AND AWAY WE GO!

 

There has been a long-standing tradition of making successful television shows out of popular Broadway plays and theatrical movies, from THE NAKED CITY, TOPPER and MR LUCKY to MASH, THE ODD COUPLE, and ALICE.  A while back Hollywood began to reverse the trend, making inferior films based on successful television series.

The first tv series based on a play and/or movie was MAMA, based on the 1944 play and 1948 movie I REMEMBER MAMA.  The show ran on CBS from July 1, 1949 to July 27, 1956.  The cast included a young Dick Van Patten of EIGHT IS ENOUGH.

The second series taken from a play and/or movie was THE FRONT PAGE, starring real life journalist John Daly (who would later become famous at the host of WHAT’S MY LINE) as newspaper editor Walter Burns.  It had a brief run from September 29, 1949, to January 26, 1950.

The third movie turned into a television series was THE LIFE OF RILEY, a successful radio comedy that was made into a movie in 1948.  Both the radio show and the movie, and eventually the tv series, starred William Bendix as Chester A Riley.  But Bendix was not tv’s first Riley.

Television’s first Chester A Riley was none other than “honeymooner” Jackie Gleason. 

William Bendix was supposed to have starred in the initial television version, but Bendix's RKO Radio Pictures movie contract prevented him from appearing. 

The first series was telecast from October 4, 1949 to March 28, 1950.  It won television's first Emmy, for "Best Film Made For and Shown on Television". According to Wikipedia it came to an end because the producer and the sponsor, Pabst Brewing Company, reached an impasse on extending the series for a full 39-week season.

The show returned on January 2, 1953, with a totally new cast that now included William Bendix as Chester A and Marjorie Reynolds as Mrs. Riley, and lasted for 6 seasons.  I remember watching it as a child.

Speaking of first actors to appear in a role and Jackie Gleason – Audrey Meadows, who became famous as Alice Kramden on the iconic HONEYMOONERS tv show, was not the first actress to portray Alice on tv.  The original Alice Kramden, to Jackie Gleason’s Ralph when “the Honeymooners” first appeared as a regular series of skits on the DuMont Network's "Cavalcade of Stars" was Pert Kelton

Kelton appeared in the original 10 to 20-minute sketches.  She was abruptly replaced by Audrey Meadows as a result of blacklisting - the practice of denying employment to screenwriters, actors, directors, musicians, and other American entertainment professionals during the mid-20th century because they were accused of having Communist ties or sympathies, a practice that grew out of Joseph McCarthy’s House Un-American Activities Committee witch hunt.  Instead of acknowledging she was being blacklisted, the producers explained that her departure was based on heart problems.

Kelton is most famous for her Broadway role as Mrs. Paroo, the Irish mother of the town librarian Marian Paroo, in Meredith Willson's Broadway musical THE MUSIC MAN, a role she reprised in the 1962 film version of the show.

FYI – Broadway legend Elaine Stritch played Trixie, the burlesque dancer wife of Ed Norton, for one sketch before being replaced by Joyce Randolph.

And another FYI – Joseph McCarthy’s chief counsel and aide in his Communist witch hunt was lawyer Roy Cohn, who later became Donald Trump’s mentor and lawyer when he was starting out in the real estate business and who was a great influence on Trump.

TAFN