April 2, 1974
The 46th Academy Awards Streaker.
While David Niven was introducing Elizabeth Taylor to present the award for Best Picture, a streaker named Robert Opel ran out from backstage, causing spontaneous laughter. David Niven tookcontrol of the situation by saying, “Isn't it fascinating to think that probably the only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off and showing his shortcomings?”April 3, 1924
Doris Day is born Doris Mary Ann Kappelhoff.
When third husband Martin Melcher died on April 20, 1968, a shocked Day discovered that Melcher and his business partner Jerome Bernard Rosenthal had squandered her earnings, leaving her deeply in debt. Rosenthal had been her attorney since 1949, when he represented her in her uncontested divorce action against her second husband, saxophonist George W. Weidler. In February 1969, Day filed suit against Rosenthal and won the then-largest civil judgment (over $20 million) in the state of California. (She later settled for about one-quarter of the amount originally awarded.)
Day
also learned that Melcher had committed her to a television series, which
became The Doris Day Show.
Day
hated the idea of doing television, but felt obliged to it. ”There was a
contract. I didn’t know about it. I never wanted to do TV, but I gave it 100
percent anyway. That’s the only way I know how to do it.” The first
episode of The Doris Day Show aired on September 24, 1968,
and, from 1968 to 1973, employed “Que Sera, Sera” as its theme song. Day
grudgingly persevered (she needed the work to help pay off her debts), but only
after CBS ceded creative control
to her and her son. The successful show enjoyed a five-year run (its second
season finished in the Top 10 of the Nielsen ratings), and functioned as a
curtain-raiser for The Carol Burnett Show. It is remembered today for its abrupt
season-to-season changes in casting and premise. It was not widely syndicated
as many of its contemporaries were, and was re-broadcast very little outside
the United States, Australia and the UK. By the end of its run in 1973,
public tastes had changed and her firmly established persona regarded as passé.
She largely retired from acting after The Doris Day Show, but did
complete two television specials, The Doris Mary Anne Kappelhoff
Special (1971) and Doris Day to Day (1975).
April 3, 1944
Tony Orlando is born Michael Anthony Orlando Cassavitis.
Best
known as the lead singer of the group Tony Orlando and Dawn in the early 1970s.
Discovered
by producer Don
Kirshner,
Orlando had songs on the charts in 1961 when he was 16, “Halfway to Paradise” and “Bless You”. Orlando then became a producer himself, and at an
early age was promoted to a vice-president position at CBS Records, where he was in charge of
the April-Blackwood Music division. He sang under the name “Dawn” in the 1970s,
and when the songs became hits, he went on tour and the group became “Tony
Orlando and Dawn”. They had several songs which were major hits including “Candida“, “Knock Three Times“, and “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree“.
April 3, 1949
Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis debuted on radio in
an NBC program that ran until 1952.
April 4, 1969
The CBS Television Network fired The Smothers Brothers because the brothers failed to submit an episode of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour to network executives before its broadcast.
The variety show was well known
for its censorship battles with the network. The network executives often
objected to the brothers' selection of controversial, outspoken, left wing, and
antiwar guests, including:
Pete Seeger, who had been
invited to appear on the Smothers' second season premiere to sing his anti-war
song, "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy.” Seeger would later apear on the show
and sang that song.
Harry Belafonte was scheduled
to do a calypso song called "Don't Stop the Carnival" with images
from the riots at the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention behind him. The Song
was cut and the time was sold to the Nixon campaign but can now be seen on the
season 3 DVD.
Joan Baez wanted to dedicate a
song to her draft-resisting husband who was about to go to prison for his
stance. The dedication to her husband made the air but the reason for the
dedication did not.
Dr. Benjamin Spock, noted baby
doctor and anti-war activist, was prevented from appearing as a guest of the
show because, according to the network, he was a "convicted felon."
Under the category of
irreverent and offensive, we have:
David Steinberg’s satirical
sermonettes caused controversy for being sacrilegious. His second sermonette
was in the episode that never aired.
Leigh French created the
recurring hippie character, Goldie O'Keefe, whose parody of afternoon advice
shows for housewives, "Share a Little Tea with Goldie," was actually
one long celebration of mind-altering drugs. (Tea" was a counter culture
code word for marijuana, but the CBS censors seemed to be unaware of the
connection). Goldie would open her sketches with, "Hi(gh)– and glad of
it!"
Elaine May wrote a skit about
censorship that featured Tom and Elaine who playing motion picture censors
trying to find a more acceptable substitution for unacceptable dialogue. The
skit ended up being censored.
Tom
and Dick Smothers assembled the old Smothers
Brothers Comedy Hour gang in February 1988 for a 20th reunion special on
CBS. Now the network wanted the brothers and company to be edgy and
controversial but no one associated with the show was interested. After all
when the establishment tells you something is cool... It's no longer cool.
In 1968 when it came time to submit the names of the writers for Emmy
considerations, Tom refused to include his name for fear that he had become too
controversial and it would hurt the show’s chances of winning. The show won the
Emmy for outstanding Writing Achievement in Comedy Variety that year.
Almost 40 Years later (Sunday, September 21st 2008) during the live television broadcast of the 60th Annual Emmy Awards, Tom Smothers received an Emmy acknowledging his contributions as a writer on “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour”. Steve Martin, who was one of the Emmy winning writers on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, presented Tom with a commemorative Emmy acknowledging his role in the writing of a variety show.
Fireside Theatre starts. Fireside Theatre, one of TV's first dramatic series to be filmed rather than broadcast live, debuts.
The show ran until 1958 and was revived for one year in 1963. For the first year, each film was only 15 minutes long, but later the time slot expanded to 30 minutes. Jane Wyman, who was married to Ronald Reagan between 1940 and 1948, served as host from 1955 to 1958 and during the 1963 revival.
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