Ida Lupino and The Great One: Next on TVC

Author Mary Ann Anderson will join us on the next edition of TV CONFIDENTIAL, airing Apr. 29-May 4 at the following times and venues:

WROM Radio
Detroit, MI
Wednesday 4/29
8pm ET, 5pm PT
2am ET, 11pm PT
Sunday 5/4
8pm ET, 5pm PT
2am ET, 11pm PT
Click on the Listen Live button at WROMRadio.net

Share-a-Vision Radio
San Francisco Bay Area
Friday 5/1
7pm ET, 4pm PT
10pm ET, 7pm PT
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Use the TuneIn app on your smartphone and type in KSAV
or hear us on the KSAV channel on CX Radio Brazil

Indiana Talks
Marion, IN
Saturday 5/2
8pm ET, 5pm PT
Sunday 5/3
6pm ET, 3pm PT
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Pittsburgh Talks
Pittsburgh, PA
Saturday 5/2
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Sunday 5/3
6pm ET, 3pm PT
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KSCO-AM 1080
San Jose, Santa Cruz and Salinas, CA
KOMY-AM 1340
La Selva Beach and Watsonville, CA
Sunday 5/3
10am ET, 7am PT
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Boost Radio Network
Paramus, NJ
Sunday 5/3
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KHMB-AM and FM
Half Moon Bay, CA
Sunday 5/3
9pm PT
Monday 5/4
Midnight ET
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RadioSlot.com
San Francisco, CA
Monday 5/4
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with replays Tuesday thru Friday at 10pm ET, 7pm PT
Click on the Talk Slot button at RadioSlot.com

PWRNetwork
Ann Arbor, MI
Various times throughout the week
on the Entertainment Channel at PWRNetwork.com


Mary Ann Andersonwill return for Part 2 of our conversation on the life and career of pioneering actress and director Ida Lupino. Mary’s books include Ida Lupino: Beyond the Camera, the story of Ida’s life and career (in Ida’s own words),The Making of The Hitch-Hiker: Illustrated, a behind-the-scenes look at the classic 1953 film noir thriller directed by Ida Lupino, and Portrait of a Soap Star: The Emily McLaughlin Story.

We’ll talk about Ida’s work in television, plus we’ll hear more of the 1991 interview with author A.M. Sperber (one of the last interviews that Ida Lupino gave). Mary Ann Anderson will join us in our second hour.

This week’s show will also include an encore presentation of Phil Gries’ look at Jackie Gleason, the short-lived prime time talk show that the Great One hosted on CBS in 1961. Though the series came about by accident (following the disastrous one-night run of Gleason’s game show, You’re in the Picture), Jackie Gleason showed that Gleason was as adept a conversationalist as he was a comedian.

All this, plus This Week in TV History and a new DVD report. It’s a full program as always, and we certainly hope you’ll join us. 

TV CONFIDENTIAL: A radio talk show about television
Wed and Sun 8pm ET, 5pm PT on WROM Radio
Fri 7pm ET and PT on Share-a-Vision Radio, KSAV.org and CX Radio Brazil
Sat 8pm ET, 5pm PT and Sun 6pm ET, 3pm PT on Indiana Talks
Sat 8pm ET, 5pm PT and Sun 6pm ET, 3pm PT on Pittsburgh Talks
Sun 10am ET, 7am PT KSCO-AM 1080 (San Jose, Santa Cruz and Salinas, CA)
Sun 10am ET, 7am PT KOMY-AM 1340 (La Selva Beach and Watsonville, CA)
Sun 8pm ET, 5pm PT Boost Radio Network
Sun 9pm PT, Mon Mid ET on KHMB-AM and FM (Half Moon Bay, CA)
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This Week in Television History: April 2015 PART IV

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.

April 28, 1965

My Name is Barbra is Barbra Streisand's debut television special. 

Barbra Streisand's breakout year as a singer came in 1963, when she released her first two albums, won her first two Grammys and began appearing live in some of the most prominent nightclubs in the country. By the following year, she was a showbiz phenomenon, earning further nominations from the Grammys and Tonys after wowing Broadway critics and audiences in her first leading role, as Fanny Brice in Funny Girl. Yet even then, in a Time magazine cover article in 1964, it was noted that "Many people still say Who when they hear her name." That probably changed once and for all on April 28, 1965, when millions of American television viewers tuned in to a solid primetime hour of the 22-year-old Streisand in her first-ever TV special, the triumphant My Name Is Barbra.

My Name is Barbra was the first special to be shot and aired under a $5 million, 10-year contract signed between Streisand and CBS in June 1964. Quite apart from the money, what made the deal so extraordinary was the creative control it gave to Streisand. She chose to exercise that control by eschewing many of the conventions of the then-popular musical variety show genre. Rather than shooting only in a studio, Streisand and her crew filmed one of their major sequences on location in the fur department of Bergdorf Goodman, where Streisand vamped in exotic fur coats and specially designed hats by Halston to a medley of poverty songs, including "Give Me the Simple Life" and "Brother Can You Spare a Dime." And rather than filling out the bill with big-name guest stars—a safe strategy for a young and still-rising star—Streisand performed every number alone. "You can imagine how nervous that made the network," Streisand later remarked, "when they learned that there would be major guest stars, not even any minor ones—just me and a bunch of great songs and some wonderful musicians."

However nervous they might have been, CBS executives were thrilled with the results. My Name is Barbra was a huge critical and ratings hit on this night in 1965. It won two Emmys and a Peabody Award and helped make Barbra Streisand truly a household name, further ensuring the success of later Streisand CBS specials like Color Me Barbra (1966) and The Belle of 14th Street (1967).

April 30, 1975

ABC aired the pilot episode of Starsky and Hutch.

The  series, which consisted of a 70-minute pilot movie (originally aired as a Movie of the Week entry) and 92 episodes of 50 minutes each. The show was created by William Blinn, produced by Spelling-Goldberg Productions, and broadcast between April 30, 1975, and May 15, 1979, on the ABC network. It was distributed byColumbia Pictures Television in the United States and, originally, Metromedia Producers Corporation in Canada and some other parts of the world. Sony Pictures Television is now the worldwide distributor for the series. The series also inspired a theatrical filmand a video game.

The series' protagonists were two Southern California police detectives: David Michael Starsky (Paul Michael Glaser), the dark-haired, Brooklyn transplant and U.S. Armyveteran, with a street-wise manner and intense, sometimes childlike moodiness; and Kenneth "Hutch" Hutchinson (David Soul), the blond, Duluth, Minnesota native with a more reserved and intellectual approach. Under the radio call sign "Zebra Three", they were known for usually tearing around the streets of fictional "Bay City, California". The vehicle of choice was Starsky's two-door Ford Gran Torino, which was bright-red, with a large white vector stripe on both sides. The Torino was nicknamed the "Striped Tomato" by Hutch in the episode "Snowstorm", and fans subsequently referred to the car by that nickname, too. 

However, this moniker didn't come from the writers - it came from a real-life comment that Glaser made. In a segment titled Starsky & Hutch: Behind The Badge that was featured on the first season DVDcollection, Glaser stated that when he was first shown the Torino by series producer Aaron Spelling, he sarcastically said to Soul, "That thing looks like a striped tomato!" In characteristic contrast, Hutch's vehicle was a battered, tan, 1973 Ford Galaxie 500. It occasionally appeared when the duo needed separate vehicles, or for undercover work; however, the duo's cover was often blown because Hutch's vehicle had a bad habit: when its driver's side door was opened, the horn would go off, instantly drawing attention. It was also noticeable due to the severely cluttered back seat, so cluttered that there was no room to transport both prisoners, and the two detectives, simultaneously.

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

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa