Going My Way was
hardly the first television series based on a popular feature film, and while
these type of adaptations probably have had a higher miss (
Mr. Lucky) to hit (
Dr. Kildare)
ratio, the TV series version of
Going My
Way had a major movie star in
Gene Kelly and a successful producer in
Joe
Connelly (
Amos 'n' Andy,
Leave It to Beaver) behind it. However,
what it didn't have was a good time slot on the TV schedule, being pitted
against new megahits
The Beverly Hillbillies and
The Virginian as
well as old favorites
The Many Loves of
Dobie Gillis and
Perry Como's Kraft
Music Hall. It may have also been limited in mass appeal by its subject
matter--a pair of Roman Catholic priests in a poor New York City neighborhood.
But Connelly and his writers largely stayed away from the vagaries of
Catholicism or religion in general, as most episodes revolve around common
everyday problems of ordinary people, which the priests are often asked to help
resolve.
The debut episode, however, centers around one of the
priests, the elder mentor Father Fitzgibbon, portrayed by veteran character
actor
Leo G. Carroll, who stereotypically comes from Ireland and has always had
a yen to return to the idyllic homeland he remembers. He appears to get that
chance after a group of parishioners decide to fund-raise for his trip,
bolstered by a Polish pawnbroker who chips in a hefty sum but insists that it
must be used for the trip only. Things get complicated when the younger priest,
Father O'Malley, portrayed by Kelly, learns from a recent visitor to Ireland that
Fitzgibbon's idyllic homeland has been paved over for commercial enterprises,
which will surely ruin his trip home. After a long, serious discussion with the
pawnbroker, Fitzgibbon is able to persuade him to allow the donated money to
help a young Irish lad, with big dreams about America's promise, to emigrate to
the U.S., thereby focusing on the future rather than Fitzgibbon's memory of the
past. While the episode manages to make a decent point about the mirage of
nostalgia, it drapes the alternative of looking forward in so much pro-America
propaganda that it overshadows what should have been the show's primary point.
The October 10, 1962 review of the series in
Variety observes, "Wired for sentimentality and moral lessons,
it ought to get the endorsement of parent-teacher groups and others seeking
wholesomeness in prime-time television". It goes on to note its stiff
competition on the TV schedule and says it might fare better as a 30-minute
program. The review closes out by saying that Kelly and Carroll are well-cast
but that the plot is a might thin. Also noted is that Kelly gets a chance to
show off his dancing prowess in a scene at a party given for Fitzgibbon--but
this is the only dancing sequence with Kelly in the series' 1962 episodes.
What isn't mentioned in this review is the waste of
Dick
York's talent, not only in the initial episode but throughout the first 13
installments. Fresh off a lauded performance in
Inherit the Wind, York is here cast as boys club owner Tom Colwell,
a boyhood friend of the O'Malley character, whose main function in the series
seems to be chauffeuring O'Malley around the city. His character is never at
the center of any of the plots, and we get no back story about who he is or why
he is doing what he is.
Nevertheless, the series does a decent job in focusing largely
on dysfunctional family dynamics that the priests are called in to help settle,
making this something of a family counseling show, or a nonscientific
Eleventh Hour. With one exception,
religion is never laid on too thick; in fact, the dilemmas handled by the
priests could just as easily be handled by a secular counselor. In both
"The Crooked Angel" (October 10, 1962) and "A Matter of
Principle" (November 21, 1962) a disgruntled father drives his talented son
to behave badly as a way to vicariously make up for his own past deficiencies.
In the former episode, young Eddie Slade is a talented singer who resorts to
petty theft as a result of his bar-owner father's forcing him to regularly settle
the accounts of a math-challenged bookie who is a bar patron. In the latter
episode, talented basketball player Frank Murphy is driven by his common
laborer father to arrogantly play only for himself so that he can one day make
a lot of money as a professional, then settle into a cushy corporate
spokesperson job to make up for his father's lack of success in the business
world. "Like My Own Brother" (November 7, 1962) portrays two brothers
who clashed in their youth because the younger one was always getting into
trouble, only now he has become a huge success in real estate and has returned
to avenge his elder brother's strictness by turning his own family against him.
O'Malley decides that the only way to break through their animosity against one
another is to allow them to box it out at Colwell's gym. "The Father"
(October 24, 1962) depicts a Spanish immigrant widower father who is bullied by
his overly repressive sister into restricting his daughter from any kind of
social life, thereby driving her to run away and nearly fall into the hands of
a sexual predator. "Ask Me No Questions" (December 5, 1962) tells the
tale of a young boy who resorts to stealing from the church poor box as a way
to bring his divorced father back from California and hopefully bring his estranged
parents back together, while "Not Good Enough for Mary" (November 14,
1962), shows a brother who disapproves of his sister's construction-worker
fiance and does his best to sabotage their romance merely because of social
snobbery.
Then there are the three unlikely stories about career
criminals who eventually repent the errors of their ways when they are made to
see the effect their transgressions have on their families. "Mr. Second
Chance" (November 28, 1962) centers around a career racketeer who tries to
spend his way back into his ex-wife's good graces so that he will be allowed to
attend his daughter's upcoming wedding. In "Keep an Eye on Santa
Claus" (December 12, 1962) recently released ex-con Honus Shamroy nearly
slips back into his thieving ways just at Christmas time until O'Malley figures
out what he is up to and shames him into calling off a store heist to spare his
daughter and grandson the embarrassment of yet another lockup. Finally, in
"A Saint for Mama" (December 26, 1962), mobster kingpin Tony
Laurentino has to give up his life of keeping two mistresses and a lavish life
built on criminal proceeds after his mother takes ill and announces she wants
to die unless he reforms. It's rare to find so many tender-hearted long-time
criminals willing to give up their very identity for the approval of their
family members, but on
Going My Way
the Lord works in mysterious ways. However, even these implausible stories are
fairly well done and have more grit than the many overly sentimental sit-coms
of the era, such as
My Three Sons,
Hazel, and
The Donna Reed Show.
But there are still two episodes from 1962 that are worthy
of unmitigated censure. "A Man for Mary" (October 31, 1962) is a
blatantly chauvinistic story about a young woman whose attractiveness causes
all men to fight over her but is completely unaware of her charms. She is
likewise clueless that she has no talent as an actress, her chosen profession,
and that her proper place is becoming the wife of a no-nonsense widower with
three children who is not overwhelmed by her physical appearance. But worst of
all is "A Dog for Father Fitz" (December 19, 1962) in which not only
does housekeeper Mrs. Featherstone come off as a dog hater after a parishioner
bestows a dog on Father Fitzgibbon as a gift, but after Fitzgibbon finds a new
home for the dog with a young boy who is a student at the parish school, the
dog runs away from the boy's family rural retreat and winds up being struck and
killed by a truck only a block from the church. Matters only get worse when the
boy requests that a Mass be said for his dead dog, as both Fitzgibbon and
O'Malley explain that in their religion dogs do not have souls and therefore
cannot go to heaven, that they are put on earth only to serve man, who in turn
serves God. The boy winds up being appeased by having his dog buried in front
of a statue in the church courtyard, supposedly a place of honor, but airing
this episode less than a week before Christmas to hammer home the point that
all dogs do
not go to heaven must
have alienated dog owners and animal advocates everywhere, regardless of
religious denomination. Though Dick York and others have cited the other shows
airing at the same time as the reason for the series' demise (the show
apparently fared better in summer reruns when it was pitted against lesser
competition), it's hard to imagine how it could have survived after an episode
like "A Dog for Father Fitz."
The main theme and scores for individual episodes for Going My Way were composed by Cyril
Mockridge, who is profiled in the 1960 post on Laramie.
The complete series has been released on DVD by Timeless Media Group.
The Actors
Gene Kelly
but broke his ankle playing volleyball, prompting him to
persuade Astaire to come out of retirement to fill in. After teaming with
Frank
Sinatra a second time in
Take Me Out to
the Ballgame, Kelly was persuaded by Freed to direct and star in
On the Town in 1949, and Kelly insisted
that the assistant he had been working with for years,
Stanley Donen, be given
co-directing credit.
On the Town was
viewed at the time as an inventive breakthrough in the musical film genre. He
reunited with Garland for 1950's
Summer
Stock, and followed this with one of his signature films,
An American in Paris, in which he
introduced the world to former ballerina
Leslie Caron and staged an
unprecedented 17-minute dance suite with her. The film won 6 Academy Awards,
including Best Picture, and an Honorary Award for Kelly. And the following year
he starred in and co-directed (again with Donen)in
Singin' in the Rain, perhaps the most lauded film musical of all
time. This was the apex of his career. After MGM sent him to Europe for 19
months to make movies that earned the studio tax exemptions, he returned to a
declining market for musicals, such that
Brigadoon
was shot on studio back lots rather than in Scotland. MGM refused to loan him
out for the film versions of
Guys and
Dolls and
Pal Joey, the show that
had made him a star on Broadway, so Kelly negotiated an end to his contract
which included
It's Always Fair Weather,
Les Girls, and
The Happy Road, none of which was a hit. In 1957 he divorced Betsy
Blair and married his choreographic assistant
Jeanne Coyne, who had previously
been married to Donen. Kelly found a number of projects to direct and star in,
including directing the hit theatrical musical
Flower Drum Song, a couple of French projects, the
Jackie Gleason
film
Gigot, and a role in the 1960
drama
Inherit the Wind. On television
he produced and directed the 1958 documentary
Dancing Is a Man's Game in which he interpreted in dance the
movements of athletes such as
Sugar Ray Robinson and
Mickey Mantle to promote
his view of masculinity in what was often seen as an effeminate discipline.
Other than a single appearance in a 1957 episode of
Schlitz Playhouse, Kelly had not tried a regular TV series before
signing on to play Father Chuck O'Malley in the TV adaptation of
Going My Way, which faced stiff
competition from
The Beverly Hillbillies,
The Virginian,
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, and
Perry Como on the other networks.
After
Going My Way's cancelation, Kelly found
his most significant work in directing in feature films such as
A
Guide for the Married Man and
Hello,
Dolly!, which won 3 Academy Awards, but he turned down an offer to direct
The Sound of Music, reportedly calling
it "a piece of shit." He won an Emmy for his 1967 TV movie
Jack and the Beanstalk and appeared in
specials such as
The Julie Andrews Show,
Gene Kelly in New York, New York, and
Gene Kelly and 50 Girls. He appeared
as a narrator in the first two
That's
Entertainment films celebrating the golden days of film musicals, but also
participated in a number of flops, such as directing
The Cheyenne Social Club and appearing in
Viva Knievel! and
Xanadu.
He appeared in single episodes of
The
Mary Tyler Moore Hour and
Love Boat
and had roles in the TV miniseries
North
& South: Book 1 and
Sins in
the mid 1980s, his last appearances on film. His second wife Jeanne Coyne had
died in 1973, but Kelly finally married again in 1990 to
Patricia Ward when he
was 77 and she was 30. He suffered strokes in both 1994 and 1995, then passed
away at age 83 on February 2, 1996.
Dick York
Richard Allen York was born September 4, 1928 in Fort Wayne,
Indiana.
His father was a salesman, and
his mother was a seamstress and later ran a beauty shop. When York was 10, the
family moved to Chicago, and he says he decided to become an actor after seeing
the
Cecil B. DeMille film
The Crusades.
He was enrolled in The Jack and Jill Players acting school after a Catholic nun
recognized his singing voice and sent him to a singing coach, who in turn sent
him to the acting school. He landed his first professional job at age 15 taking
over the lead role on
The Brewster Boy
radio program, a family comedy along the line of the popular Aldrich Family
comedy. He then moved on to a supporting role on
Jack Armstrong, All American Boy, where he first met his future
wife
Joan Alt, who was brought in to do a commercial. The couple married in
1951, had 5 children, and remained married until York's death. He stayed on
Jack Armstrong for 6 years, but then
decided to move to New York and pursue a career on the stage, initially living
at the YMCA until he could become established. By 1953 he landed a role in the
drama
Tea and Sympathy starring
Deborah and John Kerr, which led to a film contract with Columbia Pictures. He
began getting rare TV guest spots in 1952 on
Mr. District Attorney, followed by appearances on
Omnibus,
The Web,
Goodyear Playhouse,
Mr. Citizen, and
The Philco Television Playhouse. He got his first credited feature
film appearance in the 1955 comedy
My
Sister Eileen and followed this with roles in
Three Stripes in the Sun,
Operation
Mad Ball,
Cowboy, and
The Last Blitzkrieg while also finding
more frequent work on television in series such as
Kraft Theatre,
Studio One,
Father Knows Best, and
Playhouse 90. But while filming the
adventure feature
They Came to Cordura
starring
Gary Cooper, York suffered a lifelong debilitating back injury when he
was in the process of pumping a railroad hand car when the director yelled
"Cut!" and one of the actors on the car grabbed the handle York was
in the process of lifting, thereby putting tremendous strain on his back which
led to torn muscles and spinal injury (another account says that York wound up
pinned beneath the hand car). Initially York did not seek out medical treatment
for the injury but was determined to keep working. He would make his final
movie appearance in 1960's
Inherit the
Wind, which also starred Gene Kelly, and was allowed by director
Stanley
Kramer to write his own dialogue in his first scene as school teacher Bertram
Cates. At the same time he was finding more and more work on television on
series such as
The Millionaire,
The Untouchables,
The Twilight Zone,
Alfred
Hitchcock Presents,
Dr. Kildare,
Frontier Circus, and
Naked City before finally landing his
first recurring role as youth center proprietor Tom Colwell on
Going My Way in the fall of 1962. In a
later interview, York said that after filming about 25 episodes for the series,
his back injury flared up and after none of the treatments seemed to work and
surgery was recommended, he still returned to the show in pain only to find
that Gene Kelly, also a producer for the show, had installed ramps and places
that allowed him to ease himself into position for each scene, somewhat similar
to the accommodations that would be required for his next TV series.
After
Going My Way
was canceled, York continued to find regular work guest starring on series such
as
Route 66,
Rawhide,
Wagon Train, and
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour before
being cast in his most memorable role as Darrin Stephens on
Bewitched in 1964. York was actually
third choice for the role, as the producers initially hoped to land
Dick
Sargent, but he had already committed to the female Navy comedy
Broadside, and second choice
Richard
Crenna of the recently canceled
Real McCoys turned down the role. But York's back condition, plus his addiction
to painkillers to deal with it, made his years on the hit comedy anything but
fun. The crew built slanted walls that he could lean on between takes and would
sometimes have to help him just walk around the set. He powered through and was
nominated for an Emmy in 1968, but during filming of the episode "Daddy
Does His Thing" in Season 5, York, running a fever of 105 and feeling
terrible, fell off scaffolding and had a seizure, biting a large hole in his
tongue, which led to him finally having to quit the series, eventually
replaced, ironically, by Sargent. He spent the next 18 month bed-ridden and
drug-addled, obviously unable to work, and after that decided to quit his drug
addiction cold turkey, which led to another 6 months of disorientation and
hallucinations. He and his wife supported themselves first by buying an
apartment building in West Covina, but they rented to the poor and indigent who
couldn't always pay their rent, so they lost the building. Then they worked
cleaning apartments and their sons made money selling newspapers and collecting
tin cans. After ballooning to 306 pounds, York decided to go on a diet and
hired a new agent, which got him guest spots on
Simon & Simon in 1983 and
Fantasy
Island in 1984. He filmed a pilot for
High
School USA, but the show was not picked up for production. Then he stopped
getting calls for work and belatedly discovered that his agent had failed to
properly register him with the Screen Actors Guild, which effectively ended his
acting career. He and his wife moved to Rockford, Michigan to take care of her
ailing mother, and after the mother passed away, they continued living in her
home. York decided to create a new career for himself helping the homeless,
since he had experienced extreme poverty growing up during the Depression in
Indiana, and founded the organization Acting for Life. Though he was confined
to home since he had developed emphysema from smoking three packs of cigarettes
a day all his life and now required an oxygen tank, York worked the telephones
to find military and government surplus items that could benefit the poor,
including clothing, mattresses, and cots, and had them shipped to shelters for
the homeless. Despite his years of intense pain and suffering, York remained
positive to the end, saying that he had been blessed and had no complaints. But
he also said that only four of his acting jobs gave him complete artistic
satisfaction:
Inherit the Wind,
working with
Elia Kazan on
Bus Stop
on Broadway, an episode of
Playhouse 90
with
Paul Muni, and his one episode on
Route 66. He passed away on February 20, 1992 at the age of 63.
Leo G. Carroll
Leo Grattan Carroll was born in Weedon Bec,
Northamptonshire, England on October 25, 1886, the son of a military officer.
After the family moved to New York in 1897, his father held various positions
throughout the years, from foreman in an ordnance store to wine clerk to
dramatic agent. Leo himself became an assistant wine merchant at age 15 when
his father was a clerk, and his father's occupation as a dramatic agent
coincides with Leo's first professional acting job at age 25 in a production of
Rutherford and Son in which he both
acted and served as stage manager. Carroll's interest in the theatre began in
his school days, appearing in Gilbert & Sullivan productions as well as an
appearance in
Liberty Hall when he
was 16. Carroll brought the production of
Rutherford
and Son to New York after running a year in London, and it is listed as his
first Broadway appearance in 1912. He appeared in a production of
Everyman on Broadway the following year
before enlisting in the British Army during World War I, which saw him serving
in France, Greece, and Palestine, where he was badly wounded and hospitalized
for two years. Though he had once considered following his father into a
military career, he resumed acting after the War in 1919 but did not make it
back to Broadway until 1924 in a production of
Havoc. From then on, he was a regular on The Great White Way,
appearing in at least one production a year until well after he had crossed
over into film. Among the highlights on the stage were
Noel Coward's
The Vortex (1925-26),
The Perfect Alibi (1928-29),
The Green Bay Tree (1933-34) with
Laurence Olivier,
Angel Street
(1941-44) aka
Gaslight, and the title
role in
The Late George Apley
(1944-45). In 1926 he married
Edith Nancy De Silva, and they had one son,
William. M. Carroll. He continued appearing in Broadway productions through the
mid-1950s, with the last being the short-lived
Someone Waiting in 1956. His feature film debut came in 1934's
Sadie McKee starring
Joan Crawford, and
he appeared in two more features that year--
The
Barretts of Wimpole Street and
Outcast
Lady. From then on he was a regular supporting player in several features
per year, often playing authority figures, though he also played Marley's ghost
in
A Christmas Carol in 1937 and
Joseph in
Wuthering Heights in 1939.
In 1940 he appeared in the first of six
Alfred Hitchcock productions, the
Academy Award Winner for Best Picture
Rebecca.
He would also appear in
Suspicion(1941),
Spellbound (1945),
The Paradine Case (1947),
Strangers on a Train(1951), and
North by Northwest (1959), in which he
played a spy chief named The Professor, very much like his signature TV role 5
years later. Other noteworthy feature film appearances during this period
include
Forever Amber (1947),
Father of the Bride (1950),
The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), and
We're No Angels (1955). He made his
first foray into television in 1949, appearing in episodes of
The Chevrolet Tele-Theatre,
The Philco Television Playhouse, and
NBC Repertory Theatre. In 1953 he landed
his first recurring TV role playing grumpy banker Cosmo Topper on
Topper, starring opposite
Robert
Sterling and
Anne Jeffreys. The series ran for 78 episodes over 2 seasons until
1955, after which Carroll began getting more TV guest spots, mostly in drama
anthologies and the western
The
Californians. In 1961 he had supporting roles in the features
The Parent Trap and
One Plus One, as well as appearing on a couple of anthology TV
series. He then received his second recurring TV role as mentoring priest
Father Fitzgibbon on
Going My Way.
After
Going My Way
was canceled, Carroll's output declined though he still appeared on
Hazel and
Channing in 1964 and the feature
The Prize in 1963, but very soon he was cast in another recurring
role, his most famous, as spymaster Alexander Waverly on
The Man From U.N.C.L.E. in 1964. He would appear in 105 episodes
over its 4-year run, as well as all the feature films cobbled together from
various episodes, and when
Stefanie Powers was spun off into
The Girl From U.N.C.L.E., Carroll played
Waverly in that series, too. He received one Emmy nomination for Best
Supporting Actor for each series--for
Girl
in 1966 and
Man in 1967. But after
the U.N.C.L.E. franchise ground to a halt, Carroll would appear in only one
more feature,
From Nashville With Music
in 1969, and a single episode of
Ironside
in 1970 before retiring. Two years later he died from cancer-induced pneumonia
at the age of 85.
Nydia Westman
Nydia Eileen Westman was born into a show business family on
February 19, 1902 in New York City. Her father
Theodore Westman was an actor
and composer, while her mother
Lily Wren was an actress and playwright. Her
brother
Theodore Westman, Jr. was also an actor and author who died in 1927 at
the age of 24. Nydia was part of the family act billed as Troubles of Joy until
she was 21, performing across several vaudeville circuits. But she finally
struck out on her own at age 22, appearing in the Broadway production of
Pigs in 1924. She continued to find
regular work on the stage through the rest of the decade and beyond, appearing
in
Two Girls Wanted (1926-27),
Buckaroo (1929),
Jonesy (1929),
The
Unsophisticates (1929-30),
Ada Beats
the Drum (1930), and
Lysistrata
(1930-31) before breaking into films in 1932, beginning with
Strange Justice. Once she made the move
to Hollywood, feature films and later television became her primary focus, but
she continued to return to Broadway periodically into the early 1960s. However,
after appearing in two different runs of
The
Madwoman of Chaillot in 1948-50, most of her stage productions were short
lived. In 1930 she married producer
Robert Sparks and had a daughter
Robina
Jane, who became an actress herself under the name
Kate Williamson and married
actor
Al Ruscio, who appeared in a 1962 episode of
Going My Way. By 1933 Westman was appearing in a half dozen feature
films per year. Among the highlights were
Manhattan
Tower (1932),
Little Women
(1933),
Ladies Should Listen (1934)
with
Cary Grant,
Pennies From Heaven
(1936) with
Bing Crosby,
The Cat and the
Canary (1939) with
Bob Hope,
They All
Kissed the Bride (1942) with
Joan Crawford, and
The Late George Apley (1947) with
Ronald Colman. She dove into
television in 1947 on the live New York-based sit-com
Mark Kay and Johnny and appeared in over 300 episodes as Mary Kay's
mother over the next three years. Thereafter in the early 1950s she appeared on
many drama anthology series and occasionally on continuing series such as
Martin Kane,
Young Mr. Bobbin, and
Colonel
Humphrey Flack. Other than anthology series, work slacked off in the late
1950s and early 1960s, as she also appeared on
The Phil Silvers Show and
The
Jim Backus Show in addition to the teen exploitation feature film
Don't Knock the Twist, before landing
the role of parish housekeeper Mrs. Featherstone on
Going My Way in 1962.
Unlike many other older actors whose work declined after
their recurring series is canceled, Westman actually found more work after the
demise of
Going My Way, staying very
busy through the mid-1960s on series such as
Route 66,
Perry Mason,
The Addams Family,
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour,
Bonanza,
Ben Casey,
The Donna Reed Show,
The
Munsters,
F Troop,
My Favorite Martian, and
The Farmer's Daughter. The year 1966
marked a return to feature films with appearances in
The Ghost and Mr. Chicken,
The
Chase, and
The Swinger, followed
by
The Reluctant Astronaut in 1967. She
continued finding regular TV guest spots through the late 1960s on programs
such as
Please Don't Eat the Daisies,
That Girl,
Judd for the Defense,
Family
Affair,
Adam-12,
Bewitched, and 6 appearances on
Dragnet. Her last credit would be in the
feature film version of
John Updike's
Rabbit,
Run starring
James Caan. She passed away from cancer at age 68 on May 23,
1970.
Mary Field
Born June 10, 1909 in New York City, Field was left as an
infant on the steps of a church with a note pinned to her bassinet saying that
her name was
Olivia Rockefeller. After being adopted, Field attended the
Brentwood Hall School in New York where she developed a skill of mimicking a
Cockney accent because her parents traveled frequently, leaving her to live at
the school during their absences, and while staying at the school she
befriended the Cockney gardener who worked there. She signed a contract with
Warner Brothers in 1937 and made her feature film debut that year in
The Prince and the Pauper. While many of
her appearances early in her career were uncredited, such as in the features
Jezebel (1938) and
The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938), she also had her share of
credited parts in films such as
White
Banners (1938),
Cowboy Form Brooklyn
(1938),
Society Smugglers (1939), and
Dancing Co-Ed (1939). In the 1940s
her more memorable roles came in
Ball of
Fire (1941),
Miss Annie Rooney
(1942),
The Great Gildersleeve
(1942),
Song of the South (1946),
Life With Father (1947), and
A Song Is Born (1948), though she also
had uncredited parts in noteworthy films such as
The Bank Dick (1940),
Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941),
How Green
Was My Valley (1941),
Mrs. Miniver
(1942),
The Major and the Minor
(1942),
Now, Voyager (1942),
Laura (1944),
Miracle on 34th Street (1947),
Dark
Passage (1947),
Out of the Past
(1947), and
Sorry, Wrong Number
(1948). At some point in the 1940s she married
Allan Douglas, who as of 1943 was
serving in the U.S. Army Medical Corps, but the couple divorced sometime during
the decade, and she remarried to
James Madison Walters II and had two children.
She continued her prolific feature film work in the 1950s but also moved into
television beginning in 1952 on
Chevron
Theatre. Beginning in 1953 she played the character Thelma Gibney in 6
episodes of
Topper alongside future
Going My Way star Leo G. Carroll. But
most of her TV appearances were guest spots, particularly on drama anthologies.
She continued finding work in feature films such as
The Lady Wants Mink (1953),
Four
Guns to the Border (1954),
The
Private War of Major Benson (1955) in which she played a nun,
To Hell and Back (1955),
The Price of Fear (1956),
Ride a Crooked Trail (1958), and
Seven Ways From Sundown (1960). Besides
her work on TV drama anthologies, she also appeared on
City Detective,
The
Millionaire,
Whirlybirds,
Sally,
Bachelor Father,
Wagon Train,
and
Gunsmoke. She played the
character Cathy Marion in four episodes of the serial
The Swamp Fox on
The Magical
World of Disney in 1959-60. But after appearing as Sister Agnes in 6
episodes of
Going My Way in 1962-63,
she retired from film acting. She lived in Laguna Niguel, California and was
active in the Hollywood Church of Religious Science, but after her husband died
in 1982, she moved in with her daughter
Susana Kerstein and son-in-law
Bob
Kerstein in Fairfax, Virginia, where she died from a stroke at the age of 87 on
June 12, 1996.
Notable Guest Stars
Season 1, Episode 1, "Going Back to Ballymora":
Will
Kuluva (shown on the left, played Charlie Kingman on
Primus) plays pawnbroker Mr. Remplevich.
Robert Emhardt (Mackenzie Cory on
Another
World, Sgt. Vinton on
The Kids From
C.A.P.E.R., and Willard Masefield on
The
Edge of Night) plays undertaker Joe Feeney.
Russell Collins (appeared in
Niagara,
Bad Day at Black Rock, and
Fail-Safe
and played Owen Sharp on
Many Happy
Returns) plays parishioner Barney O'Dowd.
Argentina Brunetti (appeared in
It's a Wonderful Life,
The Great Caruso, and
The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao and played
Filomena on
General Hospital) plays market
owner Mrs. Severino.
Lauren Gilbert (appeared in
X-15,
The Unsinkable Molly
Brown, and
The Fortune Cookie and
played John Olcott on
Fairmeadows, U.S.A.,
Tom Craythorne on
Love of Life, Harry
Lane on
The Edge of Night, and Harry
Noll on
Hazel) plays physician Dr.
Warnake.
Season 1, Episode 2, "The Crooked Angel":
Dennis
Olivieri (see the biography section for the 1960 post on
The Betty Hutton Show) plays 8th grade pupil Eddie Slade.
Ralph
Meeker (shown on the right, starred in
The Naked Spur,
Kiss Me Deadly,
Paths of Glory, and
The Dirty
Dozen and played Sgt. Steve Dekker on
Not
for Hire) plays his father Jack.
Willard Parker (appeared in
A Slight Case of Murder,
Hunt the Man Down,
Sangaree, and
Kiss Me Kate
and played Ranger Jace Pearson on
Tales
of the Texas Rangers) plays Fitzgibbon's superior Monsignor Giblin.
Phyllis
Love (appeared in
So Young, So Bad,
Friendly Persuasion, and
The Young Doctors) plays Eddie's teacher
Sister Mary Matthew.
Ralph Manza (Al Bonacorsi on
The D.A.'s Man, Mike Costello on
General Hospital, Jay Drury on
Banacek,
Ambulance Aide Stanke on
A.E.S. Hudson,
Padre Guardiano on
Mama Malone, Bud
on
Newhart, and Father Lewis on
Days of Our Lives) plays bookie Charlie.
J. Pat O'Malley (see the biography section for the 1961 post on
Frontier Circus) plays bar patron Healy.
Herbie Faye (Cpl. Sam Fender on
The Phil
Silvers Show, Waluska on
The New Phil
Silvers Show, and Ben Goldman on
Doc)
plays another bar customer.
Frank Sully (Danny the bartender on
The Virginian) plays a golf course
attendant.
Season 1, Episode 3, "The Parish Car":
Gary Vinson
(shown on the left, see the biography section for the 1962 post on
McHale's Navy) plays car thief Bruce Randall.
Virginia Christine (see
the biography section for the 1961 post on
Tales
of Wells Fargo) plays his mother.
Harry Lauter (Ranger Clay Morgan on
Tales of the Texas Rangers, Atlasande on
Rocky Jones, Space Ranger, and Jim
Herrick on
Waterfront) plays his
father Frank.
Ken Lynch (see the biography section for the 1961 post on
Checkmate) plays police officer Lt.
Harris.
Barry Kelley (starred in
The
Asphalt Jungle,
The Manchurian
Candidate, and
The Love Bug and
played Charlie Anderson on
Big Town,
Jim Rafferty on
The Tom Ewell Show,
Mr. Slocum on
Pete and Gladys, and
Carol's father on
Mister Ed) plays his
boss Capt. Donovan.
Peter Leeds (Tenner Smith on
Trackdown and George Colton on
Pete
and Gladys) plays a police patrolman.
Raymond Bailey (see the biography
section for the 1961 post on
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis) plays roofing contractor Rudy Blanchard.
Hugh
Sanders (appeared in
That's My Boy,
The Pride of St. Louis,
The Winning Team, and
The Wild One) plays his assistant Murray
Cranston.
Jerome Cowan (starred in
Shall
We Dance,
Victory,
High Sierra,
The Maltese Falcon,
Miracle
on 34th Street and many Blondie movies and played Collins on
Not for Publication and John Larsen on
The Tab Hunter Show) plays used car salesman
Tim Murphy.
Johnny Eimen (Monk on
McKeever
and the Colonel) plays young gawker Tim Wheelen.
Season 1, Episode 4, "The Father":
Arnold Moss (shown on the right, appeared in
Kim,
Viva Zapata!,
The 27th Day, and
Gambit and played David Henson on
The Edge of Night) plays strict Spanish immigrant father Mr.
Fernandez.
Victoria Vetri (appeared in
Kings
of the Sun,
Chuka,
Rosemary's Baby, and
Invasion of the Bee Girls) plays his teenage
daughter Carmel.
Douglas Lambert (Eddie Weeks on
General Hospital and Walter Schiff on
Inside Story) plays smooth operator Randy Simpson.
Paul Langton (Leslie
Harrington on
Peyton Place) plays a
bus station masher.
Cliff Norton (appeared in
McHale's Navy Joins the Air Force,
The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, and
The
Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! and played Boss on
It's About Time and Isaac Meyer on
General Hospital) plays a talkative cab
driver.
Harry Ellerbe (appeared in
So Red
the Rose,
The Magnetic Monster,
Desk Set, and
House of Usher) plays a bus station passenger.
Dennis McCarthy (Dr.
Sam Hodges on
Cimarron City) plays a
policeman at the bus station.
Kitty Kelly (Ellen on
The New Loretta Young Show) plays the Fernandez's neighbor.
Season 1, Episode 5, "A Man for Mary":
Anne
Francis (shown on the left, starred in
Bad Day at Black Rock,
Forbidden Planet,
Don't Go Near the Water, and
The Love God? and played Honey West on
Honey West and Arliss Cooper on
Dallas) plays aspiring actress Mary
Dunne.
Gerald S. O'Loughlin (appeared in
A
Hatful of Rain,
Cop Hater,
In Cold Blood,
Ice Station Zebra, and
The Valachi
Papers and played Peter Banas on
The
Doctors, Lt. Carl Wyatt on
The
Guiding Light, Lt. Ed Ryker on
The
Rookies, Capt. E.G. Boyd on
Automan,
and Joe Kaplan on
Our House) plays shoe
shop owner Joe Bianchi.
Judy Strangis (Helen Loomis on
Room 222 and was the voice of Dyna Girl on
Electra Woman and Dyna Girl, Merilee on
Butch Cassidy, Rota Ree on
Wheelie
and the Chopper Bunch, Goldie Gold on
Goldie
Gold and Action Jack, and Pauline on
Donkey
Kong) plays his daughter Maria.
George Kennedy (starred in
Charade,
The Sons of Katie Elder,
The
Dirty Dozen,
Cool Hand Luke, and
The Naked Gun and played MP Sgt. Kennedy
on
The Phil Silvers Show, Father
Samuel Cavanaugh on
Sarge, Bumper
Morgan on
The Blue Knight, and Carter
McKay on
Dallas) plays one of
Bianchi's boarders Mike Lewis.
Robert Strauss (appeared in
Stalag 17,
The Bridges at
Toko-Ri,
The Seven Year Itch,
The Man With the Golden Arm, and
Girls! Girls! Girls! and played Sgt.
Stan Gruzewsky on
Mona McCluskey) plays
boarder Curt Meyers.
Connie Gilchrist (starred in
Tortilla Flat,
A Letter to
Three Wives, and
Long John Silver
and played Purity Pinker on
The
Adventures of Long John Silver) plays Mary's landlord Mrs. Riordan.
John
Harmon (played hotel clerk Eddie Halstead on
The Rifleman) plays modeling school owner Bruno Martin.
Season 1, Episode 6, "Like My Own Brother":
Harry
Morgan (shown on the right, starred in
The Ox-Bow Incident,
High Noon,
Inherit the Wind,
How the
West Was Won, and
The Apple Dumpling
Gang and played Pete Porter on
December
Bride and
Pete and Gladys, Seldom
Jackson on
Kentucky Jones, Bill
Gannon on
Dragnet 1967, H.M. Stafford
on
The D.A., Doc Amos B. Coogan on
Hec Ramsey, Col. Sherman T. Potter on
M*A*S*H and
AfterMASH, Leonard Blacke on
Blacke's
Magic, and Martin Vanderhof on
You
Can't Take It With You) plays Postal Service supervisor Al Everett.
Paula
Winslowe (Martha Conklin on
Our Miss
Brooks) plays his wife Anne.
Paul Carr (Bill Horton on
Days of Our Lives, Casey Clark on
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Dr. Paul Summers on
The Doctors, Ted Prince on
Dallas, and Martin Gentry on
The Young and the Restless) plays his
son Jerry.
Melinda Casey (Linda Kelly on
The
George Burns and Gracie Allen Show and Abby Chapman on
Peyton Place) plays his daughter Jane.
Eddie Bracken (starred in
Star Spangled Rhythm,
The Miracle of Morgan's Creek,
Hail the Conquering Hero,
Duffy's Tavern,
Summer Stock, and
Home Alone
2: Lost in New York and played Father Burke on
Winnetka Road) plays his estranged brother Danny.
Anthony Spinelli
(Ensign Tubbs on
Captain Video and His Video
Rangers) plays Everett's co-worker Jack Marcus.
Season 1, Episode 7, "Not Good Enough for Mary":
Angela
Clarke (appeared in
The Great Caruso,
The Harlem Globetrotters,
House of Wax, and
The Interns) plays bread-maker matriarch Mama Cipollaro.
Al Ruscio
(Paul Locatelli on
Shannon, Sal
Giordano on
Life Goes On, Frank
Ruscio on
Joe's Life, and Kosta
Kanelos on
Port Charles) plays her
son Jimmy.
Virginia Vincent (shown on the left, see the biography section for the 1961 post on
The Joey Bishop Show) plays her daughter
Mary.
Jack Warden (starred in
From Here
to Eternity,
12 Angry Men, and
Run Silent, Run Deep and played Matt
Gower on
The Asphalt Jungle,
Major Simon Butcher on
The Wackiest Ship in the Army, Lt. Mike
Haines on
N.Y.P.D., Morris
Buttermaker on
The Bad News Bears,
and Harry Fox, Sr. on
Crazy Like a Fox)
plays construction worker Carl Wiczinski.
Anne Barton (Nan Fry on
Big Town) plays Jimmy's wife Lois.
Mike
Ragan (makeup artist under the name Holly Bane on
General Hospital,
Barney
Miller, and
Fish) plays a truck
driver.
Season 1, Episode 8, "A Matter of Principle":
Peter
Helm (younger brother of actress Anne Helm) plays arrogant basketball star
Frank Murphy.
Fred Clark (shown on the right, appeared in
Sunset
Blvd.,
A Place in the Sun,
How to Marry a Millionaire, and
Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine, and
played Harry Morton on
The George Burns
and Gracie Allen Show, Dr. Roy Clyburn on
The Beverly Hillbillies, and Chief Gerald B. Hannahan on
The Double Life of Henry Phyfe) plays his
father John.
Virginia Gregg (starred in
Dragnet,
Crime in the Streets,
Operation Petticoat and was the voice of
Norma Bates in
Psycho, Maggie Belle
Klaxon on
Calvin and the Colonel, and
Tara on
Space Stars) plays his mother
Margaret.
Charla Doherty (Julie Olson on
Days
of Our Lives) plays his girlfriend Harriet Hall.
Simon Scott (John Riggs on
Markham, Gen. Bronson on
McHale's Navy, Chief Barney Metcalf on
Mod Squad, and Arnold Slocum on
Trapper John, M.D.) plays probation
officer Larry Raymond.
George Furth (appeared in
The Best Man,
How to Save a Marriage
and Ruin Your Life,
Butch Cassidy and
the Sundance Kid,
Myra Breckenridge,
Blazing Saddles, and
Oh, God! and played Ensign Beasley on
Broadside, Dwayne Whitt on
Tammy, Frederic Steele on
The Dumplings, and Judge Binghampton on
The Trials of Rosie O'Neill) plays St.
Dominic's student Lester.
Kip King (voice of Shecky on
The Biskitts and played Ronald Sandler on
Charlie & Co. and Tailor Smurf on
The Smurfs) plays his friend Joey.
Brad Morrow (Louie on
The Adventures of Spin and Marty) plays
Jewish temple basketball manager Robert Stern.
Season 1, Episode 9, "Mr. Second Chance":
Dan
Duryea (shown on the left, starred in
The Little Foxes,
The Pride of the Yankees,
Scarlet Street, and
Winchester '73 and played China Smith in
China Smith and
The New
Adventures of China Smith and Eddie Jacks on
Peyton Place) plays racketeer Harold Harrison.
Dorothy Green (appeared
in
The Big Heat,
Face of a Fugitive,
It
Happened at the World's Fair, and
Tammy
and the Millionaire and played Lavinia Tate on
Tammy and Jennifer Brooks on
The
Young and the Restless) plays his estranged wife.
Maggie Pierce (Barbara
Crabtree on
My Mother the Car) plays his
daughter Marilyn.
Steven Terrell (Tom on
The
Pride of the Family) plays Marilyn's fiance Tony.
Ross Elliott (see the
biography section for the 1962 post on
The Virginian) plays jewelry store embezzler Ken Hamlin.
Willis Bouchey (Mayor
Terwilliger on
The Great Gildersleeve,
Springer on
Pete and Gladys, and the
judge 23 times on
Perry Mason) plays his
boss Bill Fleming.
Frankie Darro (starred in
The Mayor of Hell,
Wild Boys
of the Road,
Little Men, and
played Robbie the Robot in
Forbidden
Planet) plays an elevator operator.
Season 1, Episode 10, "Ask Me No Questions":
Roger
Mobley (Homer "Packy" Lambert on
Fury)
plays St. Dominic's student Miles Corbin.
Joanne Linville (Amy Sinclair on
The Guiding Light) plays his mother Nora.
Kevin McCarthy (shown on the right, starred in
Death of a
Salesman,
Invasion of the Body
Snatchers (1956 & 1978),
The
Misfits, and
Hotel and played
Philip Hastings on
The Survivors, Claude
Weldon on
Flamingo Road, Zach
Cartwright on
Amanda's, George
Hayward on
Bay City Blues, and Lucas
Carter on
The Colbys) plays his
father Ray.
Nestor Paiva (Theo Gonzales on
Zorro)
plays business owner Mr. Osborne.
Season 1, Episode 11, "Keep an Eye on Santa Claus":
James Dunn (Oscar winner who starred in
Society
Girl,
Stand Up and Cheer!,
Bright Eyes, and
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and played Earl Morgan on
It's a Great Life) plays ex-con Honus
Shamroy.
Cloris Leachman (shown on the left, starred in
The
Last Picture Show,
Charley and the Angel,
Dillinger, and
Young Frankenstein and played Effie Perrine on
Charlie Wild, Private Detective, Ruth Martin on
Lassie, Rhoda Kirsh on
Dr. Kildare, Phyllis Lindstrom on
Mary Tyler Moore,
Rhoda, and
Phyllis,
Beverly Ann Stickle on
The Facts of Life,
Mrs. Frick on
The Nutt House, Emily
Collins on
Walter & Emily, Grammy
Winthrop on
Thanks, Dot Richmond on
The Ellen Show, Ida on
Malcolm in the Middle, Maw Maw on
Raising Hope, and Mrs. Mandelbaum on
Mad About You) plays daughter Karen
Murdock.
Steve Brodie (see the biography section for the 1960 post on
The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp) plays
her husband Fred.
Bill Mumy (Will Robinson on
Lost in Space, Weaver on
Sunshine,
and Lennier on
Babylon 5) plays their
son Mark.
Frank McHugh (appeared in
The
Front Page,
The Crowd Roars,
One Way Passage,
A Midsummer Night's Dream,
Going
My Way, and
State Fair and played
Willis Walter on
The Bing Crosby Show)
plays safe cracker William Jennings Depew.
Ken Lynch (see "The Parish
Car" above) returns as police officer Lt. Harris.
Henry Hunter (Doctor
Summerfield on
Hazel) plays
department store floorwalker Dawson.
Katie Sweet (Peggy Dayton on
Bonanza and Tina Dearborn on
Hank) plays a little girl on Santa's lap.
Season 1, Episode 12, "A Dog for Father Fitz":
Dennis
Rush (Howie Pruitt on
The Andy Griffith Show) plays 9-year-old St. Dominic's student Terry Donnely.
Forrest Lewis (shown on the far right, played Mr.
Peavey on
The Great Gildersleeve)
plays abused husband Mr. Carter.
Marie Blake (shown on the near right, appeared in
Love Finds Andy Hardy,
Li'l
Abner, and
Mourning Becomes Electra,
played Sally the receptionist in 14 Dr. Kildare and Dr. Gillespie features, and
played Nurse Tacky on
Dr. Hudson's Secret
Journal and Grandmama on
The Addams
Family) plays his wife.
Phyllis Love (see "The Crooked Angel"
above) returns as Sister Mary Matthew.
Kenneth MacDonald (played the judge 32
times on
Perry Mason,
played Col. Parker on
Colt .45, and appeared in several Three
Stooges shorts) plays a sea captain parishioner.
Norman Leavitt (Ralph on
Trackdown) plays milkman Joe.
George
Wallace (see the biography section for the 1961 post on
The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp) plays a truck driver.
Robert B.
Williams (see the biography section for the 1962 post on
Hazel) plays a policeman.
Season 1, Episode 13, "A Saint for Mama":
Richard
Conte (appeared in
A Walk in the Sun,
13 Rue Madeleine,
Call Northside 777,
Ocean's 11, and
Lady in
Cement and played Jeff Ryder on
The
Four Just Men) plays mob boss Tony Laurentino.
Renata Vanni (appeared in
Pay or Die!,
A Patch of Blue, and
Fatso
and played Rose Brentano on
That Girl)
plays his mother.
Bert Remsen (Detective Lawrence on
Peyton Place, Mr. Pell on
Gibbsville,
Mario on
It's a Living, and Jack
Crager on
Dynasty) plays henchman
Charlie.
Garry Walberg (Police Sgt. Sullivan on
Johnny Staccato, Sgt. Edward Goddard on
Peyton Place, Speed on
The
Odd Couple, and Lt. Frank Monahan on
Quincy
M.E.) plays henchman Pete.
Beverly Garland (shown on the left, played Casey Jones on
Decoy, Ellis Collins on
The Bing Crosby Show, Barbara Harper
Douglas on
My Three Sons, Dorothy
"Dotty" West on
Scarecrow and
Mrs. King, Ellen Lane on
Lois &
Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, and Ginger on
7th Heaven) plays Tony's mistress Marsha Bennett.
Lisa Gaye
(Collette DuBois on
The Bob Cummings Show
and Gwen Kirby on
How to Marry a
Millionaire) plays Tony's other girlfriend Rosa Pavone.
Bart Burns (Capt.
Pat Chambers on
Mike Hammer) plays a
police detective.
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