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Family Theater
''Family Theater'' is a weekly half-hour dramatic anthology radio program which aired on the Mutual Broadcasting System in the United States from February 13, 1947, to September 11, 1957. Production history ''Family Theater'' developed from a Rosary prayer program on a local radio station in Albany, New York, started in 1943 by Holy Cross priest Patrick Peyton. On Mother's Day 1945, he produced a similar national radio program on the Mutual Broadcasting System. In 1947, Peyton formed Family Theater Productions, a film and radio studio extension of the Family Rosary Crusade founded by Peyton to promote family prayer. The program had no commercial sponsor. By agreement with the Mutual network, the radio dramas were nonsectarian but focused on moral problems. Mutual provided the airtime, while Peyton covered production costs through donations. A total of 482 original episodes were produced. The program featured not only religious stories, but also half-hour adaptations of liter ...
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Anthology Series
An anthology series is a radio, television, video game or film series that spans different genres and presents a different story and a different set of characters in each different episode, season, segment, or short. These usually have a different cast in each episode, but several series in the past, such as ''Four Star Playhouse'', employed a permanent troupe of character actors who would appear in a different drama each week. Some anthology series, such as '' Studio One'', began on radio and then expanded to television. Etymology The word comes from Ancient Greek ἀνθολογία (''anthología'', “flower-gathering”), from ἀνθολογέω (''anthologéō'', "I gather flowers"), from ἄνθος (''ánthos'', "flower") + λέγω (''légō'', "I gather, pick up, collect"), coined by Meleager of Gadara circa 60 BCE, originally as Στέφανος (στέφανος (''stéphanos'', "garland")) to describe a collection of poetry, later retitled anthology – see Gr ...
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Lucille Ball
Lucille Désirée Ball (August 6, 1911 – April 26, 1989) was an American actress, comedienne and producer. She was nominated for 13 Primetime Emmy Awards, winning five times, and was the recipient of several other accolades, such as the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award and two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She earned many honors, including the Women in Film Crystal Award, an induction into the Television Hall of Fame, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Kennedy Center Honors, and the Governors Award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Ball's career began in 1929 when she landed work as a model. Shortly thereafter, she began her performing career on Broadway using the stage name Diane (or Dianne) Belmont. She later appeared in films in the 1930s and 1940s as a contract player for RKO Radio Pictures, being cast as a chorus girl or in similar roles, with lead roles in B-pictures and supporting roles in A-pictures. During this time, she met Cuban bandlea ...
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Chuck Connors
Kevin Joseph Aloysius "Chuck" Connors (April 10, 1921 – November 10, 1992) was an American actor, writer, and professional basketball and baseball player. He is one of only 13 athletes in the history of American professional sports to have played in both Major League Baseball ( Brooklyn Dodgers 1949, Chicago Cubs, 1951) and the National Basketball Association ( Boston Celtics 1946–48). With a 40-year film and television career, he is best known for his five-year role as Lucas McCain in the highly rated ABC series ''The Rifleman'' (1958–63). Early life and education Connors was born on April 10, 1921, in Brooklyn, New York City, the elder of two children born to Marcella () and Alban Francis "Allan" Connors, immigrants of Irish descent from Newfoundland and Labrador."Fifteenth Censu ...
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William Shatner
William Shatner (born March 22, 1931) is a Canadian actor. In a career spanning seven decades, he is best known for his portrayal of James T. Kirk in the ''Star Trek'' franchise, from his 1965 debut as the captain of the starship USS Enterprise (NCC-1701), ''Enterprise'' in the Where No Man Has Gone Before, second pilot of the Star Trek: The Original Series, first ''Star Trek'' television series to his final appearance as Captain Kirk in the seventh ''Star Trek'' feature film, ''Star Trek Generations'' (1994). Shatner began his screen acting career in Canadian films and television productions before moving into guest-starring roles in various US television shows. He appeared as James Kirk in all the episodes of ''Star Trek: The Original Series'', 21 of the 22 episodes of ''Star Trek: The Animated Series'', and the first seven List of Star Trek films, ''Star Trek'' movies. He has written a series of books chronicling his experiences before, during and after his time in a Starfl ...
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Kate Smith
Kathryn Elizabeth Smith (May 1, 1907 – June 17, 1986) was an American contralto. Referred to as The First Lady of Radio, Smith is well known for her renditions of Irving Berlin's "God Bless America" & "When The Moon Comes Over The Mountain". In more recent times, she has also been associated with controversial songs containing racially insensitive themes and undertones. She had a radio, television, and recording career spanning five decades, which reached its pinnacle in the 1940s. She became known as The Songbird of the South because of her tremendous popularity during World War II. Early life She was born on May 1, 1907, in Greenville, Virginia, to Charlotte 'Lottie' Yarnell (''née'' Hanby) and William Herman Smith, growing up in Washington, D.C. Her father owned the Capitol News Company, distributing newspapers and magazines in the greater D.C. area. She was the youngest of three daughters, the middle child dying in infancy. She failed to talk until she was four years old ...
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Gene Kelly
Eugene Curran Kelly (August 23, 1912 – February 2, 1996) was an American actor, dancer, singer, filmmaker, and choreographer. He was known for his energetic and athletic dancing style and sought to create a new form of American dance accessible to the general public, "dance for the common man." He starred in, choreographed, and co-directed with Stanley Donen some of the most well-regarded musical films of the 1940s and 1950s. Kelly is best known for his performances in ''An American in Paris'' (1951), which won the Academy Award for Best Picture, ''Singin' in the Rain'' (1952), which he and Donen directed and choreographed, and other musical films of that era such as ''Cover Girl'' (1944) and ''Anchors Aweigh'' (1945), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. '' On the Town'' (1949), which he co-directed with Donen, was his directorial debut. Later in the 1950s, as musicals waned in popularity, he starred in ''Brigadoon'' (1954) and ''It's Always Fair Wea ...
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Jack Benny
Jack Benny (born Benjamin Kubelsky, February 14, 1894 – December 26, 1974) was an American entertainer who evolved from a modest success playing violin on the vaudeville circuit to one of the leading entertainers of the twentieth century with a highly popular comedic career in radio, television, and film. He was known for his comic timing and the ability to cause laughter with a long pause or a single expression, such as his signature exasperated summation "''Well!''" His radio and television programs, popular from 1932 until his death in 1974, were a major influence on the sitcom genre. Benny portrayed himself as a miser who obliviously played his violin badly and claimed perpetually to be 39 years of age. Early life Benny was born Benjamin Kubelsky in Chicago, Illinois, on February 14, 1894, and grew up in nearby Waukegan. He was the son of Jewish immigrants Meyer Kubelsky (1864–1946) and Emma Sachs Kubelsky (1869–1917), sometimes called "Naomi". Meyer was a saloon ow ...
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Bing Crosby
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby Jr. (May 3, 1903 – October 14, 1977) was an American singer, musician and actor. The first multimedia star, he was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century worldwide. He was a leader in record sales, radio ratings, and motion picture grosses from 1926 to 1977. He made over 70 feature films and recorded more than 1,600 songs. His early career coincided with recording innovations that allowed him to develop an intimate singing style that influenced many male singers who followed, such as Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Dean Martin, Dick Haymes, Elvis Presley, and John Lennon. ''Yank'' magazine said that he was "the person who had done the most for the morale of overseas servicemen" during World War II. In 1948, American polls declared him the "most admired man alive", ahead of Jackie Robinson and Pope Pius XII. In 1948, ''Music Digest'' estimated that his recordings filled more than half of the 80,000 weekly hou ...
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Lizabeth Scott
Lizabeth Virginia Scott (born Emma Matzo; September 29, 1921 – January 31, 2015) was an American actress, singer and model for the Walter Thornton Model Agency, known for her "smoky voice" and being "the most beautiful face of film noir during the 1940s and 1950s". After understudying the role of Sabina in the original Broadway and Boston stage productions of ''The Skin of Our Teeth'', she emerged in such films as ''The Strange Love of Martha Ivers'' (1946), ''Dead Reckoning'' (1947), ''Desert Fury'' (1947), and ''Too Late for Tears'' (1949). Of her 22 films, she was the leading lady in all but one. In addition to stage and radio, she appeared on television from the late 1940s to early 1970s. Early life Emma Matzo (Ema Macová in Slovak) was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania,Carole Langer (Soapbox & Praeses Productions, 1996; accessed May 23, 2014), ''Lizabeth Scott 1996 Interview Part 1 of 8'' the oldest of six children born to Mary PenyakJanice H. McElroy (Pennsylvania Division, ...
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Charlton Heston
Charlton Heston (born John Charles Carter; October 4, 1923April 5, 2008) was an American actor and political activist. As a Hollywood star, he appeared in almost 100 films over the course of 60 years. He played Moses in the epic film ''The Ten Commandments'' (1956), for which he received his first nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama and the title role in '' Ben-Hur'' (1959), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor. He also starred in '' The Greatest Show on Earth'' (1952), ''Secret of the Incas'' (1954), ''Touch of Evil'' (1958) with Orson Welles, ''The Big Country'' (1958), ''El Cid'' (1961), ''The Greatest Story Ever Told'' (1965), ''Khartoum'' (1966), ''Planet of the Apes'' (1968), ''The Omega Man'' (1971) and ''Soylent Green'' (1973). In the 1950s and 1960s, he was one of a handful of Hollywood actors to speak openly against racism and was an active supporter of the civil rights movement. Heston left the Democratic Party in ...
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Jane Wyatt
Jane Waddington Wyatt ( ; August 12, 1910 – October 20, 2006) was an American actress. She starred in a number of Hollywood films, such as Frank Capra's ''Lost Horizon'', but is likely best known for her role as the housewife and mother Margaret Anderson on the CBS and NBC television comedy series ''Father Knows Best'', and as Amanda Grayson, the human mother of Spock on the science-fiction television series '' Star Trek''. Wyatt was a three-time Emmy Award–winner. Early life Wyatt was born on August 12, 1910, in Campgaw, a neighborhood in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, and raised in Manhattan. Her father, Christopher Billopp Wyatt Jr., was a Wall Street investment banker and a descendant of Staten Island Loyalist Christopher Billopp. Her mother, Euphemia Van Rensselaer Waddington, was a descendant of the Schuyler family, and was a drama critic for '' Catholic World''. Both of her parents were Roman Catholic converts. Wyatt had two sisters and a brother. Education Whil ...
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Raymond Burr
Raymond William Stacy Burr (May 21, 1917September 12, 1993) was a Canadian actor known for his lengthy Hollywood film career and his title roles in television dramas ''Perry Mason'' and '' Ironside''. Burr's early acting career included roles on Broadway, radio, television, and film, usually as the villain. His portrayal of the suspected murderer in the Alfred Hitchcock thriller ''Rear Window'' (1954) is his best-known film role, although he is also remembered for his role in the 1956 film ''Godzilla, King of the Monsters!'', which he reprised in the 1985 film ''Godzilla 1985''. He won Emmy Awards for acting in 1959 and 1961 for the role of Perry Mason, which he played for nine seasons (1957–1966) and reprised in a series of 26 Perry Mason TV movies (1985–1993). His second TV series, '' Ironside,'' earned him six Emmy and two Golden Globe nominations. Burr died of cancer in 1993, and his personal life came into question, as many details of his biography appeared to be unve ...
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