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April 10: This Day in TV History

Just a few random TV related events that happened on April 10. Discuss or comment as you please……

1915: Actor Harry Morgan (Pete and Gladys, December Bride, Dragnet, M*A*S*H) is born (as Harry Bratsberg) in Detroit, Michigan. Ol’ Henry is 94 today, still with us (though he hasn’t acted at all this century).

1938: Former sportscaster and NFL player Don Meredith (Monday Night Football) is born in Mount Vernon, Texas.

1954: KRGV-TV (channel 5) signs on in Weslaco, Texas.

1983: “I knew Humphrey Bogart. I worked with Humphrey Bogart. Humphrey Bogart was a personal friend of mine. David Soul.....you’re no Humphrey Bogart.” And the new series Casablanca, debuting tonight on NBC, is to the 1942 movie as beef jerky is to filet mignon. The series would last all of 5 episodes, but did win two Emmys. (For cinematography and art direction.....obviously not for the acting...)

1988: Screenwriter Woody Kling dies of inoperable brain and lung cancer in Los Angeles, aged 62. What did he do? Plenty, and then some. He produced and was head writer for The Texaco Star Theatre Starring Milton Berle, even writing the “We Are the Men From Texaco” theme song. He was later head writer at one time or another for The Jack Parr Show, the Red Buttons Show, The Jackie Gleason Show, The Carol Burnett Show, and All in the Family (and its spinoffs). And those are just his major credits.

1992: Comedian Sam Kinison dies outside Needles, California when his car is hit head-on by a pickup truck driven by a drunk 17 year old. His wife of just 6 days survives the wreck.

1999: Actress and voice artist Jean Vander Pyl (The Flintstones, The Jetsons) dies in Dana Point, California of cancer, aged 79.

2000: Actor Larry Linville (M*A*S*H) dies in New York City of complications from cancer surgery, aged 60.

(Just a little featurette I hope to do as time permits. It’s an entirely random selection based on a quick Net search, and is not meant to be comprehensive. So, don’t post nasty messages about “you forgot THIS” or “how could you not mention THAT?” Do so, and I’ll just take my keyboard and go home…..) ;)
 
Stanislav said:
Just a few random TV related events that happened on April 10. Discuss or comment as you please……


1992: Comedian Sam Kinison dies outside Needles, California when his car is hit head-on by a pickup truck driven by a drunk 17 year old. His wife of just 6 days survives the wreck.

Even though a good many of his fans had denied this for years there is a story that I have heard for years about Kinison where not long before his death he was doing stand-up at some club doing gay/AIDS jokes. Something like "..tell me a name of someone who has AIDS and who isn't gay?" Then somebody in the audience screams "RYAN WHITE". Then Kinison says "..well..you got me" and at that point Sam stopped doing such jokes.

The accident...I believe Sam Kinison actually survied that crash and at first those one the scene didn't think he was even badly hurt. That he was actually walking around and talking as if everything was OK. Some had reported that Sam was seen having a "conversation" with someone but that person wasn't seen. God?

Then Sam died.

Not saying that any of this is actually true ( may very well be ) but there have been many of stories like this that had been going around for years.
 
The accident...I believe Sam Kinison actually survied that crash and at first those one the scene didn't think he was even badly hurt. That he was actually walking around and talking as if everything was OK.

That sounds a lot like the recent death of Natasha Richardson...Didn't they think she was OK right after her accident?
 
Corky Marlowe said:
The accident...I believe Sam Kinison actually survied that crash and at first those one the scene didn't think he was even badly hurt. That he was actually walking around and talking as if everything was OK.

That sounds a lot like the recent death of Natasha Richardson...Didn't they think she was OK right after her accident?

Yes. Just because somebody is walking around, and is coherent following a head injury, does not mean that they haven't suffered an epidural hematoma, which causes bleeding between the dura mater and the skull. Left untreated, it compresses the brain, and can be fatal. This can happen in other circumstances, too - like a baseball player being hit in the head by a line-drive.

This is what happened to Natasha Richardson - don't know about Sam Kinison.
 
"1915: Actor Harry Morgan (Pete and Gladys, December Bride, Dragnet, M*A*S*H) is born (as Harry Bratsberg) in Detroit, Michigan. Ol’ Henry is 94 today, still with us (though he hasn’t acted at all this century)."

I think I read somewhere that Harry first used the name 'Henry' when he started out in show biz but then discovered another guy already using "Henry Morgan" (he was a panelist on a number of 50's-era game shows and wore Steve Allen-type glasses). So our Henry changed his first name to Harry.

One of my very favorite actors.
 
The oddest thing about Kinison's death was he was finally attempting to turn the corner and get off of drugs and booze. I remember Sam's last interview with Howard Stern (within a few weeks of his death) where he had always been bluntly honest with Stern and informed his of such. Sure, he had tried to kick drugs several times and slipped back into his old ways but in hindsight maybe he was serious that time.

No alcohol or drugs were found Sam's system after the accident.
 
landtuna said:
"1915: Actor Harry Morgan (Pete and Gladys, December Bride, Dragnet, M*A*S*H) is born (as Harry Bratsberg) in Detroit, Michigan. Ol’ Henry is 94 today, still with us (though he hasn’t acted at all this century)."

I think I read somewhere that Harry first used the name 'Henry' when he started out in show biz but then discovered another guy already using "Henry Morgan" (he was a panelist on a number of 50's-era game shows and wore Steve Allen-type glasses). So our Henry changed his first name to Harry.

You are correct! Henry Morgan the humorist was a little too acerbic for some people's taste (including a few advertisers) in the 1940's. He was also famous for his long run on "I've Got a Secret," but his glasses (which were indeed "Steve Allen-type") came later in his career. Ironically, Morgan wasn't Henry the humorist's real surname either; he was born Henry Lerner von Ost, Jr. But he did come first, before Harry the actor (who is only 11 days younger than Henry the humorist).

Just as it was due to bad actress Vera Hruba Ralston that a U.S. actress whose birth name had been Vera Ralston had to change her name to Vera Miles. Or because of a character actor named Harry Stanton that, for years, Harry Dean Stanton had been billed as Dean Stanton (ironically, both Stantons, neither related to one another, were in a 1969 episode of Petticoat Junction). And a hundred other examples.
 
landtuna said:
"1915: Actor Harry Morgan (Pete and Gladys, December Bride, Dragnet, M*A*S*H) is born (as Harry Bratsberg) in Detroit, Michigan. Ol’ Henry is 94 today, still with us (though he hasn’t acted at all this century)."

I think I read somewhere that Harry first used the name 'Henry' when he started out in show biz but then discovered another guy already using "Henry Morgan" (he was a panelist on a number of 50's-era game shows and wore Steve Allen-type glasses). So our Henry changed his first name to Harry.

One of my very favorite actors.

...his credits in The Glenn Miller Story, High Noon and Scandal Sheet/The Dark Page all read "Henry Morgan." Interestingly, the character he played in High Noon was named "Sam Fuller," which was the real-life name of the director he worked for in Scandal Sheet, and in Orchestra Wives, he appears uncredited alongside the real-life Glenn Miller. The only starring role in a theatrical movie that the radio/TV comic Henry Morgan ever had was in a 1948 picture titled So This is New York...
 
wbhist said:
landtuna said:
"1915: Actor Harry Morgan (Pete and Gladys, December Bride, Dragnet, M*A*S*H) is born (as Harry Bratsberg) in Detroit, Michigan. Ol’ Henry is 94 today, still with us (though he hasn’t acted at all this century)."

I think I read somewhere that Harry first used the name 'Henry' when he started out in show biz but then discovered another guy already using "Henry Morgan" (he was a panelist on a number of 50's-era game shows and wore Steve Allen-type glasses). So our Henry changed his first name to Harry.

You are correct! Henry Morgan the humorist was a little too acerbic for some people's taste (including a few advertisers) in the 1940's. He was also famous for his long run on "I've Got a Secret," but his glasses (which were indeed "Steve Allen-type") came later in his career. Ironically, Morgan wasn't Henry the humorist's real surname either; he was born Henry Lerner von Ost, Jr. But he did come first, before Harry the actor (who is only 11 days younger than Henry the humorist).

...when he appeared on I've Got a Secret on 17 October 1956, Orson Welles got away with calling Henry Morgan "Von Ost" on-camera; as it turned out, Welles and Morgan were old chums from the days in 1937-38 when Welles was The Shadow on the old Mutual radio network and Morgan was a staff announcer at Mutual's New York flagship station, WOR, where The Shadow was produced...
 
Regarding Henry Morgan's acerbic tendencies, there supposedly were a few times that the interplay between him and other "Secret" contestants got a little chippy. I've also seen a clip of Morgan as a guest panelist on "What's My Line?" where he interrupts one of Bennett Cerf's super-size intros for John Charles Daly, prompting Cerf to give him a major stink-eye on camera, and Daly to look none too pleased either.
 
Corky Marlowe said:
Regarding Henry Morgan's acerbic tendencies, there supposedly were a few times that the interplay between him and other "Secret" contestants got a little chippy. I've also seen a clip of Morgan as a guest panelist on "What's My Line?" where he interrupts one of Bennett Cerf's super-size intros for John Charles Daly, prompting Cerf to give him a major stink-eye on camera, and Daly to look none too pleased either.
...there was an I've Got a Secret on which Victor Borge sat in on the panel for Bill Cullen, completely goofing off instead of doing anything relating to the guessing game, and Morgan called him out for it on the air. There was also an IGAS insult contest in which he exchanged put-downs with Jack E. Leonard; Morgan got the bigger audience reaction...
 
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