Anne's Day

Happy birthday to talented and lovely Anne Jeffreys, who turns 93 today. Her career as an actress has encompassed everything from Broadway to daytime soap operas. But she may be best known as Marion Kerby, "the ghostess with the mostest," on the 1950s television classic Topper.

She's featured, alongside nine other pioneering sitcom stars, in my book The Women Who Made Television Funny.

The Anti-Binge Watcher

Star Judi Dench (center) is flanked by (l-r): Philip Bretherton, Geoffrey Palmer, Jenny Funnell, and Moira Brooker.

Although "binge watching" of favorite TV shows seems to be the norm these days, I wonder if anyone's coined a term to describe its opposite -- the deliberate, leisurely savoring of each episode. That's where I am these days with As Time Goes By, the charming, low-key BBC sitcom that, much to my regret, I've almost finished watching. I don't really want to look at the DVD box and see how many episodes I have left, but I think it's only nine or ten.

For me, this series, written by Bob Larbey, has the rare capacity to make its characters seem so real and relatable that you begin to think them almost as friends. And although I probably have more in common with Geoffrey Palmer's Lionel than I might care to admit, I enjoy all the actors and their characters. I find myself thinking about Jean and Lionel, Judith, Alistair, and Sandy between episodes, wondering what lies ahead for them in life.

So while I'd love to watch an episode (or two) today, I might just hold off just a bit longer.

Look! It's Frank Aletter -- Again

Someone at CBS in the 1960s really liked actor Frank Aletter -- a lot. Born 90 years ago today, Aletter (1926-2009) never had a starring role in a hit sitcom -- but it wasn't for lack of trying. In Bringing Up Buddy (1960-61), he played a young man being "raised" by his two elderly aunts. When that one didn't catch on, he returned with The Cara Williams Show (1964-65), unfortunately another flop, and reportedly an extremely tense set on which to work. The third time wasn't the charm when he was cast as a time-traveling astronaut in Sherwood Schwartz's It's About Time, which didn't make it beyond the 1966-67 season.

Though his lead roles in sitcoms didn't pay off big for him, Aletter was still one of the busiest actors in TV for years afterward. A very incomplete checklist of shows in which he appeared would include Perry Mason, M*A*S*H, The Fugitive, The Mod Squad, Medical Center, Ironside ... seemingly every popular show of the 1960s and 1970s. In 1985, he was a guest star in the pilot episode of The Golden Girls, playing Harry, the man Blanche thought she wanted to marry, who despite his outwardly charming and elegant demeanor is memorably (and correctly) assessed by Sophia as "a scuzzball."

For more information on Aletter, and his role in It's About Time, check out my book Lost Laughs of '50s and '60s Television. 

New Stuff to Read

This just-released catalog from my publisher features nearly 200 books to be published this spring and summer, including several tantalizing items in the Pop Culture section. Take a look!

Buster's Book

Made any resolutions as we venture forth into 2016? Looks like Buster Keaton has at least a few. I don't think I'll need a journal quite as hefty as The Great Stone Face has chosen, but I can probably think of a few things I could try to do differently.

Like update my blog more than once a week, perhaps? Happy New Year!

Eve on Demand

I'm pleased to see the success of The Warner Archive Collection and other efforts to bring older movies out of studio vaults and back into public view. For too long, fans have had to hope that the movies they want to see will turn up on TCM or other cable channels, or buy bootleg copies of dubious quality.

The Voice of the Turtle: Eve, Eleanor Parker, Ronald Reagan.

The folks at Warner, for example, have made it easier to see at least ten films featuring my beloved Eve Arden. They cover nearly the entirety of her career, from the likable comedy Having Wonderful Time (1938) to her quirky role as royalty in Under the Rainbow (1981).

My strongest recommendation, however, is for those of you who've never seen her memorable supporting performance in the charming romantic comedy The Voice of the Turtle (1947). If this film fails to turn up on your list of top ten Eve Arden movies, it's probably because you haven't seen it.

Take care of that first chance you get, OK? Then come back and tell me how much you loved it.

Getting to Know Gene Rayburn

Adam Nedeff's The Matchless Gene Rayburn (BearManor Media, $32.95) is an amazingly detailed, authoritative biography of the man who, for all his other accomplishments, is best-
remembered as the zany host of one of TV's most popular game shows, Match Game. 

By Nedeff's account, Rayburn was often frustrated by the way Match Game overshadowed other aspects of his career, and how he was pigeonholed as a game show host. I think the man himself would be pleased by the amount of attention given in this book to his work as a radio disc jockey and announcer for The Tonight Show, as well as his Broadway performances. Nedeff says, "My hope for this book is that it makes that image on the TV screen a little more three-dimensional." I'd say that's a goal he fully accomplishes. Two important elements that help are the author's access to some of the late star's own reminiscences, and interviews with many people important to both his personal and professional life, including his daughter Lynne.

But if you want to know about Match Game (I certainly did), there's a lengthy and fascinating section devoted to that topic. I was interested to read about the sometimes-tense relationship between Rayburn, who had his own freewheeling, improvisational style as an emcee, and producer Mark Goodson, a purist who thought nothing should distract attention from the game itself. The show's long history, from its original, more staid version in the 1960s, to its revival as Match Game '73, and even the disastrous 1983-84 revival that welded it to Hollywood Squares in an hour-long version that quickly tanked, is covered in full. I found it great fun to learn about how those wacky Match Game questions were contrived, the trouble that arose from time to time with CBS censors, and the ways in which network scheduling unnecessarily shortened its run.

Nedeff is also the author of other books on game shows, including a biography of Quizmaster Bill Cullen, which I plan to investigate sooner rather than later. He also has a website, Game Show Utopia. 

P.S. No disclaimer today --  I bought my own copy at full price, and didn't even get any parting gifts.