The former child star, now all of 30 years old, is the host and occasional star of Shirley Temple's Storybook, airing on NBC. She'd retired twice from acting, most recently at 21, having made 33 movies and more than $3,000,000. Since then she's been Mrs. Charles Alden Black, married with three children, but she's never really been that far from the public eye. Dolls, storybooks, and TV repeats of her movies have ensured that Shirley Temple will always be an American icon. She relates a story of how her mailman, "a darling old man about 70, said to me, 'Mrs. Black, does Shirley Temple live here?' And I said, 'Why yes, I used to be Shirley Temple.' 'Oh, my!' he cackled. 'You used to be my favorite movie star - when I was a little boy!'"
Shirley Temple Black has led probably one of the most successful lives of any former child star. Although Storybook ended after two years, she continued to make television appearances, then became involved in politics (she'd always had an interest in current events), ran unsuccessfully for Congress, served as a representative to the United Nations, and was appointed U.S. ambassador to Ghana and later Czechoslovakia. She survived breast cancer and was one of the first celebrities to speak openly about it. And the name Shirley Temple is still - and will continue to be - magic.
In a day when most child stars seem to wind up on the police blotter as often as in the movies, when many others fade into obscurity or struggle with a lifetime of psychological problems, Shirley Temple stood apart. She was a movie star, mother, patriot, diplomat - and she did it with panache. She was an individual who could remind the hardest politician that he was now in the presence of a real star, and her name alone brought back a wash of memories to generations who'd grown up with her and had passed her down to their children.
Shirley Temple was an American icon. She may have died today, at the age of 85, and she will be missed, but she'll not be forgotten.
Until a few years ago, the most I could say about Peter Gunn was that Craig Stevens played a suave private eye, and it had one of the coolest themes of all time. I had to have seen it at some point in time, probably many years ago, before I was old enough to understand Lola Albright. But then I was able to get the complete series on DVD - and then I got Lola Albright.
[Pause while heartbeat returns to normal.]
Albright plays Edie Hart, the singer who's also Gunn's girlfriend. She works out of a bar called Mother's, which doubles as the place where Gunn meets his clients and conducts his business. She's a smart, sassy character* who's graced with some snappy dialogue, every bit Gunn's equal in the scenes in which they're matched. She has a fine singing voice, doing her own vocals in the occasional set pieces at Mother's. She exudes an adult sexiness that makes it impossible to take your eyes off of her when she's on screen. And she's a likable character, as is Gunn, making this one of the easier private eye shows to watch.
*Gunn's nickname for her was "Silly."
Off screen, Lola Albright has some things to say about what she sees as an unreasonable invasion of her privacy since her divorce from actor Jack Carson. "To tell the truth, I'm sick and tired of the line 'Does Lola get what Lola wants?'* Every magazine and newspaper seems to leap on it as though discovering it for the very first time. I am equally sick and tired of the line 'Lonely Lola.'" Such are the curses of having an alliterative name, it would appear. "If my name were Betty, I'd be two cliches to the good." She struggles with the line between personal and public; while she understands the sacrifices of privacy that are part of stardom, she wonders "why does the press have to go so far? Why do they print things you never said, things they make up out of a blue sky? Why do they twist what you say into meanings you never meant?" Lola also denies she's dissatisfied with her role on Gunn; she likes how Edie got her own place in the third (and final) season, a plot devise that gives her a chance to sing more. "I don't want to dominate the show and I certainly don't want a series of my own."
*If you're unsure of the origin of the line, watch this.
People who work with her have nothing but good things to say. Frank Stempel, who was her ex-husband Carson's manager, says that "Even now that she's making good money, she doesn't really know what it is. She goes out of her way to help people. She'd give away her last dime if she thought it would help somebody." Press agent Bill Stein remembers how when his wife was in the hospital, "Lola must have called me a dozen times offering to come out and take care of the two kids while I was working. If you know her, you like her."
Peter Gunn, which ends its three-year run at the end of the current season, is probably the high point of Lola Albright's career, although she's hardly a recluse once the series ends, appearing in several big-screen movies and is a steady presence in guest roles on TV through the 80s. But there's no disagreeing that in a genre that often produces more than its share of annoying characters, Peter Gunn's Edie is one of the most enjoyable; in fact, after you've watched her in a few episodes, you'll probably be singing these words as well:
***
I've mentioned in the past the snarkiness of TV Guide writers like Richard Gehman, and the Letters to the Editor section this week shows I'm not the only one who picks up on this. Apparently Gehman did another of his hatchet jobs a couple of weeks ago, this time on Bobby Darin. Carol Tuman of Great Neck, NY writes that Gehman's profile of Darin "is . . . full of unprecedented nastiness," while Donna Ott and Joyce D'Ambrosio of Fair Lawn, NJ say that "We have never read or heard so many degrading comments on this terrific star," and make the point that "we are not teen-agers; we are a single girl of 20 and a married woman of 23," possibly in response to a comment about the demographics of Darin's fanbase.
Now, it might be that Gehman's article is a fairly accurate portrait of Darin; Kevin Spacey's Darin biopic Beyond the Sea certainly pointed out that Darin had a few warts, and maybe Gehman really does capture how the people who work with Darin feel about him. But at the same time there's something about Gehman's writing style, his choice of words and turn of phrase, that clearly rubs readers the wrong way.
In Glenn Altschuler and David Grossvogel's Changing Channels: America in TV Guide(review upcoming later this year), the authors write that "Gehman believed that creative people were often emotionally insecure because of an unhappy childhood, and that those who became celebrities in the entertainment industry sometimes did so because their insecurity motivated them to succeed." I'm not surprised to read that; it's fairly typical of the amateur psychoanalysis that was prevalent in journalism of the time.
Were one of that bent, it would be tempting to suggest that Gehman was projecting his own insecurities onto his subjects; according to his entry in the always-reliable Wikipedia, he was married five times and fathered at least nine children, and wrote under a variety of pen names - all before his death at age 51. Perhaps he had an identity problem tied to a basic inferiority complex, causing him to tear others down in an attempt to elevate himself. Perhaps his experiences in the entertainment industry left him jaded and cynical, and ascribed those same motives to those he met.
Of course, I'm not of that bent. As you know.
***
SOURCE: HADLEY TV GUIDE COLLECTION
On NBC Wednesday night, Bob Hope hosts the aptly-named Bob Hope Sports Awards, honoring the "best and brawniest athletes" of 1960. Being that it's a Bob Hope special, there are plenty of beautiful women among the presenters* - Julie London, Jayne Mansfield, Ginger Rogers, Jane Russell, Tuesday Weld, Esther Williams - but I wonder how many athletes were in attendance? We're told (by the Bob Hope on TV website) that the winners included Joe Bellino (college football), Norm Van Brocklin (pro football), Wilt Chamberlain (pro basketball), Pancho Gonzales (pro tennis), Dick Groat (National League baseball), Rafer Johnson (track), Roger Maris (American League baseball), Arnold Palmer (golf), Floyd Patterson (boxing), Jerry Lucas (college basketball), and Barry Mackay (amateur tennis). Might have been an interesting show; might not.
*Also among the presenters was a guy named Ronald Reagan - obviously an afterthought.
This didn't become an annual tradition (there are a lot of one-and-done sports awards shows in the history of television), but Bob did return with another version of the Bob Hope Sports Awards from 1973 through 1975. Hopefully, they didn't wait so long for an encore because the first one had been such a dud...
Wednesday's schedule also featured taped coverage of President Kennedy's fourth press conference.. (No details on which networks or what time.) I've mentioned before that these press conferences were quite the sensation, as Americans had never seen the president quizzed by reporters quite like this; President Eisenhower's conferences had been shown on same-day tape, but JFK had been the first to air a live presser, and it was his generous access to the press (at the time of his death, according to the JFK Library, he'd held 64 conferences, an average of one every sixteen days. "The first, less than a week after his inauguration, was viewed by an estimated 65 million people. A poll taken in 1961 indicated that 90 percent of those interviewed had watched at least one of JFK's first three press conferences. The average audience for all the broadcast conferences was 18 million viewers."
We shouldn't be too surprised; the medium loved JFK, and he loved to use the medium. The reporters loved him as well, for he was great copy - witty, quick, engaging, informative without necessarily saying anything. There's been a good deal of controversy over the amount of press access given by the current resident of the White House, but there's little question Kennedy made himself much more accessible. And the viewing audience responded.
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The great American composer Aaron Copland celebrated his 60th birthday in November 1960, and the event is being commemorated on Sunday's Young People's Concert with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic. I loved watching these concerts when I was young, although this one would have been a bit old even for me. Bernstein, whatever his other faults, was an engaging and often brilliant teacher: in these telecasts (53 of them, which ran on CBS from 1958 to 1972) he never talks down to children, never dumbs the material down for them. He treats them, instead, as intelligent beings capable of understanding and appreciating music, and he does a wonderful job of making classical music accessible without resorting to gimmicks. If it is true that the audience for classical music is dying off (literally), much of the blame can be laid at the feet of an educational system that no longer values music appreciation classes, and an industry itself that thinks Star Wars-themed concerts and hyperactive experiences are the way to introduce kids to the classics.
A number of Bernstein's Young People's Concerts are on YouTube (more are available on DVD), and here happens to be that broadcast:
Bernstein wasn't the only teacher of classical music, of course. Through the 70s there were various attempts to use television to spread music appreciation. The famed opera singer Joan Sutherland, with her conductor husband Richard Bonygne, hosted a PBS series in the early 70s, Who's Afraid of Opera? (described in this wonderful appreciation appearing after Sutherland's death), which used puppets to help teach children (and adults!) about opera.
It was the young people's concerts of the Minneapolis Symphony that first introduced me to classical music, and helped foster a lifelong interest in the classics. True, I didn't really develop this appreciation fully uintil the last 20 years, when I learned to embrace opera, but who knows if I would have been open to it at all without learning about it at a young age?
I'm put in mind of all this because of another letter this week, from Paul Winterhalter of Lincoln, NE, decrying the disappearance of Voice of Firestone. "The television 'brains' who presume to do all the thin king for the millions of viewers said that the Voice of Firestone lacked the quality for prime time, so we lost a fine program." Mr. Winterhalter said this in the context of criticizing Jackie Gleason's You're in the Picture flop - "the most awful bunch of garbage" - which those "brains" obviously considered a superior, or at least having the potential to be a more popular, show.
One of the last surviving programs of quality music was The Bell Telephone Hour, which started on NBC radio in 1940 and ran on television from 1959 to 1968* Back in December I linked to a Christmas episode of the show, and while those Christmas editions may have been among the most popular, there's no doubt that Bell presented some of the finest classical artists of the time, often showcased in fully staged excerpts from some of their most well-known works. But it wasn't only classical music that shown on the program.
*Not surprisingly, considering it aired on NBC, every episode of The Bell Telephone Hour was broadcast in color.
SOURCE: HADLEY TV GUIDE COLLECTION
This Friday, opposite the post-You're in the Picture Gleason show, The Bell Telephone Hour presents "The Sounds of America," a salute to American music taped at Disneyland and produced (and conducted) by the famed Gordon Jenkins (who did so well with Frank Sinatra, among others). The show features not only musical pieces but "sound-effects 'essays'" that bring, literally, the sounds of America - the West, the river, Main Street. There's a heavy emphasis on dance, with Gene Nelson, Jacques d'Amboise and the Earl Twins dancing to choreography by Hermes Pan, who collaborated so successfully for so many years with Fred Astaire. There's a sad irony in all that, don't you think? A program about America's long-gone past, told by a television genre on the way to being long-past itself. TV
My bad for not answering this earlier: a couple of weeks ago, an anonymous reader included a request in a comment on the September 8, 1974 issue of TV Guide:
"If you have that issue, could you please post the ad that appeared for the Saturday ABC Superstar Movie? It was an awful adaptation of 'Lost In Space' from a time when Saturday morning cartoons were starting to do animated versions of old prime time shows. The artwork for the ad, however, is superb looking and hilariously has nothing to do with the cartoon version it alleges to depict."
Anonymous, your wish is my command! Here's the ad in question, in full:
Now let's take a look at the detail of that "Lost in Space" Superstar Movie:
They're right - that is pretty funny.
***
I'm not a big fan of The Beatles, so I'm going to let Dixon at TV When I Was Born speak for the 50th anniversary of the Fab Four's initial appearance with Ed Sullivan. He does so with an affectionate remembrance of how this three-week-old self sat on his mother's lap as she watched the historic telecast. Loved that article!
Terry Teachout also uses the Beatles/Sullivan anniversary as a quick look back at Ed's show. I think we've covered some of this before, but Teachout does a nice job of showing how eclectic Sullivan's lineups were - the most frequent guest was opera star Roberta Peters (41 appearances), followed by comedian Alan King (37) and The Muppets (25). Teachout nails it when he says that "I've long been fascinated by Sullivan's role in the formation of our now-defunct middlebrow common culture." That's me in a nutshell, though written much more elegantly than I usually put it.
Quick hits - Cult TV Blog looks at "The Avengers Lost Episodes." If the Hadley credit card bill goes up, John, I'm telling my wife it's your fault. How Sweet it Was and Comfort TVboth remind us of the Oscar winners who started (or finished) on the small screen.
And finally, Classic Film and TV writes about a new DVD issue of Red Skelton: The Lost Episodes, but as was the case with his Elke Sommer interview, Rick has totally distracted me with the picture for the upcoming interview with Shirley Eaton. Now, what was I writing about again?
Oh yeah - see you on Saturday with another great TV Guide (featuring another rather fetching young woman on the cover...) TV
Once again it's time for the quadrennial gathering of the nations to engage in friendly competition upon the playing fields of youth. In other words, the Winter Olympics. The Sochi Games officially kick off on Friday with the Opening Ceremonies, and I thought this would be a good time to talk again with my friend Marc Ryan. Back in November we chatted about television coverage of the JFK assassination; today the subject is his book From Berlin to Beijing and London: A Look at TV and the Olympics.
It's About TV: Well, here we are again Marc, talking television. First the JFK assassination and now how TV covers the Olympics.
Marc Ryan: This is my honor. I'm always happy to talk TV with you! Why does television love the Olympics?
TV grew the Olympics and the Olympics helped TV grow. The Olympics are less about sports than story telling. Sometimes, the story is how the athlete overcame the odds. Other times, the story is the loving family back home or, the archaic rules, the uncooperative bureaucracy or faceless judges.
I think people will be surprised to find out just how far back television coverage of the Olympics goes. The title of the book kind of gives it away - tell us about when the Olympics first came to TV.
The Olympics have always been an opportunity for the host country to show off. The first Olympics on TV were Berlin, 1936. The Nazi government controlled the media and was eager to show it was a world power and technology innovator. No Berliners had a TV, of course. Public viewing areas gave people a chance to see this futuristic wonder. In some places, you could get a beer while watching competition. Credit the Third Reich with inventing the first sports bars.
The cameras were massive, the image was primitive. The New York Times wasn’t impressed: “You cannot see the Olympics by television yet. All you can see are some men dressed like athletes but only faintly distinguishable like humans in a milk bath.”
Still, you have to imagine this was exciting!
Just as all late night talk shows can be traced to Steve Allen, all Olympic TV can be traced to Roone Arledge. He went past TV’s challenge to cover events and showed how TV can tell a story. ABC Sports in the 1960’s and 70’s was built on Wide World of Sports and the Olympics. Just poking around tonight, I came across this interview with Arledge - it's almost 40 years old and still fascinating. [I'll insert link to interview.]
You suggest that 1960 is a kind of milestone in the evolution of TV coverage of the Games.
ABC was to carry the 1960 winter games of Squaw Valley, only because ABC wanted to please Walt Disney, who produced the opening ceremony. ABC didn’t even have a sports department! When ABC backed off, CBS picked up the games. Again, CBS had its eye on Disney programming. (Lousy pun unintended but I will leave it in.)
The 1960 Olympics marked the first same-day TV coverage, produced by CBS News and the lead anchor was Walter Cronkite. For the summer games from Rome, Jim McKay anchored from a New York studio; tapes were flown across the Atlantic. –TV via satellite was 4 years away!
NBC carried the summer, 1964 Tokyo games. NBC was eager to use “LIVE and in Color” to sell RCA color TVs. The commitment though, was weak. Satellite transmission was expensive and the time difference was a killer.
Television cameras at the 1936 Summer Olympics*
As TV matured and cable built platforms, TV needed content. Plus, when the Olympics changed networks, the new TV outlet had to outdo what was on TV four years earlier. This year, NBC will have live coverage on the NBC cable channels, channels dedicated for one sport and mobile device ability. For the person who doesn’t care for sports but wants to applaud skating, there’s glitzy, commercial-laden prime time network coverage.
I’ve got an issue of TV Guide from 1967 in which Stanley Frank says that television has corrupted every sport it has touched “with the sole exception of the Olympic Games, conducted by an international organization beyond its control.” Safe to say that this is no longer the case?
Wow, that quote is priceless! When he says “television has corrupted”, I think he means the third party that paid to be there, the accompanying technicians and announcers and, millions watching around the world.
Yes, that can’t help but influence things. But the “Olympic Ideal “is just that, an ideal. The original idea of amateur athletes taking part is from 19th century thinking: only the rich could afford sailing or equestrian sports. Then, Avery Brundage comes along and injects his vision of amateurism: no logos on skis, no cash under the table. And no political messages! Jessie Vetter, the goalie for the USA’s women’s hockey, has to remove an image on her mask because it is political. Good golly, dividing teams by country is political! Which leads to what you call in your chapter on Calgary and Seoul, the "Boardroom Games."
It took the IOC until 1985, 25 years to realize US TV money was not a supplement but a necessity. The IOC went Gordon Gekko: “Greed is good.” I seems (to me at least) that the Olympics today are as much soap opera as sports. Was there a moment when the coverage changed from sporting event to human interest story?
I think it begins with 1968, Grenoble and Mexico City. Certainly, there were great stories with Cassius Clay and Rafer Johnson at Rome and the US Hockey in 1960. In 1964, there are skiers Billy Kidd (what a name for TV!) and Bud Werner. Billy Mills and Donna de Varona in Tokyo. But by 1968, all Olympics are in color and TV presentation becomes more backstory-oriented. Plus, Peggy Fleming and Jean Claude Killy were incredibly good looking -
I had such a crush on Peggy Fleming during the Olympics.
I met Peggy Fleming when I was at CNN (mind you, this was around the time Reagan was first sworn in) and my heart rate has still not returned to normal.
1968's heroes: (L) Peggy Fleming, (R) Jean Claude Killy
But I digress. As you point out, there were incredible stories at the 68 Summer Games as well.
At Mexico City, you have Bob Beamon’s long jump. He broke from earth orbit before two months before Apollo 8 {space nerds will love that} and John Carlos and Tommie Smith with gloved fists. For anyone still reading this, I direct them to my e-book. ;)
In 1976, ABC really begins to lay it on thick with “Up Close and Personal” features, and that's defined the model for coverage to this day.] Speaking of that, is there a particular sport (such as women's figure skating or curling) that has benefited thanks to that approach?
Women skaters have been a female ideal since Sonja Henie in 1928! You have the story of each skater to project “rugged individualism” as well as “the girl next door”. Figure skating provides television an opportunity to frame an event, both visually and for a narrative. Skating possesses the ingredients for a miniseries, which is what the Olympics are. ESPN aired a magnificent “30 for 30” on Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan. For Sochi, NBC’s Mary Carrillo has worked on an hour long presentation for the 20th anniversary. Now ask yourself who won the gold medal that year? [Ed: it was Ukranian Oksana Baiul.]
Did television have anything to do with the expansion of the winter games to cover the more extreme types of sports?
Out of the memorable moments that television's covered in the Olympics, what really stands out for you?
One of the biggest, most engrossing TV events EVER is the USSR-USA hockey game from Lake Placid, 1980. College players who’d been together for months beat a team of professionals, Communists. And, it was tape delayed! That game was played in the afternoon, telecast in prime time. ABC had wanted to move the game start time but was turned down. Al Michaels was never better than Lake Placid. He asked “Do you believe in miracles?” and then, he shut up.
On the other hand, the 1960 upset of the Soviets by the USA team was huge but who has seen video of that? I wonder how big the fuss would be. And then Franz Klammer's downhill victory in 1976 was breathtaking. (And that’s from someone who has never wanted to ski!)
Why did coverage get so big, to where we're talking about hundreds of hours rather than the hour or two each night back in the 60s? Is there too much coverage nowadays?
Too much coverage compared to then and now? Yes. But there are more options now. Don’t forget NBC’s Vancouver coverage was topped by American Idol.
What has been the biggest recent change to television coverage? And where does it stop – is there anything you can imagine happening in the next few Olympiads that would mark a dramatic change, or have we gone as far as we can with TV coverage?
Well, there we go with technological determinism again! Just since the 2002 Salt Lake games we have streaming coverage, smart phones and tablets. What is next, Google glass?
What are some of the stories to watch for this year?
A month ago, it was announced Lindsey Vonn would miss the Olympics. Then, it’s Olympic toilets and the threat of terrorism. What will be the big story on February 7th, what will we be talking about February 23rrd??
It's kind of sad that the Olympics, which were always envisioned as peaceful competition between nations, have provided television with some of the most memorable news moments in its coverage of terrorism.
Munich was the first time terrorism was televised. Think about that. Terror is ephemeral, an emotion. Black September chose Munich because they knew they would capture worldwide TV. Almost everything of that attack was off-camera and yet, people stayed up late to watch Jim McKay give us the news. A rescue attempt was ditched when authorities realized the international TV picture of rescuers, disguised in athletic gear, was seen by the terrorists on live television. As soon as that was realized, TV to the Olympic village was cut.
The Olympics as a target was something no one imagined in 1972. We saw video of the bombing in 1996 from Atlanta; it was live on ARD as Janet Evans was interviewed. Sadly, no one can imagine a Super Bowl/World Series/World Cup/Olympics without the possibility.
Also, the Olympic venues are under the control of the IOC. Once the games begin, it’s Putin’s baby. The whole world will be watching, not just for sports.
Will you be watching the Sochi games? Don't tell me you're not a Winter Olympics fan!
Competition and people conjure stories. Who captures our attention, affection or scorn is what draws me. Does that athlete end up on a cereal box on supermarket shelves or, forgotten? To paraphrase Naked City: “There are eight million stories in Sochi…”
Have you got another book in the pipeline? What will that be about?
I was going to add a chapter for Sochi. Then I asked myself: “What would Brian Boitano do?”
Whether I’ll add a section or start something new depends on what happens with Sochi. I would love to add photos. However, the IOC charge$ and is most litigious.
*Marc adds: I am including this photo from the 1936 games. It is on many websites. I spent MONTHS checking with image banks, the IOC, AP, UPI, German news agencies. I even consulted a lawyer. It came down to being the property of the Third Reich so, I haven’t sweated it.
***
My thanks again to Marc Ryan for taking the time to talk with me. It's always a pleasure for me to talk with a fellow TV historian. As always, whatever there is great about this interview is due to his insight and observation. Anything the interview lacks is due entirely to the interviewer himself.
Dale Robertson is my kind of guy: plain-spoken, to the point, conservative. The star of ABC's The Iron Horse, and previous Western series such as Tales of Wells Fargo and Death Valley Days, "believes in income taxes but thinks that they should be a flat 25 percent with no limit on how much the high rollers can make."* He also believes that the troubled urban areas such as Harlem can be rehabilitated by installing some pride of place, perhaps an early version of the "Broken Windows" theory, and that anyone fortunate enough to have the kind of life he has - a loving wife, obedient children, and three square meals a day - should be able to "do anything on God's green earth he sets his mind to." No wonder that Robertson was out campaigning for Ronald Reagan during his successful 1966 run for Governor of California.
*Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, as I've said more than once.
It's not a surprise to learn Robertson's values; a graduate from Oklahoma Military Academy, joined the Army right after Pearl Harbor, fought with Patton's Third Army in Europe. Nor is it a surprise to read Robertson's opinions in TV Guide, or that a man with them is the star of a new series. It's not quite so common today, however, to find conservatives in the industry so outspoken. As Clint Howard (brother of Ron, and formerly of Gentle Ben) said not too long ago, “I always tell younger conservative-minded people that they better mind their P's and Q's and remember that you want to have a career." This isn't a judgement on my part, by the way, just an observation. Of course TV Guide, a conservative publication, gives voice to conservative actors. And there are still conservatives in Hollywood today - they're just a little harder to find.
On the opposite end of the political spectrum, Sunday night features the premiere of one of the most notable, controversial series of the 60s: The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Once upon a time I reviewed a DVD release of season 3 of Smothers Brothers. Upon looking back at it, I find I didn't think much of it, which doesn't surprise me since I didn't think much of the show when it was originally on, just as I never thought much of the Smothers Brothers themselves, other than as a testimonial on just how far one could get in the entertainment business without much talent.
But here we are, at the very beginning. The Brothers are coming off a mildly amusing sitcom in which Tom played an angel (no typecasting there), not to mention a fairly successful stand-up act, and numerous appearances on various television shows. Their opening night lineup is amazingly conventional, with Ed Sullivan (welcoming them to the Sunday night lineup; they immediately followed Ed's show), Danny Thomas, Jim Nabors, and Jill St. John. The ad accompanying the show promises a "riotous new series,*" with "daffy ballads and oddball humor." Sounds pretty innocuous, doesn't it? As I mentioned in that review, for all the shouting about the Smothers Brothers, their show was actually pretty conventional, and when it's removed from the topical context it's actually kind of stupid.
*I don't know what CBS was expecting from the show, but I doubt they thought the biggest riots would come from the network's relationship with their stars.
Nonetheless, that innocent listing is exactly the kind of thing we like to look for here: an advertisement for a historic program, with no hint as to what lies ahead. The Smothers Brothers were, in my opinion, far more influential in terms of the precedent they set for the shows that followed them than they were with their own show. One thing's for sure, though - the times, they were a 'changing.
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During the 60s, the Ed Sullivan Show and The Hollywood Palace were the premiere variety shows on television. Whenever they appear in TV Guide together, we'll match them up and see who has the best lineup..
Sullivan: Scheduled guests: comedian Woody Allen; actor-singer Gene Barry; comics Wayne and Shuster, and Stu Gilliam; singer Lanie Kazan; the Muppets puppets; the singing Doodletown Pipers; and the Staneks' balancing act.
Palace: Host Jack Benny is joined by singers Petula Clark and Johnny Mathis; the Nitwits, English musical comics; dancers Brascia and Tybee; and the Halasis, a Hungarian teeterboard act. Also: Ernie Terrell and the Heavyweights (Terrell's sister and brothers) offer a musical challenge to Cassius Clay, who defends his heavyweight crown against Terrell on February 6.
Regular readers know that Gene Barry is one of my television favorites; nonetheless, much as I'd like to, I can't go with Sullivan this week. Personal bias, I know - I like Woody Allen even less than the Smothers Brothers, I never could take the Doodletown Pipers, and I'm afraid Barry and the Muppets aren't enough to overcome Jack Benny and the singing of Clark and Mathis. Even a singing boxer isn't enough to do it in*. The Palace it is, by a TKO.
*Although he had some talent, Terrell didn't fare nearly as well as a singing boxer as this guy; he didn't do as well in the ring either, losing a lopsided 15-round decision to Clay/Ali.
Curious to see? Here's the entire show, via YouTube.
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TV Guide movie critic Judith Crist takes on a couple of Frank Sinatra flicks this week, and finds them both more than acceptable. First up is Guys and Dolls, Wednesday night on ABC. I've always found this movie problematic, not least because of the casting of Marlon Brando as Sky Masterson*, but Crist finds "Sinatra's way with a song and Brando's - yep, he croons it himself - compensate" for any flaws." Sinatra never cared for the casting, either - he thought he should have had the lead role, rather than playing second fiddle Nathan Detroit, and got his revenge by making one of Masterson's signature songs, "Luck Be a Lady Tonight," a standard of his concert repertoire.
*To paraphrase Bette Midler, I never miss a Marlon Brando musical.
On the flip side, we have Sinatra in a far more serious role, that of the drug addict in Otto Preminger's The Man with the Golden Arm on ABC Sunday night. As Crist points out, while this kind of a story might have been more common by 1967, in 1955 it was very much cutting edge - so much so that the movie was denied the industry's seal of approval, akin today to being released without a rating. Sinatra was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor for this flick, which Crist praises as "gritty with truth, glistening with cinematic effectiveness."
As to the rest of the week, Crist says, "proceed at your own risk" to Under Ten Flags (Tuesday, NBC), a World War II mix of "secondary characters, muddled fact and fantasy, forays into sex-ploitation and inconsistencies" that not even Van Heflin and Charles Laughton can overcome; Good Neighbor Sam (Friday, CBS), a sex farce with Jack Lemmon that leaves "the inevitable implication that marriage is a dirty joke"; Back Street (Saturday, NBC), the third "and hopefully last" version of Fanny Hurst's weeper novel; and The Caretakers (Thursday, CBS), a "cheapjack movie that attempts to give its tawdry melodramatics significance by spouting sententious pieties about mental illness that are as insulting to the medical profession as they are banal for even a near-literate audience." But what do you really think, Judith?
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Some quick hits for the week:
Sports: NBC airs the final two rounds of the Bob Hope Desert Classic, which used to be one of the signature events of the early season (Arnold Palmer was a five-time winner) but now, under the name Humana Challenge, attracts the attention of the golfers' relatives. In the NBA on ABC, Oscar Robertson and the Cincinnati Royals take on Bill Russell and the Boston Celtics. Purdue plays Michigan in the Big Ten Game of the Week, and Minnesota battles Indiana in local coverage.
Variety: Orange juice spokeswoman Anita Bryant is the guest star on Saturday's Lawrence Welk, Steve & Edie, Rowan & Martin, and the Kingston Trio join Andy Williams on Sunday, and Vicki Carr and Fred "Herman Munster" Gwynne share the spotlight with Danny Kaye on Thursday.
News: Sunday afternoon's 21st Century examines how man might explore and colonize the moon. A locall KSTP documentary asks: "Venereal Disease: a Problem in Minnesota?" (ewww...). National Geographic (CBS, Tuesday) takes viewers on a tour of Alaska, less than ten years a state, and later that night CBS Reports examines the growing problem of air pollution. Thursday morning, NBC interrupts the Today show for a live press conference by Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin, who's in London on a week's tour, brought to us via Early Bird satellite.
Celebrity Game Shows: On the Sunday afternoon edition of Password, it's Shelly Winters vs. Barry Nelson. Sunday night's What's My Line? broadcast features the aforementioned Password's Allen Ludden and Phyllis Newman joining regulars Arlene Francis and Bennett Cerf. As for the weekly daytime shows, Dick Gautier, Gisele MacKenzie and Michael Landon are the guests on PDQ, Virginia Graham and Nipsey Russell are on Password, Barry Sullivan and Betty White appear on You Don't Say!, Audrey Meadows and David Susskind (!) are on Match Game, and Hollywood Squares, of course, has the biggest guest list of all: Cliff Robertson, Patti Page, Dana Wynter, Van Williams, Don Rickles, Noel Harrision, Wally Cox, Rose Marie and Charley Weaver. Note who's missing from that lineup? Paul Lynde wasn't a regular yet.
Debuts: The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour isn't the only newcomer this week: on Wedensday, John Astin makes his debut as the new Riddler in Batman. The Riddler's out to rob a bank by flooding the underground vault, and threatens to demolish Gotham police headquarters unless the city legalizes crime. I could make a comment here about Congress, but I think I'll pass.
There wasn't much of interest in the sports section; the most interesting coverage actually comes in the features section, where Stanley Frank lets fly on how sports has sold its soul to television, and is the poorer for it. This is another of those pieces that I think is worthy of its own space, which you'll be reading here in the not-too-distant future. TV
From the May 4, 2013 edition of "This Week in TV Guide" at It's About TV:
