I don't think the other members of the What's My Line panel liked Dorothy Kilgallen, Part 11

Previous thread.

[quote]Was 10 enough? Are 12 too many?

That made me laugh. Thanks for that.

Joan Fontaine 1954.

If early 1960 guest panelist Martin Lewis was, per Dorothy, the universally accepted “greatest player of Gilbert & Sullivan in our time,”

R600 he is Martyn Green.

Gilbert & Sullivan don't mean much to American audiences any more.

Joan Fontaine's neck was almost as short as Anne Baxter's.

Was Ralph Meeker wearing one of Martin Gabel's old tuxes?

R601 - funny.

she sure doesn't look like the Julie Andrews we came to know.

R582 - what work do you think she had done?

I didn't make the comment about Julie Andrews but I have to agree, she was lacking a certain "sheen" (on WML at least) she eventually acquired in Hollywood. Not plastic surgery, just grooming and presentation. And confidence.

How does it feel Arlene? When you're not the center of attention? Hurts doesn't it?

In R508 Gig Young does a very awkward bow as he enters despite Arlene saying he is currently playing on Broadway.

The hair of the Policewoman in R588 seems odd. Is it overbleached?

[quote]I didn't make the comment about Julie Andrews but I have to agree, she was lacking a certain "sheen" (on WML at least) she eventually acquired in Hollywood. Not plastic surgery, just grooming and presentation. And confidence.

And new teefs.

If the original show had continued a few more years with John , Arlene and Bennett...I wonder who the Mystery Guests and panelists could have been.

Imagine Truman Capote on the panel. Andy Warhol as Mystery Guest. Dustin Hoffman...Sharon Tate...Vanessa Redgrave... keeping it high-brow, how about Franco Zeffirelli... Roman Polanski ?

Charlene

The Hot Dog Guy in R588 is cute.

Edward G. Robinson.

R17 I've seen so many episodes of What's My Line? but this is the first time seeing Marianne Means. Never heard of her. I guess that was her first and last appearance?

MM was only on twice. First was when she was a contestant in 1961.

The Telephone Pole Inspector at R599 has a great smile.

[quote]Is it overbleached?

No such thing back then, r12.

And Henry Fonda was so handsome and warm. Hard to believe he was the cold and distant father that Jane pictured, based on this appearance.

R601 - Katharine Hepburn said being charming was the actor's job.

[quote]Joan Fontaine's neck was almost as short as Anne Baxter's.

And then there was Claudette Colbert, to whom Noel Coward once said, "I'd wring your neck, if you had one."

June Taylor; William Holden.

Joan Fontaine 1970.

[quote]Unlike a lot of other stars, Fontaine didn't seem to care much what she did to make a buck in show business, as long as it had some dignity.

No hagsploitation flicks for our Joan.

Didn't Joan Fontaine eventually retire to Carmel, CA where she became a close neighbor and friend to Doris Day? I wonder where her money was coming from in those final years to afford to live in that wealthy community. Maybe it was the sale of her Manhattan co-op?

Doris Day, btw, made 2 appearances as MG in the 1950s, rare TV appearances for her back then.

Marianne Means was also a principal contestant on TTTT. And no coverage of the day of the JFK assassination fails to show her, notepad in hand, being redirected by a policeman outside of Parkland Hospital.

Now that we're well into Part 11, maybe we could finally settle down and address the original poster's point: Did the other panelists dislike Dorothy? Really?

Enough to want her dead?

[quote] KENNEDY-RELATED CLIPS FROM THE TELEVISION GAME SHOW "WHAT'S MY LINE?" (1961—1963)

On TTTT, Vaughn Meader & the actress playing Jackie on the "First Family" album.

No hagsploitation flicks for our Joan.

R26 Joan made The Witches but still maintained some glamor.

R17 Popeye cartoonist.

Marianne Means on TTTT (starting at 9:34).

R33 Contestant number 1, first segment...woof!

Alan Jay Lerner; Buddy Hackett.

Hedy Lamarr.

Hedy looks awful there. The bad plastic surgery (and heavy makeup) on those delicate features was already destroying her face.

[quote]Alan Jay Lerner; Buddy Hackett.

It would be nice, for the sake of the thread, if whoever is posting an episode would make a comment or two about the show. And give us some time to view it and comment as well. This shot-gun posting of episodes helps no one.

We knew Robert Q would enjoy the June Taylor dancers in R24.

Martin has a different dry hairstyle in R35.

I would not criticize anyone who's posting episodes. Please be appreciative for those who are keeping these great threads going and simply reply to them when you have time or are so inclined.

On the last thread I requested a few favorite episodes (Irene Dunne, RJ Wagner, etc.) and was so pleased when they appeared.

I remember the Dog Beauty Salon Runner from R36 last time. She looks overdressed in her bling and fur compared to Arlene and Dorothy.

Joan Fontaine 1973.

Martin back to being a wet head. For some reason I laughed every time Geraldine Chaplin smiled.

Dorothy was married to actor and Broadway producer, Richard Kollmar. When she found him in her bed with a guy, she decided for business reasons to stay married. Kollmar disowned youngest son, Kerry, who he believed to be Johnny Ray's child.

But wasn't Johnny Ray gay?

This episode has Arlene in an Easter bonnet - no, not THAT one.

Robert Q flirting with the female private detective - I'd be delighted to have you trail me.

A cute Tunnel of Love operator

And a handsome Zoo Hippo Keeper.

The hippo keeper would look so entirely different (and even better and younger) with today's grooming.

As requested, Walter Brennan. This is his first of 3 appearances. Who knew he could be funny?

Bennett actually made me laugh twice in this episode too.

But Adolph Menjou doesn't stand for the Race Horse Driver.

[quote]As requested, Walter Brennan. This is his first of 3 appearances. Who knew he could be funny?

Brennan was a vile racist, which was one of his less amusing qualities.

The Dentist's hair was as big as her head.

R46, Ray claimed to be bi.

R47, in the industry, everyone knew what the Q in Robert Q. Lewis stood for.

Dorothy calls Robert Q an endearing bachelor.

Sophie Tucker is funny when she silently laughs at some questions. The panel all stood for her to exit.

Here's #2 Walter Brennan. Not sure if all the Japanese impressions would by ok today.

Also appearing Dr. Tom Dooley who I remember from last time and his being ready to fly right outta there.

And the elegant Wig Maker Lady.

Only 3 men have won 3 Academy Awards: Jack Nicholson, Daniel Day-Lewis....and Walter Brennan.

I don't think are (m)any people alive who could name even one of the roles or films for which Brennan won an Oscar.

Was he particularly popular with some faction of Hollywood in the 1930s that he would have been awarded so many times? I don't think he was even particularly associated with one studio.

He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Come and Get It (1936), Kentucky (1938) and The Westerner (1940).

You looked that up, r58!

I knew Come and Get It but had to look up the other 2. For some reason I thought he won for later films.

Karen Black could have played Suzy Knickers. She says she identified Eva Gabor from a giggle but I could barely hear it.

[quote] I don't think are (m)any people alive who could name even one of the roles or films for which Brennan won an Oscar.

And this matters to this discussion and to this thread why?

I'm attracted to the Whale Trainer.

And so was Arlene.

Here's the third Walter Brennan appearance.

Otherwise the Computer Dating Service guy is cute but sweaty

And the Airplane Seller and former model has a great smile.

The 88 year old Harness Racer has remarkably big ears. Arlene stands for his exit but Suzy does not.

[quote]Arlene stands for his exit but Suzy does not.

Breeding will out.

The Bartender's dress intrigues me. Is it prefiguring the 1960s wilder patterns?

The Bat Boy is very cute though only a high schooler. The moment when Arlene makes Dorothy laugh in his segment is very sweet.

As requested, Henry Fonda. This is his second appearance, in 1964. We had his 1961 episode first appearance not so long ago.

I love the shifts in ladies' fashions and hair we see in the 1960s episodes. They come along more rapidly than the 1950s episodes.

If the requestor wants me to attach the first Henry Fonda episode I can do.

Re R69 - Fonda is more toothy here but he doesn't respond when JCD comments how he must be a very proud father.

Funny how Jerry Herman is not known by his face at the time.

The female Wine Steward has that brushed forward hair that looks messy.

It's not healthy to be a niece of Abraham Ribicoff.

In 1978, Ribicoff's niece Gail Rubin was shot and killed in the Coastal Road massacre in Israel by Palestinian terrorists.

In 1980, Ribicoff's niece Sarai Ribicoff, a reporter for the Herald Examiner, was shot and killed during a robbery in Venice, California.

Gay(ish) Danny Kaye flirting with the comely panelist.

Abe Ribicoff's moment in history.

The Piccolo Player is very tall.

Is Suzy Parker wearing a Chanel suit?

R75 I would say yes.

In 1959, when that episode aired, Suzy Parker was appearing in advertisements for Chanel. The fashions as well as the perfume.

Henry Fonda's third appearance was in the last thread R599. His fourth and last appearance was in 1966, with son Peter.

This episode has some weird hairdos from Carol Channing's Bieber cut to the Australian Wine Steward's helmet style.

The first contestant is the son of Suzy Knickers but her reaction to seeing him is too over the top. He is a Navy Submarine Officer and had been away for 2 months.

Re Dorothy and Johnnie Ray

I think she liked the metrosexual man. You can see how she was friendly with Robert Q and Tony Randall.

Hard to imagine Suzy and her son as a mother and son.

Jane Fonda as panelist. I laughed at how she moves in on Bennett's close-up when he tells his Henry Fonda joke. She gives Dorothy a pointed look when Jane pauses and Dorothy tells her to say something. Also Jane seems fascinated by Robert Q.

Lee Remick has a sour look to JCD when she gets guessed so quickly.

Jane Fonda as Mystery Quest.

Martin seems to have chubbed out here.

The Census Taker is snooty.

The Maternity Clothes Designer is handsome.

Jonathan Cerf & Peter Gabel are the sons of Bennett, and Arlene and Martin. Peter has the Gabel nose.

The Fireworks Seller is a new college graduate but looks 40.

And Van Johnson is a big ole hambone even from his sign in.

I guess we're finally done.

Thank you one and all for making these 11 threads so informative and so much fun!

Wait a minute, John that’s not what I said, so I should have gotten a “yes” not a “no.” I’m not finished yet.

WML? gets the lead in The NYer's new profile of Gertrude Berg:

[quote] On May 9, 1954, on the set of the CBS game show “What’s My Line?,” the week’s “mystery celebrity” strolled past a panel of blindfolded judges and, to a roar from the studio audience, wrote her name on the chalkboard: Gertrude Berg. A zaftig woman with warm, expressive eyes and a dumpling nose, Berg was dressed with Park Avenue flair, in a regal fur stole and three strands of pearls. Onscreen, a caption displayed the name she was better known by, that of a fictional character who, for a quarter of a century, had been as iconic as Groucho Marx and as beloved as Mickey Mouse: the irresistible, Yiddish-accented, malaprop-prone Bronx housewife Molly Goldberg, hollering “Yoo-hoo, is anybody?” into her tenement airshaft, the social network of its day.

[quote] The past year had been a difficult one for Berg, then fifty-four, whose family show “The Goldbergs”—originally titled “The Rise of the Goldbergs”—débuted in 1929 as a radio serial that bounced between networks before settling on CBS, becoming a national sensation. During the Depression and the Second World War, Berg had beavered away at an astonishing pace, producing, writing, directing, and starring in thousands of episodes about a hardworking Jewish immigrant family. In the process, she’d become a multimedia mogul, with an advice column called “Mama Talks,” a comic strip, a best-selling cookbook, and even a line of housedresses for full-figured women. In a national poll in Good Housekeeping, Berg was ranked America’s second most admired woman, bested only by another liberal firebrand, Eleanor Roosevelt.

[quote] In 1945, Berg’s radio show ended—and four years later she rebooted it as a television sitcom on CBS, during the loosey-goosey early days of the medium, when shows still aired live and were run by advertisers. Working with General Foods, she flacked Sanka decaffeinated coffee in character as Molly, boosting the brand’s sales; in 1951, she won the first Emmy for Best Actress, beating out Imogene Coca, Helen Hayes, and Betty White. Television was about to transform the culture, and Berg was poised to become one of its greatest luminaries.

[quote] Instead, just three years later, her life’s work was in peril. In 1950, as the McCarthy era descended, an ideological cage dropped over the industry, terrorizing a community of liberal-minded creators, among them Philip Loeb, the actor who played Molly’s husband, Jake, on “The Goldbergs.” Loeb had his name printed in “Red Channels,” the notorious anti-Communist snitch book. For a year and a half, Berg fought hard for Loeb, refusing her sponsor’s demands that she fire him, but CBS dropped the show, and in the end she gave in. “The Goldbergs” was now airing on the more marginal DuMont network, with a new sponsor and a new Jake. Another family sitcom had taken Berg’s old Monday-night slot on CBS: “I Love Lucy,” starring Lucille Ball, the First Lady of television.

[quote] On “What’s My Line?,” Berg gave little indication that anything had gone wrong. When one of the panelists, the actress Faye Emerson, who’d noticed the extended applause at Berg’s entrance, asked, “Are you someone very much in the public eye?,” Berg scored laughs by answering in the high, breathy voice of an upper-crust Brahmin: “Rahther!”

[quote] “Have you appeared regularly on television?” Emerson asked.

[quote] “On and off, yes,” Berg replied. She then added, nearly inaudibly, a sly zinger: “Depending on the sponsor’s disposition.”

[quote] Yes, Berg said, she’d been on the stage; she’d made a movie, too. And, yes, she said, her eyes sparkling, her character was famous for her accent. After a few false leads, the TV host Steve Allen blurted out the correct answer: “Is it Molly Goldberg?” Delighted, the panelists asked Berg for a treat, a taste of her character’s voice.

[quote] “Vot do you want me to say, dahlink?” Berg shot back, channelling her alter ego with a grin. Before she left the stage, the panelists rose up to shake her hand. For a moment more, Gertrude Berg was still the apple of America’s eye.

Thanks for sharing that excellent article, R87. I love old time radio, and am very interested in Gertrude Berg's life and legacy. I've read more about her than I've seen her work; for some reason, episodes of her radio show weren't as well preserved as others.

I've always wondered why, in the overwhelmingly white & Protestant culture of the 1930, people were so obsessed with shows about Jews and Negroes.

I’m sipping a gin gimlet, complete with lime wedge, resting in the sun and listening to The Incredible Life & Mysterious Death of Dorothy Kilgallen. Both are delicious!

The unaired pilot for an attempted revival of the show from 2000 was just posted to YouTube, so I thought some of us might be interested in watching. It's shockingly bad. Harry Anderson seems to go out of his way to ruin the game, and the mystery guest segment was just stupid. Plus Al Franken makes a joke in such poor taste that I actually gay gasped. Our Dottie would have been apoplectic after witnessing this train wreck.

Harry Anderson is no John Charles Daly. He's not even a Wally Bruner.

Don't forget me, R92.

[quote] The unaired pilot for an attempted revival of the show from 2000

At first I was impressed that a pilot could draw Jane Fonda as the MG.

Fred Allen merits a prominent mention in a new Jason Zinoman (NYT) column about Marc Maron:

[quote] Unlike most podcasters, Maron refused to pivot to video. It's why when he announced his retirement, my first thought went to a book by another highly respected cerebral comedian.

[quote] Fred Allen was a titan of the golden age of radio, and in his memoir, "Treadmill to Oblivion," described how the move to television robbed an essential part of the imaginative work of the listener. He predicted it would ruin comedy. Unlike his rival Jack Benny, Allen never made the transition, and faded from memory. You might see him as a stuck-in-his-ways crank. I don't.

[quote] As we enter yet another technological transition, with every comedian, talk show host and pundit fleeing to YouTube, I think Allen's consideration of the downside of disruption is more prescient than ever. Of course, the shift from radio to television did not ruin comedy, but that doesn't mean something precious wasn't lost. Or that the new world is always better.

I had hoped that this thread would make it to a solid dozen, but it looks to have petered out one part early. :(

Is the contrast between the classy 50s/60s and the present day too great for our brains to handle?

I miss class.

I, for one, am thrilled to see the thread's return!

Dorothy and the gang have had most of the summer off. Let's welcome them back with links to some great episodes (bonus points for hunky contestants).

If Jason Zinoman thinks Fred Allen has “faded from memory,” he’s invited to peruse this long-running thread.

r95, that's a very interesting post on Fred Allen.

Sadly (I say sadly because I know he was quite beloved, at least in his prime), I've never warmed to him and can't quite get his appeal, then or now. For one thing, he always seemed to take so long to make a point or tell a (lame) joke. And he was really rather hard on the eyes. But his notion of TV ruining comedy was a fascinating one in its time, I'm sure.

[quote]And he was really rather hard on the eyes.

Another reason he was better suited to radio.

But Fred Allen had made the transition to television. He was a WML panelist when the show was highly-rated & would likely have continued in that role indefinitely but for his sudden, unexpected death.

He had his *own* show on radio, r101.

Well....other than WML did he do much else on TV in the 1950s? I don't think he had his own show. That was quite a comedown from his radio days.

Fred's first appearance on WML.

This hasn't been posted in a while...starts at 0:40.

The young Steve Allen at r105 was very cute!

The Fred Allen Show - Judge for Yourself

The lady wrestler.

I find the Milking Machine Seller handsome.

R108 and R109 refer to appearances on the R104 show.

Not one of the better quality Bell Telephone Hour shows on YouTube, but it has ARLENE as the host.

Songs from Wildcat (Paula Stewart), Unsinkable Molly Brown (Harve Presnell), The Sound of Music (Lauri Peters and...whoever), and a lot of stuff like that. Edward Vallella.

One Bell hour I recently saw had Robert Young hosting. Lainie Kazan sang People, from Funny Girl. Young even sang and danced a little bit (sang part of a song from Ben Franklin in Paris).

Listening to episode 5 of the highly enjoyable season 6 of TCM's The Plot Thickens podcast devoted to Cleopatra (h/t DLer for recommending it), which chronicles, in part, Fox executive Darryl Zanuck's decision to effectively take the reins over director Joseph Mankiewicz. The podcast airs that part of Mankiewicz's MG appearance in which Arlene, questioning his identity, alludes to the difficulties in production.

Are we back??

Back?? We've never been off the air, Dorothy. You must have been drinking and having those blackouts again...

That "whoever", R111 is Brian Davies, who originated the role of Rolf on Broadway with Laurie Peters. He followed it up by originating the role of Hero in A Funny Thing Happened On the Way To the Forum.

[r115], he's also Erika Slezak's husband.

R115 No intention of belittling him, I was just typing from memory and was too tired to look up his name. Anyway, hope you enjoyed it.

[quote]Are we back??

I'm ready to create Part 12 as soon as it's needed!

It really should be Part 13, R118. This is the the second Part 12.

This is Part 11, not Part 12, R119.

First episode with Fred Allen as panelist.

I don't get Fred's Wendy Barrie joke.

And we're back!

[quote] It really should be Part 13, [R118]. This is the the second Part 12.

[quote] This is Part 11, not Part 12, R119.

What I meant to say was that this was the second Part 11, making any possible new iteration really Part 13.

If there was another Part 11 that was actually used, kindly link to it R124.

In R121 Bennett wears a white jacket

The jet pilot is a fiiiiiine black gentleman.

The skirt-blowing machine operator was not as funny as expected

Buffalo bob and Howdy Doodoo was before my time so know nothing about them.

Dorothy guesses the bill collector.

The Turkish Bath Lady looks like Kaye Ballard.

I gasped when Red Skelton made that joke about gender and Copenhagen.