Acting
Matinee Theater is an American anthology series that aired on NBC during the Golden Age of Television, from 1955 to 1958. The series, which ran daily in the afternoon, was frequently live. It was produced by Albert McCleery, Darrell Ross, George Cahan and Frank Price with executive producer George Lowther. McCleery had previously produced the live series Cameo Theatre which introduced to television the concept of theater-in-the-round, TV plays staged with minimal sets. Jim Buckley of the Pewter Plough Playhouse recalled: When Al McCleery got back to the States, he originated a most ambitious theatrical TV series for NBC called Matinee Theater: to televise five different stage plays per week live, airing around noon in order to promote color TV to the American housewife as she labored over her ironing. Al was the producer. He hired five directors and five art directors. Richard Bennett, one of our first early presidents of the Pewter Plough Corporation, was one of the directors and I was one of the art directors and, as soon as we were through televising one play, we had lunch and then met to plan next week’s show. That was over 50 years ago, and I’m trying to think; I believe the TV art director is his own set decorator —yes, of course! It had to be, since one of McCleery’s chief claims to favor with the producers was his elimination of the setting per se and simply decorating the scene with a minimum of props. It took a bit of ingenuity.
The tale of trail boss Gil Favor and his trusty foreman Rowdy Yates as they drives cattle across the old west. Along the way they meet up with adventure and drama.
Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre, sometimes simply called Zane Grey Theatre, is an American Western anthology series which ran on CBS from 1956 to 1961.
Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West. The central character is lawman Marshal Matt Dillon, played by William Conrad on radio and James Arness on television.
Sugarfoot is an American western television series that aired on ABC from 1957 to 1961. The series stars Will Hutchins as Tom Brewster, an Easterner who comes to the Oklahoma Territory to become a lawyer. Jack Elam is cast in occasional episodes as sidekick Toothy Thompson. Brewster was a correspondence-school student whose apparent lack of cowboy skills earned him the nickname "Sugarfoot", a designation even below that of a tenderfoot.
Navy Log is an American drama anthology series that initially aired for one season on CBS. It relates the greatest survival war stories in the history of the United States Navy. This series premiered on September 20, 1955, but the following year, it was moved to ABC, where it aired until September 25, 1958. The program aired for a total of three seasons and 102 episodes.
The Adventures of Jim Bowie is an American Western television series that aired on ABC from 1956 to 1958. Its setting was the 1830s-era Louisiana Territory. The series was an adaptation of the book Tempered Blade, by Monte Barrett. The series stars Scott Forbes as the real-life adventurer Jim Bowie. The series initially portrayed Jim Bowie as something of an outdoors-man, riding his horse through the wilderness near his home in Opelousas, where he would stumble across someone needing his assistance. He was aided by the Bowie Knife, his ever-present weapon. He designed it in the first episode, The Birth of the Blade.
Trackdown is an American Western television series starring Robert Culp that aired on CBS between 1957 and 1959. More than seventy episodes of this series were produced by Dick Powell's Four Star Television and filmed at the Desilu-Culver Studio. The series was itself a spin-off of Powell's anthology series, Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater.
First Love is an American soap opera which ran on NBC Daytime from July 5, 1954 to December 30, 1955. The series aired at 4:15 p.m. EST, between Golden Windows and Concerning Miss Marlowe. Although the show had a strong fan following, at the time NBC had little use for developing any of their daytime shows and canceled First Love after a year and a half. Many cast members such as Patricia Barry, Val Dufour and Rosemary Prinz went on to become long-running daytime stars. Created by Adrian Samish and written by Manya Starr, the series centered around jet engineer Zach James and his difficult marriage to Laurie James. Due to being neglected as a child, Zach was obsessed with building a name for himself. Laurie tried to understand him but was unable to help him deal with his problems, as he went on trial for the murder of an aviatrix he may have been having an affair with. The show became known chiefly for a major blooper early in its run. A Friday cliffhanger involved Zach seeing his friend Chris crash his plane. Zach ran to tell Chris' wife Amy, "Chris cracked up the plane." In his rush, Dufour blurted out, "Chris crapped", then abruptly added, "...on the plane." Patricia Barry began to giggle. When the camera cut to a "bereaved" Prinz, she was shaking with laughter. Supposedly NBC nearly fired all three actors, but changed their minds after fans wrote in praising them for the scene. In 2003 Prinz denied such a scene ever made it to the air.
Search for Tomorrow is an American soap opera that premiered on September 3, 1951, on CBS. The show was moved from CBS to NBC on March 29, 1982. It continued on NBC until the final episode aired on December 26, 1986, a run of thirty-five years. At the time of its final broadcast, it was the longest-running non-news program on television. This record would later be broken by Hallmark Hall of Fame, which premiered on Christmas Eve 1951 and still airs occasionally. The show was created by Roy Winsor and was first written by Agnes Nixon for thirteen weeks and, later, by Irving Vendig.
Another World is an American television soap opera that ran on NBC for 35 years from May 4, 1964 to June 25, 1999. Set in the fictional town of Bay City, the show in its early years opens with announcer Bill Wolff intoning its epigram, “We do not live in this world alone, but in a thousand other worlds,” which Phillips said represented the difference between “the world of events we live in, and the world of feelings and dreams that we strive for.” Another World focused less on the conventional drama of domestic life as seen in other soap operas, and more on exotic melodrama between families of different classes and philosophies.
The Edge of Night was an American television mystery series/soap opera produced by Procter & Gamble. It debuted on CBS on April 2, 1956, and ran as a live broadcast on that network until November 28, 1975; the series then moved to ABC, where it aired from December 1, 1975, until December 28, 1984. There were 7,420 episodes, with some 1,800 available for syndication.
Long-running anthology program sponsored by Hallmark Cards. Beginning in 1951 and continuing into 2019, the series received 80 Emmy Awards, 24 Christopher Awards, 11 Peabody Awards, 9 Golden Globes, and 4 Humanitas Prizes. Early seasons were a weekly live drama, eventually transitioning to videotaped and then filmed productions broadcast as occasional specials.
Two psychics place a prostitute under hypnosis in order to learn about her past-life experiences. When they unwittingly send her back in time, she finds herself in the Middle Ages, suspected of being a witch and on the verge of being executed.
After Caroline Cram finds herself in an analyst's office, she starts groping for the truth about her hopelessness, fears, loneliness and anxieties. A fact and fiction documentary financed by the U. S. Public Health Service and endorsed by the National Association for Mental Health and the National Institute for Mental Health.
