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Lillian Roth

Lillian Roth

Acting

Biography

Lillian Roth (December 13, 1910 – May 12, 1980) was an American singer and actress. Her life story was told in the 1955 film I'll Cry Tomorrow, in which she was portrayed by Susan Hayward, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance.

Known For

Matinee Theater
5.3

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.

Matinee Theater

1955Series
Sea Legs
6.0

Searchlight Doyle, lightweight boxing champion of the United States Navy, is shanghaied into the fleet of Sainte Cassette, an island republic, as a replacement for a wealthy slacker who must serve his country to receive a $2 million inheritance, a scheme concocted by attorney Gabriel Grabowski. All his shipmates, except Hyacinth Nitouche, assume that he is indeed the wastrel he purports to be. Doyle falls in love with Adrienne, the most beautiful of the captain's daughters, and wins her affections by treating his comrades in her teashop. Admiral O'Brien, grandfather of the man Doyle is impersonating, comes to visit, and mistaking him for a civilian, Doyle throws him overboard and to everybody's surprise is complimented on his vigilance. But his real identity is exposed by some American sailors, and he is suspected of killing young O'Brien; he is cleared of suspicion, however, and is reinstated by the admiral, thereby gaining Adrienne's love.

Sea Legs

1930Movie