David C. Tucker - The Women Who Made Television Funny: Ten Stars of 1950s Sitcoms

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

ISBN-13: 978-0-7864-2900-4

British Library cataloguing data are available

2007 David C. Tucker. All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Cover photograph: Gracie Allen from The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, 19501958 (CBS/Photofest)

To my mother
Louise Curtis Tucker
with love, admiration, and gratitude

Im grateful to a number of people whose help and encouragement enriched this book and kept its author on track. It was my great privilege to interview two of the leading ladies celebrated in these pages. Gale Storm was not only as charming and delightful as Margie Albright herself, but candid, funny, and extremely generous with her time. Betty White, a true class act, responded within days to my interview request, and kindly filled in some gaps in my understanding of her early television work.

Since many of their fellow 1950s sitcom stars are no longer with us, I am especially grateful for the family members and colleagues who agreed to share recollections. Douglas Brooks West, himself a busy screenwriter and producer, talked with me about his mother, Eve Arden. Actor Robert Fuller played phone tag with me for several days not so that he could talk about himself or his own career, but so as to sing the praises of his late friend and co-star Spring Byington. I was also fortunate to speak with the legendary comedy writer Sherwood Schwartz, who refreshed his memory on working with Joan Davis by pulling from his office bookshelves bound volumes of I Married Joan scripts he penned more than fifty years ago.

For most of my adult life, Ive been privileged to work at the DeKalb County Public Library, and a better group of colleagues would be tough to find. My longtime boss and friend Magda Sossa, who has been supportive of me in many ways over the past ten years, spent hours proofreading and critiquing this book. Her efforts are much appreciated, as is the encouragement of people like Jane Richards and Emile Worthy, who make the workday at the Library Processing Center so much more enjoyable. DCPLs Kristi Gregory and Graham Reiney were helpful with research assistance and obtaining needed library materials, and Tamika Maddox contributed superior indexing skills. Resources available in the Woodruff Library at Emory University, and the University of Georgia Libraries, were valuable as well.

Family and friends have enriched my life in more ways than I can recount here. Among those who deserve a nodat leastare Edward and Louise Tucker, Donna Sassone and the fabulous Sassones (Torry, Tim, and Danny), Ken McCullers, Bennie Crudup, the Gelmini clan (David, Heather, Andrew, and Tyler), Jennifer Myers, Ron Roberts, Jacquie Roch, Joann Sexton, and Ethel Watson. A new friend, scholar and Kay Francis biographer Dr. Lynn Kear, shared her publishing expertise with me.

Finally, for reasons any media researcher or collector who reads this will surely understand, my sincere thanks to Mr. Pierre M. Omidyar, founder of eBay.

David C. Tucker
January 2007

This book pays tribute to ten prominent television actresses who played lead roles in popular comedy shows of the 1950s. Pioneers in the television industry, these women created memorable characters that would have a long-standing influence on TV comedy.

Naturally any list of early female sitcom stars would have to include the magnificent Lucille Ball, and her timeless I Love Lucy, and indeed she and her show are prominently featured here. But Lucy was by no means the only comedic actress to headline a popular TV sitcom of that era. Among her peers who captured the attention of audiences are Gracie Allen (The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show), Eve Arden (Our Miss Brooks), Spring Byington (December Bride), Joan Davis (I Married Joan), Anne Jeffreys (Topper), Donna Reed (The Donna Reed Show), Ann Sothern (Private Secretary and The Ann Sothern Show), Gale Storm (My Little Margie and The Gale Storm Show: Oh! Susanna), and Betty White (Life with Elizabeth). All starred in popular shows that debuted between 1950 and 1959in fact, most of these shows ranked among the top 25 in ratings at least once during their runand all are profiled here.

Television comedy of the 1950s provided great opportunities for the comedic actress who could front her own show. The women featured here headlined their own sitcoms and were, with one exception, the top-billed stars of those shows. These actresses and their characters were the primary laugh-getters on some of the most highly rated sitcoms of the 1950s, shows that were noteworthy not only for their popularity, but for their innovation and creativity in the then-young medium of television. Female sitcom stars of a later generationMarlo Thomas, Mary Tyler Moore, even Roseanneowed a debt to these talented women who clearly demonstrated the drawing power of a funny woman.

But while Lucille Ball is still enormously popular with audiences, some of her peers from the 1950s prime time TV schedules have been neglected in recent years. December Bride, a Top Tenrated CBS sitcom from the Desilu factory, is virtually unseen today, and its star, Spring Byington, is not widely known to viewing audiences. The same is true of Joan Davis, once radios highest-paid comedienne, whose TV sitcom I Married Joan has suffered a similar fate. While I Love Lucy is being released season by season on DVD, with episodes lovingly restored and series history and trivia carefully preserved, Joan scarcely exists on todays consumer DVD market, and is no longer rerun.

Like many baby boomers, I first encountered several of these actresses and their hit shows of the 1950s in syndicated TV reruns of the late 1960s and early 1970s. I Love Lucy and Lucy Ricardo have been part of my consciousness for so long, as they are for millions of Americans, that I can no longer remember when I first encountered that showits always been there. But I do remember, at the age of eleven or twelve, a local TV stations summer reruns of Our Miss Brooks, where I was instantly drawn to the distinctive style and dry comic delivery of Eve Arden. A year or two later, another stations rerun schedule introduced me to Topper, which intrigued me not only for its ghostly happenings and unique special effects, but also for its captivatingly beautiful and seductive leading lady, Anne Jeffreys.

And who could watch Burns and Allen without falling under the spell of the marvelous Gracie Allen, and her distinctively illogical logic? (Its infectiousone day recently, having just watched an episode, I heard someone say that their professional specialty was termite repair, and found myself thinking, I didnt know you could repair termites.)