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Your Play Time
''Your Play Time'' is a 30-minute American television anthology series that ran as a summer replacement show in 1953, 1954, and 1955. The first two seasons contained live and filmed dramas, often with foreign settings. The 1955 season had comedic and dramatic episodes, all on film and all set in America. In seasons one and two (1953–54) it was the summer replacement for Ann Sothern's ''Private Secretary'' and ''The Jack Benny Program''. In 1954, episodes were "re-runs of films from various series". In the third season it replaced ''Your Hit Parade''. Guest stars that included Hillary Brooke, Peter Graves, Jack Haley, George Nader, Tommy Rettig, and Ruth Warrick. Episodes were broadcast from June 14, 1953, to September 6, 1953; June 13, 1954, to September 5, 1954; and June 18, 1955, to September 3, 1955. In 1954, the sponsor was American Tobacco Company The American Tobacco Company was a tobacco company founded in 1890 by J. B. Duke through a merger between a number of U.S. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ann Sothern
Ann Sothern (born Harriette Arlene Lake; January 22, 1909 – March 15, 2001) was an American actress who worked on stage, radio, film, and television, in a career that spanned nearly six decades. Sothern began her career in the late 1920s in bit parts in films. In 1930, she made her Broadway stage debut and soon worked her way up to starring roles. In 1939, MGM cast her as Maisie Ravier, a brash yet lovable Brooklyn showgirl. The character, based on the ''Maisie'' short stories by Nell Martin, proved to be popular and spawned a successful film series (''Congo Maisie'', ''Gold Rush Maisie'', ''Up Goes Maisie'', etc.) and a network radio series (''The Adventures of Maisie''). In 1953, Sothern moved into television as the star of her own sitcom ''Private Secretary''. The series aired for five seasons on CBS and earned Sothern three Primetime Emmy Award nominations. In 1958, she starred in another sitcom for CBS, ''The Ann Sothern Show'', which aired for three seasons. From ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Private Secretary (TV Series)
''Private Secretary'' (also known as ''Susie'') is an American sitcom that aired from February 1, 1953, to September 10, 1957, on CBS, alternating with ''The Jack Benny Program'' on Sundays at 7:30pm EST. The series stars Ann Sothern as Susan Camille "Susie" MacNamara, devoted secretary to handsome talent agent Peter Sands, played by Don Porter. Overview Susie MacNamara (Sothern) is a former stage actress, a WAC veteran of World War II and single woman who works as the private secretary for theatrical agent Peter Sands (Porter) at the fictional New York theatrical agency International Artists Inc. Susie's honest, good-natured attempts to help Mr. Sands, especially in romantic matters, always leads to comedic complications. Susie is usually assisted by her best friend, Violet "Vi" Praskins (Ann Tyrrell), the office's nervous and bumbling receptionist. In guest appearances, Jesse White played Mickey "Cagey" Calhoun, a chief competitor and loudmouthed agent business rival to Susie's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Jack Benny Program
''The Jack Benny Program'', starring Jack Benny, is a radio-TV comedy series that ran for more than three decades and is generally regarded as a high-water mark in 20th century American comedy. He played one role throughout his radio and television careers, a caricature of himself as a minimally talented musician and penny pincher who was the butt of all the jokes. Producer Hilliard Marks was the brother of Benny's wife Mary Livingstone. Format On both television and radio, ''The Jack Benny Program'' used a loose show-within-a-show format, wherein the main characters were playing versions of themselves. The show often broke the fourth wall, with the characters interacting with the audience and commenting on the program and its advertisements. In his first years on radio (c. 1932–1935), Jack Benny followed the format of many other radio comedians, standing at the microphone, telling jokes and stories, and introducing band numbers. As the characters of Jack and his cast became ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Your Hit Parade
''Your Hit Parade'' was an American radio and television music program that was broadcast from 1935 to 1953 on radio, and seen from 1950 to 1959 on television. It was sponsored by American Tobacco's Lucky Strike cigarettes. During its 24-year run, the show had 19 orchestra leaders and 52 singers or groups. Many fans inaccurately referred to the show as ''The Hit Parade''. When the show debuted, there was no agreement on its title. The press referred to it by several names, with the most common being "Hit Parade", "The Hit Parade", and even "The Lucky Strike Hit Parade", also "The Lucky Strike Parade". The program title officially became "Your Hit Parade" on November 9, 1935. Every Saturday evening, the program offered the most popular and bestselling songs of the week. The earliest format involved a presentation of the top 15 songs. Later, a countdown with fanfares led to the top three finalists, with the number one song for the finale. Occasional performances of standards and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hillary Brooke
Hillary Brooke (born Beatrice Sofia Mathilda Peterson; September 8, 1914 – May 25, 1999) was an American film actress. Career A 5′6″ blonde from the Astoria neighborhood of New York City's borough of Queens, Brooke, who was of Swedish ancestry, started work as a model while attending Columbia University. She spent a year in the United Kingdom, mastering an RP accent that she used in several of her films. She frequently played English women in Hollywood films, and also had such a role in her only British-made film, '' The House Across the Lake''. Brooke began her acting career in movies, co-starring in two Sherlock Holmes films with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, ''Sherlock Holmes Faces Death'' (1943) and ''The Woman in Green'' (1945). She was a regular on several television series of the early 1950s, playing Roberta Townsend, the glamorous love interest of Margie's father Vern Albright on the 1952–1955 TV series ''My Little Margie''. On ''The Abbott and Costello S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Graves
Peter Graves (born Peter Duesler Aurness; March 18, 1926 – March 14, 2010) was an American actor. He was best known for his role as Jim Phelps in the CBS television series '' Mission: Impossible'' from 1967 to 1973 (original) and from 1988 to 1990 (revival). His elder brother was actor James Arness. Graves was also known for his portrayal of airline pilot Captain Clarence Oveur in the 1980 comedy film ''Airplane!'' and its 1982 sequel '' Airplane II: The Sequel''. Early life and education Peter Graves was born Peter Duesler Aurness on March 18, 1926, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of Rolf Cirkler Aurness (1894–1982), a businessman, and his wife Ruth (''née'' Duesler, died 1986), a journalist. Graves's ancestry was Norwegian, German, and English. He used the stage name Graves, a maternal family name, to honor his mother's family, and also so as to not be confused with his elder brother James Arness, star of the television series ''Gunsmoke''. Graves graduated from South ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jack Haley
John Joseph Haley Jr. (August 10, 1897 – June 6, 1979) was an American actor, comedian, dancer, radio host, singer and vaudevillian. He was best known for his portrayal of the Tin Man and his farmhand counterpart Hickory in the 1939 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film '' The Wizard of Oz''. Early life Haley was born on August 10, 1897. His father was a waiter by trade, and later a ship's steward. He died in the wreck of the schooner Charles A. Briggs at Nahant, Massachusetts on February 1, 1898, when Jack was almost six months old. He had one older brother, William Anthony "Bill" Haley, a musician, who died of pneumonia in 1916 at the age of twenty-one after contracting tuberculosis. Career Haley headlined in vaudeville as a song-and-dance comedian. One of his closest friends was Fred Allen, who would frequently mention "Mr. Jacob Haley of Newton Highlands, Massachusetts" on the air. Haley made a few phonograph records in 1923, and in the early 1930s, Haley starred in comedy shorts f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Nader
George Garfield Nader, Jr. (October 19, 1921 – February 4, 2002) was an American actor and writer. He appeared in a variety of films from 1950 to 1974, including ''Sins of Jezebel'' (1953), ''Congo Crossing'' (1956), and ''The Female Animal'' (1958). During this period, he also did episodic television and starred in several series, including NBC's ''The Man and the Challenge'' (1959–60). In the 1960s he made several films in Germany, playing FBI agent Jerry Cotton. He is remembered for his first starring role, in the low-budget 3-D sci-fi film ''Robot Monster'' (1953), known as "one of the worst films ever made.” Discreetly gay during his acting career, he and his life partner Mark Miller were among Rock Hudson's closest friends. After retiring from acting, he wrote ''Chrome'' (1978), a science-fiction novel dealing positively with a same-sex relationship. Early life Nader was born in Pasadena, California, the son of Alice (née Scott), who was from Kansas, and George Ga ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tommy Rettig
Thomas Noel Rettig (December 10, 1941 – February 15, 1996) was an American child actor, computer software engineer, and author. He is remembered for portraying the character "Jeff Miller" in the first three seasons of CBS's '' Lassie'' television series, from 1954 to 1957, later seen in syndicated re-runs with the title ''Jeff's Collie''. He also co-starred with another former child actor, Tony Dow, in the mid-1960s television teen soap opera ''Never Too Young'' and recorded the song by that title with the group, The TR-4. Early life and acting career Rettig was born to a Jewish father, Elias Rettig, and a Christian Italian–American mother, Rosemary Nibali, in Jackson Heights in the Queens borough of New York City. He started his career at the age of six, on tour with Mary Martin in the play '' Annie Get Your Gun'', in which he played Little Jake. Rettig was selected from among 500 boys for the role of Jeff Miller, to star in the first '' Lassie'' television se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ruth Warrick
Ruth Elizabeth Warrick (June 29, 1916 – January 15, 2005) was an American singer, actress and political activist, best known for her role as Phoebe Tyler Wallingford on '' All My Children'', which she played regularly from 1970 until her death in 2005. She made her film debut in '' Citizen Kane'', and years later celebrated her 80th birthday by attending a special screening of the film. Early life and career Ruth Warrick was born June 29, 1916, in Saint Joseph, Missouri, to Frederick Roswell Warrick and Annie Louise Warrick, nee Scott. By writing an essay in high school called "Prevention and Cure of Tuberculosis", Warrick won a contest to be Miss Jubilesta, Missouri's paid ambassador to New York City. There she began her career as a radio singer, and met her first husband Erik Rolf. Warrick's first big break was being hired by a young Orson Welles for '' Citizen Kane'' (1941), in which she played Emily Monroe Norton, niece of the President of the United States and K ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Tobacco Company
The American Tobacco Company was a tobacco company founded in 1890 by J. B. Duke through a merger between a number of U.S. tobacco manufacturers including Allen and Ginter and Goodwin & Company. The company was one of the original 12 members of the Dow Jones Industrial Average in 1896. The American Tobacco Company dominated the industry by acquiring the Lucky Strike Company and over 200 other rival firms. Antitrust action begun in 1907 broke the company into several major companies in 1911. The American Tobacco Company restructured itself in 1969, forming a holding company called American Brands, Inc., which operated American Tobacco as a subsidiary. American Brands acquired a variety of non-tobacco businesses during the 1970s and 1980s and sold its tobacco operations to Brown & Williamson in 1994. American Brands subsequently renamed itself "Fortune Brands". History Origins James Buchanan Duke's entrance into the cigarette industry came about in 1879 when he elected to e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1950s American Anthology Television Series
Year 195 ( CXCV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Scrapula and Clemens (or, less frequently, year 948 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 195 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years. Events By place Roman Empire * Emperor Septimius Severus has the Roman Senate deify the previous emperor Commodus, in an attempt to gain favor with the family of Marcus Aurelius. * King Vologases V and other eastern princes support the claims of Pescennius Niger. The Roman province of Mesopotamia rises in revolt with Parthian support. Severus marches to Mesopotamia to battle the Parthians. * The Roman province of Syria is divided and the role of Antioch is diminished. The Romans annexed the Syrian cities of Edessa and Nisibis. Severus re-establish his head ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
