This week in TV Guide: October 15, 1960

We begin this week with the Letters section, filled with discussion regarding television's coverage of the Kennedy-Nixon "Great Debates." The third debated between the two has just occurred (October 13), but this issue would have gone to press prior to that; the tenor of the letters seems to suggest that most responses have been to the initial debate, which was held on September 26 in Chicago. It's been considered a landmark in American politics, as well as a turning point in the race between the two candidates, but TV Guide readers have mixed opinions on the whole thing. Mrs. R. H. Damon of Alton, Illinois offers the networks congratulations for their sponsorship of the debates, writing that "It was the most stimulating hour our family has ever spent before the television set," and Dawn Merek of Modesto, California adds that "This was one of the finest, most informative, public services presentations the networks have ever given their viewers."*

*Hard imagining anyone writing this about this year's debate.

Not everyone agrees with that assessment, however. Wetherby Boorman of San Bruno, California suggests that "the 'great debate' was more a great bore. It needed a theme song: 'Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better'," and R. M. Hooper of Boston (echoing comments many might make about today's debate formats) "did not care for a combination of so-called debate and panel show. Let's have one or the other."

It's difficult to appreciate what a sensation the four presidential debates of 1960 were at the time. About 70 million watched that first debate, at the time the most-watched television program ever. It was made possible only because Congress had agreed to suspend the equal-time provision that would otherwise have required the networks to include all fringe candidates in the debates. And, given the closeness of the final outcome, it's not hard to imagine the debates (especially the first one) playing a part in Kennedy's victory.* Though the 1960 debates were widely applauded, a combination of uncompetitive races (1964 and 1972) and Nixon's own reticence (1968) meant it would be 1976 before candidates would face off again, when a desperate incumbent (Gerald Ford) and an ambitious challenger (Jimmy Carter) agreed to reengage what has since become a ritual of American politics.

*Although it might just as likely have been the way votes were counted in Illinois and Texas.

Most people today are aware the polls showing that people who listened to that first debate on the radio tabbed Nixon as the winner while those watching on TV thought Kennedy had the advantage, and the potential of television to affect the outcome of an election bothered some observers even in 1960. As early as 1962, Edward Rogers' novel Face to Face explored the potential for backstage machinations to influence the outcome of a debate, and today's campaigns argue about everything from the moderator to the height of the rostrum, and whether or not the microphones are muted when the candidate is not speaking. Regardless, the televised presidential debate—for better or worse—seems to be with us to stay.

The last word on the subject, at least for this year, comes on the last night of the week: the final debate between Nixon and Kennedy, scheduled for 9:00 p.m. (CT) Friday night in New York, with the two candidates scheduled to square off on foreign policy. (A side note: the Theater Owners of America have begged the political parties to please, not schedule any more debates on Friday nights; they're putting a sizeable dent in the weekend theater business.) If you look closely at the graphic above, you'll notice both Nixon and Kennedy wearing bowties. They're probably clad in tuxedos, which means this drawing was quite likely based off of a picture from the Al Smith dinner held in New York earlier that month. Just a little detail for your reading pleasure.

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There's some additional material in the Letters section, and it too sheds light on the state of the American mind in 1960.

The final three letters are all concerning an ABC documentary entitled Cast the First Stone, which apparently dealt with the issue of race in America, particularly when it came to school desegregation. A letter writer from Baton Rouge, Louisiana who wishes to remain anonymous demonstrates the skepticism and defensiveness with which the South views both the North and Federal authority. Says the writer, "If Chicago has more segregated schools than Little Rock [a point that must have been made in the program], why don't our powerful Supreme Courts take action? Does the so-called law of the land apply only to the dear Southland?"

George Compton, of Brooklyn, New York, echos a point many made (including FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover) at the time, suggesting that the civil rights movement has been infiltrated and taken over by the Communists. Mr. Compton singles out ABC news chief John Charles Daly and his associates for "practically confirming the statements of the past week of Khrushchev-Castro. . . He couldn't have picked a better time nor a better subject (discrimination here in America) . . . I am sure Khrushchev thanks him, Castro thanks him, and most of all, the Party thanks him!"

Another anonymous writer, from Toms River, New Jersey, looks at the Red angle differently, praising ABC for presenting "A real eye-opener. We should start acting like real Americans toward one another instead of giving Mr. K and his friend the bearded windbag additional reason to criticize."

It's a fascinating snapshot of how strong emotions ran at the time, and how layered it really was. The final two letters both look at the impact of discrimination in terms of how the rest of the world views America, but while the Compton letter accuses ABC of playing into the Communists' propaganda, the writer in Toms River suggests just the opposite, that it's America's willingness to take an honest look at itself that will disarm the Soviet message.

The letter from Baton Rouge, suggesting that the North take a look at itself before getting too self-righteous, will be brought home in the next decade, when the North first felt the full brunt of violence over school busing. The rioting and demonstrations in Boston gave many Americans a real look at behavior usually associated with the South, and demonstrated that race isn't always a geographical issue. I wonder if this wasn't one of the points of the documentary in the first place?

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For the first time in the television era, viewers have dueling football leagues to choose from. It's the first season for the American Football League, the league that goes toe-to-toe with the NFL until the two leagues eventually merge in 1970 (although the actual arrangements occurred much earlier).

It's a jumbled television arrangement for the leagues in 1960; while the AFL has an exclusive league-wide contract with ABC, the NFL hasn't yet leveraged its collective selling power to sign a similar agreement. Most teams are contracted with CBS, but the Baltimore Colts remain one of the teams to broadcast home games on NBC. And to complicate things further, Dallas-Ft. Worth is blacked out from the NFL entirely on those Sundays when the brand-new Dallas Cowboys play at home.

Therefore, if you live in Dallas on October 16, 1960, the only game you're getting is the AFL matchup between the Dallas Texas and their cross-state rivals, the Houston Oilers. (2:30 p.m., ABC) If you want the Cowboys, you'd best head for Wichita Falls, where KSYD has their game against the Cleveland Browns. (1:30 p.m., CBS) And those folks living in Wichita Falls, as well as Sherman, are in luck: they can also see the Colts playing against the Los Angeles Rams. (noon, NBC)

You're probably thinking that for such a convoluted situation, there has to be some kind of "rest of the story," and if you did, you'd be right. The Dallas Texans, uncertain that they'd be able to compete with the Cowboys, wind up moving to Kansas City and becoming the Chiefs. The Oilers, unable to get a new stadium in the 90s, move to Nashville, Tennessee (where another new stadium is currently under construction). The Baltimore Colts and Los Angeles Rams, whose owners traded teams in the '70s, wind up on the move as well; when the new owner of the Rams, Carroll Rosenbloom, dies in a swimming accident, his widow* inherits the team, and eventually moves it to St. Louis. The Colts, with their new owner, move to Indianapolis under cover of darkness. And the Browns (who actually took the place of the Cleveland Rams when they moved to Los Angeles) head to Baltimore, to replace the Colts. Houston and Cleveland do get expansion teams in time, but the Houston Texans (not to be confused with the Dallas Texans) come about only because a franchise granted to another city is forfeited when that city can't put together an ownership team in time. That city? Los Angeles.  Of the six teams playing on television that day, only the Cowboys remain in the same place today.

*Rosenbloom's widow, Georgia, later remarries. Her new husband is Dominic Frontiere, whom you know as one of the great composers of music for television shows, including The Outer Limits.

Lest you think this movement is limited to football, however, there's an NBA basketball game for us to analyze as well, NBC's Saturday matinee between the St. Louis Hawks and Cincinnati Royals, a preseason game played in Indianapolis. The Royals, who started out in Rochester before moving to Cincinnati, will eventually head from Cincy to Kansas City (where, the name Royals having already been taken, became the Kansas City Kings), before making their way west to become the Sacramento Kings, and in the last few years coming thisclose to being the new Seattle SuperSonics (before extorting a new arena out of the taxpayers of Sacramento). The Hawks, recently of Milwaukee, have some glory years in St. Louis, but at press time make their home in Atlanta.

What does all this tell us, other than that professional sports is a fickle business? Well, it tells us a lot about the importance of demographics and television markets, as well as the leverage that sports franchises hold when it comes to public funding of stadiums and arenas. Franchise moves into the Sun Belt (Atlanta, Nashville) show us the shift in population out of the Rust Belt, making these new markets increasingly valuable when negotiating television contracts. Teams such as the original Browns and Oilers headed for greener pastures, where new stadiums were forthcoming. The expansion Browns, as well as the Texans and the Baltimore Ravens, came into being because cities that had been burned by having previous teams leave were more willing to shell out public financing. And the NBA, which has always been willing to head for smaller markets, remains a league where gate receipts play a big role in a team's financial success.

Another brief lesson in economics courtesy of TV Guide.

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And a look at what else is on television this week.

Last week in this space, we saw the proliferation of Warner Bros. cookie-cutter detective dramas, and Saturday marks the debut of a variation on the theme, The Roaring 20's (6:30 p.m., ABC), with Rex Reason and Donald May alternating as the leads, Scott Norris and Pat Garrison, newspapermen dedicated to searching out crime in New York City, and the luminous Dorothy Provine stealing the show as flapper Pinky Pinkham. And since our stars are P.I.'s in all but name, they have to have a foil on the force, in the person of detective lieutenant Joe Switolski, played by Mike Road. 

On Sunday, Ed Sullivan take his show on the road for the first in a series of monthly "See America with Ed Sullivan" specials, featuring stars from the city in question. This month, Ed visits San Francisco (7:00 p.m., CBS), with guests Johnny Mathis, Peggy Lee, the Dave Brubeck Quartet, Mort Sahl and Dorothy Kirsten. Later, Art Linkletter hosts a special Chevy Show entitled "Love is Funny" (8:00 p.m., NBC), a play on his "People are Funny" bit, with Chuck Connors, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Alan Young, Betty Garrett, and Jimmie Rodgers. And Jack Benny kicks off his 11th season with a very funny episode: "Worried about facing the weekly grind, Jack solves the problem by falling asleep. But, horror of horrors, he's facing interviewer Mike Wallace." Given my recent podcast about Wallace, I couldn't help but be amused by this. You can see the episode here.

Monday evening, CBS presents the third episode of The Andy Griffith Show. (8:30 p.m.) The show immediately follows The Danny Thomas Show, which makes sense since a) Thomas produces the Griffith show, and b) Griffith made his first appearance as Sheriff Andy Taylor in a Thomas episode the previous season. This week, "Guitar player Jim Lindsey (James Best) is thrown in the clink. And who should be in the adjoining cell but a full dance band that's been arrested for illegal parking." Of course, that kind of thing happened all the time in the World's Worst Town™.

Tuesday's episode of Thriller (8:00 p.m., NBC) stars character actors Everett Sloane, Frank Silvera, and Jay C. Flippen in "The Guilty Men," a story of gangsters trying to disentangle themselves from a narcotics racket, and finding out it isn't all that easy. Oftentimes, the most interesting thing about Thriller is its host, Boris Karloff, and as he nears 73, he reflects on his many years of acting, and how he's been able to, for the most part, get away from the reputation as king of horror films. "I just happened to be standing on the right corner when the right person happened along last spring," he says by explanation of how he got his new gig. "Unfortunately, I appear as myself, which is a frightful thing to do to an audience." 

Karloff "struck oil" with Frankenstein 29 years ago, but he feels he never really came into his own until his appearance on Broadway in Arsenic and Old Lace, which ran a little over two years. He was back on Broadway ten years ago playing Captain Hook and Mr. Darling opposite Jean Arthur in Peter Pan, which gave him a great deal of satisfaction. "The audience was always full of children seeing their very first drama. You couldn't, of course, imagine a more delightful or enchanting play than Peter Pan for one's first visit to the theater." It will be in that spirit that he takes on one of his greatest roles, that of the Grinch in The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, and that alone will ensure that Karloff will remain known forever.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Steel Hour (9:00 p.m., CBS) celebrates America's love affair with the automobile in the musical salute "Step on the Gas," starring Jackie Cooper, Shirley Jones, Hans Conried, Pat Carroll, Share Lewis, and the dance team of Rod Alexander and Carmen G, and it's produced by Max Liebman, who knows a thing or two about putting on television spectaculars. Opposite that, it's Peter Loves Mary (9:00 p.m., NBC), starring the real-life married couple of Peter Lind Hayes and Mary Healy. Stay tuned for a very funny (and very insightful) article by Peter Lind Hayes, one of the dryest wits on television. 

Thursday: Before Steven Hill was in Law & Order, before he was in Mission: Impossible, he was Steve Hill, and tonight Steve Hill is the notorious mobster Legs Diamond in The Untouchables (8:30 p.m., ABC). By the way, there's a note in this week's issue that "A psychiatrist discusses this series in next week's TV Guide." I wonder what the diagnosis is. . . Elsewhere, Raymond Burr is one of the guests on Person to Person (9:00 p.m., CBS), now hosted by Charles Collingwood; Burr is being interviewed from his Pacific Pallisades home with his houseguests, Governor and Mrs. Mark Hatfield of Oregon. 

Friday: The Nixon-Kennedy debate (9:00 p.m., all networks) is probably the biggest show of the night, but in a program that may or may not be related, Paul Winchell and Jerry Mahoney host All Star Circus (8:00 p.m., NBC), featuring Copenhagen's Cirkus Schumann. Just goes to show that you don't always need politicians to have a circus. There's also an intriguing drama about a moment in history that I've never heard of before. It's "Not Without Honor," an episode of Our American Heritage (6:30 p.m., NBC), starring Ralph Bellamy and Arthur Kennedy. The story: "Some months before the Presidential election of 1800, Alexander Hamilton pays George Washington a visit.  His purpose: to persuade Washington to run on the Federalist ticket—against Thomas Jefferson." That ad shows two men with pistols standing back-to-back, and since Aaron Burr appears in the cast, I can only guess that this is where this story ends up. Fortunately, by 1960 our political opponents only debate each other.

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And now that article by Peter Lind Hayes that I promised you. He and Mary Healy have been married for nearly 20 years now, and have worked together since they were paired up by their respective studios for a vaudeville junket. (Peter was, in fact, the only one in the troupe with any vaudeville experience.) By the end of the tour, he was in love; he proposed to her over the phone from a clube in Washington after he'd won $26 in quarters from a slot machine. "She kept saying I must be crazy but when I told her I was out of quarters she gave in." Twenty years later she still laughs at his jokes, "and they're not that funny any more." 

Since anyone in show business whose marriage has lasted more than six months is considered an expert on the topic, Hayes has been asked by TV Guide to provide his advice on how to have a happy marriage, a command he's only too happy to comply with. For the Hayeses, "the family that plays together stays together"—since their marriage, they've made it a policy to only accept engagements that they could play together. Not everyone can be that fortunate, though; "Not every doctor's wife can be his nurse." So how does a couple navigate the pitfalls inherent in marriage? Some of his suggestions are said with a shade of whimsy, such as #9, "There is a sure cure for the mate who snores: a bullet," but many of them are built around a core of common sense—a commodity that's in short supply these days 

For example, Hayes stresses in several of his tips that a husband and wife need to have their own lives as well as participating in the one life formed by marriage. Whether it's having some time alone (#1), making sure that the spouse who's not the breadwinner still remains active (#5), or having individual hobbies and pastimes (#10), it's important not to simply live life through your spouse's. He also stresses that parents should not be "pals" to their kids (#3): "I love my kids, but I'm not their pal—I'm their father, and they like it that way. My home is nice for them to live in, but I am bigger than they are and so long as they live in it they're going to obey me, the 'lovable old tyrant'." Today, by contrast, too many parents are still trying to live their own childhood for them to be parents to their kids. 

In-laws are always a potential problem, as well as a useful trope for sitcoms; Peter suggests that you "Treat them with a sense of humor and life will be easier." (#4) He's made his mother-in-law the butt of many of his jokes ("I haven't seen Mary's mother for months—she's been away teaching the Marines to fight dirty.") but if he lets up on her, she feels ignored. Too many couples are apt to forget #6, "Save your arguing for important matters. Don't waste it on picayune things." If your wife says the South won the Civil War, let it pass; "I'd rather be married to Mary than prove myself right." There's #2, "Too much meddling can kill a marriage," #7, "Too many husbands take their wives for granted," and, perhaps most important, #8: "Don't play bridge or golf with your spouse." Talk about a no-win situation.

Peter Lind Hayes and Mary Healy were married for 57 years, until his death in 1998. If you want to know why, it can all be summed up in the closing sentence of this article: "The title of our television series, Peter Loves Mary, is correct but incomplete. It should be Peter Loves Mary. . . More Each Year. I know just what he means. TV  

This week in TV Guide: January 11, 1958

There's a part of me that views the headline on this week's cover—"What Time Has Done to Shirley Temple"—in the same light as one of those clickbait headings you see on the sidebar of just about every website around. (Not this one, of course!) It implies ravages of some sort or other, the kind of thing that you'd expect if the headline had asked What Time Has Done to Judy Garland.

But in fact what the last twenty years have done to Shirley Temple is to change her from an adorable curly-haired moppet who just happened to be one of the biggest movie stars in the world and was known as America's Sweetheart, to a beautiful and charming young woman of 29, wife of executive Charles Black and devoted mother of three, and, thanks to her parents putting her money in trust funds, "if she isn't a millionaire in her own right, she's close enough to it to be called one." We should all be so lucky to have time do that to us, and perhaps it has for you, but don't include me in that company.

And so thus contented, Shirley had made no moves to return to the business, despite repeated offers, until Bill Phillipson came long. He's the executive producer for Henry Jaffe Enterprises, and approached her with an idea for an hour-long series of fairy tales, which she would narrate and in which she would occasionally star. "I'm a pushover for fairy tales," she explained. "I've long felt there is a need for more shows that would appeal to the entire family, and certainly this series was designed with just that kind of family appeal in mind. So here I am." 

And here is Shirley Temple's Storybook, which debuts on Sunday night at 8:00 p.m. (ET) on NBC with a live broadcast, in color, of "Beauty and the Beast," starring Claire Bloom as Beauty, Charlton Heston as The Beast, and a supporting cast including E.G. Marshall, June Lockhart, and Barbara Baxley. It confirms Shirley's determination for her series to be "something better than just another batch of children's shows." "They must have quality," she says, and several of them will be in color. "I still can't understand why they don't do them all in color," she says with a touch of the famous Shirley Temple pout. 

Shirley Temple's Storybook airs on an occasional basis throughout 1958, and then returns as a weekly series in 1960-61; in all, 41 episodes are produced, and many of them are available on YouTube—although, alas, not "Beauty and the Beast." It's a warm family show, with none of the postmodern cynicism that one might see were such a series revived today. And, of course, any episode that gives us a chance to see Shirley acting is a treat. 

So what, if we were to flip ahead another twenty years, would time have done to Shirley Temple Black? Well, by any measure, she has to have had one of the most successful post-acting careers of any child star, including service on the boards of several major corporations (including the Walt Disney Company; what would she think of Disney today?), a lifelong involvement in politics (including an unsuccessful run for Congress), and a diplomatic career that featured serving as U.S. Ambassador to Ghana and U.S. Ambassador to Czechoslovakia, membership on the U.S. delegation to the United Nations, and becoming the first female U.S. Chief of Protocol. 

Throughout it all, she is a shining symbol of the greatness that was Hollywood, lending her name to a famous drink (ginger ale and a splash of grenadine) and her image to a famous doll owned by millions of little girls (including my mother-in-law), and remains a much-loved figure until her death in 2014. If time was good to Shirley Temple, it seems that she was pretty good in return. 

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There's a story behind every story. These are just some of them.

The ad says, "If you like the PERRY MASON show, you'll love DICK AND THE DUCHESS, at 8:30 on the same station." The day is Saturday, the network is CBS, and the series is one of the first to be filmed in the United Kingdom for broadcast in America. Dick and the Duchess stars Patrick O'Neal as an insurance investigator, and Hazel Court as his wife, a duchess by birth, who always seems to get involved in his investigations. Years later, sound editor Robert Winter discussed the show's use of a laugh track; the challenge in writing for audiences in two different nations, Winter explained, was determining  "what was or was not funny to a British audience, as well as the important criteria for an American audience for whom it was principally made." Under such circumstances, the laugh track was used to prompt laughter among viewers, especially in situations where the humor (or humour, if you prefer) might not be as obvious. The show runs for 26 episodes, which apparently disproves the adage in the ad, seeing as how Perry Mason still has eight seasons to run.

Sunday's highlight is half-sporting event, half-entertainment special. Billed as Bing Crosby and His Friends, it's the final round of one of golf's glamor tournaments, the Bing Crosby National Pro-Am, also known as the Crosby Clambake, from one of America's greatest golf courses, Pebble Beach in California (5:30 p.m., CBS). It's the first time the tournament has been broadcast nationally, and as an indication of the event's hybrid status, the emcee is John Daly—no, not the golfer John Daly, the newsman and What's My Line? host John Daly. Bing and his wife Kathryn are hosts, and in addition to coverage of the tournament's final two holes, the broadcast includes highlights of the previous three days, plus songs and sketches from some of Bing's show business buddies, including Bob Hope and Phil Harris. Oh, and let's not forget the golf; Billy Casper takes the first of his two Crosby titles, defeating Dave Marr by four shots and winning $4,000 in the process.

On Monday, it's the debut of the daytime serial Kitty Foyle (2:30 p.m, NBC), which surely must have one of the more distinguished pedigrees of any soap opera. It begins with the 1939 best-seller by Christopher Morley, which tells the story of a white-collar girl who falls in love with a young socialite, and includes such touchy subjects as out-of-wedlock pregnancy and abortion. This was adapted into a 1940 movie (toning down some of the book's racier parts), which won a Best Actress Oscar for Ginger Rogers (and created a fashion trend called the "Kitty Foyle Dress"), and then a 1942-44 radio serialization created by soap opera giant Irna Phillips. In was inevitable that it would eventually make it to television, which it does here, becoming NBC's first half-hour soap. Strangely enough, the TV version of Kitty Foyle doesn't do too well; soap opera historian Ron Lackmann speculates that "perhaps the story was too familiar, or perhaps once the basic story was told, there was nothing else to say about Kitty and her problems." The series ends after only five months. 

Omnibus, usually seen on Sunday afternoon, makes a rare prime-time appearance on Tuesday (8:00 p.m., NBC) in a musical variety hour, "The Suburban Review," with Alistair Cooke welcoming veteran comic Bert Lahr, musical comedy star Pat Stanley, and the young comedy team of Mike Nichols and Elaine May; the show's theme contrasts the suburban life of the 1920s with today's contemporary Suburbia. Lahr, of course, was famous for The Wizard of Oz, as well as his long career in burlesque and vaudeville; meanwhile, Stanley won a Tony for Goldilocks, and co-starred in The Pajama Game. Nichols and May, however, were less-well known nationally, although they were popular in the Village and at New York's famed Blue Angel, and they'd made their television debut with Steve Allen just the previous month. However, the audience for Omnibus is in the tens of millions, and they are given 15 unedited minutes to perform; by Tuesday, Nichols and May are famous. You can see those skits here and here.

Wednesday on Kraft Theatre (9:00 p.m, NBC), Walter Matthau, Nancy Walker, Robert Middleton, Barton MacLane, and Nancy Gates star in "The Code of the Corner," a gritty story of crime on the city streets, written by Jack Klugman. Yes, that Jack Klugman! It's one of two scripts he wrote for Kraft Theatre, the other being "Big Break." Klugman was already an established actor at this point in his career; 12 Angry Men had come out the previous year, so this isn't a case of an actor turning to writing while waiting for his own big break, so to speak. I never knew this before; I guess the old saying is right that you learn something new every day. (Well, of course it's right, otherwise it wouldn't be an old saying—it would be a forgotten saying, which is something completely different.) At any rate, you can watch Klugman talking about acting and writing for Kraft Theatre in this interview for the Television Academy.

On Thursday, it's the premiere of a new adventure series: Sea Hunt, starring Lloyd Bridges as Mike Nelson, ex-Navy frogman turned undersea investigator (7:00 p.m., WHEN in Syracuse). Sea Hunt was created by Ivan Tors; he was unable to sell the series to any of the three networks (Oops!), and so wound up entering into a deal with Ziv Television Productions. According to the always-reliable Wikipedia, "The show attracted half of the viewing audience in 50 major cities and averaged 59 percent of audiences in New York City." The show will run for four successful seasons and 155 episodes, which I suspect any network would have been pleased with. Bridges himself was a natural athlete who took to scuba immediately, and wound up doing all but the most dangerous stunts himself.

Later on Thursday, we have another big-name lineup. This time, it's Playhouse 90 (9:30 p.m., CBS), and the story "The 80 Yard Run," starring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, with Darryl Hickman and Robert Simon. It's the story of a former football hero who lost his fortune during the Depression and now faces the prospect of his wife, who works at a fashion magazine, succeeding where he fails. (Can you say A Star is Born?) The teleplay is by David Shaw, based on the 1941 short story by his brother, best-selling author Irwin Shaw, which was published in Esquire. If you're curious, you can read that short story here, and an in-depth analysis of the story's meaning here. I wonder if Playhouse 90 tried to give the story a happy ending?

Friday night, it's the final holiday special of the Christmas season: Bob Hope's USO tour of the Pacific (8:00 p.m., NBC). Bob's troupe includes Jayne Mansfield, singers Erin O'Brien and Carol Jarvis, Hope regular Jerry Colonna, columnist Hedda Hopper, dancer Arthur Duncan, and Jayne's fiancée, former Mr. Universe Mickey Hargitay (who is no actor, according to TV Guide's Frank DeBlois, who accompanied the crew). The tour covered ten days and 16,000 miles, and included stops in Hawaii, Wake Island, Okinawa, Korea, Tokyo, and Guam. The show rolled into Korea on Christmas Eve, where Hope gave four shows that night, then two more in sub-freezing weather on Christmas Day—just 500 yards from the North Korean border—where 10,000 troops waited four hours in the snow to see him. You can see a clip from it here.

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Frank DeBlois is a busy man; not only did he accompany Bob Hope on his tour of the Pacific, he's also taking a look at how the first half of the television season has measured up. More of us are watching TV than ever before, with 41,200,000 homes having at least one television—that's a three percent increase over last year. 

DeBlois reports on some surprises: ABC's Maverick outpointed CBS's Ed Sullivan Show several times during the season while "something called The Real McCoys" bested both Climax! and Dragnet. (Hint to Frank: The Real McCoys, which debuted in 1957, will run for six successful seasons before leaving the airwaves in 1963, only to spend several more years in reruns during the daytime.) Frank Sinatra's return to television, with his eponymous drama/variety show, showed "less than spectacular success." Gunsmoke, now in its third season, appears headed for the number one spot in the ratings. 

In fact, Westerns scored strongly in the first half of the season, despite complaints from critics that there were too many of them on television. In addition to Gunsmoke and Maverick, Wyatt Earp, Cheyenne, Zorro, and Wagon Train were big winners. Singers had it rough; besides Sinatra, shows hosted by Polly Bergen and Gisele MacKenzie (who graces the cover this week) "consistently wooed mediocrity," and even stars such as Dinah Shore, Pat Boone, and Eddie Fisher had their troubles. As far as specials, The Edsel Show, with Sinatra and Bing Crosby, the General Motors anniversary program, NBC's presentation of the opera Dialogues of the Carmelites, and The Prince and the Pauper, being notable successes. 

Comedians seem to be coming back, with Danny Thomas and Jack Paar scoring strongly, along with Bob Hope, Red Skelton, and Jack Benny. Hallmark Hall of Fame continues to be consistently good (as opposed to today's version), and Playhouse 90 appears to be overcoming a weak start. The Eve Arden Show and Leave It to Beaver are among the better sitcoms, while DeBlois finds McCoys and Dick and the Duchess to be middling. CBS lead the way with some fine documentary series, including The Twentieth Century and The Seven Lively Arts, while NBC offered Omnibus and Project 20, and ABC made its mark with Mike Wallace's dominating interviews. 

The point, DeBlois says, is that there's this feeling that television is starting to turn away from "the tired old worn-out formats and cliches" of last year; there's a feeling of revolt, of something new. And it's good to have it back.

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Boris Karloff is going through something of a career renaissance, with Frankenstein now thrilling a second generation of Americans through its regular showings on television. The character of Frankenstein's monster is the role with which he's most identified; he revived the character in two sequels, and after than embarked on a series of "mad scientist" movies, which tend to overwhelm the great body of work he's done throughout his career, first in movies and then on television, where he's appeared in "practically every live dramatic show and filmed anthology series that has ever gone on the air." But, unlike some stars who resent the typecasting that can result from such a famous creation, Karloff has nothing but affection for the monster.

"It's a lovely film, a great film, and I'm devoted to the monster," he tells Joe Morhaim. "He's the best friend I ever had. He changed the course of my entire life." It may be natural that he'd feel that way about the role that made him a star, but he has a deeper point he wants to make. "That monster is one of the most sympathetic characters ever created in the world of English letters," he says. "He was a big, lumbering, awkward, inarticulate figure, completely childlike and helpless in spite of his enormous strength. He became savage only when he was frightened and he was frightened only by the ignorance and fear of human beings." 

He believes the world has missed the point of Marry Shelley's story, and quarrels with those who classify Frankenstein as just another horror film. "'Horror' connotes revulsion, disgust, recoil. The object is not to turn your stomach—but merely to make your hair stand on end," he says with some passion. "As a matter of fact, I believe the Frankenstein-type story fills a deep-seated human need. One finds it rooted in the folk literature of every race, even in nursery rhymes and fairy tales." He also doesn't believe children are harmed by such stories. "Young people have much more intelligence than we give them credit for. They have the ability to sort things out and put them in their proper relationships." The fan mail he receives from children, asking for a picture of himself as he is, bears out that "they knew it wasn't true, and they knew I knew it wasn't true. As a rule, they expressed a great compassion for the monster." 

It's true that monster movies can be overcooked, he agrees. "Any story can be done in good or bad taste. The important thing is that the story be interesting and that it is done well." He acknowledges that the two Frankenstein sequels left something to be desired; by the third, the monster had been reduced to "a comic prop." But even though other Frankenstein movies have continued to be made, with other actors in the role, people know who the real monster is. "They would get the pay checks and I would get the fan mail," he says, and you almost wonder if the mail isn't more important to him than the checks. He is an educated, gracious, and charming man, respected and admired by his friends and colleagues, and continues to work steadily, even appearing recently on The Dinah Shore Show. He says he'll not do the monster again; "They would change his character today, and I couldn't bear that. I have too much respect for the old boy." And to think, he's got more than a decade to go, and one of his most famous roles—the voice of The Grinch—ahead of him.

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I've been on a lot about stories this week, and it's true that there's a lot of storytelling to be had besides what you see on the screen. We'll finish with the story of Jeanne Carmen, the professional golfer who would be an actress.

She can, according to this brief profile, "hit a golf ball a country mile against the wind or literally off your teeth," and she's been known to parlay her trick shot artistry into several thousand dollars a day, but now she says those days are done. She's no newcomer to the entertainment world; as far back as 1948, she appeared in the chorus line of the aforementioned Bert Lahr's Burlesque, and was in great demand as a model. More recently, she's appeared in the movies (Too Much Too Soon and Born Reckless), and done shows with Bob Hope and George Gobel. As a matter of fact, that picture has the whole story. Just not the most interesting parts.

In addition to her career as a trick-shot artist and Hollywood actress (she even appeared in a Three Stooges short, playing Joe Besser's girlfriend), Jeanne was an "intimate" friend of mobster "Handsome Johnny" Roselli, one-time confederate of Al Capone, who recruited fellow mobsters Sam Giancana and Santo Trafficante Jr. in the CIA attempt to assassinate Fidel Castro, and was thought to have been involved in the assassination of JFK as well. Through Roselli, she became acquainted with Frank Sinatra, who she would see on-and-off over the next few years. (She was also reported to have been involved with Clark Gable and Elvis Presley.) Later, she became a close friend and confidant of Marilyn Monroe; after Monroe's "suicide" (a verdict that Jeanne found dubious), she was warned by Roselli to leave town for her own safety, and lived a quiet and peaceful life thereafter with her third husband, raising three children and never mentioning her past life; she died in December, 2007. She's probably the only person who's been profiled both by The Golf Channel and the E! True Hollywood Story. If you head over to the website dedicated to her life, you can see pictures of her with everyone from Elvis to Donald Trump, and why doesn't that surprise me? And these are just the highlights.

It's quite a remarkable story—but then, so have most of the stories we've read this week. And, when you think about it, almost everyone's life is a remarkable story in one way or another. I may not have had a tenth of the adventures that Jeanne Carmen experienced, and I'm actually glad about that. We may have moved around the country a few times, but at least it hasn't been because someone warned us our lives might be in danger. And I'll be the same is true for you as well. Who knows? Maybe the most exciting lives are better read about than lived. TV