The 2011 DVD release of the first half season of
I'm Dickens... He's Fenster would have
us believe that the series' creator,
Leonard Stern, was also the mastermind
behind
Get Smart, for which he was
executive producer. But it's clear after watching the 16 episodes in this DVD
set that more credit belongs to
Mel Brooks and
Buck Henry than Stern for the
success and longevity of
Get Smart
because
I'm Dickens... He's Fenster
is a sit-com that looks backward, not forward, for its humor. Stern conceived
the idea for a series about two bumbling carpenters after having his own home
remodeled and observing the workers seal up a ladder inside a newly constructed
fireplace, then have to take it apart to retrieve the ladder and redo the
construction a second time. This gag is reenacted in the series' opening
episode, "A Small Matter of Being Fired" (September 28, 1962) when
Harry Dickens (
John Astin) thinks he has sealed up his best buddy Arch Fenster
(
Marty Ingels) in a fireplace they are building on one of their construction
jobs (never mind why carpenters Dickens and Fenster are building a
brick fireplace), only he has forgotten
that Fenster can easily get out through the fireplace opening on the other
side. Stern had built an impressive career in comedy beginning with writing for
Abbott & Costello and Ma & Pa Kettle feature films in the 1940s and
early 1950s, followed by writing for such legendary TV series as
The Honeymooners,
The Phil Silvers Show, and
The
Steve Allen Show.
Judging from the content of
I'm Dickens... He's Fenster, Stern had an affinity for very broad,
slapstick humor based largely on sight gags. The aforementioned pilot episode
begins with Dickens' wife Kate complaining to Fenster about magnets that Harry
has installed to make cupboard doors snap tight, only the magnets are too
strong and not only make the cupboard doors practically impossible to open, but
when the magnets are finally removed, they are strong enough to pull the
refrigerator across the room. Apparently Stern thought this gag was so funny
that it was used again in an episode just a few weeks later, "Harry, the
Father Image" (October 19, 1962). Other episodes have Kate wrestling with
an overly long cutting board that slides out from below the counter in
"The Double Life of Mel Warshaw" (October 12, 1962), a pop-out
ironing board that comes out of a cabinet in the wall when you tap the panel in
"A Friend in Wolf's Clothing" (November 16, 1962), and an electric
eye sensor to make the kitchen door open automatically in "The Toupee
Story" (November 9, 1962). The humor from the latter two devices comes
because they seem to operate randomly, rather than when summoned, leading to
slapstick scenes such as Harry being hit in the face by the kitchen door when
it opens unexpectedly. This brand of humor is what one would expect from Abbott
& Costello films or earlier TV series such as
I Love Lucy, and this is what made the series a delight for
Stan
Laurel, who wrote congratulatory letters to both Stern and Ingels. Likewise,
the review of the program by
John P. Shanley in the October 1, 1962 edition of
The New York Times said the show
"could be the surprise success of the television season" and that the
antics of Astin and Ingels "contain some happy reminders of the old
vaudeville act of
Willie, West and McGinty, whose clumsy routines with hammers,
boards and other simple props made another generation laugh." The same
review panned the debut of
The Beverly Hillbillies as "a succession of events too absurd to be even slightly
amusing." Of course, history shows that
The Beverly Hillbillies quickly became the most popular show on TV
and ran for 9 seasons, while
I'm
Dickens... He's Fenster was canceled toward the end of its one and only season.
The reason for the show's ratings failure is universally
attributed to the success of its competition, airing opposite
Route 66 and
Sing Along With Mitch. Astin's brother
Alexander, a researcher in
higher education, conducted a study that showed that viewers of the two
competing programs, both 1-hour shows that started a half hour before
I'm Dickens... He's Fenster, were
unlikely to switch channels to the latter show after investing 30 minutes
watching the competition. However, it should also be noted that while
Route 66 finished the season 27th in the
ratings,
Sing Along With Mitch did
not finish in the top 30, and the lead-in for
I'm Dickens... He's Fenster was
The Flintstones, which finished 30th in the ratings, ahead of
Sing Along With Mitch. History has shown
that a good lead-in can save a series, as it did for
The Dick Van Dyke Show, which struggled in its first season on the
air and was about to be canceled when the network decided to give it a second
chance and moved it to follow
The Beverly Hillbillies, vaulting it to #9 in the ratings in its second season. So the
argument that scheduling doomed
I'm Dickens...
He's Fenster doesn't really hold water. Ingels claimed years later that the
ratings were delayed for some reason mid-season and that ABC decided to cancel
the series before the ratings were finally released, which showed that
I'm Dickens... He's Fenster had
overtaken the competition, but by then it was too late.
Even so, the show had its deficiencies that probably would
have made it difficult to sustain ratings success. Primarily, the episodes
played more like variety show sketches with a thinly conceived plot whose sole
purpose is to set up a series of sight gags and punch lines rather than telling
a fully developed story. And many of these rather flimsy plots were worn-out
cliches, such as "Nurse Dickens" (October 5, 1962) in which Harry
becomes insanely jealous after Kate takes an evening part-time job working as a
nurse at the local hospital, where he worries that the doctors are young hunks
like those seen on
Dr. Kildare and
Ben Casey, two series that had already
been heavily parodied practically from the time they went on the air. Arch
Fenster being cast as the ultimate playboy with one or more new girlfriends
every episode was at least as old as the Andy Hardy feature films. And then
there is the gag about two inept men trying to care for a baby in "The
Godfathers" (January 11, 1963), which dates back at least to the 1913
short
The Three Godfathers and had
been recycled countless times on TV comedies and westerns by then. Added to
this is the implausible relationship in which Harry Dickens devotes more time
and energy to his friendship with Arch Fenster than he does to his marriage to
his beautiful and talented wife, a topic addressed in episodes such as
"Here's to the Three of Us" (December 21, 1962) in which Kate
complains that she and Harry are never alone because Arch is always dropping
over or monopolizing their social calendar. When she insists on hosting
a party for other married couples without
inviting Arch, he plays the victim when he learns about it and says he won't
bother them anymore, but by episode's end he is back to his old
tricks--climbing in through their bedroom window for a drop-in after they have
already gone to bed.
Despite the show's shortcomings, there are a few bright
spots, primarily the acting of bandleader
Frank De Vol, who plays Dickens' and
Fenster's indecisive boss Myron Bannister. Rather than the tough-talking,
take-charge stereotypical boss one would expect, De Vol is so deadpan in
playing Bannister that he has to tell people when he is angry or excited (always
delivered in a very calm, even tone) because otherwise they would not notice.
The other high point is the episode "The Joke" (December 7, 1962),
which plays like an episode of
Car 54, Where Are You? as a disagreement between Dickens and Fenster about whether
a particular joke is funny devolves into an armed gang war on their job site as
their colleagues take sides as to whether Dickens or Fenster is right about the
joke's alleged humor (just for the record, "The Joke" is woefully
corny). Of course, if your taste in comedy favors old vaudeville slapstick and
sight gags, then, like Stan Laurel, you'll consider every episode of
I'm Dickens... He's Fenster a high
point.
The theme and individual episode scores were written by
Irving
Szathmary, born
Isadore Szathmary on October
30, 1907 in St. Quincy, Massachusetts. He was the oldest of six highly talented
children, his youngest brother being comedian, writer, and actor
Bill Dana.
Szathmary was a child prodigy who began playing piano at age 5 and formed a
neighborhood band with his brother
Al, a drummer who would go on to be
Don
Adams' stand-in on
Get Smart. In high
school the elder Szathmary took the first name Irving, and by the mid-1930s he
had moved to New York where he would find work arranging for some of the
biggest band leaders of the day, including
Benny Goodman,
Artie Shaw,
Paul
Whiteman, and
Jack Teagarden. In 1936 he had his own radio show called
Symphonique Moderne on the NBC affiliate
WJZ. During World War II, he composed and arranged for transcription recordings,
sometimes under the name
Szath-Myri, provided for radio airplay both at home
and abroad. Around 1948 he composed his one hit song, "Leave It to
Love," which was recorded by
Dinah Shore
and
Perry Como as well as other bandleaders such as
Hugo Winterhalter,
Ray Anthony, and
Ted Heath. His first known film score was for the anti-drug
drama
Shooting Gallery narrated by
Gary Cooper and released in 1950. When his brother Bill arrived in New York in
the early 1950s and began performing as a comedian, Irving insisted that he use
another last name to avoid sullying his older brother's reputation as a serious
musician, so Bill adopted the last name Dana, a derivative of their mother's
first name. Irving worked in New York throughout the 1950s arranging for TV shows
such as
The Lucky Strike Hit Parade
and
The Ed Sullivan Show and for
vocalists such as
Frank Sinatra,
The Modernaires, and
Diahann Caroll. Dana
brought Irving to California in 1961 where Dana worked with Leonard Stern
writing for
The Steve Allen Show. When
Stern was putting together
I'm Dickens...
He's Fenster he agreed to audition Irving on Dana's recommendation and told
him he wanted the theme for the program to resemble the
Laurel & Hardy
theme from their films. Stern liked what he heard and hired Szathmary, but when
the program was canceled after a single season, Dana brought his brother over
to score for his own sit-com based on his popular Jose Jimenez character.
The Bill Dana Show lasted for a season
and a half before being canceled, at which point Stern was assembling
Get Smart and hired
Szathmary to create the now-legendary opening
theme for the spy spoof, as well as scoring individual episodes. When
Get Smart finished its run in 1970,
Szathmary retired and then moved to Malta in the mid-1970s with his fourth wife
Monica. When the couple traveled to London for Irving's 76th birthday, he died
there on October 29, 1983 at the age of 75.
Half of the one and only season has been released on DVD by Lightyear
Entertainment.
The Actors
John Astin
John Allen Astin was born in Baltimore on March 30, 1930.
His father,
Dr. Allen Varley Astin, served as the Director of the National
Bureau of Standards, and his younger brother,
Alexander W. Astin, was a
renowned scholar in the field of higher education research. Because his father
worked for the U.S. government, the family moved to Washington, D.C. when Astin
was still a child. Although he has said that he did not have a particular
career interest growing up, his first foray into show business was putting on
marionette plays with his brother for which they would charge the neighborhood
children a penny or two for admission. He had a keen interest in sports growing
up and remembers seeing
Joe Dimaggio play against his hometown Washington
Senators at Griffith Stadium. The first time he saw television was on a visit
to one of his father's colleagues to watch the 1944 Army-Navy college football
game. When he was in high school, his English teacher heavily criticized him in
front of the class after he gave an irreverent oral book report on
Moby Dick, making him vow he would never
study English again, but after earning a tuition grant in mathematics to
Washington & Jefferson College, he was required to take a freshman English
class, and the professor for that class revived his interest in literature and
persuaded him to take part in a table reading for a play. After hitch-hiking to
Ohio one weekend to see a friend's roommate in a production of
Thornton
Wilder's play
The Stage Manager,
which greatly impressed and moved him, the table reading inspired Astin and
another classmate to put on a pair of one-act plays one weekend at their own
college, which further solidified his interest in the theater. At the end of
that academic year, he took acting classes with Shakespearean actors in the
Washington area and then decided to transfer to Johns Hopkins University
because they offered courses in drama, though he still remained a math major
until he was finally offered a scholarship in drama by the Johns Hopkins dean.
After graduating from Hopkins, Astin attended graduate school in theater
studies at the University of Minnesota until one day while conducting research
in the library for an English bibliography course, a Classics professor
approached him and asked him what he was doing and why. When Astin explained
that he was pursuing a Ph.D. in English so that he would have a measure of
security and be able to write and act, the professor advised him to leave
academia and just go work in the theater, so at the end of the semester Astin
left school and moved to New York, where he studied acting while working as a
cook. He studied for 5 years with renowned actor, director, and critic
Harold
Clurman, whom Astin credits with crystallizing what he had long felt
intuitively about how acting should be done. He broke into New York theater in
1954 playing the role of Ready-Money Matt in an Off Broadway production of
Threepenny Opera and an understudy role
as Morrison the butler in
Charles Laughton's production of
Major Barbara. He broke into television around the same time, with
his first union job coming on an episode of
Robert
Montgomery Presents that starred
Wendell Corey (Corey appeared on the
program 3 times, and though Astin has not said which episode he appeared on and
is not listed in the credits since he was an extra, the first two Corey
appearances were in 1953 and the third in 1954). In 1956 Astin married his
first wife
Suzanne Hahn, and the couple had three children before divorcing in
1972. After appearing in Broadway productions of
The Power and the Glory and
Tall
Story in 1958-59, Astin felt that his career had stalled somewhat until he
was recruited by
Tony Randall in 1960 to audition for a roadshow production of
Goodbye Again, and during rehearsals
while they were exchanging ideas about the production, Randall told Astin he
would do well in Hollywood. When the show opened in Detroit, Astin met
Randall's agent
Abby Greshler, who by the end of the show, when Astin was
getting thunderous applause from the audience, signed Astin and persuaded him
to move to California. Greshler got Astin his first Hollywood TV appearance as
a guest star on a 1960 episode of
Maverick.
That same year he also made his feature film debut playing a detective in
The Pusher, which was shot in New York and
starred
Robert Lansing. Besides an uncredited part as the social worker Glad
Hand in
West Side Story, Astin guest
starred on 7 TV shows in 1961, including
The Twilight Zone,
The Donna Reed Show,
and
The Asphalt Jungle. He had a
supporting role in the 1962 romantic comedy
That
Touch of Mink starring
Cary Grant and
Doris Day, and appeared in 8 more TV
shows that year, including
Checkmate,
Hazel,
Dennis the Menace,
Ben Casey,
and
87th Precinct. Astin believes
that he was recruited by producer Leonard Stern for a starring role as Harry
Dickens on
I'm Dickens, He's Fenster
after he performed in a John Houseman production of a theatrical revue based on
John Dos Passos' novel trilogy
USA,
though a cover story in the December 1, 1962 issue of
TV Guide says that Tony Randall brought Astin to the attention of
Leonard Stern when the latter was head writer for
The Steve Allen Show. Astin has described his role as Harry Dickens
being a straight man who set up the payoff jokes for co-star Marty Ingels and
to take the slapstick falls that got him his own laughs.
Towards the end of
I'm
Dickens... He's Fenster's one and only season, Astin was cast in a
supporting role in the
James Garner comic feature film
The Wheeler Dealers, and Astin tested so well with preview
audiences that Filmways approached him about signing a contract. Once he was
signed, they offered him one of three projects: two feature films--
The Americanization of Emily and
The Loved One--and a television
adaptation of
Charles Addams cartoons,
The
Addams Family. Astin had long been a huge fan of Addams' cartoons and
jumped at the chance to play one of his characters. He originally was selected
to play the butler, but after a discussion with producer
David Levy, the two
agreed that Astin would be better cast as the father of the family. Astin was
given free rein to develop the character of Gomez Addams and contributed ideas
such as his grandiose and passionate relationship with wife Morticia. He has
said he tried out the mustache he wore as Gomez in two 1964 TV guest spots on
The Farmer's Daughter and
Destry, though the latter mustache was
more of a handlebar seen in the Old West. Astin believes that the series was
canceled because network executives saw how the emergence of
Batman decimated the viewership of
The Munsters airing in the same time
slot, and since they equated
The Addams
Family with
The Munsters, they
figured that the concept had already played itself out. Unlike some other
actors who played iconic TV characters, Astin had no problem finding work after
the cancelation of
The Addams Family.
He guest starred on
Occasional Wife
in 1966, and the following year appeared on
The
Wild, Wild West,
Hey, Landlord,
The Flying Nun,
Gunsmoke, and
He & She,
played The Riddler in a Season 2 episode of
Batman,
and had a supporting role as Rudy Pruitt on
The
Phyllis Diller Show. He also appeared in the feature film
The Spirit Is Willing and first played
the character of Roy Slade in the TV movie
Sheriff
Who. In 1968 he was one of a long list of big stars who appeared in the
sexual coming-of-age feature film
Candy,
but more importantly that year he also made his debut as a film director for
the short
Prelude, which earned him
an Oscar nomination and accolades from famed director
Federico Fellini. Astin
has recalled that the praise for
Prelude
opened up directorial opportunities for him, first directing 3 episodes for
Rod
Serling's
Night Gallery beginning in
1970. He was also recruited to direct 2 episodes of Leonard Stern's popular TV
series
McMillan and Wife in 1971 and
would later direct episodes of
Holmes and
Yoyo,
Operation Petticoat,
CHiPs,
Just Our Luck, and
Murder,
She Wrote as well as several TV movies. At the same time he was continuing
to act in a combination of feature films, such as
Viva Max,
Bunny O'Hare,
Get to Know Your Rabbit, and
Freaky Friday; TV series such as
Bonanza,
The Odd Couple,
The Doris Day
Show,
The Virginian,
Arnie,
Night Gallery,
Love, American
Style,
The Partridge Family,
Police Woman, and
Marcus Welby, M.D. (to name a few), and a slew of TV movies, the
most popular being the title character in
Evil
Roy Slade in 1972. That year was also the first time he reprised his role
as Gomez Addams in the animated TV series
The
New Scooby-Doo Movies. That year was also momentous because he started an
affair with actress
Patty Duke, which led to divorcing his wife Suzanne Hahn
and then marrying Duke, with whom he had a son, actor
McKenzie Astin, and
adopted her son
from her 13-day marriage to
Michael Tell, actor
Sean Astin. In
1977 Astin and the rest of the original cast reunited for the TV movie
Halloween With the New Addams Family.
That year he also had his next recurring TV role playing Lt. Cmdr. Matthew
Sherman on
Operation Petticoat, as
well as contributing a variety of voices for the Hanna-Barbera cartoon series
Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels.
Around the same time he guest starred on
Fantasy
Island and
The Love Boat, but he
logged no film credits between 1980-84 (this does not seem to be explained in
any of the sources I have consulted). He returned to guest starring on TV
series in 1984, including
The Facts of
Life,
Diff'rent Strokes, and
Simon & Simon. In 1985 he had a
supporting role playing Ed LaSalle on
Mary Tyler Moore's short-lived sit-com
Mary, in addition to appearing in
National Lampoon's European Vacation. That
same year he and Duke divorced after 13 years of marriage. Beginning in 1986 he
began playing the character Buddy Ryan on
Night
Court, appearing just once in Season 4 and Season 5, but then 3 times in
Season 6, and 5 more times in Season 7. He appeared in
Teen Wolf Too in 1987 along with guest spots on
St. Elsewhere,
The Charmings, and
Webster.
In 1988 he made his first appearance as Professor Gangreen in
Return of the Killer Tomatoes!
(alongside
George Clooney), a role he has continued to play in each of the
following Killer Tomato feature films up to this day, including
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes: Organic Intelligence
currently in post-production. He likewise provided the voice of Prof. Gangreen
in the 1990-91 animated TV series
Attack
of the Killer Tomatoes. In 1992-93 he provided the voice of Gomez Addams in
the animated TV series of
The Addams Family,
and when The Addams Family was resurrected yet again for the 1998-99 TV series
The New Addams Family, Astin was cast as
the now elderly Grandpapa Addams. The previously mentioned animated roles led
to a new career for Astin on cartoons, including providing the voice for Bull
Gator on
Taz-Mania in 1991-94, Sydney
on
Aladdin in 1994, a variety of
characters on
Problem Child, Terry
Duke Tetzloff on
Duckman: Private
Dick/Family Man, and Superintendent Skinner on
Recess in 1998-99. In 1993-94 he had a recurring role as Prof.
Albert Wickwire on
The Adventures of
Brisco County, Jr., and he has popped up on a number of TV series, TV
movies, and feature films over the years, including 5 times on
Murder, She Wrote and twice each on
Step by Step and
The Nanny. Beginning in 1998, Astin starred in a one-man play based
on the life and works of
Edgar Allan Poe, titled
Edgar Allan Poe: Once Upon a Midnight, which toured over 100 cities
through 2004. Beginning in 2001 Astin taught acting at Johns Hopkins
University, eventually becoming Director of the Theater Arts and Studies
Department until his retirement in 2021. As of this writing, Astin is still
living, at age 95, with his third wife
Valerie Sandobal, whom he married in
1989.
Marty Ingels
Born
Martin Ingerman in Brooklyn on March 9, 1936, Ingels
was a nephew of
Abraham Beame, Mayor of New York City from 1974-77. He attended
Forest Hills High School in Queens, and then briefly attended Queens College
before dropping out to work a variety of jobs, including being a bartender at
the Stork Club in New York City. Though his parents wanted him to become a
dentist, he wound up joining the Army, where he was spotted by a talent scout
who got him booked on
Name That Tune.
He won enough money to fund moving to California and attending the Pasadena Playhouse
when he returned to civilian life. Considered as a new version of
Red Skelton,
Ingels broke into television in an uncredited part on a 1958 episode of
The Phil Silvers Show, but it would be a
couple more years before he started getting regular guest spots on shows such
as
Peter Loves Mary,
Dan Raven,
The Ann Sothern Show, and
The
Aquanauts. Ingels first met Leonard Stern in May, 1959 when he was a guest
on
The Steve Allen Show, for which
Stern was head writer. In 1961 he made his feature film debut playing himself
in the
Jerry Lewis comedy
The Ladies Man
and followed that up with another role in the military drama
Armored Command. He twice played Rob
Petrie's Army buddy Sol Pomeroy on
The Dick Van Dyke Show in 1961-62 and also had several other guest spots and a
role in the 1962 feature film
The
Horizontal Lieutenant before being cast as Arch Fenster on
I'm Dickens... He's Fenster. Ingels said
that he just happened to bump into Stern on the street when the latter was
putting together the pilot for the show and remembered him from when Ingels
appeared on
The Steve Allen Show
where Stern was head writer.
Though Ingels would continue to find somewhat regular
guest-star work for the remainder of his career, up until his death in 2015, he
would never again have a lead role in a live-action TV series. He appeared on
Burke's Law and had a supporting role in
the
Tony Curtis romantic comedy feature
Wild
and Wonderful in 1964, and after drawing a blank in 1965, he appeared on
Bewitched and alongside Astin in an
episode of
The Addams Family in 1966.
He landed a supporting role playing Norman Krump in 8 episodes of
The Phyllis Diller Show (some of them,
again, alongside Astin) in 1967 in addition to appearing in the
Sid Caesar
comedy feature
The Busy Body and an
uncredited appearance in
A Guide for the
Married Man. The remainder of the decade was spent largely on feature films
such as
For Single Only,
Silent Treatment,
If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium, and
Picasso Summer, but he also launched a successful second career as
a voice actor in cartoons, beginning with the character Autocat on
Cattanooga Cats, followed by
Motormouse and Autocat. At the same
time, his personal life was undergoing some upheaval, though his early marital
history seems unclear. Wikipedia claims he married
Jean Marie Frassinelli in
1960 and divorced her in 1969, whereas
imdb.com says he married
Phyllis Senzer
in 1962, divorced her in 1963, then married Frassinelli in 1964 and divorced
her in 1966. He returned to guest starring on TV series in the early 1970s,
appearing on
The Partners,
Banacek,
The Rookies, and
Adam-12
as well as feature films such as
How to
Seduce a Woman and
Linda Lovelace for
President. However, he recalled in a 2012 interview that in the early 1970s
he was swamped with financial problems and had just gone through a divorce when
he appeared on
The Tonight Show and
was doing a stand-up routine when he suddenly froze up and passed out. He says
that he retreated to his home and became a recluse for a few months but then decided
to go into business as a talent agent for other actors because he felt more in
control, and was particularly successful in lining up celebrity endorsements
for commercials, such as
Orson Welles as the TV pitchman for Paul Masson Wines.
He also arranged deals for
Howard Cosell,
Don Knotts,
Farah Fawcett, and
Rudy
Vallee. In 1974 he first met actress
Shirley Jones at a party at the home of
Michael Landon and thereafter pursued her relentlessly, much to the chagrin of
her friends. After she divorced her first husband
Jack Cassidy, Ingels and
Jones married in 1977, and though they separated at one point and she even
filed for divorce in 2002, they eventually reconciled and remained married
until his death, nearly 40 years in total. Meanwhile, Ingels found more work in
cartoons, voicing Beegle Beagle on
The
New Tom and Jerry Show and
The Great
Grape Ape Show in addition to guest spots on
Police Story,
CHiPs,
The Love Boat, and
Family in the late 1970s. In the 1980s his lone credits were
voicing Pac-Man on
Pac-Man and the TV
movie
Christmas Comes to PacLand. By
1984 Ingels embarked on what appeared to be a hobby of lawsuits when he and
Jones sued
The National Enquirer over
a fabricated story that he was driving her to drink. Though they won a
settlement in this case, Ingels' later litigations were less successful, such
as his 1993 suit against his client
June Allyson in which he claimed she had
not paid him his commission for a series of ads for Depends, and his 2003 suit
against radio host
Tom Leykis and Westwood One for what Ingels alleged was age
discrimination. He continued working sporadically as an actor, appearing on
Murder, She Wrote,
Baywatch, and
Walker, Texas
Ranger in the 1990s and on
ER,
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and
New Girl in the 2000s and 2010s. His
last credit came with Jones playing a grandfather and grandmother in the
Bruce
Lee-inspired feature film
Bruce the
Challenge released posthumously in 2016. Ingels suffered a massive stroke
and died on October 21, 2015 at the age of 79.
Emmaline Henry
Born
Emilin Frances Veronica Henry in Philadelphia
on November 1, 1928, Henry contracted polio at age 3 and was paralyzed for
several years. However, when she recovered, the musical director at St. Roberts
School,
Sister Sacre Coeur, discovered that she was an incredible singer, and
by age 10 she was performing at the country club her father managed. By age 12,
she had her own radio show and was front-page news on the
Chester (Pennsylvania)
Times.
However, at age 13 when her voice broke she could not sing for 2 years, but
after her family moved to California she was encouraged to join her high school
choir, and when composer
Walter Donaldson heard her perform in a school play,
he tutored her into singing popular material rather than the operatic fare she
had sung before. At age 19 she moved to New York to pursue a show business
career. By 1950 she had moved back to California and appeared in a production
of
Little Boy Blue at the El Capitan
Theater. In 1951 she replaced
Carol Channing in a touring production of
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. She then landed
a part in the touring production of
Top
Banana, which led to an uncredited part as a singer in the film version.
She made her TV debut in a dramatic role on a 1955 episode of
I Led Three Lives, followed by two more
guest spots on
Highway Patrol in 1956
and 1958. She made her Broadway debut in 1960 appearing in the short-lived
revue
Vintage '60. In 1961 she guest
starred on
Lock Up and made the first
of 14 appearances on
The Red Skelton Hour
before being cast as Kate Dickens on
I'm
Dickens... He's Fenster in the fall of 1962.
After the cancellation of that series, Henry appeared in a
western-themed musical
Go For Your Gun
in Manchester, England, but then chose to play the role of Nora on the
Mickey
Rooney sit-com
Mickey rather than the
role of Ginger on
Gilligan's Island,
a choice she came to regret as the former series lasted only 17 episodes
compared to the 3-year run and continual syndication of the latter. But she did
not lack for work, appearing on
The
Munsters,
The Farmer's Daughter,
Petticoat Junction, and
The Double Life of Henry Phyfe over the
next couple of years. In 1966 she also made the first of 9 appearances playing
Clara Appleby on
The Red Skelton Hour
spread out over the next 5 seasons. That same year she made her first
appearance on
I Dream of Jeannie,
initially playing a magician's assistant Myrt in a single Season 1 episode, but
beginning in Season 2 she had the recurring role as Amanda Bellows, which she
played 34 times over the remainder of the series. Beginning in 1967 she also
began getting supporting roles in feature films such as
Divorce American Style and
Rosemary's
Baby. By 1969 she was also taking guest spots on other TV series such as
Mayberry R.F.D.,
Love, American Style, and
Bonanza.
In the 1970s she appeared in the final episode of
Green Acres, and guest starred on
The Bob Newhart Show,
The
Streets of San Francisco,
Police
Woman,
Barnaby Jones, and
The Love Boat. In 1978 she made her
first appearance as Chrissy's boss J.C. Braddock on
Three's Company, a role that was intended to be recurring, but
Henry was diagnosed with a brain tumor that required surgery, so she appeared
only once more in the role in 1979. The tumor grew back aggressively, and after
a guest appearance on
Eight Is Enough
that same year, Henry died on October 8 at the age of 50.
David Ketchum
Best remembered for playing unlucky Agent 13 on
Get Smart, who was given surveillance
assignments inside mailboxes, sofas, washing machines, and the like, Ketchum
was ironically born in an elevator on February 4, 1928 in Quincy, Illinois. Despite
performing for audiences at an early age, Ketchum majored in physics at UCLA with
plans to become an electrical engineer because he figured he needed a career at
which he could make a living. But performing seemed to be in his blood because
he joined a group of fellow students to entertain military troops overseas as
part of the USO and by the end of the 1940s he was hosting his own radio show
in San Diego. He persuaded
Bob Hope and
Doris Day, then visiting the city, to
be guest stars on his first episode. By 1951 he was serving in the National
Guard when he was slated to appear in the
John Wayne war drama
Flying Leathernecks but was then
activated for service and missed out on the film opportunity. In 1957 he
married singer
Louise Bryant, to whom he stayed married until his death. An
appearance on
The Steve Allen Show in
1957 led to being a regular on
The New
Steve Allen Show in 1961. He also appeared twice as a guest performer on
the summer replacement series
The Spike
Jones Show in 1961, as well as guest spots on
The Jim Backus Show and
Angel.
That same year he was amongst the cast of
The
Billy Barnes Revue, along with
Ken Berry and
Jo Anne Worley, that made it
to Broadway. He recorded a comedy album titled
The Long-Playing Tongue of David Ketchum that received a glowing
review in the February 17, 1962 issue of
Billboard
magazine a few months before appearing as Mel Warshaw on
I'm Dickens... He's Fenster.
After the series ended, Ketchum appeared on
The Real McCoys in 1963, in commercials
for Hertz Rent-a-Car in 1964 as well as guest starring roles on
The Jack Benny Program,
The Tycoon, and
The Joey Bishop Show. In 1965, he appeared on
The Munsters and voiced the announcer on the animated series
Roger Ramjet before being cast in his
second regular TV role as Counselor Spiffy on
Camp Runamuck. Ketchum's casting for this role may have come from
one of the comedy routines on his previously mentioned album, which had Ketchum
playing a summer camp counselor. Over the next two years he would appear 4
times on the sit-com
Hey, Landlord
and 13 times as Agent 13 on
Get Smart,
taking over for
Victor French, who had played Agent 44 in Season 1. Both of
these series also opened up a new career for Ketchum--screenwriting. He penned
the episode "Classification: Dead" for
Get Smart and the episode "The Dinner Who Came to Man"
for
Hey, Landlord, as well as 2
episodes for the superhero spoof
Captain
Nice. From then on, Ketchum had a dual career, guest starring on shows such
as
The Carol Burnett Show,
The Andy Griffith Show,
Petticoat Junction,
Gomer Pyle: USMC,
Mayberry
R.F.D., and
The Mod Squad while
also writing scripts for
Here's Lucy,
Love, American Style, and
Barefoot in the Park. In the 1970s he
moved into writing for cartoon TV series such as
Lancelot Link: Secret Chimp,
The
Funky Phantom,
The Roman Holidays,
Jeannie,
Wait Till Your Father Gets Home, and
Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels. He also wrote for live-action
series such as
M*A*S*H,
The New Temperatures Rising Show,
The Six Million Dollar Man,
Happy Days,
Wonder Woman, and
The Bionic
Woman, to name but a few. His acting assignments included
That Girl,
The Mary Tyler Moore Show,
My Three Sons,
The Odd Couple,
The Partridge Family,
Happy Days,
Maude, and
Mork & Mindy,
amongst many others. By the late 1970s and 1980s, the acting roles began to dry
up--he had unnamed roles in a few feature films such as
Love at First Bite and
The
Main Event as well as guest spots on
Happy
Days and
Perfect Strangers--but
the scriptwriting work continued on series such as
Laverne & Shirley,
The
Love Boat,
Too Close for Comfort,
MacGyver,
Sledgehammer!, and
Highway to
Heaven. He reprised his role as Agent 13 in the 1989 TV movie
Get Smart, Again! and the 1995 TV series
reboot of
Get Smart before retiring
from acting after a 1999 unnamed role in the feature film
The Other Sister. His last writing credit was a 1990 episode of
Full House. Ketchum died from heart
failure on August 10, 2025 at the age of 97.
Frank De Vol
Frank Denny De Vol was born September 20, 1911 in
Moundsville, West Virginia but grew up in Canton, Ohio, where his father was
the band leader for the Grand Opera House vaudeville theater. His mother worked
in a sewing shop. Young Frank was something of a musical prodigy who began
composing at age 12 and by 14 was a member of the musicians union while playing
violin in his father's orchestra as well as performing at a Chinese restaurant
in Cleveland. He used the money earned from his restaurant gig to buy a
saxophone which he also learned to play. After attending the Miami University
in Oxford, Ohio, De Vol
joined
Emerson
Gill's Orchestra, which toured the state of Ohio. In 1935 he married
Grace
Agnes McGinty, to whom he remained married until her death in 1989. By the late
1930s he was hired to play in and arrange for the
Horace Heidt Orchestra. When
guitarist
Alvino Rey left the band, De Vol went with him and arranged for Rey's
newly formed band. In the early 1940s De Vol was living in California and working
the graveyard shift at Lockheed when radio station KHJ recruited him to be the
band leader for one of their musical programs, which provided the opportunity
to work with stars such as
Dinah Shore,
Ginny Simms, and
Rudy Vallee. This is
also where De Vol first worked as an actor, as he was used for supporting roles
in some of the radio comedy sketches. By 1946 he was musical director for
Simms' radio show when he was named to a similar post for the Capitol Records
transcription service, which led to working with some of Capitol's biggest
artists, most notably
Nat King Cole, for whom De Vol provided the arrangement
on Cole's hit "Nature Boy" in 1948. While with Capitol, he began
releasing music under his own name, beginning with the mood music LP
Memory Waltzes in 1946. In 1949 he also
sang on the
Capitol single of "The
Teddy Bears' Picnic." By the early 1950s he was lured away by Columbia
Records, where he arranged and conducted for stars such as
Doris Day,
Tony
Bennett, and
Robert Goulet, to name but a few. At the same time, he was also
providing backings for some of
Ella Fitzgerald's albums for Verve Records. He
made his first appearances as an actor on TV with several bit parts on
Betty
White's comedy series
Life With Elisabeth
in 1953. His career took an important step in 1954 when he was hired by
director
Robert Aldrich to score for the low-budget feature film
World for Ransom. He would write for 15
more Aldrich productions, including
Kiss
Me Deadly,
The Big Knife,
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?,
Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (which
received Oscar nominations for Best Score and Best Original Song),
The Dirty Dozen,
Ulzana's Raid,
The Longest
Yard, and
The Choirboys. He got
into composing for television in 1956 with the series
Who Do You Trust?, and he reunited with Betty White in composing
for her series
Date With the Angels
in 1957-58. De Vol's first Oscar nomination came for the score of the 1960
Doris Day &
Rock Hudson romantic comedy
Pillow
Talk, and he would go on to provide scores for many of Day's romantic
comedies, including
Lover Come Back,
The Thrill of It All,
Send Me No Flowers, and
Caprice. In 1960 he composed one of his
most memorable TV themes for
My Three Sons.
Meanwhile, his acting career began to pick up after playing himself in a 1959
episode of
State Trooper, which was
followed by a supporting role in the 1961 comedy
The Parent Trap and a guest appearance on a 1962 episode of the TV
series
Father of the Bride. He then
received his first recurring role as construction boss Myron Bannister on
I'm Dickens... He's Fenster in the fall
of 1962.
His role as Bannister paved the way for a slew of guest
spots on other TV series throughout the 1960s and beyond, including
Grindl,
My Favorite Martian,
Mickey,
The Cara Williams Show,
Camp Runamuck,
The Farmer's Daughter,
Gidget,
Get Smart,
Petticoat Junction,
I Dream of Jeannie,
That Girl, and
Bonanza.
In the late 1960s he picked up two more Oscar nominations for his scores for
Cat Ballou and
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner while also providing scores for
The Glass Bottom Boat,
The Happening, and
What's So Bad About Feeling Good? He also composed the themes for
the TV series
Family Affair,
To Rome With Love, and
The Brady Bunch, perhaps his most famous
composition of all and certainly the one that garnered the greatest applause
whenever he would perform it with his orchestra thereafter. In the 1970s he
provided the theme and scores for TV series
The
Delphi Bureau,
Henry Fonda's sit-com
The
Smith Family, and
Bob Denver's
Dusty's
Trail. He also provided scores for feature films (besides those mentioned
above) such as
Emperor of the North,
Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze,
Hustle, and
Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo. The decade would also provide his
longest-running role as an actor, playing bandleader Happy Kyne on
Fernwood Tonight and its follow-on
America 2-Night. His acting continued
through the 1980s on
Diff'rent Strokes,
The Jeffersons, and
Silver Spoons with his last credit
coming in a 1990 episode of
Charles in
Charge. On TV he provided scores for multiple episodes of
The Brady Brides,
Vega$,
Herbie, the Love Bug,
The Love Boat, and
The Fall Guy as well as feature films
Herbie Goes Bananas and
All the Marbles. In 1989 De Vol's wife
Grayce passed away, and 2 years later he married former big-band singer
Helen
O'Connell. For the next 2 years the couple performed together on cruise ships
until O'Connell died in 1993. De Vol stayed active in the Big Band Academy of
America into the mid-1990s, then died from congestive heart failure on October
27, 1999 at the age of 88.
Henry Beckman
Henry How Beckman was born November 26, 1921 in Halifax,
Nova Scotia, Canada. He joined the Canadian military service in 1939 and survived
the D-Day operation at Juno Beach on June 6, 1944. After the War he ran a
theater in New York and made his Broadway debut in a production of
The Golden State in late 1950. He made his television debut a
few months before that in a June, 1950 episode of the suspense anthology
The Clock. Through the rest of the early
1950s he alternated between Broadway appearances in
Darkness at Noon and serving as Assistant Stage Manager for
The Deep Blue Sea with TV appearances on
The Philco Television Playhouse,
Terror,
Suspense,
The Web, and
Studio One. His first feature film roles
were uncredited in
Niagara and
The Glory Brigade, both released in
1953. He landed his first recurring TV role playing Commander Paul Richards on
Flash Gordon, appearing 8 times in
1954-55. On November 25, 1955 he married actress and later Broadway producer
Cheryl Maxwell, and the couple purchased and ran the Duke Oaks Theatre in
Cooperstown, New York before eventually selling it 2 years later and moving to
California. In the meantime, Beckman continued appearing on TV series such as
I Spy,
Appointment With Adventure,
Camera
Three, and
Captain Gallant of the
Foreign Legion along with an uncredited part in Hitchcock's
The Wrong Man. In 1957, Beckman finally
landed his first credited feature film role in
So Lovely... So Deadly, but his television work was still somewhat
spotty through the rest of the 1950s, appearing only on a single episode of
Decoy in 1957 and one episode of
Armstrong Circle Theatre in 1958 before
things started to pick up in 1959 with guest spots on
Naked City,
The Phil Silvers
Show,
Peter Gunn, and
Police Station. During the lean years,
Beckman returned to New York to serve as an understudy in a 1958 Broadway
production of
The Body Beautiful.
However, with the new decade starting in 1960, Beckman was suddenly in demand
for TV roles on
Black Saddle,
Mr. Lucky,
The Donna Reed Show,
Two
Faces West,
Hong Kong,
Perry Mason,
Death Valley Days,
Dennis the Menace, and
The Twilight Zone. He
appeared in two episodes of
The Ann
Sothern Show in 1960, the second with his wife Cheryl Maxwell. The next two
years were also incredibly busy with guest spots on
The DuPont Show With June Allyson,
Cain's Hundred,
Hazel,
Laramie,
Route 66,
Have Gun -- Will Travel,
Dr. Kildare, and
The Eleventh Hour, to name but a few. He
also had an uncredited part in
Breakfast
at Tiffany's and a credited role in
13
West Street as well as a semi-recurring role as Gerald Spangler in 3
episodes of
Sam Benedict before being
cast as Bob Mulligan on
I'm Dickens...
He's Fenster in the fall of 1962.
Though his workload would not be quite as heavy after the
series was canceled, he had no shortage of guest spots on TV series such as
Arrest and Trial,
My Favorite Martian,
The Jack Benny Program,
The Fugitive, and
The Third Man in 1963-64. He also began
to pick up a number of recurring roles, sometimes, as with
Sam Benedict, only for a few episodes, such as Major Al Barker on
The Lieutenant and Dr. Carl Miller on
My Living Doll. But he also had a number
of longer-running roles, playing abusive husband George Anderson in 34 episodes
of the first season of
Peyton Place,
followed by 14 episodes as conniving Colonel Douglas Harrigan in the fourth and
final season of
McHale's Navy. With
the cancelation of the latter series, Beckman returned to guest-star roles on
The Wild, Wild West,
Tarzan,
Rango,
The Flying Nun,
The Andy Griffith Show,
The Virginian,
Bewitched,
I Dream of Jeannie,
The Monkees,
Run for Your Life, and many others, in addition to supporting roles
in the feature films
The Caper of the
Golden Bulls,
Madigan, and
The Stalking Moon. Then in 1968 he was
cast as Captain Roland Francis Clancey on
Here
Come the Brides, appearing 34 times over the show's 2-season run. Beckman
fell in love with the wilderness areas around Seattle where the show was filmed
and moved his family to Deming, Washington. After appearing on
Bonanza,
The Interns,
Night Gallery,
Love, American Style,
Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law, and
Nichols, he was cast as Pat Harwell on the
Sandy Duncan sit-com
Funny Face, but
the series lasted only 13 episodes in 1971. More guest spots followed on
Columbo,
Hec Ramsey,
Mannix,
Here's Lucy, and
Shaft, feature films like
The
Merry Wives of Tobias Rouke,
Between
Friends, and
Peopletoys, as well
as several TV movies until his role in the feature film
Why Rock the Boat? won him his first Canadian Film Award for Best
Supporting Actor. He would win another for the 1978 feature film
Blood & Guts. Meanwhile, he appeared
on most of the notable TV series of the mid-1970s, including
Ironside,
Marcus Welby, M.D.,
Barnaby
Jones,
Cannon,
Police Story,
Barney Miller,
The Six
Million Dollar Man, and
McMillan
& Wife. In 1975 he was cast in the supporting role of Harry Mark on the
Jack Palance crime drama
Bronk, which
ran for a single season. In 1977 Beckman and his wife were awarded the Queen
Elizabeth II Jubilee Award for their contributions to Canadian culture. After
Bronk, it was on to more guest spots on
Happy Days,
Welcome Back, Kotter,
The
Rockford Files,
Quincy, M.E.,
Trapper John, M.D., and
Matt Houston amongst many others until
he was cast as security guard Alf Scully in the
Don Adams supermarket sit-com
Check It Out, which ran for 3 seasons, though
Beckman's character appeared only in Season 1. Though now in his mid-60s,
Beckman never slowed down, appearing on
Simon
& Simon,
St. Elsewhere,
Booker,
MacGyver,
The Commish,
and
The X-Files to name but a few of
his TV guest spots in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He also logged credits on
TV movies and mini-series in addition to feature films such as
Family Reunion and
I Love You to Death. In 1998 his wife Cheryl died, and he remarried
to
Hillary Beckman the following year. He continued working into the early
2000s, the last of his over 200 credits coming in the TV mini-series
Johnson County War in 2002. He then
retired to Mallorca and finally Barcelona, Spain, where he passed away from
heart failure on June 17, 2008 at the age of 86.
Noam Pitlik
Born in Philadelphia on November 4, 1932, Pitlik graduated
from Central High School, Gratz College, and Temple University. His acting
career began on a daily live Western-themed television program called
Action in the Afternoon on WCAU in
Philadelphia. By October 1951 he was part of the set design and construction
crew at The Philadelphia Experimental Theater, and while still a drama student
at Temple he played the part of C.K. Dexter Haven in a production of
The Philadelphia Story staged in
Indiana, Pennsylvania. After graduating from Temple in 1954, he moved to New
York and made his Off-Broadway debut in a 1957 production of
The Threepenny Opera. His years in New
York were interrupted by a 2-year stint in the U.S. Army, but he also completed
a Masters Degree in Theater at New York University and played a number of roles
as a replacement actor in a long-running Broadway production of
The Threepenny Opera. In 1961 he moved
to California and made his television debut on an episode of
Cain's Hundred that year, followed by
two appearances on
Dr. Kildare. By
1962 he was an in-demand character actor on many TV series, including
The New Breed,
The Detectives,
Death Valley Days,
The Untouchables,
The Lloyd Bridges Show, and
The Rifleman as well as being cast as
the semi-recurring construction worker Bentley on
I'm Dickens... He's Fenster.
After the series' cancellation, Pitlik continued his guest
roles on other series such as
Wide
Country,
Breaking Point,
Combat!, and
My Favorite Martian in 1963, along with his feature film debut with
an uncredited part in
A Child Is Waiting.
The year 1964 was a lean one for Pitlik, but 1965 picked up again with guest
spots on
The Littlest Hobo,
The Munsters,
Gunsmoke,
Gidget, and
Convoy, as well as 6 appearances as a
pathologist in Season 5 of
Ben Casey
and the first of 7 appearances in different roles on
Hogan's Heroes. In 1966 he began finding more work in feature
films, with uncredited parts in
Texas
Across the River and
Penelope in
addition to his first credited part in Billy Wilder's
The Fortune Cookie. In 1967 he had multiple appearances on
Hey, Landlord,
The Flying Nun,
The Monkees,
and
Run for Your Life, an uncredited
role in
The Graduate, and the role of
Charles in the
Dick Van Dyke comedy
Fitzwilly.
The connection with Van Dyke would prove to be a turning point in his career 6
years later. In the meantime, he finished out the 1960s and the first few years
of the 1970s appearing on many of the top TV programs of the era--
The Andy Griffith Show,
Get Smart,
I Dream of Jeannie,
Gomer
Pyle: USMC,
The Doris Day Show,
That Girl,
Bewitched,
The F.B.I.,
Mannix, and
All in the Family-- as well as the occasional feature film and TV
movie. Then in 1971 he played the part of a director in the second episode of
The New Dick Van Dyke Show, and
ironically would then go on to actually directing 5 episodes in Season 3 of the
series in 1973-74. As Pitlik would explain in a 1979 interview, by this point
he had grown dissatisfied with his acting career because, despite the good pay
for his work, he did not enjoy the amount of inactivity waiting around between
takes and between jobs. He wanted something that would more fully engross his
creative talents, and he found that directing provided this fulfillment. So
once he broke through on
The New Dick Van
Dyke Show, he devoted himself much more to directing than to acting, though
he did appear 5 times as Victor Gianelli in the first two seasons of
The Bob Newhart Show. His big break
came 2 years later when he was hired to direct 7 Season 1 episodes of
Barney Miller. He would go on to direct
more than 100 of the show's 171 episodes over its 8-year run and win an Emmy, a
Peabody, and a Directors Guild of American Award for his work on the series. It
would also open the door to directing on many other TV series, at first a few
episodes of
Phyllis and
The Betty White Show, a couple of the
Barney Miller spin-off
Fish, but then 12 episodes of
The Practice in 1976-77, 5 episodes of
A.E.S. Hudson Street, 11 episodes of
Taxi, 18 episodes of
One Day at a Time, 44 episodes of
Mr. Belvedere, and 27 episodes of
Wings. His final directing work came
with 14 of the 20 episodes of the 1995-96 legal comedy
The Home Court. Meanwhile, he continued taking an occasional acting
role, such as the feature film
The Front
Page in 1974, a couple of episodes of
Police
Story in 1974-75, and a few TV movies, with his last credit coming in a
1998 episode of the
Ted Danson sit-com
Becker.
He died from lung cancer the next year on February 18 at the age of 66.
Notable Guest Stars
Season 1, Episode 1, "A Small Matter of Being Fired":
Yvonne Craig (shown on the left, starred in
Gidget,
High Time,
Kissin' Cousins,
Ski Party, and
One Spy Too Many and played Barbara Gordon, aka Batgirl, on
Batman and Grandma on
Olivia) plays Arch's second girlfriend
Hillary.
Season 1, Episode 2, "Nurse Dickens":
Jane
Dulo (see the biography section for the
1962 post on
McHale's Navy) plays the
first hospital nurse receptionist.
Lee Meriwether (shown on the right, starred in
Batman: The Movie,
Angel in My Pocket, and
The
Undefeated and played Anne Reynolds on
The
Young Marrieds, Nurse Bonnie Tynes on
Dr. Kildare, Dr. Ann MacGregor on
The
Time Tunnel, Tracey on
Mission:
Impossible, Lee Sawyer on
The New
Andy Griffith Show, Betty Jones on
Barnaby
Jones, Lily Munster on
The Munsters
Today, Ruth Martin on
All My Children,
and Birdie Spencer on
Project: Phoenix)
plays her replacement.
Peter Lupus (Willy Armitage on
Mission: Impossible) plays Kate's ride to the hospital Dr.
Bartlett.
Ray Kellogg (Deputy Ollie on
The
Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp) plays a hospital security guard.
Booth
Colman (Zaius on
Planet of the Apes,
Prof. Hector Jerrold on
General Hospital,
and Dr. Felix Burke on
The Young and the
Restless) plays hospital resident Dr. Hammond.
Season 1, Episode 3, "The Double Life of Mel Warshaw":
Joan Patrick (shown on the near left, see the biography section for the 1961 post on
Dr. Kildare) plays Arch's date Sandy
Moore.
Season 1, Episode 4, "Harry, the Father Image":
Ellen
Burstyn (shown on the right, starred in
For Those Who Think
Young,
The Last Picture Show,
The Exorcist,
Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, and
Same Time, Next Year and played Dr. Kate Bartok on
The Doctors, Julie Parsons on
Iron Horse, Ellen Brewer on
The Ellen Burstyn Show, Dolly DeLucca on
That's Life, Bishop Beatrice Congreve
on
The Book of Daniel, Nancy Davis
Dutton on
Big Love, and Evanka on
Louie) plays Arch's girlfriend Joan.
Elaine
Devry (daughter of a Disney animator and Mickey Rooney's fourth wife) plays Arch's
standing Thursday date Rhonda.
Season 1, Episode 5, "Part-Time Friend":
Ann Prentiss
(shown on the left, sister of Paula Prentiss, appeared in
Any
Wednesday,
If He Hollers, Let Him Go,
and
California Split, played Sgt.
Candy Kane on
Captain Nice, and
voiced Gene/Jean on
Quark, sentenced
to 19 years in prison for assaulting her father and trying to hire someone to
kill him, brother-in-law Richard Benjamin, and one other relative) plays psychiatrist
Dr. Elise McClinton.
Season 1, Episode 6, "The Acting Game":
Harvey
Korman (shown on the right, played various characters on
The
Carol Burnett Show, the voice of The Great Gazoo on
The Flintstones, Harvey A. Kavanuagh on
The Harvey Korman Show, Leo Green on
Leo & Liz in Beverly Hills, and Reginald J. Tarkington on
The Nutt House) plays TV commercial
producer Mr. Rembar.
Sue Randall (see the biography section for the 1960 post
on
Leave It to Beaver) plays Arch's
current girlfriend Bianca Russell.
Jack Perkins (Mr. Bender on
The Good Guys) plays construction worker
Greneker.
Season 1, Episode 7, "The Toupee Story":
Hank Ladd
(shown on the left, writer for
Jackie Gleason: American
Scene Magazine and
The Jackie Gleason
Show) plays building contractor Heckendorf.
Pitt Herbert (the telegrapher
on
The Virginian) plays a milkman.
Season 1, Episode 8, "A Friend in Wolf's Clothing":
Carolyn Kearney (shown on the right, appeared in
Hot Rod Girl,
Young and Wild, and
The Thing That Wouldn't Die and played
Ellen Holt on
Lassie) plays Susan
Drexel, daughter of Harry's old Army sergeant.
Season 1, Episode 9, "Party, Party, Who's Got the
Party?":
Karla Most (shown on the left, second wife
of
actor, director, and choreographer Gower Champion) plays Arch's date Arlene
Hudson.
Season 1, Episode 10, "The Yellow Badge of Courage":
Sandra Knight (ex-wife of Jack Nicholson, appeared in
Thunder Road,
Frankenstein's
Daughter, and
Blood Bath) plays Arch's
girlfriend Bonita.
Quinn O'Hara (shown on the right, appeared in
A Swingin' Summer,
The Ghost
in the Invisible Bikini,
Foursome,
and
The Teacher and played Ashley
Davidson on
Dallas) plays Arch's
second girlfriend Laura Pelton.
Season 1, Episode 11, "The Joke":
Edy Williams (shown on the left, third
wife of director Russ Meyer, appeared in
The
Last of the Secret Agents?,
The
Secret Life of an American Wife,
Beyond
the Valley of the Dolls, and
Dr. Minx)
plays Miss Safety, Loretta Standish.
Season 1, Episode 12, "Love Me, Love My Dog":
Tracy
Morgan (shown on the right, played Brandy Wine on
Hell Town)
plays Arch's girlfriend cook Helen Wilson.
Colette Jackson (wife of actor
Solomon Sturges, appeared in
Teenage Doll,
Unwed Mother, and
House of Women) plays Arch's girlfriend
Caroline.
Season 1, Episode 13, "Here's to the Three of Us":
Donald Briggs (shown on the far left, see the biography section for the 1962 post on
The Lucy Show) plays the Dickens' new
neighbor Phil Finkel.
Robert Darnell (Doug Russell on
The Bold and the Beautiful) plays a restaurant waiter.
Season 1, Episode 14, "Get Off My Back":
Francine
York (shown on the right, starred in
Wild Ones on Wheels,
The Doll Squad, and
Marilyn Alive and Behind Bars and played
Lorraine Farr Temple on
Days of Our Lives
and Queen Medusa on
Jason of Star Command)
plays physical fitness instructor Linda Holloway.
Season 1, Episode 15, "How Not to Succeed in
Business":
Charles Watts (shown on the left, played Judge Harvey Blandon on
Bachelor Father) plays building contractor Hobart.
Buddy Lester
(appeared in
Ocean's Eleven,
The Ladies Man,
Sergeants 3, and
The Party
and played Nick on
The New Phil Silvers
Show) plays electrician Mr. Barnes.
Jan Arvan (Nacho Torres on
Zorro and Paw Kadiddlehopper on
The Red Skelton Hour) plays French
restaurant maitre 'd Irving.
Season 1, Episode 16, "The Godfathers": Jack
Perkins (see "The Acting Game" above) plays a construction worker who
gets thrown through a window.
