Love. His last credit came
starring and directing the 1999 feature film
...And Call Me in the Morning whose cast included
Frank Sinatra,
Jr., whom Melton later related was obsessed with
Lost Continent. Melton died from pneumonia on November 2, 2011 at
the age of 94. According to his obituary in the
New York Times, he was married in the 1940s but the marriage was
annulled. His brother-in-law is quoted as saying that after that he just kept
wire-haired terriers.
Pat Carroll
Patricia Ann Carroll was born in Shreveport,
Louisiana on May 5, 1927. Carroll first got the acting bug at age 5 when her
family was living in El Paso, Texas and the family maid took her to a play in
Mexico, which she later said mesmerized her. The family then moved to Los
Angeles in 1933, and when Carroll was 12 she embarked on her theatrical career
by looking up an acting company in the Yellow Pages and convinced them to cast
her in their production of
Our Town.
At this time Carroll's father was working for the county water department and
her mother worked at times as a real estate agent and at others as an office
manager. After graduating from Immaculate Heart High School, Carroll wanted to
move to New York to begin her acting career, but her parents refused. So for a
time she attended Immaculate College in Los Angeles and taught drama at a
Catholic high school before finally landing a supporting role in a 1947 summer
stock traveling production of
A Goose for
the Gander starring
Gloria Swanson. In 1948 she enlisted in the U.S. Army
as a civilian actress technician and attended Catholic University of America in
Washington, D.C. while also appearing in over 200 stock productions around the
country over the next three years. That same year she also made her feature
film debut in the low-budget
Hometown
Girl about an unplanned pregnancy. In 1950 she appeared in the off-Broadway
revue
Talent '50 and performed in
nightclub venues. She made her television debut a year later on an episode of
Goodyear Playhouse.
Red Skelton added
her to the cast of his variety show in 1952 after seeing her in one of her
nightclub appearances, but she left a year later and joined the cast of
The Red Buttons Show. That would be
followed by 7 appearances on
The Saturday
Night Revue and a single appearance on
The
George Gobel Show in 1954 before she made her Broadway debut in the revue
Catch a Star! in 1955, which earned her
a Tony nomination. That same year she had her first regular stint as a
game-show panelist on
Who Said That?,
a role she would play on many game shows in the 1960s and 1970s. The year 1955
was also momentous because Carroll married
Lee Karisian; the couple had three
children including actress
Tara Karisian before divorcing in 1976. After
Catch a Star! she became a regular on
the sketch comedy series
Caesar's Hour
playing opposite
Howard Morris, for which she won the 1956 Emmy Award for Best
Supporting Performance by an Actress. She would be nominated again the next
year in the same category but this time lost out to
Ann B. Davis of
The Bob Cummings Show. Carroll stayed
with
Caesar's Hour until 1957 while
also occasionally appearing on other shows, both scripted and variety,
including
Studio 57,
The Mickey Rooney Show, and
The Jimmy Durante Show. In the late
1950s she appeared on a number of other variety shows such as
The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show and
The Dinah Shore Chevy Show, the
Password-like game show
Keep Talking, and anthology series
General Electric Theater and
The DuPont Show With June Allyson. In
1959 she appeared in a Broadway revival of
Our
Town, this time playing Hildy the cab driver. In 1961 she served as a
panelist on the game show
To Tell the
Truth, the same year she was cast as Charley Halper's wife Bunny on
The Danny Thomas Show.
Carroll remained with the series
for the rest of its duration while also expanding her game-show appearances to
programs such as
Talent Scouts,
Your First Impression,
Missing Links, and
The Match Game. Before
The
Danny Thomas Show ended, she was cast in her first animated voice role as
Jane Jetson opposite
Morey Amsterdam on
The
Jetsons, but both were replaced with no explanation after recording a
single episode. Since she had signed a contract and was irate about not being
told why she was fired, Carroll filed suit against Hannah-Barbera, knowing she
would lose the suit but feeling that she had been treated unfairly. Reportedly,
the two were fired because of sponsor conflicts between
The Jetsons and Carroll and Amsterdam's other programs
The Danny Thomas Show and
The Dick Van Dyke Show. Carroll had no
trouble staying busy after
The Danny
Thomas Show, though the bulk of her work was on more game shows, such as
Password,
You Don't Say,
The Object Is,
Stump the Stars,
The All New Truth or Consequences,
I'll Bet, and
What's This
Song? In 1965 she played the role of evil step-sister Prunella in a TV
movie version of
Cinderella with
Lesley Ann Warren in the title role and got her first voicework for animation
to actually air the following year on
The
Super 6. In 1968 she reunited with Morris, who directed her in the
Doris
Day feature comedy
With Six You Get
Eggroll. In the early 1970s she found occasional guest spots on show such
as
Arnie,
The Marry Tyler Moore Show,
The
Interns, and
My Three Sons, as
well as more game-show work, and a few appearances on
The Carol Burnett Show before landing her next recurring role
playing Rita Simon on the
Bobby Sherman sit-com
Getting Together, which ran for a single season of 14 episodes in
1971-72. Through the mid-1970s she guest-starred on a number of TV series, the
most notable being the 1976 episode of
Laverne
& Shirley in which she played Shirley's mother. She then had another
recurring role playing mother Pearl Markowitz to
Adam Arkin in
Busting Loose, which ran for two seasons
and a total of 21 episodes, all of which aired in 1977. After a few more guest
spots on show like
The Love Boat, in
1979 she launched a one-woman show
Gertrude
Stein, Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein, for which she won a Drama Desk Award
as well as a Grammy for the recorded version in the Best Spoken Word, Drama or
Documentary category. She continued her prolific work on game-show panels
throughout the 1970s on several shows mentioned above as well as
Match Game,
Celebrity Sweepstakes,
The
$10,000 Pyramid,
Hollywood Connection,
and
Liar's Club, but this work
declined in the 1980s, though she did appear on
Super Password and
Family
Feud. Her work on live-action TV series also declined in the 1980s as she
turned her attention more toward the stage, except for two recurring roles as
Hope Stinson on
Ted Knight's
Too Close
for Comfort in 1986-87 and supporting
Suzanne Somers by playing Gussie Holt
on
She's the Sheriff from 1987-89.
But in the latter half of the decade, she began finding more work doing voices
for animation, including the voice of Ms. Biddy McBrain on
Galaxy High School, Hazel on
Foofur,
and Katrina Stoneheart on
Pound Puppies.
Her most celebrated animation role came when she was cast to voice the evil
Ursula in the 1989 Disney blockbuster
The
Little Mermaid, a role she would reprise many times for various video
games, shorts, and a 1993-94 TV series. The producers originally wanted
Joan
Collins for the role, but she declined, as did
Bea Arthur.
Roseanne Barr,
Nancy
Marchand,
Nancy Wilson of rock band Heart,
Charlotte Rae, and
Elaine Stritch
all auditioned for the part but were turned down. In 1990 she drew raves for
playing the male character of Falstaff in a production of
Shakespeare's
The Merry Wives of Windsor. She appeared
in other classic theatrical productions in the 1990s such as
Volpone and
Mother Courage as well as other voicework and the occasional TV
guest spot on
Evening Shade and
Designing Women. Her performance in the
2000 feature film
Songcatcher earned
her a nomination for an Independent Spirit Award, and she appeared in a few
more feature films--
Outside Sales,
Freedom Writers,
Nancy Drew,
Bridesmaids,
and
BFFs--over the next 14 years. She
also appeared 3 times as Rebecca Chadwick on
ER in 2005, but the bulk of her work was reprising Ursula or
voicing other characters in animated productions of one kind or another, such
as Old Lady Crowley in the 2017-18 TV series
Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure. Her last credit came in yet another
Disney video game released in 2022, the same year she died at age 95 from
pneumonia, just like her TV husband Sid Melton.
Amanda Randolph
Amanda E. Randolph was a
trailblazer for African-American women both in music and in radio and
television. Born in Louisville, Kentucky on September 2, 1896, Randolph was the
son of a Methodist preacher and daughter of a teacher, both born before the
Emancipation Proclamation. Her younger sister
Lillian would also become a
prominent Black actress, most remembered for her role as Annie in
It's a Wonderful Life. By 1900 the
family was living in Ponchatoula, Louisiana, but by the time Amanda was 14,
they were living in Cleveland, where Amanda first worked playing piano and
organ. In 1919 she recorded piano rolls for the Vocalstyle company in
Cincinnati, the only such rolls known to have been recorded by a Black woman. At
the time, she was also working as a musician at the Ohio Lyric Theatre. She
recorded music under the name Mandy Randolph for Gennett Records and six sides
as part of a duet with
Sammie Lewis. In 1924 she was invited to join the
Sissle
and Blake musical
Shuffle Along as
well as their next effort
The Chocolate
Dandies, which played Broadway. She appeared in other musicals at Harlem's
Alhambra Theatre until 1930, when she traveled to Europe for 9 months as part
of
Scott & Whaley's variety act and then returned to perform in Black
vaudeville including the hit musical revues
Chilli
Peppers,
Dusty Lane, and
Radio Waves. In 1932 she interrupted her
career to get married to
Harry Hansberry, who ran the notorious Harlem gay
speakeasy The Clam House frequented by many show business professionals. But
after 4 years, she returned to show business performing at The Black Cat in
Greenwich Village. Also in 1936 she recorded 6 sides for Bluebird Records
billed as Amanda Randolph and Her Orchestra which can be found on the Timeless
Records CD
The 30s Girls (1932-1940).
After appearing in the 1936 short
Black
Network she made her feature film debut in
Oscar Micheaux's
Swing! She would appear in two more
Michaeux productions over the next two years:
Lying Lips and
The Notorious
Elinor Lee. In 1940 she appeared in the Broadway production of
The Male Animal starring Leon Ames and
future
Hazel cast member
Don DeFore.
She would have two more Broadway shows with
Harlem
Cavalcade in 1942 and
The Willow and
I in 1942-43. Using connections she made at The Clam House, Randolph then
launched her radio career, appearing on programs such as
Young Doctor Malone,
Big
Sister,
The Romance of Helen Trent,
Abie's Irish Rose,
Kitty Foyle, and
Aunt Jenny. She had a regular role on
Aunt Hattie, which starred Ethel Barrymore, and would sometimes
appear on
The Great Gildersleeve
where her sister Lillian had a regular role. Beginning in 1944 she began
working as a voiceover performer in cartoon shorts beginning with
Eggs Don't Bounce, playing the character
Mandy in several more shorts that year. In 1948 she began another series of
cartoon voiceovers, playing Petunia in Famous Pictures' series of Little Audrey
cartoons. That was the year she also became the first Black woman to have a
regular role on a TV series when she played Martha on
The Laytons, a series that lasted only two months. But it led to
Randolph hosting her own daytime variety series
Amanda, which also was a short-lived experiment by the DuMont
Television Network but marked the first time a Black woman had hosted a TV
program. With Lillian now living in Hollywood, Amanda finally moved out west in
1949, initially to appear in the feature film
No Way Out, which marked the screen debut of
Sidney Poitier. The
following year she began playing Ramona Smith, mother of Sapphire on
The Amos 'n' Andy Show, both on radio
and television. She took over the title role on
The Beulah Show from Lillian in 1953. The role had been originated
by
Ethel Waters who had been succeeded by
Hattie McDaniel and
Louse Beavers
before the Randolph sisters took their turns. Amanda also found several feature
film roles in the early in 1950s, sometimes uncredited, in
She's Working Her Way Through College,
Bonzo Goes to College,
Bomba
and the Jungle Girl, and
Mister
Scoutmaster. Around the same time that her stint on
The Amos 'n' Andy Show came to an end, she made the first of her 74
appearances as maid Louise on
The Danny
Thomas Show during its second season. That same year, 1955, she opened her
own restaurant Mama's Place in Los Angeles, where she reportedly did her own
cooking.
Since she did not appear every
week on
The Danny Thomas Show, she
also sought out work elsewhere, making occasional guest appearances on other
series such as
The Loretta Young Show,
Playhouse 90,
Whirlybirds,
The Thin Man,
How to Marry a Millionaire, and
The Untouchables in the late 1950s. In
1961, her husband Hansberry died from a heart attack, and she returned to New
York for his funeral. The couple had been estranged for some time after having
two children,
Joseph and
Evelyn. She continued taking occasional TV guest work
in the early 1960s on programs such as
The
Man From Blackhawk,
The Barbara Stanwyck Show,
The New Breed,
Perry Mason, and
Cheyenne as well as a couple of uncredited feature film roles. After
The Danny Thomas Show went off the
air in 1964, Randolph attempted retirement while staying active with church and
charity work
, but in 1966
Jet magazine reported that she was in financial
difficulty because she was just one credit short of qualifying for a Screen
Actors Guild pension. A month later the magazine reported that a role was being
created specifically for her so that she would qualify for the pension--very
likely her 1967 appearance on
That Girl
courtesy of his old boss' daughter. She passed away after suffering a stroke on
August 24, 1967 at the age of 70. After her death, she appeared in three
projects filmed earlier that year: an episode of
CBS Playhouse, an uncredited part in the feature film
The Last Challenge, and one more turn as
Louise on an episode of
The Danny Thomas
Hour. She was buried next to her sister Lillian in Hollywood Hills.
Bill Dana
Born
William Szathmary on October
5, 1924 in Quincy, Massachusetts, Dana was the youngest of six children. His
father immigrated from Hungary and worked as a printer's assistant and at one
point owned a hotel that was destroyed by a fire during the Depression. His
mother worked as a milliner of hats. The family was quite wealthy up until the
Depression, though Dana said that he never felt the loss of wealth like his
older siblings did since he didn't know any other existence. Most of his
siblings had distinguished careers as well. His brother
Irving was a prominent
musical arranger who worked for
Paul Whiteman in the mid-1930s, composed the
first dance arrangement of
Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue," and
composed the theme music for
Get Smart.
His brother
Arthur, whom Dana credits with engendering his awareness of
languages and dialects that factored in the creation of his character Jose
Jimenez, became a Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University. His sister
Fanny, after a long marriage and period raising her children, returned to
school, graduated from UCLA, and became the head law librarian at USC. His
brother
Sidney became a violinist for decades with the Indianapolis Symphony.
Dana said that he himself was a terrible student in grammar school and high
school and only managed to graduate through the help of his sister Fanny. From
an early age he became interested in comedy--
Danny Kaye was a favorite of his
on radio, and he partnered with schoolmate
Larry Vincent (who would go on to
create the character of horror movie host and heckler Seymour on local Los
Angeles TV and radio stations in the late 1960s and early 1970s) and then with
Gene Good, with whom Dana formed a comedy duo early in his career. After
graduating from high school, he had tried to enlist in the U.S. Navy, but
before his papers were processed, he was drafted into the Army and through a
stroke of fate narrowly missed boarding the ill-fated Leopoldville
troop-carrier ship that was sunk by a Nazi submarine and was also spared
fighting in the Battle of the Bulge where so many American soldiers were
killed. Instead, he served as a mortar-man and machine gunner in action farther
south, earning a Bronze Star. After the War, he and Good enrolled at Emerson
College in Boston and helped launch the campus radio station, but after
graduating he moved to Los Angeles hoping to break into show business there. He
worked a series of odd jobs but never found any work in the entertainment
business; however, he was able to bluff his way through an interview at Douglas
Aircraft in Santa Monica, relying on past experience laying out electrical
cables in a Boston shipyard, to get hired as the head of equipment and manpower
files on top secret jobs such as the Nike missile project. He then got a letter
from Good, who was now working as a page at NBC, telling him that he was
performing small comedy bits for a show called
Broadway Open House, and persuaded Dana to move back to New York to
team up with him. Dana also got a job as an NBC page, and the duo made their
first television appearance together on
Date
in Manhattan with
Ed Herlihy. The duo's comedy bits often involved
"what if" scenarios based on historical events and figures, but while
the two performers saw themselves as comedic equals, their audiences began to
see Dana as the comic and Good as the straight man, which eventually irked Good
and prompted him to disband the act. It was during this time that Dana took his
stage name, figuring that his last name was too hard to pronounce, so he came
up with Dana as a variation of his mother's first name
Dena. He found work
performing on
The Imogene Coca Show
and
The Martha Raye Show, but after
aggravating a back injury, he decided to concentrate on writing. His managers
teamed him up with a young comic named
Don Adams, and Dana encouraged Adams to
adopt his trademark clipped manner of speaking after seeing him using something
similar while impersonating actor
William Powell in one of his routines. Dana
was also the one to develop Adams' "Would you believe?" series of
jokes. When Dana accompanied Adams to one of his appearances on
The Steve Allen Show, Dana was invited
by writers
Herb Sargent and
Stan Burns to join their staff, and once they left,
he became, for a time, the sole writer on the show. As head writer on
The Steve Allen Show, Dana came up with
a routine called The Answer Man in which
Allen would reveal the answers before
being asked the questions, just as
Johnny Carson would later do with his Great
Carnac routine. Dana also brought
Don Knotts over to the
Allen Show, after working with him on
The Martha Raye Show, at a time when Knotts was considering leaving
show business. During the summer of 1958 Dana also wrote for the replacement
variety show
The Steve Lawrence-Eydie
Gorme Show, whose guests included Don Knotts, Don Adams, and Pat Carroll. In
1959 Dana came up with his signature character, Jose Jimenez, in a skit in
which he portrays an instructor at a Santa Claus school. According to
Pat
Harrington, Jr., Dana had been toying with the Jimenez character for over a
decade after meeting a man in Puerto Rico who seemed to be saying he was the Dutch
representative for the country when he was actually saying he was the Dodge
representative. The sketch became an instant hit, and Dana received an Emmy
nomination for his writing on the show. Besides reprising the role many times
on
The Steve Allen Show, Dana was
invited to perform it on other shows and recorded an album containing some of
the skits from the
Allen Show. On one
such appearance on
The Garry Moore Show
in 1960 Dana and writing partner
Don Hinkley decided to make Jimenez an
astronaut on the suggestion of
Moore Show
writer
Neil Simon. Since these were the days of the nascent U.S. space program
in its rush to beat the Russians, Jose the Astronaut became an even bigger
sensation, so much so that he was invited to perform the bit at
President
Kennedy's inaugural gala, released a top 20 single and top-selling LP, and was
made an honorary member of the U.S. space program. He was hired to produce and
write for the 1961 summer replacement program
The Spike Jones Show on which he would occasionally appear as
Jimenez. Then
Lou Edelman, producer for
The
Danny Thomas Show, came up with the idea of "adding flesh and blood”
to the Jimenez character by having him work as the elevator operator in Danny
Williams' apartment building.
Dana would appear 8 times on
The Danny Thomas Show before being spun
off into
The Bill Dana Show in 1963,
on which Jimenez now worked as a bellman at a prestigious hotel. Dana later
said in an interview that he was doing his act at the Cal Neva resort when he
got a phone call from
Sheldon Leonard informing him that NBC was offering them
a guaranteed 39 weeks of
The Bill Dana Show
without even seeing a script or shooting a pilot. Jimenez's boss on the program
was played by future
Lost in Space
star
Jonathan Harris, and Don Adams was brought in to replace
Gary Crosby as
the clueless hotel detective, fore-shadowing his future fame as inept secret
agent Maxwell Smart. Dana later said that he did not envision himself remaining
the star of the series long-term and that his idea was transition it to a show
in which Adams was the star. The series ran for two seasons and a total of 42
episodes, with Dana receiving an Emmy nomination for writing before being
canceled in January 1965 after the sponsor Proctor & Gamble decided the
ratings were not good enough and decided to replace it with the
Chuck Connors
western
Branded. During the series'
run and for several years afterward, Dana made many appearances on variety
shows as Jimenez, including
The Ed
Sullivan Show,
The Tonight Show
Starring Jack Paar,
The Red Skelton
Hour,
The New Steve Allen Show,
The Linkletter Show,
The Hollywood Palace,
The Jack Paar Program, and
The Dean Martin Show, to name but a few.
In 1966 he wrote and played the part of the White Knight in an animated version
of
Alice in Wonderland, appeared as
Jimenez in the cartoon
I Want My Mummy,
which he also co-wrote, produced
The
Milton Berle Show, and made a cameo as Jimenez on an episode of
Batman. In May 1967 he hosted a live
talk show
Las Vegas on the United
Network, intended to be a major network to compete with the Big 3, but by the
end of the month, the network went bankrupt still owing Dana some $25,000. In
1968 he had his own special,
Jose Jimenez
Discovers America sponsored by Bell Telephone, for whom Dana was then a
spokesman. But after doing a commercial for Southwestern Bell in which Jimenez
said, "Let your fingers do the walking through the jello pages," Dana
caught a lot of flack from Latino organizations for stereotyping their
community, which Dana considered unfair because he maintained, years later,
that Jimenez was a mere character, a good person who only wanted to help
people, not a derogatory figure, and that among his fans were many prominent
Latinos, including
Ricardo Montalban and
Cantinflas, and that he had helped host
the early meetings of La Causa as well as doing fund-raising for the movement.
Rationalizing that he had other projects to work on, Dana decided, and later
regretted, to kill the Jimenez character by announcing in the spring of 1970 at
a rally for the Latino Community in front of 11,000 people at the Los Angeles
Sports Arena that Jose Jimenez was dead. He was stunned by the universal
cheering and applause he received, figuring that there would be at least some
people sorry to see his beloved creation die. He was hired to produce and write
the
Don Knotts' Nice Clean, Decent,
Wholesome Hour, but suffering from depression over the demise of Jimenez,
as well as not being hired for any other appearances since everyone equated
Dana the person with Jimenez the character, he abruptly left the Knotts program
and moved to Hawaii, which he later said meant he was invisible to Hollywood.
Eventually he tried to get back into show business by calling old friend
Norman
Lear and asking if he could suggest an episode that he would write for
All in the Family. Lear was apprehensive
at first but then told Dana that if he could come up with a way to have the
real
Sammy Davis, Jr. make a visit to the Bunker household, he would let him
write it. The two threw ideas back and forth, and Dana came up with the idea
that since Archie moonlighted as a cab driver in New York, he could have Davis
be one of his fares who leaves a briefcase behind in the cab, which he then has
to visit the Bunker home to retrieve. Even though the episode was nominated for
an Emmy for Outstanding Single Program, and the series won a number of other
Emmys that year, including Best Comedy Series and Best Director for
John Rich
specifically for that episode, Dana was not invited to the ceremony because his
agent's secretary sent the appropriate form to the wrong organization. That
year, 1972, Dana married the actress
Maura McGiveney, but the couple divorced
less than 6 months later. Although he got a couple more writing assignments on
Bridget Loves Bernie and
Chico and the Man as well writing for
the entire
Donny and Marie series
over the next few years, Dana's career never returned to the heights he reached
in the 1960s. He had occasional guest acting spots in the 1970s on
The Snoop Sisters,
Police Woman,
McMillan &
Wife,
Ellery Queen, and
Rosetti & Ryan, to name a few. In
1980 he wrote and appeared in (as Jonathan Livingston Siegle) the
Get Smart reboot feature film
The Nude Bomb. In 1981 he remarried to
Evelyn Shular and the couple eventually settled in Nashville. But other than writing
a few random episodes here and there, most of his career from then on was in
acting: in the 1980s he had guest spots on
Fantasy
Island,
Too Close for Comfort,
and
The Facts of Life in addition to
a recurring role as Mr. Plitzky on the very short-lived sit-com
No Soap, Radio and 3 turns as Jonas
Fiscus on
St. Elsewhere. Beginning in
1988 he appeared 6 times as Sophia Petrillo's brother Angelo on
The Golden Girls over the next 4 years.
His final screen credit came in a 1994 episode of
Empty Nest. In 2004 he established The American Comedy Archives at
his alma mater Emerson College. He died on June 15, 2017 at the age of 92.
Sheldon Leonard
Sheldon Leonard Bershad was born
in Manhattan on February 22, 1907, the son of lower-middle-class Jewish
parents. His family moved about New York City so that Leonard spent time in
Brooklyn, the Bronx, and even the suburb of Bellevue, New Jersey, where he said
in a 1996 interview he experienced antisemitic bigotry that made him hostile
and even a bully for a time. He also said he had no friends growing up, so he
spent a great time reading books such as Horatio Alger and Tarzan stories,
which developed his sense of imagination that was useful in his show business
career. At Stuyvesant High School, his best friend was the future actor
J.
Edward Bromberg, who because of a heart condition could not engage in
athletics, so the two gravitated to literary and dramatic activities,
encouraged by teacher and future Broadway producer
Gustav Blum. After
graduating high school, Leonard attended Syracuse University, which had a
renowned Performing Arts department. He graduated in 1929 and went to work on
Wall Street, but with the stock market crash later that year, he began looking
for other work and decided on a career as an actor. However, it took him 5
years to make it to Broadway, debuting in the poorly reviewed
Hotel Alimony in 1934, though Leonard's
performance received mild compliments. He continued on Broadway in
The Night Remembers (1934),
Fly Away Home (1935),
Having a Wonderful Time (1937-38), and
Kiss the Boys Good-Bye (1938-39), the
last two being bona fide successes that led to offers from Hollywood. At the
same time he was making his mark on Broadway, he began getting small supporting
parts in film shorts such as
My Mummy's
Arms (1934) starring
Shemp Howard, as well as the Hatian voodoo thriller
feature film
Ouanga (1936). His feature
film career really launched in earnest after being brought to Hollywood for the
role of murder suspect Phil Church in
Another
Thin Man in 1939. Though he returned to New York afterward to resume his
Broadway career, live theater there was in decline due to competition from the
rise in popularity of feature films, with some theaters converting to movie
houses. Leonard's managers recommended he move to Hollywood and pursue a film
career, where his thick Brooklyn-styled accent and dark looks led to
typecasting as a variety of heavies throughout the 1940s and early 1950s, from
racketeer Chink Moran in
Buy Me That Town
in 1941 to Vichy policeman Lt. Coyo in
To
Have and Have Not to surly bartender Nick in
It's a Wonderful Life to Harry the Horse in
Guys and Dolls. Concurrent with his film career, Leonard found work
in radio, where he first played the semi-recurring tout character on
The Jack Benny Program, a role he would
also play on the television version of the show, in which he would act like the
stereotypical horse racing tout but instead give
Benny advice on mundane
matters such as what type of chewing gum he should buy. He was a regular cast
member on radio programs such as
Damon
Runyan Theatre and
The Martin and
Lewis Show and would appear as a guest actor on programs such as
Dragnet,
The Adventures of the Saint, and
The Adventures of Maisie starring
Ann Sothern. His work in radio
provided him an opportunity to begin writing scripts for the shows on which he
was appearing, and in the early days of television he was approached by a
friend working in the medium asking if he could use some of his scripts for TV
productions. Leonard agreed but was then dismayed when he saw the finished
product, which he said had butchered the comedic effects of the original
scripts, telling his friend he could not use any more of his scripts. So
instead he was offered the chance to direct his own scripts on television, thus
launching his successful career as a TV director on series such as
Your Jeweler's Showcase,
General Electric Theater,
Lassie, and
Make Room for Daddy, which he began directing in Season 1, Episode
7. Leonard says that he was hired for the program by
Norman Brokaw of the
William Morris Agency since he had already established himself as a successful
TV director. After three years of poor ratings on ABC and the departure of
Jean
Hagen as Thomas' wife, the show moved to CBS and was renamed
The Danny Thomas Show with Leonard now
as producer as well as director. He would win two Emmys, in 1957 and 1961, for
his directing on the program. At the same time, his distinctive voice garnered
work in cartoons such as
Kiddin' the
Kitten,
Sock a Doodle Doo, and
A Peck O' Trouble. His acting work also
began transitioning to TV programs such as
The
George Burns and Gracie Allen Show,
I
Married Joan, and
I Love Lucy. In
1954 he had his first regular recurring role as Sam Marco on the summer
replacement series
The Duke about a former
boxer now running a nightclub. After appearing in a Season 1 episode of
The Danny Thomas Show as a character
named Gus, Leonard began to play the character Phil Brokaw, Danny Williams'
agent, beginning in Season 4, appearing a total of 16 times in the role over
the duration of the series.
Though he would continue his
acting career on a more modest scale from then on, his collaboration with
Thomas on directing and producing other series began to take off in 1957, when
he directed 6 of the first 8 episodes of
The Real McCoys. Leonard is often unofficially credited with introducing the
back-door pilot strategy, beginning with the introduction of
Andy Griffith as
Sheriff Andy Taylor on a 1960 episode of
The
Danny Thomas Show, which was then spun off into its own series,
The Andy Griffith Show that fall. The
same strategy was used to launch
The Joey Bishop Show,
The Bill Dana Show,
and
Gomer Pyle: USMC. Leonard also
deserves credit for recognizing that
Carl Reiner's sit-com about a TV comedy
writer would be better served by removing Reiner from the star role and
replacing him with up-and-coming comedian
Dick Van Dyke, thereby transforming
the pilot for
Head of the Family into
The Dick Van Dyke Show, launched in
the fall of 1961. He is also credited with persuading network executives at NBC
to cast
Bill Cosby as co-star with
Robert Culp on
I Spy in 1965, the first time an African American was cast in a
lead role on American television. But not all of his shows were smash hits:
besides
The Bill Dana Show folding
after 42 episodes, other less successful series included
Accidental Family (1967-68),
Good
Morning World (1967-68),
My Friend
Tony (1969),
My World and Welcome To
It (1969-70), which won the Emmy for Best Comedy Series in 1970 but was
still canceled after a single season,
From
a Bird's Eye View (1970-71),
Shirley's
World (1971-72), and
The Don Rickles
Show (1972). Still, having launched and/or led four of the most successful
TV sit-coms in television history earned Leonard legendary status. In 1975 he
returned to a leading role on television with the series
Big Eddie in which he played an ex-gambler now running a sports
arena but constantly being tempted to return to his shady past. The series ran
for only 10 episodes before being canceled. In the 1970s he along with
Mickey
Spillane were the first two TV commercial spokesmen for Miller Lite beer. Thereafter
he would make very rare appearances on series such as
Sanford & Son,
The Cosby
Show,
The Facts of Life,
Matlock,
Murder, She Wrote, and
Cheers,
as well as reprising his role as Sam Marco in the very-short-lived remake of
his 1954 series
The Duke in 1979,
this time starring
Robert Conrad. His last credit came in a 1992 episode of
Dream On. That year he was inducted into
the Television Hall of Fame, and 3 years later was given lifetime membership in
the Directors Guild of America, though he famously quipped, "Giving a
lifetime membership to a guy 88 years old...Big fucking deal!" He died
January 11, 1997 at the age of 89. In 2007 Chuck Lorre, co-creator of TV series
The Big Bang Theory decided to name
the show's two leading male characters Sheldon Cooper and Leonard Hofstadter in
honor of Sheldon Leonard.
Notable Guest Stars
Season 9, Episode 14, "Useless Charley":
Hope
Summers (shown on the far left, see the biography section for the 1961 post on
The Andy Griffith Show) plays Copa nightclub cleaning woman Jenny.
Season 9, Episode 15, "Linda, the Tomboy":
Scott
McCartor (shown on the right, appeared in
The Unsinkable
Molly Brown and
Rattlers) plays Linda's
crush Scotty Parks.
Sally Smith (daughter of actress Virginia Lee) plays Linda's
rival Eloise Johnson.
Season 9, Episode 16, "The Big Fight": Hope
Summers (see "Useless Charley" above) returns as Copa nightclub
cleaning woman Jenny. Tom Cound (Beasley on The
Beverly Hillbillies) plays a Copa waiter.
Season 9, Episode 17, "Casanova Tonoose":
Ann
Tyrell (shown on the left, appeared in
Bride for Sale,
Once a Thief,
The Girl in White, and
Take
Me to Town and played Violet Praskins on
Private Secretary and Olive Smith on
The Ann Sothern Show) plays marriage bureau client Mrs. Marshall.
Amzie
Strickland (Mrs. Phillips on
The Bill
Dana Show and Julia Mobey on
Carter
Country) plays marriage bureau client Mrs. Hotchkiss.
Season 9, Episode 19, "The P.T.A. Bash":
Olan
Soule (Aristotle "Tut" Jones on
Captain
Midnight, Ray Pinker on
Dragnet
(1952-59), Cal on
Stagecoach West,
the Hotel Carlton desk clerk on
Have Gun -- Will Travel, and Fred Springer on
Arnie
and voiced Batman on
The All-New Super
Friends Hour,
Challenge of the
Superfriends,
The World's Greatest
SuperFriends, and
Super Friends)
plays provisional school principal Phelps.
Robert Nash (Dr. Jenkins on
Days of Our Lives) plays school
superintendant Mr. Whitehall.
Nancy Kulp (shown on the right, see the biography section for the
1962 post on
The Beverly Hillbillies)
plays school board member Mrs. Keltner.
Maudie Prickett (see the biography
section for the 1961 post on
Hazel)
plays school board member Mrs. Brown.
Season 9, Episode 20, "A Nose by Any Other Name":
Lyle
Talbot (shown on the left, see the biography section for the 1960 post on
The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet) plays plastic surgeon Dr.
Crawford.
Season 9, Episode 21, "Casanova Junior":
Pamela
Baird (shown on the right, see the biography section for the 1961 post on
Leave It to Beaver) plays Rusty's girlfriend Sally.
Ann Barnes
(Cookie on
Blondie) plays ingénue
Darlene Dorsey.
Jimmy Baird (Rodney "Pee Wee" Jenkins on
Fury) plays Darlene's boyfriend Tommy.
Season 9, Episode 24, "Bunny Cooks a Meal":
Louis
Nye (shown on the left, see the biography section for the 1962 post on
The Beverly Hillbillies) plays Charley's cousin and famous chef
Herman Halper.
Season 9, Episode 25, "Jose's Protege":
Herbie
Faye (shown on the right, played Cpl. Sam Fender on
The Phil Silvers
Show, Waluska on
The New Phil Silvers
Show, and Ben Goldman on
Doc)
plays mailman Herbie Perkins.
Season 9, Episode 26, "Danny and Bob Get Away From It
All":
Bob Hope (shown on the left, legendary comedian who starred in
Road to Singapore,
Road to
Zanzibar,
My Favorite Blonde,
My Favorite Brunette,
The Paleface, and
Bachelor in Paradise) plays himself.
Stanley Adams (Lt. Morse on
Not for Hire and Gurrah on
The Lawless Years) plays a cafe waiter.
Renie Riano (appeared in
Tovarich, 4
Nancy Drew features,
Li'l Abner, and 5
Maggie and Jiggs features) plays an autograph hound.
Season 9, Episode 28, "Kathy, the Pro":
Minerva
Urecal (shown on the right, see the biography section for the 1960 post on
Peter Gunn) plays actress Henrietta Bixby.
Season 9, Episode 29, "A Promise Is a Promise":
Art
Linkletter (shown on the left, host of
People Are Funny,
Here's Hollywood,
Hollywood Talent Scouts,
The Linkletter Show,
The Art Linkletter Show, and
Life With Linkletter) plays himself.
Season 9, Episode 30, "The Smart Aleck":
Don Penny
(shown on the right, played Toby Ballard on
The Brighter Day,
Lt. Stanley Harris on
The Lieutenant,
and Charles Tyler on
The Wackiest Ship in
the Army) plays Danny's cousin Don Penny.
Season 9, Episode 31, "Baby":
Joan Tompkins (shown on the near left, see
the biography section for the 1962 post on
Sam
Benedict) plays a hospital admitting nurse.
Season 10, Episode 1, "The Baby Hates Charley":
Benny
Rubin (shown on the right, see the biography section for the 1961 post on
The Dick Tracy Show) plays a tramp.
Joe Devlin (Sam Catchem on
Dick Tracy) plays a policeman.
Season 10, Episode 2, "Danny's Replacement":
Jack
Carter (shown on the left, legendary stand-up comedian, appeared in
The Horizontal Lieutenant,
The
Happy Hooker Goes to Washington, and
History
of the World: Part 1, and played Glenn Wallace on
Santa Barbara and Stan on
Shameless)
plays himself.
Season 10, Episode 4, "The British Sense of Humor":
Cecil Parker (appeared in
A Cuckoo in the
Nest,
The Man Who Lived Again,
Storm in a Teacup,
The Ladykillers, and
Swiss
Family Robinson) plays British comedian Sir Harry Barkley.
Dennis Price (appeared
in
A Canterbury Tale,
The Bad Lord Byron,
I'm All Right Jack,
School
for Scoundrels,
The V.I.P.s,
The Magic Christian, and
Vampyros Lesbos and played Col. Basil
Trumper on
Colonel Trumper's Private War
and Jeeves on
The World of Wooster)
plays men's club board member Sir Howard Bakersby.
Richard Wattis (shown on the right, see the
biography section for the 1961 post on
Danger
Man) plays board member Sir Daniel Fortescue.
Newton Blick (Gabriel Varden
on
Barnaby Rudge and Sir Charles
Harmon on
Compact) plays board member
Sir Nigel Spencer.
Anthony Dawes (Inspector Bridges on
Follow That Dog and the Headmaster on
Who, Sir? Me, Sir?) plays a hotel manager.
Margaret Flint (Mrs.
Grant on
Somebody's Daughter) plays a
hotel chambermaid.
Season 10, Episode 5, "Jose Rents the Copa":
Stanley
Adams (shown on the left, see "Danny and Bob Get Away From It All" above) plays maintenance
worker Harry.
Peter Leeds (Tenner Smith on
Trackdown
and George Colton on
Pete and Gladys)
plays maintenance worker Fred.
Allan Melvin (Cpl. Steve Henshaw on
The Phil Silvers Show, Sgt. Snorkle on
Beetle Bailey, Sgt. Charley Hacker on
Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., Sam Franklin on
The Brady Bunch, and Barney Hefner on
All in the Family and
Archie Bunker's Place and was the voice
of Magilla Gorilla on
Magilla Gorilla,
Drooper on
The Banana Splits Adventure
Hour, and Thun and King Vultan on
Flash
Gordon) plays a third maintenance worker and friend of Jose.
Season 10, Episode 6, "Rusty for President":
The
Smothers Brothers (shown on the right, played themselves on
My
Brother the Angel and hosted
The
Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour) play themselves.
Season 10, Episode 7, "A Hunting We Will Go":
Jimmy
Edwards (shown on the left, starred in
Helter Skelter,
Bottoms Up, and
Nearly a Nasty Accident and played Ernie Briggs on
Bold as Brass, John Jorrocks on
Mr. John Jorrocks, James Fossett on
The Fossett Saga, Sir Yellow on
Sir Yellow, Father Glum on
The Glums, and the various Jim
characters on
The Seven Faces of Jim,
Six More Faces of Jim, and
More Faces of Jim) plays poacher Jimmy
Cartwright.
Raymond Huntley (Det. Insp. Austin on
Operation Diplomat, Det. Insp. Kenton on
A Time of Day, John Chester on
Barnaby
Rudge, Uncle Charles on
Uncle Charles,
Emanuel Holroyd on
That's Your Funeral,
Sir Geoffrey Dillon on
Upstairs,
Downstairs, Henry Parish on
The
Square Leopard, and Justice Downes on
Crown
Court) plays landowner Lord Spratling.
Vanda Godsell (appeared in
Konga,
A Shot in the Dark,
The Wrong
Box, and
The Pink Panther Strikes
Again and played Katie Heenan on
The
Newcomers, Edith Bishop on
General
Hospital, and Mrs. Partington on
I
Didn't Know You Cared) plays waitress Mavis Micklethwaite.
Harold Goodwin (Horace
Martin on
United!, Alf on
The Newcomers, Hawkins on
Rogue's Rock, Harry on
Oh No It's Selwyn Froggitt, Wilfrid
Willis on
That's My Boy, and Josh
Shackleton on
Coronation Street)
plays a hotel bellhop.
David Ensor (played the Judge on
The Verdict Is Yours) plays a judge.
Season 10, Episode 8, "Ten Years Ago Today":
Paul
Dubov (shown on the right, played Michel on
The Ann Sothern Show)
plays Charley's assistant at the Copa Felix.
Season 10, Episode 9, "Jose the Scholar":
Virginia
Gregg (shown on the left, starred in
Dragnet,
Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing,
Operation Petticoat and was the voice of
Norma Bates in
Psycho, Maggie Belle
Klaxon on
Calvin and the Colonel, and
Tara on
The Herculoids and
Space Stars) plays Jose's night school
teacher Miss Brown.
Season 10, Episode 10, "The Old Soud":
Noel
Purcell (shown on the right, appeared in
The Crimson Pirate,
Lust for Life,
Shake Hands With the Devil,
Mutiny
on the Bounty, and
The MacKintosh Man
and played Mr. Finucan on
Never Say Die)
plays Kathy's Irish uncle Francis Daly.
J.G. Devlin (appeared in
Captain Lightfoot,
Darby O'Gill and the Little People, and
The Caper of the Golden Bulls and played Herbert Button on
The Newcomers and Father Dooley on
Bread) plays her Uncle Shamus.
Barbara
Mullen (appeared in
Jeannie,
So Little Time,
Innocent Sinners, and
It
Takes a Thief and played Janet MacPherson on
Dr. Finlay's Casebook) plays her Aunt Molly.
Season 10, Episode 11, "Tonoose, Life of the Party":
Trudi Ames (shown on the left, appeared in
Bye Bye Birdie,
Gidget Goes to Rome, and
The Impossible Years and played Candy on
Karen) plays one of Rusty's party
guests.
Season 10, Episode 12, "Danny's English Friend":
Noel Drayton (Mr. Hardcastle on
Family
Affair) plays London pub proprietor Bert Wingate.
Bernard Fox (shown on the right, played Tom Norton
on
Sixpenny Corner, Malcolm on
Three Live Wires, Dr. Bombay on
Bewitched, John Watson on
The Casebook of Charlotte Holmes, and
Nigel Penny-Smith on
General Hospital)
plays his brother Alfie.
Roy Roberts (Capt. Simon P. Huxley on
The Gale Storm Show, Admiral Rogers on
McHale's Navy, John Cushing on
The Beverly Hillbillies, Mr. Cheever on
The Lucy Show, Frank Stephens on
Bewitched, Norman Curtis on
Petticoat Junction, and Mr.
Botkin/Bodkin on
Gunsmoke) plays
syndicated columnist Sam Washburn.
Shirley Mitchell (Yvonne Sharp on
Sixpenny Corner, Kitty Devereaux on
Bachelor Father, Janet Colton on
Pete and Gladys, Marge on
Please Don't Eat the Daisies, and Clara
Appleby on
The Red Skelton Hour)
plays his wife Betty.
Benny Baker (appeared in
Blonde Trouble,
Stage Door
Canteen, and
Paint Your Wagon and
played Pete the bartender on
F Troop)
plays Copa customer Mr. Foster.
Paul Dubov (see "Ten Years Ago Today"
above) returns as Charley's assistant Felix.
Season 10, Episode 13, "Bunny, the Brownie
Leader":
Joan Tompkins (see "Baby" above) plays Brownie
administrator Miss Barclay.
Margaret Hamilton (shown on the left, appeared in
The Farmer Takes a Wife,
The
Wizard of Oz,
My Little Chickadee,
The Invisible Woman,
The Sin of Harold Diddlebock, and
Angel in My Pocket and played Aunt Eva
on
Ethel and Albert, Mrs. Sayre on
Valiant Lady, Katie on
The Secret Storm, Granny Frump on
The Addams Family, and Miss Peterson on
As the World Turns) plays experienced
Brownie troop leader Miss Flora Fenwick.
Season 10, Episode 14, "Charley the Artist":
Charlie Cantor (shown on the near right, see the biography section for the 1962 post on
The Jack Benny Program) plays Copa
employee Fred.
Herbie Faye (see "Jose's Protege" above) plays
chimpanzee trainer Noodles.
Fritz Feld (appeared in
One Hysterical Night,
Bringing
Up Baby,
Phantom of the Opera
(1943),
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,
4 for Texas, and
Hello, Dolly!) plays Bunny's art instructor Professor Schmidt.
