Diane Jergens

Four Star Playhouse is an American television anthology series that ran from 1952 to 1956, sponsored in its first bi-weekly season by The Singer Company; Bristol-Myers became an alternate sponsor when it became a weekly series in the fall of 1953. The original premise was that Charles Boyer, Ida Lupino, David Niven, and Dick Powell would take turns starring in episodes. However, several other performers took the lead from time to time, including Ronald Colman and Joan Fontaine. Blake Edwards was among the writers and directors who contributed to the series. Edwards created the recurring character of illegal gambling house operator Willie Dante for Dick Powell to play on this series. The character was later revamped and spun off in his own series starring Howard Duff, then-husband of Lupino. The pilot for Meet McGraw, starring Frank Lovejoy, aired here, as did another episode in which Lovejoy recreated his role of Chicago newspaper reporter Randy Stone, from the radio drama Nightbeat.

A satirical inversion of the ideal of the perfect American nuclear family, they are an eccentric wealthy family who delight in everything grotesque and macabre, and are never really aware that people find them bizarre or frightening. In fact, they themselves are often terrified by "normal" people.

Danny Thomas, an entertainer, tries to balance his home life with the needs of his career, with hilarious results.

The story of a family of Quakers in Indiana in 1862. Their religious sect is strongly opposed to violence and war. It's not easy for them to meet the rules of their religion in everyday life but when Southern troops pass the area they are in real trouble. Should they fight, despite their peaceful attitude?

A computer expert tries to prove his electronic brain can replace a television network's research staff.

A dedicated FBI agent recalls the agency's battles against the Klan, organized crime and Communist spies.

Wealthy American, Jervis Pendleton has a chance encounter at a French orphanage with a cheerful 18-year-old resident, and anonymously pays for her education at a New England college. She writes letters to her mysterious benefactor regularly, but he never writes back. Several years later, he visits her at school, while still concealing his identity, and—despite their large age difference—they soon fall in love.

Nancy Fallon gets her teenage daughter back from her ex-husband when she remarries and must win her love.

Film biography of the Olympics Decathlon champion, with the famous athlete and his wife playing themselves.

A lawyer takes the case of a Navy clerk who sues after he's fired for suspected Communist beliefs.

A plane crash-lands on a jungle island inhabited by a scientist and his nubile young daughters. Complications ensue.

A tough kid comes to a new high school and begins muscling his way into the drug scene. This is a typical morality play of the era, filled with a naive view of drugs, nihilistic beat poetry, and some incredible '50s slang.

A teenager whose father is a millionaire radio station owner secretly records a song and plays it on one of his father's stations. It becomes a hit.

The teenage son of a rural preacher becomes a huge Elvis-like rock 'n' roll star, but he has trouble adjusting to fame and success.

A high-school music teacher is the victim of a student who writes indecent notes and assaults women.

Daniel and his friends have troubles with Indians on their way to Kentucky.

The wagon train on the way to Kentucky has to lighten the loads to get across the mountains and battle Indians.

In the Philippines during World War II, a girl is rescued from bandits by a guerrilla fighter.