One hundred and four years ago on this date in Jamestown, NY, the woman who would become virtually synonymous with television situation comedy entered this world as Lucille Désirée Ball. October 15, 1951 marked the small screen debut of I Love Lucy, a domestic comedy vehicle featuring Lucy and her real-life bandleader husband Desi Arnaz. […]

I’d never be able to prove it in a court of law…but I’d be willing to gamble that when the need arose for an actress to play the part of a spinster or neighborhood busybody, Irene Tedrow was on everyone’s speed dial. (Okay, I just remembered that they didn’t have speed dial back then—that might […]

On this date in 1909 in New York City, Maria Paoli and Pasquale DeSantis welcomed Joseph Vito Marcello DeSantis into the world. The shorter version of that name is Joe DeSantis, a man who would become one of the most celebrated character actors on stage and radio, and in movies and television. Interestingly, Joe’s first […]

It wasn’t a drink from the legendary Fountain of Youth that kept today’s birthday celebrant seemingly young throughout his impressive show business career. A purported glandular disorder prevented Walter Campbell Tetzlaff—better known as Walter Tetley, and born in New York on this date in 1915—from undergoing normal adolescence, and thus his voice was never allowed […]

Dominic Felix Amici was born on this date in Kenosha, WI in 1908. When Dominic changed his name to Don Ameche, however, that’s when any number of doors started opening for one of show business’ formidable talents. Ameche could sing, act, tell jokes and perform the necessary duties of a “master of ceremonies” with effortless […]

James Maitland Stewart, the Academy Award-winning actor beloved by theatergoers as “the boy next door” was born on this date in Indiana, Pennsylvania in 1908. Jimmy took home Oscar gold for his unconventional role (and by unconventional, I mean a “fast-talking” reporter) in The Philadelphia Story (1940)—though a good many people (myself included) are convinced […]

It never fails…every time I tune into an episode of The Jack Benny Program (be it on radio or TV) and Jack needs help from someone in customer service, the clerk is played by the same actor—who greets the comedian in the same sneering fashion: “Yeeeeeeeeesssss?” It couldn’t be the same guy, could it? Of […]

In the 1949 film The Life of Riley—based on the successful radio situation comedy created by Irving Brecher (who also directed and wrote the silver screen adaptation)—one of the series’ most popular characters is introduced in a rather novel fashion. The electricity has been cut off in the Riley household, and in the darkness we […]