A Friend wrote:
>
hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
>>On Thursday, December 29, 2016 at 11:56:01 PM UTC-5, Micky DuPree wrote:
>>>>Of course, later, you had people like Henry Fonda and James Stewart
>>>>doing TV series.
>>>Although neither had a really successful TV series.
>>Remember that awful Fonda detective show, with Ron Howard?
>>(If you don't remember it, you're lucky.)
>I do. Fonda was a police detective. Every time he came home from
>work, they'd make a big deal out of showing him locking up his service
>revolver in a box in the closet. I think it took him ten minutes each
>time he did it. Awful show.
That sounds awful
>I remember that the Jimmy Stewart series was sold without a pilot.
>They just filmed Stewart talking about the premise for a few minutes.
>"What is it about? It's about half an hour," he said.
Jimmy Stewart's radio western was decent.
>Charlton Heston swore up and down he'd never do TV again after his live
>stuff in the '50s, but his film career was drying up (I remember him
>saying that all he was being offered was roles as fathers of computer
>geniuses), so he did a miniseries, found that TV had changed enough to
>suit him, and did The Colbys for Aaron Spelling. It wasn't terribly
>successful.
>Film actresses found great opportunities in TV, though, and kept their
>careers going for years -- Lucille Ball most famously, but also Donna
>Reed and some others. The guys, not so much -- Ray Milland, Ronald
>Coleman, the aforementioned Chuck Heston and the like. (Ronald Reagan
>did great, though, with Death Valley Days and GE Theater.)
Ronald Coleman had a radio program for two and a half seasons. After a
two-season gap, it was translated to television for a season. I've heard
plenty of the radio episodes but never saw the television version.
The Halls of Ivy
Dick Powell had a second career on radio and television; he was never my
favorite singer. I've seen a few episodes of Four Star Theater; thought
it was a decent anthology show. He originated Richard Diamond on radio
(played by David Janssen with Mary Tyler Moore's legs as his secretary
on tv), and the short-lived Rogue's Gallery, tongue-in-cheek style.
He wasn't a big movie star prior to Murder My Sweet, which I liked, and
would play Philip Marlowe on radio as well.
He certainly promoted his own career, remaking himself several times as
he moved back and forth among movies, radio, and television.
Isn't Ronald Reagan the most famous of all? He even got a little gig in
Washington for 8 years, thanks to television.