Phyllis Adams; Pioneer of Early Television (Great obit)
Hyfler/Rosner
you should see the photo. It's great. You can.
www.nysun.com
Phyllis Adams, 80, Female Pioneer of Early Television
By STEPHEN MILLER Staff Reporter of the Sun
Phyllis Adams, an elegant New York society girl who
became a television producer in the early days of the
medium, died Thursday at her home in Santa Monica, Calif.,
age 80.
Even more than today, daytime television programming in
the early 1950s was aimed at women, and most of it was as
mindless, if not more so. Adams thought it could be
something more: "Women want to hear about other problems
besides how to fix flowers in a pot," she told the
Washington Post in 1952.
The show she was producing at the time, "It's a Problem,"
was nationally syndicated on the NBC network, and treated
such topics as segregated housing, the effects of divorce on
children, and the adjustment of adolescent girls to
womanhood. Billboard magazine praised it as a "victory for
virtue," while one Post television critic pronounced it "the
best program on TV." Another, Syd Kronish, wrote that Adams
"plans and supervises the program with the vigor,
perseverance, and understanding of a man." Apparently, he
meant it as a compliment.
Adams was born in New York into an eminent family. Her
father, Charles Edward Adams, was chairman of the U.S.
Industrial Alcohol Co., as well as the Air Reduction
Company, supplier of gasses for industrial and medical uses.
He later went on to head the iron and steel branch of the
War Production Board during World War II, as well as to a
seat on the New York Federal Reserve Bank.
The family had homes in Sharon, Conn., and Manhattan, and
summered at Southampton. By her midteens, Phyllis was
regularly getting her photo in the New York Times as a
bright young star on the social scene. In 1941, the year she
was presented to society, the Times noted that debut parties
were smaller owing to the large number of men in military
service. Wartime restrictions notwithstanding, Adams's debut
was a stunning affair at the St. Regis Roof, reported in
full in the Times, with the debutante receiving guests
"before a bower of southern smilax and woodwardia ferns,"
and wearing an off the-shoulder sky-blue gown "trimmed with
small ostrich feathers tipped with silver."
Perhaps it was her participation with other future
debutantes in the "Masque of Liberty" show at the
Southampton Tercentenary Pageant the year before that gave
her the acting bug. Soon, she was appearing in summer stock
in New England, as well as pre-Broadway engagements of more
ambitious plays. Later, she went on a USO tour in a
production of Noël Coward's "Blithe Spirit."
In 1944, she wed Alexander Kirkland, a well-known New
York stage actor, writer, and director. Kirkland was also
the former husband of the ecdysiast Gypsy Rose Lee. As
reported the next day in the Los Angeles Times, Lee bore him
a son on the very day he and Adams were wed. Adams and
Kirkland had a daughter, but were amicably divorced in 1950.
The event was reported, as were all her marital
transactions, in Walter Winchell's Voice of Broadway column.
In 1955, she was married to the set designer George Jenkins.
Mr. Jenkins later won an Oscar for art and set direction on
the 1976 film "All the President's Men." ("Rocky" beat it
for best film.)
In 1950, Adams found a job as a research editor at
Theater Arts magazine, and within a year she was producing
"Footlights and Kleiglights," a 15-minute program about the
theater on the New York NBC affiliate, which then bore the
call letters WNBT. The show alternated mornings with
"Bringing Up Mother," a program about domestic life that she
also produced. She said the show contained "the usual junk
presented for housewives," except on Fridays, when it would
tackle a serious problem.
Impressed at her ingenuity on that show, WNBT gave Adams
an entire half-hour daily in late 1951. By the next summer,
the show was a critical hit and was being syndicated on 19
NBC stations.
Her personal approach to problems was evidently somewhat
different than the rational roundtable discussions the show
presented. "I could count only nine or 10 problems that I
had experienced and was sure we'd run out of problems within
two weeks," Adams told the Times. "I was scared to death
when I got the assignment and left immediately on a trip to
Bermuda."
Pearl Buck and W.H. Auden appeared to talk about the
emotional lives of children. On one show controversial
enough to make her fear for her job, Adams booked Margaret
Sanger onto the show. Jack Gould, the Times's radio-TV
editor, in a long review from 1952 that attempted to
evaluate the medium as a whole, wrote that "It's a Problem"
"provides a thoroughly adult discussion of child psychology
and family difficulties." McCall's magazine awarded her its
1952 "Mike" award, given to the executive performing the
greatest public service for women.
Despite the good notices, the show was abruptly taken off
the air in late 1953 and replaced with live broadcasts of
proceedings at the fall sessions of the United Nations. By
the time NBC executives got around to putting "It's a
Problem" back on the schedule, Adams had left the network.
She next produced "Author Meets the Critics," a book show,
for WOR and the Radio Dumont TV Network that ran at night.
Returning to NBC in 1954, she became the editor of the
"Home Show," a daytime magazine hosted by the redoubtable
Arlene Francis. She produced segments on all sorts of
topics, including theater, religion, and a series on
education, "Inside Our Schools." She remained at NBC for
many years in a variety of producing roles, working for
Dinah Shore's show in the 1960s. She also served as an
assistant director at the industrial section of the 1964
World's Fair.
Although she would maintain a New York apartment for many
years, she moved to California in the early 1970s with her
husband, who was beginning to find more work in Hollywood.
Thereafter, she continued to produce occasional segments for
radio and television, including many celebrity interviews,
and also did pro-bono work for various philanthropies.
Phyllis Adams Jenkins
Born November 28, 1923, in New York; died February 26 in
Santa Monica; survivors include her husband, George Jenkins,
and two grandchildren; her daughter, Alexandra, predeceased
her.
Kathy O'Connell
"Hyfler/Rosner" <rel...@rcn.com> wrote in message
news:4045d7ce$0$3097$61fe...@news.rcn.com...
> Terrific, also taken from the paid obits of The Times and
> you should see the photo. It's great. You can.
> www.nysun.com
>
>
>
> Phyllis Adams, 80, Female Pioneer of Early Television
>
> York stage actor, writer, and director. Kirkland was also
> the former husband of the ecdysiast Gypsy Rose Lee. As
> reported the next day in the Los Angeles Times, Lee bore him
> a son on the very day he and Adams were wed. Adams and
> Kirkland had a daughter, but were amicably divorced in 1950.
>
Trivial note: Gypsy Rose Lee's son was fathered by Otto Preminger. After a
lifetime of believing that Kirkland was his father, Erik (Kirkland)
discovered his real parentage. He wrote a book about life with Gypsy a few
years ago. He now goes by the name Erik Preminger.
Steve Miller - A Famous Rock Star!
was too flustered to talk and so I didn't get a chance to ask her about
this episode. But was I ever surprised to find it in the first place!
In article <c24vq4$67f8$1...@netnews.upenn.edu>,
--
Steve Miller
Editor and Chief Copyboy
Goodbye! The Journal of Contemporary Obituaries - http://www.goodbyemag.com
If in NYC, buy the Sun and read the obits!