Beverly Washburn
Encyclopedia
Beverly Washburn is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 actress who appeared as a young girl in NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

's The Loretta Young Show and as an older teenager in Loretta Young
Loretta Young
Loretta Young was an American actress. Starting as a child actress, she had a long and varied career in film from 1917 to 1953...

's 1962-1963 CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

 family drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...

, The New Loretta Young Show
The New Loretta Young Show
The New Loretta Young Show, which aired for twenty-six weekly episodes on CBS television from September 24, 1962 to March 18, 1963, featured Loretta Young in a combination drama and situation comedy about a free-lance writer in suburban Connecticut named Christine Massey, the widowed mother of...

. In between, Washburn was cast as Lisbeth Searcy in the 1957 Walt Disney
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...

 film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

 Old Yeller
Old Yeller
Old Yeller is a 1956 children's novel by Fred Gipson, which received a Newbery Honor in 1957. It was illustrated by Carl Burger. The title is taken from the name of the big yellow dog who is the center of the book's story...

, the story of a beloved dog, starring Fess Parker
Fess Parker
Fess Elisha Parker, Jr. was an American film and television actor best known for his portrayals of Davy Crockett in the Walt Disney 1955-56 TV mini-series and as TV's Daniel Boone from 1964-70...

, Dorothy McGuire
Dorothy McGuire
Dorothy Hackett McGuire was an American actress.-Career:Born in Omaha, Nebraska, she began her acting career on the stage at the Omaha Community Playhouse...

, Tommy Kirk
Tommy Kirk
Thomas Lee "Tommy" Kirk is a former American actor, and later a businessman.-Disney years:Kirk was discovered by talent agents at the age of thirteen in a production of Eugene O'Neill's Ah, Wilderness! at the Pasadena Playhouse in Pasadena, California...

, Kevin Corcoran
Kevin Corcoran
Kevin Anthony "Moochie" Corcoran is an American director, producer, and former child actor. He appeared in numerous Disney projects between 1957 and 1963, frequently as an irrepressible character with the nickname Moochie...

, and Jeff York
Jeff York
Jeff York was an American film and television actor who began his career in the late 1930s using his given name Granville Owen Schofield...

, in the role of Lisbeth's father, Bud Searcy. Washburn appeared once on NBC's Star Trek
Star Trek
Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...

in the role of Lieutenant Arlene Galway in the 1967 episode "The Deadly Years".

A Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

, native, Washburn's first uncredited role was as 6-year-old Walda Kowalski in the 1950 film about a smallpox
Smallpox
Smallpox was an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning "spotted", or varus, meaning "pimple"...

 outbreak in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 entitled, The Killer That Stalked New York
The Killer That Stalked New York
The Killer That Stalked New York is a 1950 film noir starring Evelyn Keyes. The film, shot on location and in a semi-documentary style, is about diamond smugglers who unknowingly start a smallpox outbreak in the New York City of 1947. It is based on the real threat of a smallpox epidemic in the...

. She appeared on many of the anthology series then common on American television network
Television network
A television network is a telecommunications network for distribution of television program content, whereby a central operation provides programming to many television stations or pay TV providers. Until the mid-1980s, television programming in most countries of the world was dominated by a small...

s, including The Ford Television Theatre, Lux Video Theatre
Lux Video Theatre
Lux Video Theatre, is a weekly television anthology series that was produced from 1950 until 1959. The series presented both comedy and drama in original teleplays, as well as abridged adaptations of films and plays....

, Jane Wyman
Jane Wyman
Jane Wyman was an American singer, dancer, and character actress of film and television. She began her film career in the 1930s, and was a prolific performer for two decades...

's Fireside Theatre, Chevron Hall of Stars, H. J. Heinz Company
H. J. Heinz Company
The H. J. Heinz Company , commonly known as Heinz and famous for its "57 Varieties" slogan and its ketchup, is an American food company with world headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.Perhaps best known for its ketchup, the H.J...

's Studio 57
Studio 57
Studio 57 was the name of an American television series that was broadcast on the now-defunct DuMont Television Network.The program was a filmed anthology television series sponsored by Heinz 57 and produced by Revue Studios...

, Four Star Playhouse
Four Star Playhouse
Four Star Playhouse is an American television anthology series that ran from 1952 to 1956, sponsored in its first bi-weekly season by The Singer Company; Bristol-Myers became an alternate sponsor when it became a weekly series in the fall of 1953...

, Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater
Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater
Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre, sometimes simply called Zane Grey Theatre, is an American Western anthology series which ran on CBS from 1956 to 1961.-Overview:Zane Grey Theatre was created by Luke Short and Charles A. Wallace...

, Schlitz Playhouse of Stars
Schlitz Playhouse of Stars
Schlitz Playhouse of Stars, is a weekly CBS anthology television series, was telecast on Friday nights from 1951 until 1959. Offering both comedies and drama, the series was sponsored by Schlitz beer...

, The 20th Century Fox Hour
The 20th Century Fox Hour
The 20th Century Fox Hour is an American drama anthology series televised in the United States on CBS from 1955 to 1957. Some of the shows in this series were restored, remastered and shown on the Fox Movie Channel in 2002 under the title Hour of Stars...

, Alcoa Presents: One Step Beyond, Shirley Temple's Storybook
Shirley Temple's Storybook
Shirley Temple's Storybook is an American children's anthology series hosted and narrated by Shirley Temple. The series features adaptations of fairy tales and other family-oriented stories performed by well-known actors, although one episode, an adaptation of The House of the Seven Gables, was...

, and General Electric Theater
General Electric Theater
General Electric Theater is an American anthology series hosted by Ronald W. Reagan that was broadcast on CBS radio and television. The series was sponsored by General Electric's Department of Public Relations.-Radio:...

, hosted by Ronald W. Reagan.

In 1951, Washburn appeared in the theatrical film Superman and the Mole Men, which was thereafter edited into two half-hour segments. These became the first two episodes of the television series The Adventures of Superman
Adventures of Superman (TV series)
Adventures of Superman is an American television series based on comic book characters and concepts created in 1938 by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. The show is the first television series to feature Superman and began filming in 1951 in California...

, starring George Reeves
George Reeves
George Reeves was an American actor best known for his role as Superman in the 1950s television program Adventures of Superman....

 and Phyllis Coates
Phyllis Coates
Phyllis Coates is an American film and television actress. She is perhaps best known for her portrayal of reporter Lois Lane in the 1951 film Superman and the Mole Men, and during the first season of the Adventures of Superman television series.-Early life and career:After graduating from high...

. In 1951 she also appeared as an orphaned French girl in Frank Capra's film, "Here Comes the Groom", starring Bing Crosby, Franchot Tone, Alexis Smith,and Jane Wyman. In 1955, Washburn appeared as a daughter of Stephen Dunne and Barbara Billingsley
Barbara Billingsley
Barbara Billingsley was an American film, television, voice and stage actress. She gained prominence in the 1950s movie The Careless Years, acting opposite Natalie Trundy, followed by her best–known role, that of June Cleaver on the television series Leave It to Beaver and its sequel Still...

 in the nearly forgotten CBS sitcom Professional Father
Professional Father
Professional Father is a 1955 CBS situation comedy television series starring Stephen Dunne as Dr. Tom Wilson, a child psychologist successful with his patients but less than effective with his own family...

. Phyllis Coates appeared in that same series too as a nurse, Madge Allen. George Reeves also appeared with Washburn in one of her Ford Theatre episodes.

Later, young Washburn appeared on Leave It to Beaver
Leave It to Beaver
Leave It to Beaver is an American television situation comedy about an inquisitive but often naïve boy named Theodore "The Beaver" Cleaver and his adventures at home, in school, and around his suburban neighborhood...

, a popular sitcom in which Billingsley played the mother, June Cleaver
June Cleaver
June Evelyn Bronson Cleaver is a principal character in the American television sitcom Leave It to Beaver. June and her husband, Ward, are often invoked as the archetypal suburban parents of the 1950s. The couple are the parents of two sons, Wally and "Beaver"...

. Washburn's other roles included Jack Webb
Jack Webb
John Randolph "Jack" Webb , also known by the pseudonym John Randolph, was an American actor, television producer, director and screenwriter, who is most famous for his role as Sergeant Joe Friday in the radio and television series Dragnet...

's Dragnet
Dragnet (series)
Dragnet is a radio and television crime drama about the cases of a dedicated Los Angeles police detective, Sergeant Joe Friday, and his partners...

, The Lone Ranger
The Lone Ranger
The Lone Ranger is a fictional masked Texas Ranger who, with his Native American companion Tonto, fights injustice in the American Old West. The character has become an enduring icon of American culture....

, Fury
Fury (TV series)
Fury is an American Western television series that aired on NBC from 1955–1960, starring Peter Graves as Jim Newton , Bobby Diamond as Jim's adopted son, Joey Clark Newton, and William Fawcett as ranch hand Pete Wilkey...

, The Millionaire, The Law and Mr. Jones
The Law and Mr. Jones
The Law and Mr. Jones is a 45-episode half-hour television crime drama starring James Whitmore. The series aired on ABC in two nonconsecutive seasons from October 7, 1960, to September 22, 1961, and again from April 19 to July 5, 1962...

, and Target: The Corruptors!
Target: The Corruptors!
Target: The Corruptors! is a 35-episode crime drama starring Stephen McNally as newspaper reporter Paul Marino, which aired on ABC from September 29, 1961 to June 8, 1962. The character Jack Flood, Marino's undercover agent, was portrayed by Robert Harland...

, a series about crusading journalists starring Stephen McNally
Stephen McNally
Stephen McNally was an American actor remembered mostly for his appearances in many westerns and action films. He was an attorney in the late 1930s before pursuing a career in acting.-Career:...

 and Robert Harland
Robert Harland
Robert "Bob" Harland is a retired American actor whose principal work was done on television in the late 1950s and 1960s...

. She also portrayed the character Lolly Howard in the 1961 episode "Parasite Mansion" of Boris Karloff
Boris Karloff
William Henry Pratt , better known by his stage name Boris Karloff, was an English actor.Karloff is best remembered for his roles in horror films and his portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in Frankenstein , Bride of Frankenstein , and Son of Frankenstein...

's NBC suspense series, Thriller
Thriller (US TV series)
Thriller is an anthology television series that aired during the 1960–61 and 1961–62 seasons on NBC. The show featured host Boris Karloff introducing a mix of macabre horror tales and suspense thrillers....

. Washburn appeared on radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...

 with popular comedian Jack Benny
Jack Benny
Jack Benny was an American comedian, vaudevillian, and actor for radio, television, and film...

 even before she guest starred on CBS's The Jack Benny Program
The Jack Benny Program
The Jack Benny Program, starring Jack Benny, is a radio-TV comedy series that ran for more than three decades and is generally regarded as a high-water mark in 20th-century American comedy.-Cast:*Jack Benny - Himself...

on television.

She appeared for a 26-week season as older daughter Vickie Massey in The New Loretta Young in which Young played the widowed mother of seven who earns her living as a magazine
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...

 writer in Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...

. Washburn's other co-stars included James Philbrook
James Philbrook
James Philbrook was an American actor who appeared in supporting roles in three short-lived television series between 1959 and 1963: The Islanders on ABC and The Investigators and The New Loretta Young Show, both on CBS...

, Dirk Rambo, Dack Rambo
Dack Rambo
Norman Jay Rambeau , professionally known as Dack Rambo, was an American actor, most notable for appearing as Walter Brennan's grandson Jeff in the ABC series The Guns of Will Sonnett, as Steve Jacobi in All My Children, as cousin Jack Ewing on CBS's Dallas, and as Grant Harrison on the NBC soap...

, Carol Sydes
Cindy Carol
Cindy Carol is an American actress. She was credited as Carol Sydes before her starring role as Gidget in Gidget Goes to Rome ....

, and Sandy Descher
Sandy Descher
Sandra "Sandy" Descher is an American former child actress of the 1950s.-Biography:Although born in Burbank, California, she was discovered by accident while on vacation. When Descher was about five years old, her family had travelled across country to New York City where the girl fell in love...

.

She also appeared in episodes of the Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...

 ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

 detective
Detective
A detective is an investigator, either a member of a police agency or a private person. The latter may be known as private investigators or "private eyes"...

 series, 77 Sunset Strip
77 Sunset Strip
77 Sunset Strip is an hour-length American television private detective series created by Roy Huggins and starring Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Roger Smith, and Edd Byrnes....

and Hawaiian Eye
Hawaiian Eye
Hawaiian Eye is an American television series that ran from October 1959 to September 1963 on the American Broadcasting Company television network.-Premise:...

. She appeared twice on the CBS western
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...

 series, The Texan
The Texan (TV series)
The Texan is a Western television series starring popular B movie star Rory Calhoun. It aired on the CBS television network from 1958-1960.-Production notes:...

starring Rory Calhoun
Rory Calhoun
Rory Calhoun was an American television and film actor, screenwriter and producer, best known for his roles in Westerns.-Early life:...

, as Henrietta Tovers in "No Tears for the Dead" (1958) and as Greta Banden in "Badman" (1960). She appeared in the debut episode of NBC's Wagon Train
Wagon Train
Wagon Train is an American Western series that ran on NBC from 1957–62 and then on ABC from 1962–65...

but not in the lead role. Her episodes included the episodes "The Willy Moran Story" (1957), "The Tobias Jones Story" (1958), and as Milly Sharp "The Cassie Vance Story" (1963). In "Tobias Jones", her co-star was comedian Lou Costello
Lou Costello
Louis Francis "Lou" Costello was an American actor and comedian best known as half of the comedy team of Abbott and Costello, with Bud Abbott...

, in his first dramatic role.

Washburn's other roles included two appearances on Arrest and Trial
Arrest and Trial
Arrest and Trial is a 90-minute American Police procedural/legal drama that ran during the 1963-64 season on ABC, airing Sundays from 8:30-10 p.m. Eastern.The majority of episodes consisted of two segments...

and Gidget
Gidget (TV series)
Gidget is an American sitcom about a surfing, boy-crazy teenager called "Gidget" and her widowed father Russ Lawrence, a UCLA professor. Sally Field stars as Gidget with Don Porter as her father. The series was first broadcast on ABC from September 15, 1965 through April 21, 1966...

and single guest-starring roles on The Patty Duke Show
The Patty Duke Show
The Patty Duke Show is an American sitcom which ran on ABC from September 18, 1963, until May 4, 1966, with reruns airing through August 31, 1966. The show was created as a vehicle for rising star Patty Duke...

and Mr. Novak
Mr. Novak
Mr. Novak is an American dramatic series starring James Franciscus in the title role, which aired on NBC for two seasons, from 1963 to 1965.-Overview:...

(in the episode "Visions of Sugar Plums"). Into the 1970s, she appeared in three episodes of Karl Malden
Karl Malden
Karl Malden was an American actor. In a career that spanned more than seven decades, he performed in such classic films as A Streetcar Named Desire, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, On the Waterfront and One-Eyed Jacks...

's The Streets of San Francisco
The Streets of San Francisco
The Streets of San Francisco is a 1970s television police drama filmed on location in San Francisco, California, and produced by Quinn Martin Productions, with the first season produced in association with Warner Bros...

crime drama: "Most Feared in the Jungle" (1973), "Letters from the Grave" (1975), and as Michelle Rhodes in "Let's Pretend We're Strangers" (1977). One of her later television appearances was in the 1984 episode "Remembrance of Things Past" of CBS's Scarecrow and Mrs. King
Scarecrow and Mrs. King
Scarecrow and Mrs. King is an American television series that aired from October 3, 1983, to May 28, 1987 on CBS. The show starred Kate Jackson and Bruce Boxleitner as divorced housewife Amanda King and top-level "Agency" operative Lee Stetson who begin a strange association, and eventual romance,...

. Her most recent role was that of the character Brenda in the 2007 film Hard Four, which also features Ed Asner
Ed Asner
Edward Asner , commonly known as Ed Asner, is an American film, television, stage, and voice actor and former president of the Screen Actors Guild, primarily known for his Emmy Award-winning role as Lou Grant on both The Mary Tyler Moore Show and its spin-off series, Lou Grant...

, Paula Prentiss
Paula Prentiss
Paula Ragusa , better known by her stage name Paula Prentiss, is an American actress well-known for her film roles in Where the Boys Are, Man's Favorite Sport?, The Stepford Wives, What's New Pussycat?, The Black Marble, and The Parallax View and her co-starring role in the television situation...

, Dabney Coleman
Dabney Coleman
Dabney Wharton Coleman is an American actor, best known for his roles in 9 to 5, WarGames, You've Got Mail, Sworn to Silence, The Beverly Hillbillies and as the voice of Principal Peter Prickly in Recess and Recess: School's Out.-Early life:Coleman was born in Austin, Texas, the son of Mary...

, and Ed Begley, Jr.
Ed Begley, Jr.
Edward James "Ed" Begley, Jr. is an American actor and environmentalist. Begley has appeared in hundreds of films, television shows, and stage performances. He is best known for his role as Dr. Victor Ehrlich, on the television series St...



Washburn is an aunt of actress Darlene Tompkins, who is only three years her junior. Her brother, George Washburn, who died of a heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...

 in 1994, was an actor, stuntman
Stuntman
A stuntman or stunt performer is someone who performs dangerous stunts.Stuntman may also refer to:*The Stunt Man, a 1980 film starring Peter O'Toole*Stuntman , a 2002 video game**Stuntman: Ignition, its sequel...

, and race car driver.

Further reading

  • Reel Tears: The Beverly Washburn Story, by Beverly Washburn with Donald Vaughan. 2009, BearManor Media, Albany.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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