TV Guide for the week of November 6-12, 1954, featured George Burns and Gracie Allen, the married pair of comedians at the top of their careers.
First interior spread for the cover story.
The end of the cover story on the left, and a page telling of the humorous gifts various stars had received from their fans.
A full-color spread touting the use of "stars" on TV dramas that season, including here, Helen Hayes, Fredric March, Claudette Colbert and Nancy Olsen.
Lucille Ball, dressed as Marilyn Monroe for an episode of her wildly popular TV show, shows I will still watch every time I find them on TV. The right side featured some TV news and the key to the listings following.
A typical listings page for the week's TV programming. I was especially amused by the small ad in the lower right corner for the next week's TV Guide, "Liberace's Mystery Woman, Unmasked! Read all about his favorite date, who she is, how they met...." I"m guessing it was his mother, rofl.
- Also check out the 1954 Christmas TV Guide, here.
I've always loved Burns and Allen -- Gracie Allen was brilliant at portraying the "Gracie" character. She retired just four years after this TV Guide -- a great loss I've always thought. There are many of her lines that can make me laugh out loud just thinking about. I could start quoting them right here but I won't! George Burns, of course, had a pretty remarkable "second act" as a solo and lived to 99. He just missed his goal of performing in Vegas on his 100th birthday. And Ronnie Burns was pretty good to look at in the later seasons of the B&A show!
ReplyDeleteAnd don't get me started on I Love Lucy! I still watch it (now on the Hallmark Channel) whenever I can. One of my claims to fame was that George W. S. Trow, a writer and New Yorker correspondent, set up a lunch for me at the Algonquin on my 26th birthday with -- wait for it -- Vivian Vance as the guest star! He wrote it up for a Talk of the Town piece in July 1974. She was about to have an autobiography published but it never happened even though her husband was the publisher. She said it was to be called There's a Hill Beyond a Hill. She was gracious and sophisticated and very un-Ethel-like.
Paul, NYC
I've heard that about Vance before, it's nice to know it was true!
ReplyDeleteThis is why I enjoy my blog so much. It evokes memories in just the same way as my art does when people see it in person. I love to tell a story, or show a story, and get the ball rolling for other people's stories and remembrances. Thank you, Paul!
In fact, re Vivian Vance, she was quite the party girl -- there's a book called something like The Real Ethel Mertz that's a very juicy biography of her.
ReplyDeleteAnd Gracie Allen is from San Francisco -- she grew up on Castro Street in what was then called Eureka Valley -- a neighborhood of Irish working class folks.
My how times changes!
Paul, NYC
Oh I bet you can hear some working men screaming Eureka! almost any night on Castro, lol. : )
ReplyDeleteYou may well be right but the latest I've been on Castro Street at night was last night at about 9:00, when my friend Jimmy and I left the Castro Theatre where we'd just seen Rear Window (they were having a mini-festival of Grace Kelly movies -- "Style and Grace"). One of my favorite things about Rear Window is the cars that pass by the street end of the alley -- Hitchcock, who never selected cars randomly in his movies -- uses English Fords (I can't tell if they are Consuls or Zephyrs) but he has them done up as NYC police cars, yellow cabs, and just cars. He also uses a Ford Popular, a pre-war design that was in production in England until 1957, and a 50-52 Rambler convertible. He used small cars to help with the perspective. He was a true genius. The day before we went to a matinee of To Catch a Thief, where Grace Kelly drives Cary Grant in a Sunbeam Alpine and the police chase them in a Citroen Traction Avant, of course! Cary Grant's car is one of those big French cars from before the war -- Delage or Delahaye -- I never know the difference, I'm ashamed to say!
ReplyDeletePaul, NYC
I would love to see Hitchcock films in a theater. I've only seen them on TV. His cars are always interesting as you say. I just watched Vertigo a while ago, and Jimmy Stewart drove a cool DeSoto and Kim Novak a gorgeous green Jaguar sedan. I've seen parts of Rear Window, but only the scenes in his apartment. I'll have to catch it again all the way through. Hitchcock was a genius and an artist. I'm not sure who would compare with him that's directing today.
ReplyDeleteI WROTE A LARGE POST LAST NIGHT ON THIS SUBJECT, IT MUST HAVE GOTTEN LOST.IT'S OK. LOVED GEORGE AND GRACEIE. LUCY, JERRY AND DEAN. GOOD TIMES. NO DIRTY TALK JUST CLEAN GOOD CLEAN FUN. WHERE DID THOSE DAYS GO.
ReplyDeleteNOW BACK TO MY CHURCH SERVICE. HAVE FUN TODAY AND SMILE AT A HOMELESS PERSON AND LET THEM KNOW YOU CARE.
GRANNY
I don't think there's anyone working today who can compare to Hitchcock. Everyone directing these days takes themselves SO seriously. Hitchcock had a real sense of humor about his films, even though many of them were about murder and things like that. However, there was never any gore or violence. He would have thought that to be in very poor taste! There's a famous quote of his made to Ingrid Bergman when she was agonizing over how to play a scene. He said, "it's only a movie Ingrid." That sums him up pretty well!
ReplyDeletePaul, NYC
I love that quote! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteME TOO. GRANNY AND GOOD NIGHT / THAT'S ALL FOLKS.
ReplyDeleteGRANNY
I, too, think Hitchcock was "the master". Just a great filmmaker. And of course I've seen so many of the Lucy shows that even repeats still make me laugh.
ReplyDeleteA little side note about your TV Guide, Casey. When I was about 8 I had a TV Guide route! Before they were sent via mail, they were delivered and I delivered them! Boy people wanted them on Wednesday when they came out for the next week, too! LOL I got to keep 11 cents an issue for my services and that's how I learned to multiply just about anything by 11 in my head. Good memories!
thanks for the TV guide memories, Katie! i didn't know they were delivered like that. I remember that my mother gave the subscription to Hoohoo every year for Xmas and Hoohoo gave a year's sub to my mother every year for her birthday in August, lol. That went on for 30 years. AFter Hoohoo died, her husband never thought about things like that, and I know that every time my mother bought a TV guide after that she'd think about her. Funny how little things like that can get to you.
ReplyDelete