TV Widows

[RicoGregg]

Over the years there have been so many TV widows/widowers.

Lucy; Doris Day; Diahann Carroll; Florence Henderson & Robert Reed; Redd Foxx to name but a few.

In the case of Diahann Carroll and her show Julia, they explained how her husband died (He was killed in Vietnam).

Did any other show with a widow explain the spouse's demise? I can't think of any.

 

[Corky Marlowe]

Andy Taylor was a widower...Was his wife's death ever explained on the show? (It was cryptically referred to in "Opie The Birdman" when Andy told Opie those little baby birds' mama was never coming back.)

 

[LKellerIII]

Up until the mid 70s, there were so many widows and widowers on TV shows for one reason - there were more story possibilites (romance or future wedding storylines) if the main characters were unmarried. If the main character (or characters -like the Brady parents) had children, there had to be a prior relationship that created the kids. Since divorce was a no-no in those days, it meant that the children had to have been borne out of wedlock (an even bigger no-no) unless the main characters had been "widowed."

If I remember correctly, the original back-story for the Mary Tyler Moore Show had Mary Richards as a divorcee, but the CBS nixed the idea, so the back-story was changed to a break-up with a boyfriend.

 

[Stanislav]

Up until the mid 70s, there were so many widows and widowers on TV shows for one reason - there were more story possibilites (romance or future wedding storylines) if the main characters were unmarried. If the main character (or characters -like the Brady parents) had children, there had to be a prior relationship that created the kids. Since divorce was a no-no in those days, it meant that the children had to have been borne out of wedlock (an even bigger no-no) unless the main characters had been "widowed."

If I remember correctly, the original back-story for the Mary Tyler Moore Show had Mary Richards as a divorcee, but the CBS nixed the idea, so the back-story was changed to a break-up with a boyfriend.

Correct.

There was also the short-lived 1975 sitcom "Fay," starring Lee Grant. It only lasted something like 8 episodes, and at the time it was quite controversial -- I believe it may have been the first network series to have an unapologetically divorced woman as the main character. And yet, just about as "Fay" was being yanked, "One Day at a Time" premiered, with Ann Romano (Bonnie Franklin) both a divorced woman and becoming very actively feminist, and that show became a big hit.

 

[Stanislav]

Still some widows around on TV. I watch very little of the newer shows, but I can think of two examples in shows I do watch: Monk (his assistant Natalie is a widow, her husband a Navy fighter pilot who was killed in Kosovo; and Law & Order: Criminal Intent, in which Eames' husband was a fellow cop who was killed in the line of duty.

 

[YEKIMI]

And Roseanne at the final episode where she revealed Dan had died of a heart attack after all and she was just imagining [or writing] all the episodes that followed where he was still "alive"

 

[RicoGregg]

There was also the short-lived 1975 sitcom "Fay," starring Lee Grant. It only lasted something like 8 episodes, and at the time it was quite controversial -- I believe it may have been the first network series to have an unapologetically divorced woman as the main character.

After the cancellation of Fay, Lee Grant went on the Johnny Carson show, talked bitterly about how NBC didn't give the show a fair chance, called the head of Programming "The Mad Programmer", a nickname that stuck throughout his tenure, and then flipped him the finger.

Of course, programming execs like these are the same people who spent years protecting us from words like "pregnant" (gasp!), the exhibition of actual toilets, showing divorced people in a positive light, and integrated groups of people.

 

[Stanislav]

There was also the short-lived 1975 sitcom "Fay," starring Lee Grant. It only lasted something like 8 episodes, and at the time it was quite controversial -- I believe it may have been the first network series to have an unapologetically divorced woman as the main character.

After the cancellation of Fay, Lee Grant went on the Johnny Carson show, talked bitterly about how NBC didn't give the show a fair chance, called the head of Programming "The Mad Programmer", a nickname that stuck throughout his tenure, and then flipped him the finger.

Of course, programming execs like these are the same people who spent years protecting us from words like "pregnant" (gasp!), the exhibition of actual toilets, showing divorced people in a positive light, and integrated groups of people.

It wasn't that they were "protecting" us (the viewers) -- more like protecting their ratings. TV remained relatively bland in its first couple of decades because no one wanted to rock the boat with controversial topics, and risk losing viewers, incurring the public wrath of moralists, and (most importantly) losing sponsors.

 

[Tim-In-Houston]

Up until the mid 70s, there were so many widows and widowers on TV shows for one reason - there were more story possibilites (romance or future wedding storylines) if the main characters were unmarried. If the main character (or characters -like the Brady parents) had children, there had to be a prior relationship that created the kids. Since divorce was a no-no in those days, it meant that the children had to have been borne out of wedlock (an even bigger no-no) unless the main characters had been "widowed."

If I remember correctly, the original back-story for the Mary Tyler Moore Show had Mary Richards as a divorcee, but the CBS nixed the idea, so the back-story was changed to a break-up with a boyfriend.

Correct.

CBS was also a bit afraid that people would think Mary had divorced Dick Van D-y-k-e (is that the work around?), coming only four years after that show left the air.

 

[bpatrick]

Steve Douglas (Fred MacMurray) on "My Three Sons"
was a widower for the first nine years of the show;
I don't recall any explanation of how his wife died.
Likewise, Tom Corbett (Bill Bixby) on "The Courtship
Of Eddie's Father."

One widower whose wife's death was explained was
Mike Longstreet (James Franciscus). She was killed
by the same booby-trapped champagne bottle (actually
a bomb) that blinded him for life; it was all shown in the
pilot that aired on ABC's "Tuesday Movie Of The Week"
before "Longstreet" became a series. Marcus Welby and
Owen Marshall were widowers, IIRC; I know Marshall was,
because he had a preteen daughter.

 

[Stanislav]

Still some widows around on TV. I watch very little of the newer shows, but I can think of two examples in shows I do watch: Monk (his assistant Natalie is a widow, her husband a Navy fighter pilot who was killed in Kosovo; and Law & Order: Criminal Intent, in which Eames' husband was a fellow cop who was killed in the line of duty.

Shouldn't be replying to my own post, but I neglected to mention that in Monk, Adrian Monk is himself a widower (his wide having been killed by a car bomb meant for him). Her death was what set him off on his OCD/phobias meltdown.

 

[Braves2005]

Lee Meriwether's husband on Barnaby Jones was killed in the line of the duty and in the early seasons of the show Barnaby was looking for the person who killed his son.

Gail Fisher's husband on Mannix was also killed in the line of duty as well.

When Kathleen Nolan left The Real McCoys, Luke (Richard Crenna) became a widower when the show went to CBS in 1962 and the show went downhill from there from several reasons (1. the show moved to Sunday opposite Bonanza, 2. the show became the Walter Brennan, Richard Crenna, and Pepino show, 3. they tried to hook up Luke with another widower with a couple of children but that failed miserably)

On the Beverly Hillbillies, Jed's wife's name is mentioned in an early episode and her name was Rose Ellen who was Granny's daughter.

 

[wbhist]

Who could forget Kate Bradley (Bea Benaderet) on Petticoat Junction?

 

[ShawnHill1]

I don't know if this qualifies, due to the length of time...but Miss Ellie Ewing of Dallas was a widow for about two years, in between the death of Jock (1982; although the actor who played him, Jim Davis, died about a year eariler) and her marriage to Clayton Farlow (1984).

 

[Smittian]

"Alice" was a widow whose husband was a trucker and was killed in a trucking accident. In one of the early episodes(perhaps the pilot), she explains this to Flo & Vera saying her husband didn't believe in insurance "because it didn't come in a six-pack".

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

On "Eight is Enough," Tom Bradford (Dick Van Patten) was briefly a widower after the death of his wife Joan (played by Diana Hyland, who died in March 1977), and his marriage to Abby (Betty Buckley) in November 1977.

 

[Braves2005]

On Dallas, Pam became a widow at the end of the 1985-1986 season when Bobby was killed in a car accident (or so we thought), but Bobby came back in the classic shower scene when Pam pulled the curtain and Bobby was taking a shower at the end of the 1986-1987 season.

 

[bk77]

Surprised someone hasn't mentioned Mama's Family. Thelma Harper was a widow and there were many scenes about/jokes/flashbacks
involving her dead husband Carl.

 

[LKellerIII]

" 'Alice' was a widow whose husband was a trucker and was killed in a trucking accident. In one of the early episodes(perhaps the pilot), she explains this to Flo & Vera saying her husband didn't believe in insurance 'because it didn't come in a six-pack'."

Which is typical example of TV trying to avoid controversial subjects in those days. In the movie on which the show was based ("Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore"), Alice and her son have left her abusive husband, played menacingly (as always) by Harvey Keitel, early in his career.

Great movie. Vic Tayback as Mel was the only actor from the movie who made the original cast of the show. Dianne Ladd played Flo in the movie, and was later cast in the last couple years of Alice as Belle Dupree, after Polly Holiday's Flo left the show.

 

[bk77]

" 'Alice' was a widow whose husband was a trucker and was killed in a trucking accident. In one of the early episodes(perhaps the pilot), she explains this to Flo & Vera saying her husband didn't believe in insurance 'because it didn't come in a six-pack'."

Which is typical example of TV trying to avoid controversial subjects in those days. In the movie on which the show was based ("Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore"), Alice and her son have left her abusive husband, played menacingly (as always) by Harvey Keitel, early in his career.

Great movie. Vic Tayback as Mel was the only actor from the movie who made the original cast of the show. Dianne Ladd played Flo in the movie, and was later cast in the last couple years of Alice as Belle Dupree, after Polly Holiday's Flo left the show.

Oh I agree that was a GREAT movie !!! However in the movie Alice's husband's does indeed die in a trucking accident and the family moves on to Tuscon, rather than Phoenix which is where the TV show was based out of.