''DuMont Royal Theater'' (also known as ''Royal Playhouse'') is an American dramatic
anthology television 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 ...
1951
Events
January
* January 4 – Korean War: Third Battle of Seoul – Chinese and North Korean forces capture Seoul for the second time (having lost the Second Battle of Seoul in September 1950).
* January 9 – The Government of the United ...
, to June 26,
1952
Events January–February
* January 26 – Black Saturday in Egypt: Rioters burn Cairo's central business district, targeting British and upper-class Egyptian businesses.
* February 6
** Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh, becomes m ...
. The half-hour series ran during the summers, and in 1952 it ran on alternate weeks with ''
Gruen Playhouse
''Gruen Playhouse'' (also known as ''Gruen Guild Playhouse'') is a dramatic anthology series that aired on ABC and the now-defunct DuMont Television Network.
Sponsored by the Gruen Watch Company, the series aired on ABC on Thursdays at 9:30pm E ...
''.
The series helped launch the career of
Hugh O'Brian
Hugh O'Brian (born Hugh Charles Krampe; April 19, 1925 – September 5, 2016) was an American actor and humanitarian, best known for his starring roles in the ABC Western television series ''The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp'' (1955–1 ...
, who later appeared in the popular series ''
The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp
''The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp'' is the first Western television series written for adults, premiering four days before '' Gunsmoke'' on September 6, 1955. Two weeks later came the Clint Walker western ''Cheyenne''. The series is loosely ...
''. Others who appeared on the program included
Mary Sinclair
Mary Sinclair (born Ella Delores Cook; November 15, 1922 – November 5, 2000) was an American television, film and stage actress and “a familiar face to television viewers in the 1950s” as a performer in numerous plays produced and broadca ...
and
Edgar Barrier
Edgar Barrier (March 4, 1907 – June 20, 1964) was an American actor who appeared on radio, stage, and screen. In the 1930s he was a member of Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre and was one of several actors who played Simon Templar on '' The Saint'' ...
. Some sources say the sponsor was Royal Gelatin when it was part of Standard Brands.
Bing Crosby Enterprises produced the program, which was also broadcast with the title ''Crown Theater''. DuMont sponsored the series on 18 TV stations, with a variety of sponsors putting it on the air in other markets. United Television Programs was in charge of rights to reruns.
See also
*
List of programs broadcast by the DuMont Television Network
This is a list of programs broadcast by the DuMont Television Network, which operated in the United States from 1942 to 1956. All regularly scheduled programs which were aired on the DuMont network are listed below, regardless of whether they orig ...
*
List of surviving DuMont Television Network broadcasts
The DuMont Television Network was launched in 1946 and ceased broadcasting in 1956. Allen DuMont, who created the network, preserved most of what it produced in kinescope format. By 1958, however, much of the library had been destroyed to recove ...
References
Bibliography
*David Weinstein, ''The Forgotten Network: DuMont and the Birth of American Television'' (Philadelphia:
Temple University Press
Temple University Press is a university press founded in 1969 that is part of Temple University (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania). It is one of thirteen publishers to participate in the Knowledge Unlatched pilot, a global library consortium approach ...
, 2004)
*Alex McNeil, ''Total Television'', Fourth edition (New York:
Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a British publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.Ballantine Books, 1964)