What's on TV? Tuesday, March 16, 1965

I've mentioned this before, I'm sure, but in all the talk about "must-see TV" over the years, I think we sometimes lose sight of the outstanding Tuesday night schedule that ABC had in the mid-60s. It's diminished somewhere here by the sitcom The Tycoon, which didn't do well in the ratings, but the show it replaced, My Three Sons (which wound up on CBS) was part of a lineup that included Combat!, McHale's Navy, Peyton Place, and The Fugitive. All iconic series, wouldn't you agree? And you can find them in this week's Northern California edition.

This week in TV Guide: March 13, 1965

I had something all planned for this week's lede—Edith Efron's co-cover story on sex in the soaps—but it turned out to be so engrossing, so complex, and so long that I've chosen to carry it over to Wednesday's essay. Good news for me, because it gives me material for another day, but bad news for you, because it deprives you of an essential part of this week's issue.

Or does it? Let's see if we can make up for it with Sullivan vs. the Palace, World War I, child stars, and some other stuff, beginning with a look at the producer of the number one television program in America.

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This week's other cover story is on David Dortort, producer of Bonanza, a man to whom, Dwight Whitney reports, "even network nabobs speak softly." The crucial November Nielsen ratings have come out—November being the time in which many a series meets an inglorious end, and many a producer's heart is broken—and Bonanza has, once again, topped the list, with a higher percentage spread over the second-place show than has ever been seen before. As a result, there are no meddling network executives roaming through the offices, no panic buttons being pressed. And everyone, from agents to out-of-work directors to studio execs, wants to be on the good side of David Dortort.

Dortort is in a unique position. As Whitney notes, Bonanza is his baby; it "represents the taste, judgment and creative ability of one man. It is not too much to say that Bonanza—with its romanticized feudal father, its earnest glorification of the all-male hearth and home, and its tendency to regenerate even its most despicable villains—is David Dortort, right down to the last psychological nuance." And yet you'd hardly know it from the man himself, described as "shy and gentle," who seldom ever raises his voice to anyone "below the level of a trouble some network vice president." After writing what Whitney describes as "an agonizingly subjective account of the horror of his youth," a novel that was praised by critics and ignored by readers, he resolved to "write for the world," and poured out scrips for shows such as Climax!, The Lineup, and Suspense, and movies from The Big Land to Reprisal. 

When the network tapped him for Bonanza, he displayed a vision at odds with that found in the typical Western. "Most Westerns are about lonely cowpokes in dusty cow towns. How about the glories of the West? The lakes, the mountains, the cool clear air?" He was also troubled by something we've read about consistently in television history, the portrayal of fathers. "I was concerned about the damage television was doing to the American father image. He was being portrayed as a weakling and an idiot. I wanted to reinstate him." And if that wasn't enough, he also was determined to cast relative unknowns in the lead roles, rather than more established names. "TV makes its own stars," he told the network.

Bonanza opened to lukewarm reviews and ratings, and the panicked network sent various show doctors in to repair what it saw as the damage. The series was saved by a "sudden upswing" in the ratings; Dortort says it took him nearly four years to cull the herd of its network influence. But despite the show's success, it hasn't all been fun. There is, for example, the notoriously difficult Pernell Roberts. Dortort acknowledges both Roberts's talent and the problems he causes, and doesn't mince words on either. "The problems, all his rudeness, his impossible conduct and lack of professionalism—I would forgive all that if he would come back. He is that good." (Talk about damning with praise.) Michael Landon has shown some reluctance to play a fight scene in his bare chest. ("Mike's funny that way," Dortort says.) On the other hand, Lorne Greene, who currently has a number one Billboard hit with his record "Ringo," is, Dortort says, "The perfect Bonanza image." 

It is only when Dortort talks of his own life that one begins to see the parallels, to understand why he believes so strongly in the story he tells through Bonanza. His father "was a marvelous man. I love him dearly. I would not hurt him. I tell people he was an insurance broker. This is not strictly so. He ran a little candy store and it failed. That is why we moved from Far Rockaway to the tenements when I was seven. Mother bore the burden. She was a saint." Looking back, he says, "Can you imagine how reckless it would be for such a boy to announce he was going to be a writer?" He shared with Little Joe an innate resistance to authority, a temper. He shares Pernell Roberts's impatience; "I tell myself, also as Pernell does, 'I'm bright, I’m sharp, intuitive and quick—what is wrong with people? Can't they see I’m the only man with integrity in town?'" His crew of directors and writers is comprised of many with hard-luck stories or up-and-comers with ambition. "I pick up strays. The Hoss in me, I guess." And that's not all he's shared with his characters; "My father's name is Ben," he says with a smile.

He closes with a candid assessment of Roberts that matches his own self-assessment. Roberts has announced his intention to leave the show for a more "serious" acting career. (How'd that go for you, Pernell?) "One day I may go back to serious writing, myself. But I am a slum boy who sometimes feels he’s trying to be something he shouldn't, and I have learned one thing: When fortune smiles, best not kick it in the teeth."

An interesting article about an interesting man. Good thing the soap opera essay ran so long.

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During the 60s, The Ed Sullivan Show and The Hollywood Palace were the premier variety shows on television. Whenever they appear in TV Guide together, we'll match them up and see who has the best lineup.

Sullivan: Tonight's show is a salute to St. Patrick’s Day. Scheduled guests: actor Pat O’Brien, singer Abbe Lane, comics Allen and Rossi, the folk-singing Clancey Brothers and Tommy Makem, actor Pernell Roberts of Bonanza and harpist Dierdre O'Callaghan. (According to the episode guide, Petula Clark, Nancy Walker and Bert Lahr, singer Jimmy Roselli, pianist Dorothy Donegan, and the Olympiades bodybuilders were also on the show; Abbe Lane, Pernell Roberts, and Dierdre O'Callaghan were no-shows. At least they got a few of the names right.) 

Palace: The host is comic-pianist Victor Borge, who demonstrates how great composers stumbled on some of their famous compositions. Guests include songstress Rosemary Clooney; comic Shecky Greene, who offers a monologue on folk and night-club singers; the singing Kessler Twins; the Two Freddies, trampolinists; swordbalancer Marco; and ventriloquist Russ Lewis.

Sullivan's guest list is all over the place this week, and were it not for Pat O'Brien, Allen & Rossi, and the Clanceyh Brothers, I'd have been tempted to think I was looking at the wrong day. Nevertheless, with Victor Borge, Rosemary Clooney, and Shecky Greene, I'm tempted to go with the Palace. 

A note on the Kessler Twins, Alice and Ellen, who were German singers and were very popular on variety shows of the day, took their own lives via assisted suicide on November 17 of last year. That's a very dark ending to a very successful career. However, that doesn't diminish the strength of this week's lineup, and this week's nod goes to the Palace.

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From 1963 to 1976, TV Guide's weekly reviews were written by the witty and acerbic Cleveland Amory. Whenever they appear, we'll look at Cleve's latest take on the shows of the era.

This week, Cleveland Amory reviews a series I've not only seen, but reviewed myself. It's the excellent CBS documentary series World War I, a 26-episode look at the "War to End War." Now, we know that documentaries get a bad rap on television: they're either deadly dull, poorly done, slanted in their outlook, formulaic, or a combination of the above. They also tend to have difficulty getting clearance when they're shown on network television. And, says Cleve, the idea of a 13-hour series on the First World War "sounds about as intriguing as watching your great-uncle’s old movies." But, "don't be misled. This show may now be called World War I but, make no mistake about it, it is great."

There's plenty of credit to go around, beginning with John Sharnik, who not only served as co-producer, but wrote more than half of the "truly memorable scripts." The other co-producer, Isaac Kleierman, started preparing the series with Sharnik two years in advance (the project was aired to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the start of the war), and obtained footage "from private sources and secret archives, never before seen on any public TV screen." Not only is it the straight story, but it also took pains to correct many inaccuracies in the historical record, ones that had been around for decades. The music, composed by Morton Gould, is "truly magnificent," the narration by Robert Ryan is "excellent," and the battle scenes, which were originally silent to begin with, are presented without dubbed sound (Ken Burns could take a lesson or two here), which "adds curiously to the show’s moving authenticity." 

Rather than attempting to tell the war's story in a chronological order, the producers chose to focus on themes, which were then brought together as the series progressed. One of the most intriguing episodes of all, one which Amory calls "remarkable," focused solely on the music of the war. It's called "Tipperary and All That Jazz," and I myself can't remember an episode like it in any documentary I've seen. It presents the story of the war from beginning to end, "with the songs played over the silent shots of the soldiers—and not just the happy songs like 'Mademoiselle from Armentieres' but also the sad ones like 'Keep the Home Fires Burning'" and winds up with "There’s a Long, Long Trail A-Winding" as we reach the front. World War I is, thankfully, available on DVD, and it gives the viewer a comprehensive look at a war that seems, even today, to defy understanding. It doesn't drown in detail, it never stoops to mawkish emotion, and it makes every attempt to provide answers to the questions that persist. Except, of course, for the questions that have no answers.

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We often have features on the latest starlets, but what about the male half of the equation? We'll make up for it this week, with a couple of youngsters who make good: the brothers Howard, 11-year-old Ronnie and 6-year-old Clint.

The Howards, back when they had hair.  

Marian Dern* admits being less than enthusiastic about the assignment, envisioning "doll-faced little monsters," and after hearing a press agent describe what a "cute relationship" they had, "big brother masterminding little brother's career," she grew even more apprehensive. Until, that is, she met the two boys, and their parents, Jean and Rance. Rance is an actor himself, and when Dern asked Ronny if he'd taken acting lessons, he replied, "No, my dad coaches me. He knows all about acting. Course, I can read my lines now to learn them, but Clint can’t read yet." When she asked him if it was true that he coached Clint to follow in his footsteps, he looked confused, then said, "Naw, my father coaches Clint, just like he coaches me." And when she inquired as to whether or not he watched a lot of TV ("being in the business and all"), he eagerly told her the best thing on TV: baseball! He plays a lot of it, and the two boys became animated talking about their favorite players, their batting averages, and how Clint hit one "over the fence" one time. Forget television, this was exciting.

*Marian Dern was also the writer of the comic strip Rick O'Shay and Hipshot, and the second wife of animator Chuck Jones. Small world, isn't it?

Rance explains how Ronny got in the business. "I was seeing a casting director in New York about a job. He happened to be looking for a child for a film called "The Journey." I told him I had a son. The next day I brought Ronny in, and that was that." Ronny has said in the past that he wants to continue acting as a career, although he'd also like to be a ball player. (Who does he think he is, Chuck Connors?) But the conversation quickly turned to movie monsters, and the boys showed off their monster-model collection, "at least 17 varieties." When asked whether or not their classmates made a fuss over the brothers, Jean replied, "Well, no, they treat them like everyone else, though once, at school, some sixth-graders came to Ronry’s room asking for autographs. But I spoke to the school and they put a stop to it." She also recalls the time a couple of teenage girls came to the door and asked Rance if he was Ronny's father. When he admitted he was, they said, "Aw, you don't look anything like Andy Griffith." 

Soon, the boys were off for another neighborhood ball game. Dern later talked to some of the kids at school, desperate to find some evidence of the "doll-faced little monsters." Doesn't he act impressed with himself, she asked one. "Naw, he never acts stuck-up. Sometimes the kids who cluster around him act awful dumb though." It seems, she concludes, that the only monsters in this story are the models the boys build.

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The Letters section contains this tidbit that I thought I'd share in full, as one of those examples of a hidden clue, a casual reference to something that turned out to be a big deal indeed.  The letter:

Many thanks to Marian Dern [that name again!] for the fine article “Man in Pursuit of Himself” [TV Guide, Feb. 27]; however, I would like to correct some quotes attributed to Donna Reed’s husband, producer Tony Owen. I was not dropped from The Donna Reed Show because of a demand for more money, but had already informed Tony Owen last August I would be leaving at the end of the current season. Donna did say they had always wanted a next-door neighbor during the first five years of the show and finally found one in me. I had already filmed two episodes before they hired Ann McCrea to play my wife. Finally, I am not “begging to be back” next year as my new CBS series, Hogan's Heroes, starts in the fall, Friday nights at 8:30, and will keep me quite busy. 

Bob Crane

Los Angeles

As indeed it did, for six seasons—only two less, come to think of it, than The Donna Reed Show. 

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I've mentioned before how one of the things we seem to have lost today is a sense of wonder, and one corrective to that—or at least a reminder of how we used to look at things—can be found in the David L. Wolper documentary The Bold Men (Saturday, 7:30 p.m. PT, ABC), the second in a series looking at "the extraordinary men of our time." Included is Don Wilson, a construction worker on the 32nd story of a building under construction; Red Adair, the famous firefighter putting out a blaze in the Sahara; John D. Craig, the adventurer riding a 40-foot whale shark; plus lion tamers, cliffdivers, stuntmen, surfers, and snake trappers. Humans have been replaced by machines in so many endeavors, it's easy to forget how remarkable—and courageous—we can be, and how thrilled we are when we see someone willing to take risks, which in our risk-averse world is increasingly rare.

Dutch Masters and Murial Cigars: I don't know about you, but when I hear that, I think of Ernie Kovacs and Edie Adams. But there's another cigar-smoking star out there—Danny Thomas—and on Sunday, the two brands team up to present Danny's special, "The Wonderful World of Burlesque" (9:00 p.m., NBC), with guests Mickey Rooney, Jim Nabors, and Lee Remick, and appearances in the sketches by Jack Benny, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Andy Griffith, Don Knotts, Edie Adams (see?), Carl Reiner, Sid Melton and Herbie Faye. They're hearking back to the days before burlesque "went over to the strippers." Ironically, the special pre-empts Bonanza, whose stars are on the cover this week.

There's an interesting program on Monday, Living Camera (10:00 p.m., Channel 10), focusing on "what may be the last five days of life for convicted murderer Paul Crump." Crump was convicted of killing a security guard in Chicago in 1953; while his four accomplices received prison sentences, Crump was sentenced to death. While in prison, Crump wrote an autobiographical novel, Burn, Killer, Burn!; this documentary, which was made in 1963, was made by Robert Drew and Associates, who came to fame with a superb series of cinema-verite films about John F. Kennedy. Phil Ochs went on to write a song about Crump; this publicity, combined with legal efforts from attorneys Louis Nizer and Donald Paige Moore, resulted in Crump's death sentence being commuted to 119 years; he was paroled in 1993, but later sent back to prison for "harassing a family member and violating an order of protection."

The guest on The Red Skelton Hour Tuesday night (8:30 p.m., CBS), is Paul Anka, who stars with Red in an outrageous spoof of Robin Hood-type adventure movies: Paul plays Ponnie Prince Gorgeous, while Red is his long-lost brother, Bonnie Prince Ugly, who has returned to claim the throne after having been raised in the forest by a gorilla. I ask you: how can you possibly pass that up? The late-night movie on Channel 11 is The Hell Fire Club (11:30 p.m.), which is exactly the kind of movie that Red Skelton's spoofing: "The rightful heir finds that his cousin has usurped the estate." Over on educational television, David Susskind's Open End program (9:00 p.m., KQED) spends the entire two hours with Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Abba Eban. Wouldn't that be an interesting show today?

On Wednesday, Dinah Shore returns for her final variety special of the season (8:30 p.m., ABC), a gala at the brand-new Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, longtime home of the Academy Awards broadcast. Dinah's guests include Henry Mancini, classical guitarist Laurindo Almeida, ballet dancers Maria Tallchief and John Butler, bossa nova exponent Joao Gilberto, jazz organist Jimmy Smith, and the 100-voice UCLA chorus. And, last but not least, the ubiquitous Bob Hope, who's probably going to hang around until the next Oscarcast. For more variety, tune in to The Danny Kaye Show (10:00 p.m., CBS), as Danny celebrates St. Patrick's Day with Imogene Coca and singer Enzo Stuarti.

If you haven't had enough of documentaries this week, try Man Invades the Sea (Thursday, 10:00 p.m., ABC), an early Jacques Cousteau special investigating one of the earth's last frontiers, the "inner space" of the ocean. Included is astronaut Scott Carpenter, who's working on Project Sealab, a program by Captain George Bond. If you have had your fill of documentaries, head on over to Kraft Suspense Theatre (10:00 p.m., NBC), with the husband-and-wife team of John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands joining Jack Klugman in this story of an army pilot, hoping to return to his simple law practice following the Berlin Airlift, who finds himself defending a murder suspect. (Watch it here.)

On Friday night, it's America's Junior Miss Pageant (10:00 p.m., NBC), from Mobile, Alabama. James Franciscus is the host, and there's a very interesting lineup of judges, including religious author Catherine Marshall (the widow of U.S. Senate chaplain Peter Marshall and author of the novel Christy) and Leonard Lé Sourd, executive editor of the religious magazine Guidepost. You can't get much more wholesome than that. Former winners included Mary Frann and Diane Sawyer, but the 1965 winner is Junior Miss Michigan, Patrice Gaunder. And the late-night entertainment on Channel 2 is the science fiction classic Forbidden Planet, starring Leslie Nielsen, Walter Pidgeon, and Anne Francis. Not to be confused with a movie that isn't a classic...

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MST3K alert: Hercules Unchained (Italian-French; 1959) Hercules engages in the War of the Chariots. Steve Reeves, Sylva Koscina, Primo Carnera.(Sunday, 4:00 p.m., KXTV in Sacramento) The second Hercules movie to star the great Steve Reeves Hercules (but the first shown on MST3K) features dueling twin brothers in a battle for control of Thebes, and Hercules undone by the Waters of Forgetfulness. Which is a good way to regard this movie, come to think of it.  TV

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Around the dial

Let's begin the week at Comfort TV, where David lists ten occasions where characters returned to a series after having previously been written out. Some of these might have slipped your mind, while others will bring a smile (or laugh) to your face. 

At Cult TV Blog, it's the conclusion of the "Tony Wright Season," as John wraps up his review of the British actor's TV career with his appearance on the series Sykes, as well as his wrap-up on Wright's various television appearances.

Interested in having dinner with the Jetsons? Well, you're in luck, as Bob Sassone links to his 2011 article for the magazine Paleofuture on the food from The Jetsons. How close did their predictions of the future come?

At The View from the Junkyard, Roger looks at the latest A-Team episode, which could be a contender for the best in the series: "Showdown!", in which our heroes confront, of all things, a counterfeit A-Team! 

There's no question but what the DVD market for classic television has slowed down dramatically in the last few years, but it's not gone entirely, and at TV Obscurities, Robert is back with last month's news on classic TV home media.

And in Mitchell Hadley news, you can catch Dan and me discussing the final episode of Garrison's Gorillas at the latest Eventually Supertrain. Don't you dare miss it! Will I return? Stay tuned. TV

If you enjoy the content here and want to support my broader creative work, please consider making a donation at my Ko-fi page. Any amount you contribute helps me continue writing, researching, and sharing these articles and projects. Thank you!

Arlene Dahl's Beauty Spot, circa 1966

When you've seen as many of TV Guide's listings from the 1960s as I have, you get used to certain things that probably haven't been on TV in at least 40 years. One of those things is the daytime five-minute newsbreak. All three networks aired these, primarily in the '60s and '70s, and the faces of these brief news updates were quite well-known: Edwin Newman and Floyd Kalber on NBC, Douglas Edwards on CBS, and Marlene Sanders on ABC, among others. In the mid-60s, however, ABC had a five-minute break of another kind.

It was called Arlene Dahl's Beauty Spot; in last Monday's listing, it aired at 3:25 p.m. CT. Arlene Dahl, the host, was a Hollywood actress who achieved quite a bit of success thanks to her talent and her, well, anatomic assets.* However, she was no dumb blonde—actually, she was a redhead, but you get what I mean—and in 1954, while her acting career was still going strong she branched out into Arlene Dahl Enterprises, marketing cosmetics and designer lingerie. She also had her own syndicated newspaper beauty column, and later she became vice president of an advertising agency. Somewhere in there, she also gave birth to Lorenzo Lamas; her husband at the time (the second of six) was Fernando Lamas who undoubtedly looked marvelous.

*She's also yet another celebrity who hales from Minneapolis, graduating from Washburn High School, which is where I might have gone had we remained here during my teen years, rather than being exiled to the World's Worst Town™. She was a few years ahead of me, of course.

On September 27, 1965 the five-minute Arlene Dahl's Beauty Spot began on ABC; it would run until June 24, 1966, following Never Too Young, and later, Dark Shadows. Here's an episode, to give you an idea of what to expect the next time you see Arlene Dahl in the daytime listings.


TV

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What's on TV? Friday, March 13, 1970

It's a night of documentaries on TV, and perhaps the most interesting is Charles Kuralt's look at the beginning of Expo '70, the World's Fair in Osaka, Japan. I suppose it was inevitable that these fairs would fade in importance given how small the world has become, and how "global" everything is these days. Still, I miss the sense of wonder that used to accompany things like world's fairs. Or anything, for that matter. Oh well; there's no reason to wonder about this week's programming; it comes to us courtesy of the Eastern New England edition.