Around the dial

Heads-up: sometime next week. you'll be able to hear me on Love 98.5FM in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, chatting about classic television with David Hendrickson. It's the first of what we're hoping will be a weekly 10-minute-or-so segment on the station; in this initial episode, David and I talk about various television and streaming services that air classic TV shows, and some titles that the casual TV viewer might not be aware of. (Apropos of this piece from a couple of weeks ago.) I'll have more details on the date and time as well as how you can listen, so keep an eye here, as well on my Facebook and Twitter feeds, and thanks to David for the invitation to appear with him! Now, let's see what the rest of you have to say.

At bare•bones e-zine, Jack continues the Hitchcock Project with Harold Swinton's 1959 adaptation of the famous Ambrose Bierce story "An Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge." Some of you may have seen a French adaptation that aired on The Twilight Zone some years later, but as Jack points out, the "outstanding" Swinton version is well worth your time.

On Wednesday I presented an appreciation of Regis Phlbin, who died last week; this week at Bob Crane: Life and Legacy, Carol presents a 1965 episode of Bob Crane's radio show that includes, around the 51:00 mark, Bob's interview with Regis and LA broadcaster Michael Jackson. Good fun; check it out.

In addition to Regis Philbin, classic television fans lost three more familiar faces over the last week, with the deaths of John Saxon, Olivia de Havilland and Jacqueline Scott. I remember John Saxon best from his years on The Bold Ones, although everyone will have their favorite memories; Terence recalls him in-depth at A Shroud of Thoughts. Terence also summarizes the magnificent career of Olivia de Havilland, including her Best Actress Oscar for The Heiress; The Last Drive-In has a pictoral recollection of her as well. And you can read more here on the life and times of Jacqueline Scott, who will always be remembered for her appearances as Dr. Richard Kimble's loyal sister on The Fugitive. Our commenter Mike Doran mentions her here.

We haven't looked at television across the pond lately, so it's time to stop in at Cult TV Blog, where John looks back at Chance in a Million, starring Simon Callow, a man to whom very strange things happen, with future Oscar nominee Brenda Blethyn as his girlfriend.

And at Garroway at Large, Jodie shares a story about one of the prized items in Dave Garroway's collection of odds and ends: an original Norden bombsight, famed for its use by American bombers during World War II. Sounds like perfect vision to me. TV  

Regis Philbin, R.I.P.

It seems somehow fitting that Hugh Downs and Regis Philbin would die within a month of each other, for I can't think of two men who've logged more facetime on television than them. Indeed, it's hardly a surprise that Philbin holds the Guinness world record for most hours on television in the history of the medium, nor that the man who'd held the record previously was Downs.

Like Hugh Downs, who came to national prominence as Jack Paar's sidekick on The Tonight Show, Regis Philbin made his network debut as sidekick for Joey Bishop; and just as Downs had to deal with Paar's famous walkout, Philbin was confronted with Bishop's announcement that, because he and ABC could not come to turms, he was walking off the show. Hugh Downs rose to that occasion, and so did Regis Philbin. The two men had long runs on morning television: Downs on Today and Philbin on Live with Regis and [fill in the name]; and they both hosted popular game shows (Concentration by Downs, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? by Philbin). And if that was all there was to Regis Philbin's television career, if all we had to do was compare him to Hugh Downs, that would be pretty good.

But doing so would miss the essence of Regis, the way he connected with an audience, the way his warmth came through your set and into your home. I've often commented on how television is the most personal of communications media, and those who appear on it become guests in your living room, and few personified that more that he did. He wore his life on his sleeve, with the knack for making people feel as if they knew him, what with his self-deprecating humor and stories about his personal life. He was trustworthy, genuine, real—and if you mentioned that to him, he might well have laughed and then repeated the old line about how if you can fake sincerity, you can do anything. I'm not saying that there weren't people who didn't like him, just that he made it very difficult to do so.

Two things stand out. First: when his longtime co-host Kathie Lee Gifford left Live, viewer surveys showed that the most popular choice to replace her was nobody, that people would be perfectly happy to have Regis do the show solo, or perhaps with his wife Joy. Second: during the initial run of Millionaire, when the show took the nation by storm, Regis started a trend by appearing each night in a monochromatic suit, shirt and tie. It was a look that I very much favored myself, and it hardly surprised me that he could pull it off, and that it would become a fashion statement.

He might have seemed an unlikely television hero, but like the best of them—like Hugh Downs, for example—you either have it or you don't; and Regis Philben most definiately had it. Class, style, charisma, warmth—whatever it might have been, there it was. It's missing more and more from a television landscape that depends on anger, hostility, stridency, instead of the things that for so often defined what it meant to be a guest in someone else's home. I'm not saying that there will never be another Regis Philbin, because that would be not only foolish but presumptious. I'm just saying that it will be difficult to find another one, and in that I presume you'll agree. TV