This book pays tribute to 10 prominent television actresses who played lead roles in popular comedy shows of the 1950s. Each chapter covers the works and personalities of one actress: Lucille Ball (I Love Lucy), Gracie Allen (The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show), Eve Arden (Our Miss Brooks), Spring Byington (December Bride), Joan Davis (I Married Joan), Anne Jeffreys (Topper), Donna Reed (The Donna Reed Show), Ann Sothern (Private Secretary and The Ann Sothern Show), Gale Storm (My Little Margie and The Gale Storm Show: Oh! Susanna), and Betty White (Life with Elizabeth). For each star, a...

This first biography of Shirley Booth provides complete coverage of a career that encompassed theater, film, radio, and TV, and co-stars such as Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn. Readers of this exhaustively researched yet readable biography will come to know a versatile and gifted star whose career spanned almost 60 years.

Originally broadcast on American television between 1952 and 1969, the thirty situation comedies detailed in this work are seldom seen today, receiving only brief and often incomplete and inaccurate mentions in most reference sources. Yet these sitcoms (including Angel, The Governor and J.J., It's a Great Life, I'm Dickens...He's Fenster and Wendy and Me, ) and the stories of the talented people who made them, represent an integral part of TV history. Each of the thirty entries has been extensively researched, including screenings of multiple episodes. Containing a complete list of production...

The remarkable career of American actress Eve Arden (1908-1990) is thoroughly chronicled from her earliest stage work in 1926 (under her given name Eunice Quedens) to her final television role in a 1987 episode of Falcon Crest. Included are detailed descriptions and critical commentaries of the actress's 65 feature film appearances between 1929 and 1982, notably her Oscar-nominated performance as Joan Crawford's sardonic confidante in 1945's Mildred Pierce.

The Emmy-nominated star of the classic 1950s sitcom I Married Joan, Joan Davis (1912-1961) was also radio's highest paid comedienne in the 1940s--and she displayed her unique brand of knockabout comedy in more than forty films. This book provides a complete account of her career, including a filmography with critical commentary, and the most detailed episode logs ever compiled for her radio and television programs. A biographical chapter offers never-before-published information about her family background, marriage to vaudeville comedian Si Wills and relationships with other men, and her...