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Although she was one of four stars who alternated every four weeks on NBC’s All Star Revue from 1951 to 1953 and appeared in many specials from 1953 to 1955, comedienne Martha Raye had her own weekly show on NBC, The Martha Raye Show, during the 1955 – 56 season.

Raye’s broad, slapstick style, her mugging and her loud, comic song renditions made her one of television’s most popular comediennes.

Boxing champion Rocky Graziano (born Thomas Rocco Barbella) was a regular on her weekly series, which told a different story every week, with Graziano usually playing Martha’s boyfriend.

The show was set in a nightclub, which was the perfect setting for the numerous comedy sketches, songs and musical production numbers featured on each week’s show.

In the ever-shifting landscape of Hollywood, where beauty and talent intersect, Joi Lansing emerged as a beacon of glamour and allure. Born on April 6, 1929, in a Mormon household, Lansing’s early years were marked by a longing for stardom that burned brightly within her. At the tender age of 14, she embarked on a journey to Los Angeles, the city of dreams, accompanied by her mother and stepfather. Little did she know that her arrival in the City of Angels would set the stage for a career that would captivate audiences and leave an indelible mark on the annals of entertainment history.

Lansing’s ascent to stardom was nothing short of meteoric. Signed by MGM as a model, she quickly caught the eye of Hollywood’s elite with her striking looks and magnetic presence. Completing her high school education on the studio lot, Lansing wasted no time in making her mark on the silver screen, earning numerous small film roles as a teenager. It wasn’t long before she caught the attention of television producers, landing a pivotal role as Shirley Swanson in the beloved Bob Cummings Show, also known as Love That Bob. This role catapulted Lansing to nationwide fame, captivating audiences with her charm and charisma.

Yet, it was Lansing’s portrayal of Gladys Flatt in The Beverly Hillbillies that solidified her status as a television icon. As the buxom blonde bombshell, Lansing captivated audiences with her comedic timing and larger-than-life personality, earning her a permanent place in the hearts of fans around the world. Over the course of her career, Lansing amassed an impressive list of credits, ranging from small appearances in serious films to bit parts in B-movies. Her versatility as an actress was unmatched, allowing her to seamlessly transition between genres and mediums with ease.

Despite her success on screen, Lansing’s personal life was fraught with challenges and heartbreak. Her personal life was marked by a series of marriages and relationships that mirrored the highs and lows of her career. Married four times, her relationships often ended in turmoil, leaving Lansing to navigate the complexities of love and fame in the unforgiving world of Hollywood. Yet, amidst the trials and tribulations, Lansing found solace in her alleged love affair with Alexis Hunter, a relationship that defied societal norms and challenged perceptions of sexuality in the conservative landscape of the 1960s.

Joi Lansing embarked on her first marriage to Jerome Safron in 1950, followed by a brief union with Lance Fuller from 1951 to 1953. In August 1960, she entered into matrimony with Stanley Laurence Todd, her business manager at the time, marking a significant chapter in her personal and professional life. However, Lansing’s journey through love and marriage was fraught with challenges, as her marriages often ended in divorce within a short period. Despite the trials she faced in her relationships, they added depth to her persona and contributed to the complexity of her legacy.

Joi Lansing’s life was tragically cut short by breast cancer on August 7, 1972, at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, California. Despite undergoing surgical treatment for the disease two years prior, Lansing’s health continued to deteriorate, compounded by severe anemia. Although some press accounts erroneously listed her age as 37, she was, in fact, 43 years old at the time of her passing.

Following her death, Lansing’s legacy endured through various mediums, including a highly fictionalized portrayal in James Ellroy’s 2021 novel Widespread Panic. Additionally, her presence extended beyond live-action performances, as she also appeared in the Tex Avery animated short The House of Tomorrow, released in 1949, further cementing her status as an enduring figure in entertainment history.

Though her star may have dimmed in the years since her passing, Lansing’s memory lives on through the pages of history, immortalized as a symbol of an era defined by glitz, glamour, and the relentless pursuit of the spotlight. As we reflect on her life and legacy, let us not only remember Lansing as the forgotten bombshell but also celebrate her enduring contributions to the world of entertainment, ensuring that her light continues to shine brightly for generations to come.

Beyond her on-screen persona, Lansing’s impact extended into the realms of fashion, music, and popular culture. As a style icon of her era, she set trends with her signature blonde locks, figure-hugging attire, and glamorous demeanor, inspiring countless imitations and cementing her status as a timeless fashion icon. Additionally, Lansing’s foray into the world of music showcased her versatility as an entertainer, with her sultry vocals and captivating stage presence earning her acclaim as a nightclub singer and recording artist. Though her musical career may have been overshadowed by her acting endeavors, Lansing’s contributions to the music industry remain a testament to her multifaceted talents and enduring appeal.

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Audrey Smith, nicknamed Little Audrey, is a fictional animated cartoon character, appearing in early 20th century comics prior to starring in a series of Paramount Pictures' Famous Studios cartoons from 1947 to 1958. She was devised after Paramount decided not to renew the license on Little Lulu, the comic strip character created by Marjorie Henderson Buell.

Birth

21 Nov 1920 - Minneapolis, Hennepin County, Minnesota, USA

Death - 5 Aug 1988 (aged 67) Woodland Hills, Los Angeles County, California, USA

Burly American character actor Ralph Meeker first acted on stage at his alma mater, Northwestern University, alongside other budding performers Charlton Heston and Patricia Neal. He graduated as a music major because his dean had discouraged him from pursuing a theatrical career. Ignoring that advice, Meeker nevertheless moved to New York to study method acting and performing in local stock companies. After being injured during a brief wartime stint with the navy and consequently discharged from active duty, Meeker went overseas to play his part in entertaining the troops as a member of the USO. He finally arrived on Broadway in 1945 and was given small roles in two plays produced by José Ferrer, making his stage debut in "Strange Fruit". He was still relatively unknown in 1947 when he replaced Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski in "A Streetcar Named Desire" two years later, in the process giving a commanding and critically acclaimed performance. After playing Kowalski in the touring company of 'Streetcar', Meeker was again critically acclaimed for his part in the original production of "Mister Roberts" . As a result, he had several European motion picture offers and elected to play the role of an army sergeant in Teresa (1951), co-starring Pier Angeli. That same year, he was in another continental drama shot on location in Switzerland, entitled Four in a Jeep (1951). After a two-year sojourn at MGM, Meeker returned to Broadway to star as the swaggering, likable, larger-than-life rogue Hal Carter in William Inge's play "Picnic" on Broadway. His performance not only was highly praised by reviewers like Brooks Atkinson but also won him the New York Critics Circle Award. In later years, Meeker claimed to have spurned Columbia's offer of reprising his role on screen because he disdained being shackled by a studio contract. In any case, the prize role went to William Holden, and Meeker ended up being consigned for the next thirty years to provide support (with the odd exception) as hard- nosed guys on either side of the law (or bullies with a yellow streak). He did, nonetheless, leave his mark with several top-notch performances.

One of his best early screen roles was that of the disgraced ex-Union officer Roy Anderson in Anthony Mann's brilliant revenge western The Naked Spur (1953). As one of four men stripped of humanity by greed and hatred (the others were James Stewart, Robert Ryan and Millard Mitchell), Ralph Meeker gave a convincing portrayal of a cynical and callous opportunist.

Meeker's defining role was that of Mike Hammer in Kiss Me Deadly (1955). The film was unusual in that Hammer was played -- unlike the gumshoes of previous films noir -- as a basically unsavoury character. His was one of the first antiheroes who began to appear in films of the 1960s. Under the direction of Robert Aldrich, Meeker's characterisation as Mike Hammer effectively contrasted a smooth, handsome facade with an undercurrent of arrogance, unmitigated ruthlessness and greed.

>> VIEW HERE https://youtu.be/i3qDQWS3xXw

Cameo Theatre was an American anthology television series broadcast live on the NBC network from May 16, 1950, to August 21, 1955,^(1) presenting dramatic stories, adaptations, and original teleplays during the Golden Age of Television. The program featured a rotating cast of emerging and established actors, with episodes often exploring themes of human conflict, morality, and everyday struggles through short-form narratives typically lasting 30 minutes. Notable for nurturing new talent, it provided opportunities for young writers and directors to hone their craft in the high-stakes environment of live production, contributing to the era's innovation in dramatic storytelling before the shift to filmed series dominated.^(2) Though less remembered than contemporaries like Studio One or Kraft Television Theatre, Cameo Theatre exemplified the creative risks and technical challenges of early network TV, where real-time performances demanded precision amid frequent technical glitches and ad-libbing.

>> VIEW HERE https://youtu.be/EbNUfoxIKN0

Birth Date: June 30, 1917 - Death Date: March 14, 1975 — 57 years old

Pretty, exuberant leading lady who began her Hollywood career in 1937 as a bit player and was a star by the mid-1940s. Talented and tempestuous, with a penchant for playing ripe melodrama with all the stops out, Hayward reached her peak in the early 1950s in such enjoyably sudsy vehicles as "My Foolish Heart" (1950), "With a Song in My Heart" (1952) and "I'll Cry Tomorrow" (1955). She was often cast as the brassy, defiant heroine, as in her Oscar-winning role "I Want to Live!" (1958), where she splendidly played the real-life Barbara Graham, a woman who was wrongly sentenced to death.

Hayward began as a photographer's model. After a color photo of her was seen by filmmaker George Cukor, she was invited to audition for Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939). She acquired an agent and a new name, Susan Hayward, and began her film career with a series of uncredited roles. Her first credited role was in Girls on Probation (1938).

Hayward received five Academy Award nominations, winning Best Actress for I Want to Live! (1958).

Joe E. Brown starred in the drama The Buick Circus Hour from 1952 to 1953 and made guest appearances on various other shows during the 1950s and early 1960s

Brown happily claimed that he was the only youngster in show business who ran away from home to join the circus with the blessings of his parents. In 1902, the ten-year-old Brown joined a circus tumbling act called the Five Marvellous Ashtons that toured various circuses and vaudeville theaters. Joe later began adding comedy bits into his vaudeville act and added more as it became popular. In 1920 he debuted on Broadway in an all-star review called "Jim Jam Jems". As he developed skits and comedy routines throughout the 1920s, he built up his confidence and his popularity soared. The same could not be said for his debut in movies. Hired for a non-comedy role in The Circus Kid (1928), he played a lion tamer whose fate is death. He didn't register with the public until he signed with Warner Brothers in 1929 to do comedy roles in the film adaptations of Broadway shows such as Sally (1929) and Top Speed (1930). Joe would be well known for his loud yell, his infectious grin and his cavernous mouth. Since many of his films revolved around sports, his natural athletic ability, combined with the physical comedy, made them hits. In Local Boy Makes Good (1931), Joe played a botanist who becomes a track star. As he had briefly played semi-pro baseball, he was a natural for films like Fireman, Save My Child! (1932), in which he played a pitcher who was also a fireman. Two of his biggest hits also involved the game of baseball, Elmer, the Great (1933) and Alibi Ike (1935). In his contract with Warners, he had it written that he would have his own baseball team at the studio to play when he was able. Joe was one of the top ten moneymaking stars for 1933 and 1936. In 1937, he left Warners to make films for David L. Loew, and it was a disaster. Most of the films were cheaply made with poor production values, and only a few were successful. Two of the better ones were Riding on Air (1937) and The Gladiator (1938). Brown always called signing with Loew his biggest professional mistake, and with Loew his popularity fell. By the end of the 1930s he was working in "B" material, which would have been unimaginable less than five years earlier. With the advent of World War II, Joe worked tirelessly to entertain the troops while his film career floundered. Their enthusiastic response enabled Joe to overcome the death of his son, Captain Donald Brown, on a training flight. In 1947 Joe was back in the biz and back on stage in a road company tour of the comedy "Harvey". His first movie role in three years was as a small-town minister in the drama The Tender Years (1948). Even though he gave a good performance, it would be another three years before he was again on the big screen, in the big-budget 1951 remake of Show Boat (1951), in which he played Cap'n Andy Hawks. When his film career became almost nonexistent, Joe worked on radio and in television. He starred as the clown in the drama The Buick Circus Hour (1952) from 1952 to 1953 and made guest appearances on a number of other shows in the 1950s and early 1960s. His peers regarded him as one of the few truly nice people in Hollywood. After a few small movie roles in the 1950s, he was discovered by a new generation as the millionaire Osgood Fielding III in Billy Wilder's classic Some Like It Hot (1959), uttering the immortal last line of the film, "Well, nobody's perfect."

>> VIEW HERE https://youtu.be/n95zWJk7B2A

Herb Philbrick (Richard Carlson) is a man leading three lives: private citizen, Communist and undercover FBI man.

Stories depict his life as a counterspy and his efforts to infiltrate the American Communist Party and inform the US government officials so the bad guys can be rounded up – typically just as they’re on the verge of discovering his identity and killing him.

Other regular characters include Herb’s wife, Eva (Virginia Stefan); their daughter Constance (Patricia Morrow); and FBI agents Steve Daniels (John Beradino), Jerry Dressler (John Zaremba) and Joe Carney (Charles Maxwell).

I Lived 3 Lives was based on a book by the real-life Herbert Philbrick, who really was an undercover operative for the FBI for nine years and really did help bring down enemy agents.

The show was seen on 157 stations and rated among the top ten shows in the US in 1954 but eventually collapsed into obscurity, as anti-communist paranoia gradually became something most Americans snickered at rather than feared.

Eleanor Jean Parker was an American actress. She was nominated for three Academy Awards for her roles in the films Caged (1950), Detective Story (1951), and Interrupted Melody (1955), the first of which won her the Volpi Cup for Best Actress. She was also known for her roles in the films Of Human Bondage (1946), Scaramouche (1952), The Naked Jungle (1954), The Sound of Music (1965), and The Oscar (1966).

• Born June 26, 1922 · Cedarville, Ohio, US. Died December 9, 2013 · Palm Springs, California, USA (pneumonia) Eleanor Jean Parker was born on June 26, 1922, in Cedarville, Ohio, the last of three children born to a mathematics teacher and his wife. Eleanor caught the acting bug early and began performing in school plays. She was was so serious about becoming an actor, that she attended the Rice Summer Theatre on Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts, beginning when she was 15 years old. She was offered her first screen test by a 20th Century-Fox talent scout while attending Rice, but turned the opportunity down to gain professional stage experience in Cleveland after graduating from high school. She moved on to California to continue her acting studies at the Pasadena Playhouse. It was there, while sitting in the audience of a play being put on at the Playhouse, that she was again offered a screen test - this time from a Warner Brothers' scout - and again declined, wanting to finish her first year at the Playhouse. When the year was up, Eleanor contacted Warner Brothers to take them up on their offer of a screen test and was signed as a contract player two days after it was shot.

https://youtu.be/F3WX6eJ3xtM

Known for his steady and straightforward delivery, his trim moustache, and his iconic sign-off line -"That's the way it is" - Cronkite dominated the television news industry during one of the most volatile periods of American history. He broke the news of the Kennedy assassination, reported extensively on Vietnam and Civil Rights and Watergate, and seemed to be the very embodiment of TV journalism.

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Beat the Clock is an American television game show. Contestants attempt to complete challenges such as physical stunts within a time limit in order to win prizes. The show was a creation of Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions. The show began on radio as Time's A-Wastin' in 1948, hosted by Bud Collyer, and changed its name to Beat the Time on January 5, 1949. The show moved to television on the CBS nighttime schedule starting on March 23, 1950. On September 16, 1957, CBS premiered an afternoon version of the show as well, which ran for a year.

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One Man's Family is an American radio soap opera, heard for almost three decades, from 1932 to 1959. Created by Carlton E. Morse, it was the longest-running uninterrupted dramatic serial in the history of American radio. Television versions of the series aired in prime time from 1949 to 1952 and in daytime from 1954 to 1955.

Tallulah Bankhead appeared in several television programs during the 1950s, most notably hosting The Big Show from 1950 to 1952, where she performed monologues and songs. Additionally, she made a memorable guest appearance on The Ford Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show,

By the late 1940s and early 1950s, Bankhead’s hedonistic lifestyle and excessive drinking had taken its toll. She is quoted as having said, “My father warned me about men and booze, but he never mentioned a word about women and cocaine.” Most of her Broadway endeavours during this decade were flops, and critics complained that she had become a self-caricature. She kept her career afloat by publishing a best-selling autobiography, touring in such plays as Private Lives (1948) and Dear Charles (1955) and headlining her own nightclub act.

>> VIEW HERE https://youtu.be/WODXxGWI_Fw

Where's Raymond? is an American sitcom that aired on ABC, starring Ray Bolger. The series aired from October 1953 to April 22, 1955. The series' title was spurred by Bolger's Broadway stage hit Where's Charley?. In the 1954-1955 season, the series was renamed The Ray Bolger Show.