Martha Raye
Acting
Biography
Martha Raye (born Margy Reed), nicknamed The Big Mouth, was an American comic actress and singer who performed in movies, and later on television. She also acted in plays, including Broadway. She was honored in 1969 at the Academy Awards as the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award recipient for her volunteer efforts and services to the troops. In the early 1930s, Raye was a band vocalist with the Paul Ash and Boris Morros orchestras. She made her first film appearance in 1934 in a band short titled A Nite in the Nite Club. In 1936, she was signed for comic roles by Paramount Pictures, and made her first picture for Paramount. Her first feature film was Rhythm on the Range with crooner Bing Crosby. She was a featured cast member in 39 episodes of Al Jolson's weekly CBS radio show, The Lifebuoy Program, also called Cafe Trocadero. In addition to comedy, Martha sang both solos and duets with Jolson. Over the next quarter century, she would appear with many of the leading comics of her day, including Joe E. Brown, Bob Hope, W. C. Fields, Abbott and Costello (in Keep 'Em Flying), Charlie Chaplin (in Monsieur Verdoux), and Jimmy Durante. She joined the USO in 1942, soon after the US entered World War II. She was known for the size of her mouth, which was large in proportion to her face, earning her the nickname The Big Mouth. She later referred to this in a series of television commercials for Polident denture cleaner in the 1980s: "So take it from The Big Mouth: new Polident Green gets tough stains clean!" Her large mouth would relegate her motion picture work to supporting comic parts, and was often made up so it appeared even larger. In the Disney cartoon Mother Goose Goes Hollywood, she is caricatured while dancing alongside Joe E. Brown, another actor known for a big mouth. In the Warner Bros. cartoon The Woods Are Full Of Cuckoos (1937), she was caricatured as a jazzy scat-singing donkey named 'Moutha Bray'. She often appeared as a guest on other programs, particularly those which often featured older performers as guest stars, such as ABC's The Love Boat, and also on variety programs, including the short-lived The Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Show. She appeared from the third to the ninth seasons as Carrie Sharples on Alice, making two or three appearances a season. She made guest appearances or did cameo roles in such series as Murder, She Wrote on CBS and The Andy Williams Show and McMillan & Wife, both on NBC. She appeared again as Agatha for the six-episode run of the retooled McMillan, taking over for Nancy Walker, who had left the series. Her last film appearance was as an incontinent airline passenger in the disaster film The Concorde ... Airport '79. Later in her career, she made television commercials for Polident denture cleanser, principally during the 1970s and 1980s.
Known For
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson is a talk show hosted by Johnny Carson under The Tonight Show franchise from 1962 to 1992. It originally aired during late-night. For its first ten years, Carson's Tonight Show was based in New York City with occasional trips to Burbank, California; in May 1972, the show moved permanently to Burbank, California. In 2002, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson was ranked #12 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time.
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
The Mike Douglas Show is an American daytime television talk show hosted by Mike Douglas that originally aired only in the Cleveland area during much of its first two years on the air. It then went into syndication in 1963 and remained on television until 1982. It was distributed by Westinghouse Broadcasting and for much of its run, originated from studios of two of the company's TV stations in Cleveland and Philadelphia.
The Mike Douglas Show
An unassuming mystery writer turned sleuth uses her professional insight to help solve real-life homicide cases.
Murder, She Wrote
Passengers who search for romantic nights aboard a beautiful ship travelling to tropical or mysterious countries, decide to pass their vacation aboard the "Love Boat", where Gopher, Dr. Bricker, Isaac, Julie, and Captain Stubing try their best to please them, and sometimes help them fall in love. Things are not always so easy, but in the end, love wins.
The Love Boat
Four panelists must determine guests' occupations - and, in the case of famous guests, while blindfolded, their identity - by asking only "yes" or "no" questions.
What's My Line?
The Dick Cavett Show has been the title of several talk shows hosted by Dick Cavett on various television networks.
The Dick Cavett Show
The Carol Burnett Show is an American variety/sketch comedy television show starring Carol Burnett, Harvey Korman, Vicki Lawrence, Lyle Waggoner, and Tim Conway. It originally ran on CBS from September 11, 1967, to March 29, 1978, for 278 episodes and originated from CBS Television City's Studio 33. The series won 25 prime time Emmy Awards, was ranked No. 16 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time in 2002 and in 2007 was listed as one of Time magazine's "100 Best TV Shows of All Time."
The Carol Burnett Show
The Red Skelton Show is an American variety show that was a television staple for two decades, from 1951 to 1971. It was second to Gunsmoke and third to The Ed Sullivan Show in the ratings during that time. Skelton, who had previously been a radio star, had appeared in several motion pictures as well. Although his television series is largely associated with CBS, where it appeared for more than fifteen years, it actually began and ended on NBC. During its run, the program received three Emmy Awards, for Skelton as best comedian and the program as best comedy show during its initial season, and an award for comedy writing in 1961.
The Red Skelton Show
Alice is an American sitcom television series that ran from August 31, 1976 to March 19, 1985 on CBS. The series is based on the 1974 film Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. The show stars Linda Lavin in the title role, a widow who moves with her young son to start her life over again, and finds a job working at a roadside diner on the outskirts of Phoenix, Arizona. Most of the episodes revolve around events at Mel's Diner.
Alice
Burke's Law is an American detective series that ran on ABC from 1963 to 1965 and was revived on CBS in the 1990s. The show starred Gene Barry as Amos Burke, millionaire captain of Los Angeles police homicide division, who was chauffeured around to solve crimes in his Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud II.
Burke's Law
An annual American awards ceremony honoring cinematic achievements in the film industry. The various category winners are awarded a copy of a statuette, officially the Academy Award of Merit, that is better known by its nickname Oscar.
The Oscars
The Colgate Comedy Hour is an American comedy-musical variety series that aired live on the NBC network from 1950 to 1955. The show starred many notable comedians and entertainers of the era, including Eddie Cantor, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Fred Allen, Donald O'Connor, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, Bob Hope, Jimmy Durante, Ray Bolger, Gordon MacRae, Ben Blue, Robert Paige, Tony Curtis, Burt Lancaster, Broadway dancer Wayne Lamb and Spike Jones and His City Slickers.
The Colgate Comedy Hour
The Bob Hope Show hosted by Bob Hope, debuted on April 9, 1950. During the 1952-1953 season, NBC rotated with other variety shows in a Sunday night block known as "The Colgate Comedy Hour" (Sept. 1950 to Dec. 1955). Also known as, "The Chevy Show with Bob Hope." When the first special debuted in October of 1950 it was the most expensive television program made up to that point - costing an astronomical $1,500 a minute to produce. Bob Hope had his own television show and radio show at the same time. For the next three seasons, The Bob Hope Show was broadcast once a month on Tuesday nights, giving Milton Berle a week off. Bob ended his radio show in April, 1956. Bob Hope also had another show by a similar name, "The Bob Hope Show (All Star Revue)". In addition, he performed in "Specials" for many years. It is the longest running variety program in television's history with a record of 45 years of televised entertainment.
The Bob Hope Show
No description available.
The Steve Allen Show
McMillan & Wife is a lighthearted American police procedural that aired on NBC from September 17, 1971 to April 24, 1977. Starring Rock Hudson and Susan Saint James in the title roles, the series premiered in 90-minute episodes as part of the wheel series NBC Mystery Movie, in rotation with Columbo and McCloud. Initially airing on Wednesday night, the original line-up was shifted to Sundays in the second season, where it aired for the rest of its run. This was the first element to be created specially for the Mystery Movie strand.
McMillan & Wife
This Is Your Life is an American television documentary series broadcast on NBC, originally hosted by its producer, Ralph Edwards from 1952 to 1961. In the show, the host surprises a guest, and proceeds to take them through their life in front of an audience, including special guest appearances by colleagues, friends and family. Edwards revived the show in 1971-72, while Joseph Campanella hosted a version in 1983. Edwards returned for some specials in the late 1980s, before his death in 2005. The show originated as a radio show on NBC Radio airing from 1948 to 1952.
This Is Your Life
The Hollywood Palace is an hour-long American television variety show that was broadcast weekly on ABC from January 4, 1964 to February 7, 1970. Originally titled The Saturday Night Hollywood Palace, it began as a mid-season replacement for The Jerry Lewis Show, another variety show which had lasted only three months. It was staged in Hollywood at the former Hollywood Playhouse on Vine Street, which was renamed The Hollywood Palace during the show's duration and is today known as Avalon Hollywood. A little-known starlet named Raquel Welch was cast during the first season as the "Billboard Girl", who placed the names of the acts on a placard.
The Hollywood Palace
Sometimes she's too big. Or much too small. Sometimes things are backwards. And there's always too much pepper in the soup! Nothing is quite right since Alice chased a very unusual White Rabbit and stumbled into an adventure that grows curiouser and curiouser. One of the greatest childhood fantasies is captured in Irwin Allen's colorful production adapted from Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." Originally aired over two nights in 1985 on CBS.
Alice in Wonderland
No description available.
The Barbara McNair Show
The Judy Garland Show is an American musical variety television series that aired on CBS on Sunday nights during the 1963-1964 television season. Despite a sometimes stormy relationship with Judy Garland, CBS had found success with several television specials featuring the star. Garland, who for years had been reluctant to commit to a weekly series, saw the show as her best chance to pull herself out of severe financial difficulties. Production difficulties beset the series almost from the beginning. The series had three different producers in the course of its 26 episodes and went through a number of other key personnel changes. With the change in producers also came changes to the show's format, which started as comedy/variety but switched to an almost purely concert format. While Garland herself was popular with critics, the initial variety format and her co-star, Jerry Van Dyke, were not. The show competed with Bonanza, then the fourth most popular program on television, and consistently performed poorly in the ratings. Although fans rallied in an attempt to save the show, CBS cancelled it after a single season. TV Guide included the series in their 2013 list of 60 shows that were "Cancelled Too Soon".