The Halls of Ivy is an NBC radio
sitcomA situation comedy, usually referred to as a sitcom, is a genre of comedy programs which originated in radio. Today, sitcoms are found almost exclusively on television as one of its dominant narrative forms...
that ran from 1950-1952. It was created by
Fibber McGee & Molly co-creator/writer Don Quinn before being adapted into a
CBSCBS Broadcasting Inc. is an American television network, one of television's original "big three", which also include NBC and ABC. Like NBC, CBS started out as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System...
television comedy (1954-55) produced by
ITC EntertainmentThe Incorporated Television Company was a British television company largely involved in production and distribution...
and
Television Programs of AmericaTelevision Programs of America, Inc was a New York-based US television production company in the 1950s. TPA had a Canadian subsidiary, Normandie Productions....
. British husband-and-wife actors
Ronald ColmanRonald Charles Colman was an English actor.-Early years:He was born in Richmond, Surrey, England, the second son and fourth child of Charles Colman and his wife Marjory Read Fraser. His siblings included Eric, Edith, and Marjorie. He was educated at boarding school in Littlehampton, where he...
(1891-1958) and
Benita HumeBenita Hume , was an English film actress.She appeared in 44 films between 1925 and 1955.She was married to actor Ronald Colman from 1938 to his death in 1958; they were the parents of a daughter, Juliet...
(1906-1967) starred in both versions of the show.
Quinn developed the show after he had decided to leave
Fibber McGee & Molly in the hands of his protege Phil Leslie.
The Halls of Ivy's audition program featured radio veteran
Gale GordonGale Gordon was an American character actor perhaps best remembered as Lucille Ball's longtime television foil — and particularly as cantankerously combustible, tightfisted bank executive Theodore J. Mooney, on Ball's second television situation comedy, The Lucy Show...
(then co-starring in
Our Miss BrooksOur Miss Brooks, an American situation comedy, starred Eve Arden as a sardonic high school English teacher. It began as a radio show broadcast on CBS from 1948 to 1957...
) and
Edna BestEdna Best was a British actress.Born in Hove, England, Best entered films in 1921. She is best remembered for her role as the mother in the original 1934 film version of Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much...
in the roles that ultimately went to the Colmans, who'd shown a flair for radio comedy in recurring roles on
The Jack Benny ProgramThe Jack Benny Program, starring Jack Benny, is a radio-TV comedy series which ran for more than three decades and is generally regarded as a high-water mark in 20th-century comedy.-Radio:...
in the late 1940s.
Radio
The Halls of Ivy featured Colman as William Todhunter Hall, the president of small,
MidwesternThe Midwestern United States is one of the four geographic regions within the United States of America that are officially recognized by the United States Census Bureau....
Ivy College, and his wife, Victoria, a former British musical comedy star who sometimes felt the tug of her former profession, and followed their interactions with students, friends and college trustees. Others in the cast included Herbert Butterfield as testy board chairman Clarence Wellman;
Willard WatermanWillard Lewis Waterman was a character actor in films, TV and on radio, remembered best for succeeding Harold Peary as the title character of The Great Gildersleeve at the height of that show's popularity.Peary was unable to convince sponsor and show owner Kraft Cheese to allow him an ownership...
(then starring as
Harold PearyHarold Peary born José Pereira de Faria, July 25, 1908 – March 30, 1985, was an American actor, comedian and singer in radio, film, television and animation, with an unmistakable, booming voice, who is remembered best as the title character of the popular radio comedy series The Great...
's successor as
The Great GildersleeveThe Great Gildersleeve , initially written by Leonard Lewis Levinson, was one of broadcast history's earliest spin-off programs. Built around Throckmorton Philharmonic Gildersleeve, a character who had been a staple on the classic radio situation comedy Fibber McGee and Molly, The Great...
) as board member John Merriweather; and, Elizabeth Patterson and Gloria Gordon as the Halls' maid.
The series ran 110 half-hour radio episodes from January 6, 1950, to June 25, 1952, with Quinn, Jerome Lawrence, and Robert Lee writing many of the scripts and giving free if even more sophisticated play to Quinn's knack for language play, inverted cliches and swift puns (including the show's title and lead characters), a knack he'd shown for years writing
Fibber McGee & Molly. Jerome Lawrence and Robert Lee continued as a writing team; their best-known play is
Inherit the WindInherit the Wind is a play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee. The play, which debuted in 1955, is a parable that fictionalizes the 1925 Scopes "Monkey" Trial as a means to discuss the then contemporary McCarthy trials. -Background:...
. Cameron Blake,
Walter Brown NewmanWalter Newman was an American radio writer and screenwriter active from the late 1940s to the early 1990s. He was nominated three times for Academy Awards , but he may be best known for a work that never made it to the screen: his unproduced original script Harrow Alley.Newman's radio...
, Robert Sinclair, and Milton and Barbara Merlin became writers for the program as well.
But listeners were surprised to discover that
the episode of 27 September 1950, "The Leslie Hoff Painting"---a story tackling the bequest of a Goya painting that was suspected of being a fraud hyped by its late owner to avoid paying customs duties when bringing to the United States---was written by Colman himself, who poked fun at his accomplishment while taking a rare turn giving the evening's credits at the show's conclusion.
The sponsors were Schlitz Brewing Company, and then
NabiscoNabisco is an American brand of cookies and snacks, including brands such as Chips Ahoy!, Fig Newtons, Mallomars, Oreos, Premium Crackers, Ritz Crackers, Teddy Grahams, Triscuits, Wheat Thins, Social Tea, Nutter Butter, Peek Freans, Lorna Doone, Famous Chocolate Wafers and Chicken in a Biskit,...
. Nat Wolff produced and directed, Henry Russell handled the music and radio veteran
Ken CarpenterKenneth Lee Carpenter was a longtime TV and radio announcer, who was best known for being the announcer for singer and actor Bing Crosby for 27 years.- Early life and education :...
was the announcer.
Television
For the television series, the Colmans and Butterfield repeated their radio roles with
Mary WickesMary Isabella Wickes was an American film and television actress.Wickes was born as Mary Isabelle Wickenhauser in St. Louis, Missouri, of German Irish Protestant extraction. She graduated at the age of eighteen with a degree in political science from Washington University in St. Louis, where she...
(1910-1995) as Alice, the Halls' housekeeper, and
Ray CollinsRay Bidwell Collins was an American actor in film, stage, radio, and television. One of Collins' best remembered roles was that of Lt. Arthur Tragg in the long-running series Perry Mason.-Biography:...
(1889-1965), later of
Perry MasonPerry Mason is an American TV series produced by Paisano Productions that ran from 1957 to 1966. Perry Mason was played by actor Raymond Burr. The title character is a fictional Los Angeles, California, defense attorney who originally appeared in detective fiction by Erle Stanley Gardner...
, as Professor Werriweather. The TV version premiered on October 19, 1954, and ran for thirty-eight half-hour black-and-white episodes. Its last airing was October 13, 1955. Many television episodes are missing so that some credits and episode titles are unknown.
John LuptonJohn Rollin Lupton was an American film and television actor.Upon graduation from New York's American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Lupton secured immediate stage work. Then he was signed as a contract player at MGM in Hollywood...
(1928-1993), later of the
westernThe Western is a fiction genre seen in film, television, radio, literature, painting and other visual arts. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the later half of the 19th century in what became the Western United States , but also in Western Canada, Mexico , Alaska The Western...
series
Broken ArrowBroken Arrow is a Western series which ran on ABC-TV in prime time from 1956 through 1958 on Tuesdays at 9 p.m. Eastern time. Repeat episodes were shown by ABC on Sunday afternoons during the 1959–60 season...
, amd
Jerry ParisJerry Paris was an American actor and director best known for playing Jerry Helper, the dentist and next door neighbor of Rob and Laura Petrie, on The Dick Van Dyke Show...
(1925-1986), later of
The Dick Van Dyke ShowThe Dick Van Dyke Show is an American television sitcom which initially aired on CBS from October 3, 1961 and ran until June 1, 1966. The show was created by Carl Reiner and starred Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore. A three-camera/studio audience format was used during production...
, appeared in some episodes as students. The creator of the television version was Don Quinn, and virtually all of the scripts were adapted from those originally heard on radio.
The Halls of Ivy aired at 8:30 p.m. Tuesdays after
The Red Skelton ShowThe Red Skelton Show is an American variety show that was a television staple for almost two decades, from the early 1950s through the early 1970s. It was second to Gunsmoke and third to The Ed Sullivan Show in the ratings during that time. Skelton, who had previously been a radio star, had...
, for alternate sponsors Nabisco and
International HarvesterInternational Harvester Company was an agricultural machinery, construction equipment, vehicle, commercial truck, and household and commercial products manufacturer. In 1902, J.P...
. Its competition on NBC was the last half of the rotating trio of programs:
The Milton Berle Show,
The Bob Hope Show, and
The Martha Raye Show.
Further reading
- Ohmart, Ben. It's That Time Again." (2002) (Albany: BearManor Media) ISBN 0-9714570-2-6
External links