By popular request I am repeating my recent interviews with Peter Key, son of Ted Key (creator of "Hazel"). Today I offer Part One, Two, & Three.
* AN INTERVIEW WITH PETER KEY: "REMEMBERING TED KEY"
* AN INTERVIEW WITH PETER KEY: "REMEMBERING TED KEY"
(Part One)
*ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BY Jim Manago & Peter Key. Copyright 2010.
Ted Key's son Peter agreed to an interview...Here's my first question...
The answer is based on his father's unpublished memoirs.
Jim Manago: What do you know about your Dad (Ted Key)'s involvement in the Hazel television series?
Peter Key: My father negotiated the deal to make "Hazel" into a TV show.
From 1943 through 1969, "Hazel" appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, a weekly magazine put out by the Curtis Publishing Co., which then was based in Philadelphia. As a result, Curtis owned all the rights to "Hazel," including the right to make it into a TV show.
Throughout the 1950s, my father received multiple offers to make "Hazel" into a TV show, including one presented by Thelma Ritter, a comic motion-picture actress who wanted to star in the show. Curtis rejected them all.
Weakening finances eventually convinced Curtis to change its mind and it negotiated, but fortunately didn’t sign, a deal my father considered laughable.
He got permission from Curtis to try to negotiate his own deal and arranged a meeting with Screen Gems, the television arm of Columbia Pictures, which had previously expressed an interest in making "Hazel" into a TV show.
Prior to the meeting, he had lunch in New York with his brother Leonard, who was then selling TV shows, and a friend of Leonard’s who was a TV executive. The three of them came up with the terms they thought my father should ask for.
My father went to Screen Gems’ office in New York and presented the terms. Screen Gems agreed to them immediately.
As my father was leaving the office, John Mitchell, a Screen Gems executive who later became my father’s friend, explained why Screen Gems had accepted his offer so quickly. Mitchell and the two other Screen Gems executives involved in the negotiation had been seated behind my father at lunch. They had overheard the entire conversation among my father, Leonard and Leonard’s friend, and, as a result, knew what my father was going to propose before he walked into their office.
My father was also involved in getting Shirley Booth to play "Hazel."
In 1947, my father and another man whom my father knew from his radio-writing days co-wrote a three-act play about "Hazel." A producer who liked the script had shown it to Shirley Booth and she had agreed to star in the play. But the producer wanted my father and his collaborator to rewrite the script.
My father agreed, but since he had commuted to his collaborator’s apartment in New York to write the original version of the script, he wanted his collaborator to come to his home outside Philadelphia to work on the rewrite. The collaborator refused and that was that.
After Screen Gems agreed to make "Hazel" into a TV show, my father suggested that Shirley Booth star in it. Some people at Screen Gems suggested other actresses, but no one was selected.
With the need to find an actress to play "Hazel" as soon as possible, a top executive at Screen Gems’ West Coast office who thought Shirley Booth would be good in the role flew to New York to meet with her agent.
He told the agent Screen Gems had a half-hour TV series it wanted Ms. Booth to star in. The agent said she didn’t do television. The executive said to call her. The agent did, explaining to her that he had told the Screen Gems executive that she didn’t do television, but that the executive had insisted he call her anyway.
Ms. Booth asked the agent the name of the show the executive wanted her to do. The agent asked the executive, who replied, “Hazel.”
“Hazel,” the agent told Ms. Booth.
She instantly agreed to do it and went on to play Hazel on TV for five seasons, four on NBC and one on CBS.
Jim Manago: What do you know about your Dad (Ted Key)'s involvement in the Hazel television series?
Peter Key: My father negotiated the deal to make "Hazel" into a TV show.
From 1943 through 1969, "Hazel" appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, a weekly magazine put out by the Curtis Publishing Co., which then was based in Philadelphia. As a result, Curtis owned all the rights to "Hazel," including the right to make it into a TV show.
Throughout the 1950s, my father received multiple offers to make "Hazel" into a TV show, including one presented by Thelma Ritter, a comic motion-picture actress who wanted to star in the show. Curtis rejected them all.
Weakening finances eventually convinced Curtis to change its mind and it negotiated, but fortunately didn’t sign, a deal my father considered laughable.
He got permission from Curtis to try to negotiate his own deal and arranged a meeting with Screen Gems, the television arm of Columbia Pictures, which had previously expressed an interest in making "Hazel" into a TV show.
Prior to the meeting, he had lunch in New York with his brother Leonard, who was then selling TV shows, and a friend of Leonard’s who was a TV executive. The three of them came up with the terms they thought my father should ask for.
My father went to Screen Gems’ office in New York and presented the terms. Screen Gems agreed to them immediately.
As my father was leaving the office, John Mitchell, a Screen Gems executive who later became my father’s friend, explained why Screen Gems had accepted his offer so quickly. Mitchell and the two other Screen Gems executives involved in the negotiation had been seated behind my father at lunch. They had overheard the entire conversation among my father, Leonard and Leonard’s friend, and, as a result, knew what my father was going to propose before he walked into their office.
My father was also involved in getting Shirley Booth to play "Hazel."
In 1947, my father and another man whom my father knew from his radio-writing days co-wrote a three-act play about "Hazel." A producer who liked the script had shown it to Shirley Booth and she had agreed to star in the play. But the producer wanted my father and his collaborator to rewrite the script.
My father agreed, but since he had commuted to his collaborator’s apartment in New York to write the original version of the script, he wanted his collaborator to come to his home outside Philadelphia to work on the rewrite. The collaborator refused and that was that.
After Screen Gems agreed to make "Hazel" into a TV show, my father suggested that Shirley Booth star in it. Some people at Screen Gems suggested other actresses, but no one was selected.
With the need to find an actress to play "Hazel" as soon as possible, a top executive at Screen Gems’ West Coast office who thought Shirley Booth would be good in the role flew to New York to meet with her agent.
He told the agent Screen Gems had a half-hour TV series it wanted Ms. Booth to star in. The agent said she didn’t do television. The executive said to call her. The agent did, explaining to her that he had told the Screen Gems executive that she didn’t do television, but that the executive had insisted he call her anyway.
Ms. Booth asked the agent the name of the show the executive wanted her to do. The agent asked the executive, who replied, “Hazel.”
“Hazel,” the agent told Ms. Booth.
She instantly agreed to do it and went on to play Hazel on TV for five seasons, four on NBC and one on CBS.
******
* AN INTERVIEW WITH PETER KEY: "REMEMBERING TED KEY ON HIS BIRTHDAY"
(Part Two)
Jim Manago: Did he go to the set of Hazel (and did you)?
Peter Key: I didn’t.
My father went to the set of Hazel at least twice.
Prior to the show being cast, he wrote a 20-page document called a character Bible that answered every question someone could ask about Hazel. Copies were given to the writers, whom he met, and to others associated with the show.
He met Shirley Booth during the filming of the pilot episode for Hazel in February 1961 on Columbia Pictures’ lot. They talked about Hazel. One thing my father told her was that Hazel was energetic. She wouldn’t just get out of a chair to answer the doorbell. She’d explode out of the chair and run to the door. Ms. Booth responded by shooting herself out of the chair she was sitting in and breaking into the elbow-pumping, half walk, half run that came to personify the TV Hazel.
Jim Manago: Did you know if he was in touch with Shirley Booth after the series aired?
Peter Key: He was in touch with her during and after the series. They became friends — not close friends by any means, but friends nonetheless. She had a tremendous love and respect for Hazel, which I think showed in the way she played the character, and my father thought she was the greatest actress of her time.
I went into New York once with my father to meet her for lunch. I’m pretty sure this was when Hazel was still on the air, as I was surprised that her hair was red. (At least the first year of the Hazel TV show, and possibly more, was filmed in black and white.)
Later, probably in the late 1960s, my family went to New York to see Ms. Booth in a play that I remember little about. I do remember going back stage to meet her.
I’m pretty sure my father and she exchanged Christmas cards for a while after that, but don’t know how much, if any, other corresponding they did. My understanding was that she became reclusive in her later years.
Peter Key: I didn’t.
My father went to the set of Hazel at least twice.
Prior to the show being cast, he wrote a 20-page document called a character Bible that answered every question someone could ask about Hazel. Copies were given to the writers, whom he met, and to others associated with the show.
He met Shirley Booth during the filming of the pilot episode for Hazel in February 1961 on Columbia Pictures’ lot. They talked about Hazel. One thing my father told her was that Hazel was energetic. She wouldn’t just get out of a chair to answer the doorbell. She’d explode out of the chair and run to the door. Ms. Booth responded by shooting herself out of the chair she was sitting in and breaking into the elbow-pumping, half walk, half run that came to personify the TV Hazel.
Jim Manago: Did you know if he was in touch with Shirley Booth after the series aired?
Peter Key: He was in touch with her during and after the series. They became friends — not close friends by any means, but friends nonetheless. She had a tremendous love and respect for Hazel, which I think showed in the way she played the character, and my father thought she was the greatest actress of her time.
I went into New York once with my father to meet her for lunch. I’m pretty sure this was when Hazel was still on the air, as I was surprised that her hair was red. (At least the first year of the Hazel TV show, and possibly more, was filmed in black and white.)
Later, probably in the late 1960s, my family went to New York to see Ms. Booth in a play that I remember little about. I do remember going back stage to meet her.
I’m pretty sure my father and she exchanged Christmas cards for a while after that, but don’t know how much, if any, other corresponding they did. My understanding was that she became reclusive in her later years.
Ironically (at least to me), she passed away on my 39th birthday in 1992.
******
* AN INTERVIEW WITH PETER KEY: "REMEMBERING TED KEY ON HIS BIRTHDAY"
(Part Three)
*ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BY Jim Manago & Peter Key. Copyright 2010.
Ted Key's son Peter answered two more of my questions....Today we learn the details about the Key's family tree in this blog.
Ted Key's son Peter answered two more of my questions....Today we learn the details about the Key's family tree in this blog.
Jim Manago: What kind of person was your Dad?
Peter Key: He was a very good person. I never met, or even heard of, anyone who disliked him. He was warm, compassionate, interested in other people, modest, very bright, very energetic, and, of course, very funny.
Jim Manago: What was his (and your) family like?
Peter Key: His father, Simon, and mother, Fanny, grew up in the same village in Latvia and ran into each other in Baltimore. After they got married, they flipped a coin to see if they should go to South Africa, where Simon’s relatives were, or San Francisco, where Fanny’s were. Fanny won and my father was born in Fresno, Calif., in 1912.
My father had two brothers and a sister. One of his brothers, Hank, passed away in the 1960s. The other, Leonard, passed away last decade. Leonard was involved in show business, at one point putting on musicals and selling shows to television. In his later years, he worked trying to find investors for various businesses.
My father’s sister, Gertrude, was a very successful real-estate agent and for many years was one of the most prominent real-estate agents in Beverly Hills.
My father and his first wife, Anne Elizabeth Wilkinson, had three sons, including me. My mom passed away in 1984 and a few years later my father married Bonnie Cohen, who was the widow of his old friend, Maury Cohen.
My oldest brother Stephen, who is 67, ran the New York office of Arthur Young before it merged with Ernst & Whinney to become Ernst & Young. He then became chief financial officer for Conagra and Textron before retiring to become a business consultant.
David, who is 65, worked in advertising, then got into journalism. He left that to work with developmentally disabled teenagers, which he has done for about 15 years.
I’m the youngest at 57 and the one who came closest to following in my father’s footsteps. I wrote gags for Hazel from 1975, when I graduated from Penn State with a B.A. in English, through 1983, when I returned to Penn State to get an MBA. After earning that, I became a reporter and have worked for the Philadelphia Business Journal for 12 years.
My father had three grandchildren, all by Stephen and his first wife, Marie Sommer. Samantha is an executive with a food company, Alex is a lawyer and Spencer is a massage therapist.
My father had two brothers and a sister. One of his brothers, Hank, passed away in the 1960s. The other, Leonard, passed away last decade. Leonard was involved in show business, at one point putting on musicals and selling shows to television. In his later years, he worked trying to find investors for various businesses.
My father’s sister, Gertrude, was a very successful real-estate agent and for many years was one of the most prominent real-estate agents in Beverly Hills.
My father and his first wife, Anne Elizabeth Wilkinson, had three sons, including me. My mom passed away in 1984 and a few years later my father married Bonnie Cohen, who was the widow of his old friend, Maury Cohen.
My oldest brother Stephen, who is 67, ran the New York office of Arthur Young before it merged with Ernst & Whinney to become Ernst & Young. He then became chief financial officer for Conagra and Textron before retiring to become a business consultant.
David, who is 65, worked in advertising, then got into journalism. He left that to work with developmentally disabled teenagers, which he has done for about 15 years.
I’m the youngest at 57 and the one who came closest to following in my father’s footsteps. I wrote gags for Hazel from 1975, when I graduated from Penn State with a B.A. in English, through 1983, when I returned to Penn State to get an MBA. After earning that, I became a reporter and have worked for the Philadelphia Business Journal for 12 years.
My father had three grandchildren, all by Stephen and his first wife, Marie Sommer. Samantha is an executive with a food company, Alex is a lawyer and Spencer is a massage therapist.
TO BE CONTINUED...
*ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BY Jim Manago & Peter Key. Copyright 2010.
*****
THANKS FOR VISITING!
JOIN ME AGAIN TOMORROW!
*****
For purchasing any of my books, you can visit Amazon.com
You can also check www.bookfinder.com
which offers the best prices on new & used copies.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For Bill, His Pinup Girl: The Shirley Booth & Bill Baker Story
by Jim Manago
Foreword by Leslie Sodaro
Published December 1, 2010
Further details at: http://shirleybooth.blogspot.com
THANKS FOR VISITING!
JOIN ME AGAIN TOMORROW!
*****
For purchasing any of my books, you can visit Amazon.com
You can also check www.bookfinder.com
which offers the best prices on new & used copies.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For Bill, His Pinup Girl: The Shirley Booth & Bill Baker Story
by Jim Manago
Foreword by Leslie Sodaro
Published December 1, 2010
Further details at: http://shirleybooth.blogspot.com
*****
Love is the Reason for it All: The Shirley Booth Story
by Jim Manago
Radio Research by Donna Manago
Foreword by Ted Key
BearManor Media, May 2008
http://bearmanormedia.bizland.com
by Jim Manago
Radio Research by Donna Manago
Foreword by Ted Key
BearManor Media, May 2008
http://bearmanormedia.bizland.com
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