This week in TV Guide: July 8, 1967

ohn Edgar Hoover likes The F.B.I. I mean, he really likes The F.B.I. The longtime director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been a staunch supporter of the ABC series ever since its debut in 1965. Testifying before a House subcommittee, Hoover says that "I have received hundreds of letters from people saying that the inspector on the FBI series portrayed what they thought an FBI agent should portray." He added, "I want our agents to live up to that image."

The inspector in question is Lewis Erskine, portrayed by Efrem Zimbalist Jr., formerly of 77 Sunset Strip, and the subject of this week's unbylined cover story. Hoover is also a big fan of Zimbalist; he says that the actor "has captured the esprit de corps of the FBI and what it is like to be an FBI agent . . . He has helped to depict the dedication of law enforcement officers to duty, integrity, and law and order."

Zimbalist is in Washington. D.C. to film some background shots for the upcoming season of The F.B.I., and he receives a hero's welcome from the Bureau's agents, three of whom provide Zimbalist with an escort as he and a camera crew drive past the city's landmarks, establishing the proper atmosphere for the series. Following filming, Zimbalist will be ushered in to a brief private meeting with Hoover, as he has several times during the run of the series. Hoover calls Zimbalist "one of the team."

I've often spoken of my fondness for The F.B.I., particularly the opening credits from the series' first few seasons. Besides the memorable theme music, the opening provides a montage of Washington's most revered symbols: the Capitol building, the Washington Monument, the Supreme Court, and the Department of Justice building, the original home of the FBI. I swear, it makes you want to run out there and sign up. 

The F.B.I. was more than a propaganda piece, though it certainly portrayed the Bureau in an exceptional light. At the time the FBI was indeed a highly respected department—referred to be CBS during a report on the JFK assassination as "almost never doubted"—with agents that were thought by the public to be incorruptible. (That may not have reflected the reality then, and almost certainly doesn't now, but that was in fact the image, and we all know what wins out when perception clashes with reality.) But the series succeeded on its own merits, portraying hard-working law enforcement agents who rarely had the improbable flashes of brilliance and technological miracles of today's police procedural. Instead, they depended on the science of the day, combined with good, exhaustive investigative work. In place of quirky, stereotypical characters, the emphasis was on plot and detection, and the unquenchable thirst for justice.

My favorite story about The F.B.I. concerns a pair of columns written by the political satirist Art Buchwald. One mentions an FBI agent named Efrem Zumgard; the other tells the story of the first wiretap, when Hoover himself personally bugged the first phone call made by Alexander Graham Bell. ("When he said, 'Mr. Watson, come here—I want to see you,' the Bureau had the tape in 30 minutes.") Buchwald has Hoover registering in the hotel under the name of Zimbalist. Still makes me smile.

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For the first time in history, baseball's All-Star Game is being televised in prime-time. It's being played at the four-year-old Anaheim Stadium, home of the California Angels, and NBC is taking advantage of the time difference to start the game at 7:15 p.m. Eastern time, 4:15 p.m. on the West Coast.

Unfortunately, starting the game at that hour produces some unintended side-effects, chief among which is that the late-afternoon sun is right in the batter's eye for much of the game. The National League scores in the top of the second, the American League ties it up in the bottom of the sixth, and there it remains for awhile. Quite awhile, in fact. It isn't until Tony Perez' home run in the top of the 15th inning, almost four hours later, that the National League wins the snoozer, 2-1. The game sets records for most strikeouts (30, as every one of the game's twelve pitchers records at least one strikeout) and innings played, and is the first All-Star game in which every run is scored via home run. Had the game simply started at the usual time for a game being played in the Pacific time zone, it would have made it into prime time in the East anyway.

This year's game is the middle edition in a troika of dismal Midsummer "Classics"; last year's affair, played in the afternoon in St. Louis, featured a game-time temperature of 105° (turning the stadium, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, into a "torture chamber"), while the 1968 contest, another prime-time game played in the air-conditioned comfort of the Houston Astrodome (where the angle of the sun won't make a difference) will be yet another dull clash, won by the National League 1-0 via a first inning run scored on a double play. Except for 1969, when the game is played on Wednesday afternoon due to rain, the game will remain in prime-time thereon.

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Radziwill with Farley Granger in Laura

There's a note in the Doan Report that David Susskind has lined up a blockbuster for one of his two-hour ABC dramas next month: Princess Lee Radziwill, sister of Jacqueline Kennedy, will star in The Voice of the Turtle, John Van Druten's Broadway hit, adapted by Truman Capote. Now, as far as I can tell, "The Voice of the Turtle" never made it to television, and the story behind that might be interesting. What did make it to TV the next season was a disastrous adaptation of the mystery classic Laura, starring Radziwill (billed as Lee Bouvier, her maiden name), and adapted by Capote. To say that it was panned doesn't quite do it justice; it was absolutely trashed. "Slow moving," "Awkward material," "The wardrobe alone emerges unscathed," were some of the kinder comments.

Now that I think of it, I'm sure the story of how The Voice of the Turtle became Laura would be more interesting. I do know that Capote, a longtime friend of Radziwill, was the one who encouraged her to get into acting, talked Susskind into casting her, and wrote the script for her. Ironically, a repeat broadcast of Laura in June 1968 will postponed due to the assassination of Lee Radziwill's brother-in-law, Robert Kennedy.

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Doan also reports on high hopes that the bill authorizing creation of the Public Broadcasting Corporation, currently in Congress, will pass. It does, although not without some fireworks, and by 1969 we'll see the debut of PBS' most lasting legacy, Sesame Street.*

*Note: this is not the famous hearing in which Fred Rogers swayed Senator John Pastore's mind on funding for PBS; that happens in 1969.

Not everyone is a fan of government funding for education, however. California Governor Ronald Reagan, himself a former actor, comes out against the government entering into "direct competition with private television," and says that educational TV should be developed through closed-circuit systems, aka cable-TV. To this day, there's more than one TV critic, including yours truly, wondering what PBS offers today that can't be found elsewhere in the cable or streaming universe. Supporters of public broadcasting counter that, without government funding, the network has to rely on programming that attracts viewers, just like commercial networks, rather than providing the kind of niche programs that its supporters envisioned. 

Oh, by the way, although The Voice of the Turtle never made it as a TV play, it was made into a movie by Hollywood. One of its stars? None other than Ronald Reagan. But, as far as I know, the movie has never been shown on a PBS station.

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Alan Kogosowski today

No "Sullivan vs. The Palace" this week; Piccadilly Palace, Hollywood's summer replacement, is itself pre-empted on Saturday night by the Coaches' All-America all-star college football game, (6:30 p.m. PT, ABC). Ed's around, though (Sunday, 8:00 p.m., CBS), with a rerun featuring Tony Bennett, Nancy Sinatra, Count Basie and his orchestra, dancer-choreographer Peter Gennaro, comedienne Totie Fields and the comedy team of Hendra and Ullet, 13-year-old classical pianist Alan Kogosowski, and the acrobatic Mecners.

Neither my wife nor I were familiar with Alan Kogosowski, and between us we're pretty savvy when it comes to classical music. Naturally I wondered if this 13-year-old had ever amounted to anything, so of course I looked him up on the always-reliable Wikipedia. His story turns out to be quite interesting: he did indeed achieve some fame as a concert pianist, particularly in performing the works of Chopin, but perhaps more significant has been his work researching and treating carpal tunnel syndrome and repetitive strain injury. Who knew?

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Every year, we run into the staple of the summer television season, a collection of unsold pilots that have been packaged into a series that would run for 13 or so weeks. Monday night features Vacation Playhouse (8:00 p.m., CBS), a charming title which hides the faint odor of failure. Tonight's episode (from 1963!) stars Ethel Merman as Maggie Brown, the owner of a restaurant near a U.S. Navy base.  My recollection of these playhouse-type episodes is that it was easy to see why none of the pilots ever made it as regular series. Speaking of vacations, on The Tonight Show, Bob Newhart begins a three-week stint as guest host for Johnny Carson. (11:30 p.m., NBC) Must be nice.

One of the week's original programs is Spotlight (Tuesday, 8:30 p.m., CBS), a British import hosted by comedian Shelly Berman and singer Shani Wallis (and, for a couple of weeks, Benny Hill!) that serves as the replacement for The Red Skelton Hour. (Tom Jones also has a turn as host during the series' run, which would lead in turn to This Is Tom Jones a couple of years later.) Tonight's special guest is Englebert Humperdinck; it might be worth a watch, especially if you're trying to stay awake after that All-Star game. 

One of the week's few original programs is The Steve Allen Comedy Hour (Wednesday, 10:00 p.m., CBS), the summer replacement for The Danny Kaye Show, with Steve's wife Jayne Meadows, and guests Tim Conway, Lou Rawls, and Stiller and Meara. Interesting note is that the sketches are directed by Harvey Korman. As for the reruns, Otto Preminger plays Mr. Freeze in Batman (7:30 p.m., ABC), and country stars Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs (who recorded "The Ballad of Jed Clampett") play themselves in a Beverly Hillbilles episode that involves the Clampetts filming a soap commercial (8:30 p.m., CBS). And speaking of Batman, Yvonne Craig is one of the guests on The Joey Bishop Show (11:30 p.m., ABC). You're welcome.

Thursday's highlight, at least for me, is the ABC documentary series Summer Focus, a collection of reruns from the various ABC docuseries. Tonight's episode is "I Am a Soldier," originally shown in 1965 on the network's Saga of Western Man series. The program's focus is on Captain Theodore S. Danielsen, a company commander with the First Cavalry Division in Vietnam, who completed his second tour a year ago. As was the case with Alan Kogosowski I was curious about Capt. Danielsen; whenever I see one of these Vietnam documentaries, I always wonder what happened to the soldiers they profiled. In other words, did they make it back home? I'm happy to report that, in this case, he did, retiring from the U.S. Army as Lt. Colonel Danielsen, after 27 years of service, during which time he was the recipient of the Silver Star and three Bronze Stars with Valor. He died in 2011, aged 75,  survived by his wife of 46 years, two children, and many relatives, and highly respected by the men who served with and under him. Not to mention a grateful nation.

The Green Hornet goes off the air on Friday with a repeat of the conclusion to a two-part episode involving the operator of a crooked health-club (7:30 p.m., ABC). As I think I've mentioned before, The Green Hornet had trouble in balancing expectations: was it a campy superhero series, a la Batman? After all, it had the same producer, Bill Dozier, and there was even a crossover story between the two series. On the other hand, Hornet lacked the eccentric villains and big-name guest stars of Batman, and had a decidedly straighter tone to it. Regardless, I'm sorry it only lasted one season; having watched the complete series a couple of years ago, I thought it was a lot of fun. Could have used more Bruce Lee, though. A lot more.

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Joseph Finnigan has a wry article on the Golden Globes, which he calls "the tongue-in-cheek awards," based on their longtime reputation for awarding performances based on suspicious criteria. For example, at this point very few nominees appeared for the show, and those who did were invariably the winners, which led more than one person to suspect that the only way to induce stars to show up was to promise they would win. The show has had a successful run for several years as part of The Andy Williams Show, but its reputation would catch up with it in 1968, when the FCC ruled that this practice constituted "mis[leading] the public as to how the winners were determined," which in turn led NBC to drop coverage of the show until 1975. Sounds vaguely familiar, don't you think?

The strange thing about this article, though, is that the Golden Globes were held on February 15, nearly five months before this article ran, and the 1968 show wouldn't be broadcast at all due to the FCC ruling. Usually you want some kind of a hook when your piece is going to run—and I can't imagine why anyone would have been interested in reading about the Golden Globes in July. Can you?

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MST3K alert: 12 to the Moon (1960) Moon beings fear that earthmen on their first manned spaceship are bringing greed and destruction to their world. They plan to retaliate. Ken Clark, Michi Kobi. (Saturday, 3:30 p.m., KCRA in Sacramento.) This ponderous space/soap opera isn't nearly as weird as Design for Dreaming, the short accompanying it on the MST3K broadcast. Masked people dancing to the future in the middle of the General Motors Autorama? Now, tell me that isn't weird. Almost as weird as Mr. B Natural, right? TV  

G-Men vs. Commies

Efrem Zimbalist Jr., left, receives an award for "patriotic civilian service" from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, center, and Gen. William C. Westmoreland, Army chief of staff, in Washington, Dec. 4, 1968. (AP)

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I've mentioned in the past that our Sunday night routine includes watching The FBI, starring the great Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. and a succession of partners, fighting criminals and making the country safe from Communism. Although J. Edgar Hoover never appeared in the show, his fingerprints - so to speak - are all over it, and it must break not only his heart but that of Zimbalist and everyone else who worked on the series to see the mess the Bureau has become. Therefore, let us think of happier times, when the FBI was seen as the shining light of American law enforcement. The following, a kind of compendium of past mentions of the show, is one of the essays included in my forthcoming book. 

Although J. Edgar Hoover first came to prominence with the FBI’s 1936 capture of gangster Alvin Karpis, “Public Enemy #1,” I think it’s safe to say that his real passion in life (at least from a law enforcement perspective) was protecting the nation from the threat of Communism. Hoover not only viewed Communism as the greatest danger to the stability of the American government, he also saw other groups (anti-war radicals, civil rights protesters) as working in tandem with the Reds, either intentionally or inadvertently, to undermine American democracy.

This was evident at the very start of The FBI. Right there in the show’s original opening credits, viewers were informed of the Bureau's mission: to “protect the innocent and identify the enemies of the United States Government.” That opening title scene was perfect, really; perhaps only the start of Perry Mason did a better job of summarizing what the show was all about. After a cold opening that gave us a look at the episode’s criminal, along with the case number and why he or she was wanted by the FBI, the scene dissolved into shots of Washington icons: the Capitol, the Washington Monument, and the Supreme Court, ending with a zoom-in on the Justice Department, home of the Bureau. Between that and the majestic theme, written by Bronislaw Kaper, it was enough to make you run right out there and sign up. I’m sure Hoover must have loved it.

Hoover and the FBI had had a brilliant public relations machine for years, dating back to radio programs such as I Was a Communist for the FBI, and favorable articles in the nation’s publications and periodicals. By the mid-60s, though, the Bureau was going through some tough times, what with the twin barrages brought by Vietnam and civil rights (and Hoover’s surveillance against leaders of both movements), and though the Bureau’s reputation was probably far above where it is today, a little good publicity couldn’t hurt. "We finally decided to clarify for the public what the FBI does," Cartha DeLoach, Hoover's #2, said. "We're simply an investigative agency. We can't protect people - like civil rights workers, for instance. There's some confusion about what we do and I hope this program will show people how we really work." Nicely played.

Over the years, Hoover had received many requests from television people interested in doing a weekly FBI series, and it’s been said that he personally wanted producer Quinn Martin, he of The Untouchables and The Fugitive, to be the one who did it. Martin had resisted the idea at first; he was, he said, "much more politically left of the FBI," but he eventually too up the challenge, and despite their political differences the two men liked each other and got along well.

A cynic might be tempted to dismiss The FBI as an entertaining piece of propaganda designed to show the Bureau in the best light possible, and in fact it does come across as a paragon of law enforcement, more interested in getting the guilty party than simply making a quick arrest (although ideally doing both); one of the highlights of each episode is when the fugitives realize the Feds are on their trail. “It’s one thing to have the cops after us,” one of them will always say to the other, “but now we’ve got the FBI out there.” It’s a sobering moment - from then on, no matter how much they may try, they know in their heart of hearts that the jig is up.

The perfect man to embody that philosophy was the show’s star, Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. Hoover may not have hand-picked the cast on each week’s show, but the Bureau did have approval rights, and supposedly screened the background of every potential actor and actress who appeared in order to make sure they upheld the image that Hoover wanted projected. Over the years Zimbalist and Hoover became lifelong friends; every year, when the show’s production team would come out to the Capital to shoot some exterior shots establishing location, Hoover would have him come to his offices where they'd chat a bit, and then Zimbalist would address the agents, who cheered him as their hero. (At Hoover’s funeral in 1972, Zimbalist was seated in the FBI section.) For years afterward, Zimbalist recounted, men and women would come up to him, current or former FBI agents, and they would tell him of how watching him on the series had inspired their own career choice. It was humbling, he said, and how could it not be?

Give credit to Efrem, though, because his portrayal of special agent Lewis Erskine was an iconic one, the very definition of the hard-working, incorruptible FBI man. So identified was Zimbalist with the role that for the political satirist Art Buchwald he was the FBI; in a hilarious column about the first known wiretap (President Grant tells a Hooveresque surrogate “I want you to go to Boston and find out what Alexander Graham Bell is up to”) the agent registers in the hotel under the name of “Zimbalist”; another of his columns features an agent named “Efrem Zumgard.”

The FBI didn’t spend all its time fighting Communist agents; there was a fair share of bank robbers, kidnappers, corrupt union officials, organized crime bosses, and other lawbreakers whose nefarious activities took them across state lines (and therefore into the jurisdiction of the FBI); and Quinn Martin tended to shy away from hot-button issues such as civil rights (he was as sensitive to audience and sponsor reaction as anyone). It’s probably true, though, that the most frequent heavies were those who spoke with eastern European accents and preyed on the weaknesses of those who could be blackmailed into helping them – particularly if those people worked with Department of Defense contractors. Occasionally, you’d even meet a true believer, someone who of their own free will was involved in providing aid and comfort to the enemy, in the form of top secret information on a new missile guidance system which they hoped would lead to the victory of the peace-loving Soviets or Red Chinese.

No matter. The FBI always got their Commies.

As was the case with Mission: Impossible, The FBI had to adapt as the public began to adopt a more cynical attitude toward government, and in lieu of Communist agents, La Cosa Nostra became a favorite target. I wonder, though, if The FBI wasn’t one of the last dramas of the ‘70s to actually portray the war against Communism in a favorable light. Although several of the Red agents were given very complex treatments, with some of them even emerging as sympathetic characters, there was never the slightest suggestion that what they were doing could be ignored or excused. They were involved in espionage, and if they were Americans, they were also betraying their country. Neither the FBI nor The FBI thought much of that.

There was, in that day, great dignity – even nobility – in the idea of being a part of the world's greatest police organization, which brings us back once again to those opening credits. As much as anything, they showed us how the FBI was, even if it was never how it was. TV  

This week in TV Guide: April 4, 1959

Most of the significant TV Guide listings we run across are those that weren't particularly important at the time but only gained cultural heft when looked at from the perspective of the future.  Every once in a while, though, you find one that tells you all you need to know, one that even at the time must have been recognized for some particular significance.  This week we have such an instance.

It's the Steve Allen Show, airing Sunday night at 7:30 ET on NBC, and its list of guests gives you the past, present and future of television - and American culture -all in one hour.  The guests are The Three Stooges, singers Connie Russell and David Allen, and comedian Lenny Bruce.

Consider that for a moment.  In the Stooges we have the past, a team who started in vaudeville in the '20s and made their first movie short for Columbia in 1934, and thanks to television are enjoying renewed popularity today.  Connie Russell and David Allen represent the present, the music styles of 1959.  And Lenny Bruce is the future, the "blue" comedian: topical, no-holds barred, nothing sacred.  Could you possibly have a better cross-section of twentieth-century American pop culture on one television show than that?  It's something to think about, and keep thinking about.

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For those of you scoring at home -
or even if you're alone.

This week's television highlight is the 31st Academy Awards, broadcast live on NBC at 10:30pm ET Monday night from the Pantages Theater in Hollywood.  An interesting choice for the five men acting as emcees for the broadcast: Bob Hope (of course) and past hosts David Niven* and Jerry Lewis, but also Sir Laurence Olivier, Tony Randall, and Mort Sahl.  Randall has appeared in many of the light sex-comedies of the late '50s, but Sahl was primarily a comedian - the first stand-up comic, according to the always-reliable Wikipedia; the forerunner to Lenny Bruce, as a matter of fact.  I'm all for him hosting the show; I'm sure he injects some life into it.

*Niven's most famous role as an Oscar host has to be the streaker incident in 1974; nobody else could have handled the situation with his panache, although the conductor - was it Henry Mancini? - ordering the orchestra to play "Sunny Side Up" comes close.

This year's winners are a mixed group; Niven himself wins Best Actor for Separate Tables (the only time a host is also a winner the same year), while Susan Hayward takes home the Best ctress award for I Want to Live!  The winner of Best Picture, Gigi, sets a record by winning nine Oscars, although it will be broken the next year by Ben-Hur.  It's also the last movie until The Last Emperor to win Best Picture without being nominated for any of the acting awards.

So why do we want to remember this broadcast?  Well, probably for the misfortune that befell Jerry Lewis, the last of the five hosts.  Lewis had been widely praised for his previous hosting turns, and there'd be no reason to think that there'd be any trouble with this one.  But - and you might want to make sure you're sitting down when you read this - the show ran short.  Producer Jerry Wald miscalculated the timing, cutting too much from the broadcast, and Lewis suddenly found himself being told to vamp for twenty minutes to fill the allotted time.  He didn't get that far, of course; the whole thing became such a mess that NBC finally cut away from the broadcast, showing a short film about guns until the Jack Paar show came on.


I can understand that it must have been embarrassing; however, if I could bring Jerry Wald back today, I would.  An Oscarcast in less than two hours!

By the way, I've never liked the idea of televising the Oscars on Sunday night.  It takes away something from the whole event; Sunday nights ought to be for winding down, getting ready for the work week.  When it was on Mondays there was something special about it, the idea that all through the day you had something to look forward to, and somehow it made the day pulse with a little more energy.  Even though they can start it earlier on Sundays (nobody's coming home from work) it still runs too damn long.  I know, you kids get off my lawn.

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The big news in sports is the final round of The Masters golf tournament, played on Sunday in Augusta, Georgia and broadcast on CBS, as it has been every year since 1956.*  Coverage is sparse by today's standards: only 90 minutes, covering the last four holes.  One of CBS' lead announcers will go on to slightly bigger fame when he gets his own show on ABC: Jim McKay.  As for the winner, Art Wall fires a final-round 66, birding five of the last six holes, to win by a shot.  The defending champion, Arnold Palmer, finishes third; a teen-age amateur named Jack Nicklaus playing in his first Masters, misses the cut by a single stroke.  He'd go on to play in the tournament 44 more times, doing a little better than that.

*That's 60 years for those of you scoring at home, or even... nah, never mind.

Sunday's a pretty good night for TV; in addition to The Masters and that Steve Allen show I mentioned above, Art Carney and the Baird Marionettes star in a charming musical play based on Dukas' "The Sorcerer's Apprentice."  You might recognize the music - in fact, you probably would.  It's the music that went along with Mickey Mouse's disastrous turn as a wizard in the first segment of Disney's Fantasia.


Told you you'd recognize it!

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Continuing a pretty good week of television, at 10pm on Monday CBS airs a notable rerun on Desilu Playhouse.  It's "The Time Element" by Rod Serling, and it serves as the defacto pilot for The Twilight Zone (although a Twilight Zone pilot was shot prior to the series premiere).  It's the gripping story of a man (William Bendix) who tells his doctor that when he goes to sleep, he actually travels back in time to Pearl Harbor on December 6, 1941, where he attempts to warn the military of the coming disaster.  I won't give away the ending, but it's pure TZ-era Serling.  See for yourself:


Desilu Playhouse, hosted by Desi Arnez and sponsored by Westinghouse, was only on for two seasons, but it did pretty well for itself - in addition to "The Time Element," it also aired the pilot for what became one of ABC's biggest hits to that date: The Untouchables.
*** "It's such a fine day for baseball, I think I'll move the TV set out to the porch."  With this quote from newspaper columnist Bob Sylvester, Red Smith - one of the greatest sportswriters of the 20th Century - begins his look at the effect television has on the national pastime.  
Unlike many writers of the era, who look to blame television "for everything from juvenile delinquency to the Berlin crisis," Smith's question is not whether TV is having a negative effect on the way the game is played, but if the frequency of games on television is keeping fans away from the real thing.  He cites the fall in attendance suffered by the New York Yankees last season, despite the fact that the departures of the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants left them as the only game in town.  "In past summers there was hardly a day when a New York fan couldn't find a game to attend in Yankee Stadium, the Polo Grounds or Ebbets Field.  When the Yankees went on the road last year, there was no baseball in town."  No live baseball, that is - but with Yankee road games, not to mention games from the Phillies, Pirates and Cardinals beamed into living rooms via TV, "Fans had to stay home because there was no game to attend, and they got accustomed to watching their baseball at home."  Says Smith, "It was a concerted campaign to educate the public to stay away from the ball park.  It enjoyed some success."  This season will be the telling point, according to Smith.  The sponsors of the Phillies games have dropped out, so the Yankees will be the only game in town once again, both in person and on TV.  "This year ought to furnish the answers."

Television was seen as quite the threat to the live baseball gate back in the day, notwithstanding that the game had gone through the same angst when radio had started broadcasting.  Teams limited the number of games that could be broadcast, and those games were usually when the local team was on the road.  On weekends when they were at home, even the national game was blacked out, in order not to compete with live baseball.  Nowadays, of course, just about every game by every team is available somewhere.  True, most of them are on cable, which means that the fan who depends on OTA television is still limited in his or her choices.  Nevertheless, a dedicated baseball fan who wants to try can probably see almost every game, home and away, played by their favorite team.  TV is thought to be an asset to the game's popularity, and ballparks have become smaller in order to compensate for those who would prefer to catch the action from their own living rooms (or the porch, if it's a nice day).  Quite a difference, isn't it?

(Incidentally, the very funny movie Rhubarb does a nice job of satirizing the TV commercials that were so frequent and intrusive on baseball games.  You can read my take on the movie here.)
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Last month I mentioned the Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation of "Green Pastures," the first time that Hallmark had ever repeated one of their programs.  According to Television Diary, the program was a success: "Hallmark's extraordinarily sensitive and satisfying version of Marc Connelly's Pulitzer-prizewinning [sic] "Green Pastures" proved a standout, just as it did the first time around in October 1957."  The brief review praised William Warfield's performance of De Lawd, as well as the production itself, saying it was "hard to see" how they "could be improved upon, at least within the confines of the present TV screen."
Also in the Diary, movie mogul Sam Goldwyn announces that he'll be partnering with CBS in a series based on the Goldwyn movie Barbary Coast.  It doesn't appear that the program ever got past the pilot stage, but it's an interesting moment in what was then often a contentious relationship between television and movies.
That is borne out by comments from Harry Ackerman, president of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences - the people who put out the Emmy awards.  Ackerman says that TV is nothing like the movies, and insists that "It is really radio with pictorial values added."  Make of that what you will.
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Finally, the cover article this week is on Efrem Zimbalist Jr., who at this point is still starring in Warner Brothers' 77 Sunset Strip, along with occasional appearances on that studio's Maverick.  As my obit of Zimbalist from last year indicates, I have always been a big fan of his, mostly from his work in The FBI.  I've seen clips from Strip though never a full episode, but I've no doubt that he was as good in that series.  
The feature is an interesting story, and it shows what eclectic tastes Zimbalist has.  His father, Efrem Sr., was one of the world's great concert violinists, and his mother, Alma Gluck, was a star with the Metropolitan Opera.  His childhood home was filled with visits from Rachmaninoff, Hofmann, Toscanini (who bounced young Efrem on his knee), Lunt and Fontanne, and Edna St. Vincent Millay.  Some of you youngsters may not recognize these names, but trust me - this is like a Who's Who of classical musicians, actors and writers.  An old friend of the family named Menotti was in his heyday as an opera composer, and Zimbalist decided to put some money behind them to bring them to Broadway.  One of them, The Saint of Bleecker Street, won the Pulitzer Prize and made a profit of $30,000, after which Efrem's brief career as a producer ended.  "I was never interested in being a capitalist.  I'd rather work for a living."
After dabbling in composing and painting, Zimbalist returned to acting with the help of his friend, Broadway producer Joshua Logan  From there, it was a short jump to Warners, and Strip.  He doesn't know how long the show will run - "I think people like the show" - but, with movies in dismal shape, he knows one thing: "I'll definitely stay here in Hollywood.  I'm very happy doing what I'm doing." And I, for one, am very happy he made that decision. TV  

Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., R.I.P.

There was a moment or two, back when I was a kid, when I thought a career in the FBI sounded like a cool idea.  It was, as I recall, when I was sick with the flu, and my aunt gave me a pamphlet she'd gotten from someone at work, "101 Facts About the FBI," or something like that. It made it sound like FBI agents did a lot of neat things, investigating crimes like counterfeiting and kidnapping and the like, but then I came to the part about how agents had to have either an accounting or a law degree, and that sounded like too much work to me, so I forgot about it.

I'm pretty sure that this coincided with the time when The FBI was on TV each week, which would absolutely explain why the thought had such appeal, because Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. was probably the best advertisement for the FBI that the agency's ever had, short of J. Edgar Hoover himself. (Or should that be "Himself"?)

Zimbalist knew J. Edgar (became a lifelong friend of him, in fact),  for every year when the show's production would come out to Washington to shoot some exterior shots establishing location, Hoover would have him come to his offices where they'd chat a bit.  He'd then address the agents, who cheered him as their hero.  Hoover liked the show, and why wouldn't he?  As I've remarked many times before, the intro alone, with its shots of Washington icons like the Capitol, the Washington Monument, and the Supreme Court, was enough to make you want to sign up.  In that few moments you had, encapsulated, the entire power and majesty of the United States Government, summed up by the FBI's mission to "protect the innocent and identify the enemies of the United States Government."  And Zimbalist was the perfect man to embody that philosophy.

A story about Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. - I've told it before, so bear with me if you know what's coming:  many years ago, when the scandals of the FBI were starting to come out, the political satirist Art Buchwald wrote a column about the the first known wiretap, which Buchwald hilariously portrayed as happening when J. Edgar Hoover, registered in a hotel under the name of "Zimbalist," tapped the phone of Alexander Graham Bell.  Another Buchwald story about the FBI featured a source named "Efrem Zumgard."  The point being, that's how identifiable with the FBI Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. had become.

And yet The FBI was not Zimbalist's first hit: that would have come several years before, when he co-starred with Roger Smith in the Warner Brothers detective series 77 Sunset Strip.  Even before that, he had a recurring role on another WB series, Maverick, as gentlemen con-artist Dandy Jim Buckley.  It's probably no surprise that The FBI, a co-production between Warner and Quinn Martin, would choose Zimbalist as its lead.

Zimbalist came from talented bloodlines; his mother was opera star Alma Gluck, his father the violinist Efrem Zimbalist, Sr.  With that pedigree, it wouldn't have been a surprise if he'd become a musician but, like another son of a famed classical musician, Werner Klemperer, Zimbalist found his calling in acting - specifically, television.*

*Although he did have a pretty good singing voice.

Throughout his years as Lewis Erskine, Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. presented himself with dignity and integrity.  Unlike today's dramas, you seldom ever saw a glimpse of Erskine's personal life, or even the home he lived in.  He was a widower, we knew that, and he had a daughter at the beginning of the series (played by Lynn Loring) who was engaged to Jim Rhodes (Stephen Brooks), Erskine's partner, but that subplot quickly disappeared, as did Lee Meriwether's appearance as Erskine's lady friend.  The fact was, when you're fighting the Communists for the FBI, there wasn't time for anything else.

And in the same way that Jack Webb* became synonymous with the LAPD, Zimbalist was the FBI, to the point that he received an honorary special agent badge from the Bureau in 2009.  For nine seasons Zimbalist protected the nation, and for years afterward heard from those who'd joined the Bureau because of the show.  He called it "the most tremendous reward that I could ever have for having done it."  And though I never did join the FBI (probably to the nation's benefit), The FBI remained a favorite show of mine, and Zimbalist a favorite actor.  When the series was finally released on DVD beginning a few years ago, it quickly found a place in the collection.

*Who produced the final season of 77 Sunset Strip, in which all existing characters were axed from the show - except for Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.

A terrific three-part article at TV Party! by L. Wayne Hicks tells much more about the show, particularly Hoover's reaction to it.  But from beginning to end, there was no doubt that Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. was the man who made it work.  He died over the weekend, aged 95, leaving yet another hole in television's history.  The greatest testament I can give to him is that the FBI would be far, far better off today had there been more real-life agents like Lew Erskine.