George Maharis and Pen Densham: Next on TVC

Actor George Maharis and writer, producer and director Pen Densham will join us as part of an encore presentation of TV CONFIDENTIAL, airing May 22-28 at the following times and venues:

WROM Radio
Detroit, MI
Wednesday 5/22
8pm ET, 5pm PT
2am ET, 11pm PT
Sunday 5/26
8pm ET, 5pm PT
2am ET, 11pm PT
Click on the Listen Live button at MediaCritic.net

Indiana Talks
Marion, IN
Wednesday 5/22
11pm ET, 8pm PT
with replays at various times throughout the week
Click on the player at IndianaTalks.com
or use the Live365 app on your smartphone and type in Indiana Talks

Share-a-Vision Radio
San Francisco Bay Area
Friday 5/24
7pm ET, 4pm PT
10pm ET, 7pm PT
Click on the Listen Live button at KSAV.org
or use the TuneIn app on your smartphone and type in KSAV

Talktainment Radio
Columbus, OH
Thursday 5/23
2am ET, 11pm PT
Friday 5/24
3am ET, Midnight PT
Noon ET, 9am PT
Click on the Listen Live button at TalktainmentRadio.com

The Coyote KKYT 93.7 FM
Ridgecrest, CA
Sunday 5/26
9pm PT
Monday 5/27
Midnight ET
Click on the Listen Live button at Coyote395.com
or use the TuneIn app on your smartphone and type in KKYT

The Radio Slot Network
San Francisco, CA
Monday 5/27
9pm ET, 6pm PT
Click on the Talk Slot button at RadioSlot.com

Passionate World Radio
Ann Arbor, MI
Tuesday 5/28
9:30pm ET, 6:30pm PT
Click on the Listen Now button at PWRTalk.com

Our first hour will feature an encore presentation of our April 2012 conversation with actor George Maharis, Buz Murdock on Route 66, the groundbreaking TV series from the early 1960s that airs Sunday nights on Me-TV. Besides work in television, George has an extensive stage background, including productions of Exodus, Deathwatch and The Zoo Story, plus he has enjoyed a successful career as a recording artist, both for Columbia Records as well as in Las Vegas.

Among other topics, George will clarify the reason why he left Route 66 during the show’s third season (a story that has been often been subject to innuendo and misinformation). The hour will also include a replay of the Sounds of Lost Television segment in which Phil Gries plays highlights from Maharis’ appearance on the May 18, 1962 edition of PM East with Mike Wallace.




Then, in our second hour, we will replay our conversation from August 2011 with Oscar-nominated writer, producer and director Pen Densham. Pen’s credits for film and television include Backdraft, Blown Away, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, the adaptation of The Magnificent Seven for CBS Television, and the remakes of The Outer Limits for Showtime and The Twilight Zone for UPN.

Pen is also the author of Riding the Alligator: Strategies for a Career in Screenplay Writing..., a hands-on, heartfelt approach to the craft of screenwriting that advises writers to filter their product by channeling their passion.
TV CONFIDENTIAL: A radio talk show about television
Wed and Sun 8pm ET, 5pm PT on WROM Radio
Wed 11am ET, 8am PT on IndianaTalks.com
Fri 7pm ET and PT on Share-a-Vision Radio, KSAV.org
Fri Noon ET, 9am PT on Talktainment Radio
Sun 9pm PT, Mon Midnight ET on The Coyote KKYT 93.7 FM (Ridgecrest, Calif.)
Mon 9pm ET, 6pm PT on The Radio Slot Network
Tue 9:30pm ET, 6:30pm PT on Passionate World Radio
Now also heard at various times throughout the week on IndianaTalks.com
Tape us now, listen to us later, using DAR.fm/tvconfidential
Also available as a podcast via iTunes, FeedBurner
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This Week in Television History: May 2013 PART III

Listen to me on TV CONFIDENTIAL:

CLICK HERE for a list of Stations

As always, the further we go back in Hollywood history, the more that fact and legend become intertwined. It's hard to say where the truth really lies.

May 23, 1933

Joan Collins is born. 

Joan Collins, a classically trained actress who will become best known for her role on the 1980s prime-time soap opera Dynasty, is born in London, England.

The daughter of a theatrical booking agent, Collins made her theater debut at the age of nine, in a production of The Dollhouse by Henrik Ibsen. As a teenager, she studied at the prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and appeared in nine British films. She headed to Hollywood at the age of 22, and landed sultry roles in several popular films, including Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (1955).

On Star Trek "The City on the Edge of Forever" Written ByHarlan Ellison Collins played Edith Keeler a social worker who ran a soup-kitchen out of the Twenty-First Street Mission, on planet Earth in 1930. Known for her compassion and forward thinking, she sought to bring peace to the entire planet. In that year, she died in an automobile accident.

She continued making films in the United States and the United Kingdom through the 1960s, but her career languished in the 1970s, and she was reduced to starring in horror flicks like Fear in the Night (1972). She also starred in two films based on best-selling novels by her younger sister Jackie Collins, The Stud (1978) and The Bitch (1979).


In 1981, Collins landed the plum role of Alexis Carrington (later Colby) in the prime-time soap opera Dynasty, which ran for eight years. Her portrayal of the vindictive ex-wife of the oil tycoon Blake Carrington--and the bitter rival of his current wife and former secretary, the beautiful blonde Krystle (played by Linda Evans)--rejuvenated Collins’ career, as buzz for the show began to grow and the Alexis-Krystle clash became one of its central plotlines. In one of Dynasty’s most memorable scenes, Alexis and Krystle come to blows in a lily pond; in another, Krystle dumps a bowl of mud on Alexis after she overhears her gossiping about her at a spa. After several years of declining ratings, ABC dropped Dynasty from its lineup in 1989.  In 1997, Collins reprised the role of Alexis on Aaron Spelling’s Pacific Palisades. She later joined former cast mates in two reunion specials, most recently Caviar and Catfights: The Dynasty Reunion (2006).
By the late 1980s, Collins followed in her sister Jackie’s footsteps and published her first novel, which she sold to Simon and Schuster for a rumored $3 million. Despite critical pans, the book, Prime Time, became a bestseller when it debuted in 1988. Two years later, Random House offered Collins $4 million in a two-book deal, paying a $1.3 million advance, with the rest due on delivery of the manuscripts. When Collins turned in the first of the two manuscripts in 1991, the publishing house claimed the manuscript was unacceptable and sued for the return of the advance. In 1996, the court ruled in favor of Collins and demanded that Random House pay her an additional $1 million for the work she turned in. Her zest for writing was apparently unquenched by the battle--she published the beauty book My Secrets in 1994, followed by Second Act in 1996 and a sequel My Secrets, My Friends’ Secrets, in 1999.
In addition to her writing career, Collins has continued to act, appearing in films such as Kenneth Branagh’s In the Bleak Midwinter (1995) and The Flinstones in Viva Rock Vegas (2000), and television series (Will & Grace, Footballers’ Wives) in the United States and the United Kingdom. Since 2002, Collins has been married to her fifth husband, Percy Gibson, who is more than three decades her junior.

May 20, 1993

The final episode of Cheers Titled One for the Road. This episode serves as the 271st episode and the 25th episode of the eleventh season of Cheers. It first aired on NBC in Thursday, May 20, 1993, to an audience of approximately 42.4 million households in a 98 minute version, making it the second-highest-rated series finale of all time behind the series finale of M*A*S*H and the highest-rated episode of the 1992-1993 television season in the United States. The 98 minute version was re-shown on Sunday, May 23, 1993, and an edited 90 minute version aired on Thursday, August 19, 1993.

May 25, 1992

Sugarbaker Designs closed its doors, as Designing Women ended its 7 season run, in 1993.

To quote the Bicentennial Minute, "And that's the way it was".

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa