Shirley Booth's Comeback In 1973 FLOPPED!

ANNIVERSARY TODAY:

January 20, 1973 - On TV: Shirley Booth debuted in her second television series, A Touch of Grace. The show premiered on ABC and it ran for thirteen episodes before cancellation (1/20/73 - 4/21/73).

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The 74-year-old Shirley Booth made this television comeback after Hazel. The show’s creator, Ted Bergmann, got the idea from his partner Herman Rush. Both All in the Family and A Touch of Grace came from British shows brought over by Rush. A British show called For the Love of Ada, created by Vince Powell and Harry Driver, inspired this series.

The TV Guide promotion for A Touch of Grace read as follows: "You’ll love Shirley Booth as the lively widow whose modern ideas shock her ‘young fogey’ family."

In this reversal of the generation gap, Booth played Grace Holliman (Grace Simpson, according to TV Guide), an Oakland, California widow with plenty of young ideas. She lives with her stifling daughter Myra (Marian Mercer) & son-in-law Walter (Warren Berlinger). Grace romantically dallies with her gravedigger friend Herbert (J. Pat O’Malley). Booth told TV Guide: "Grace is not a swinger. To play her as a swinger would be pandering."

"I’ve waited a long time for a series to come along like this," Booth told Kay Gardella. She continued: "I’m having the time of my life in it."

By comparison, Hazel "was more aggressive than Grace Holliman. Hazel was a frustrated mother who adopted her employer’s family as her own. I’m playing a more gentle woman now. She needs companionship like a lot of people do today, which is the reason for late-blooming romances and marriages.

The show debuted midseason on Saturday, January 20, 1973, opposite NBC-TV’s showing of Billy Wilder’s 1960 Best Picture, The Apartment. The syndicated Creature Features series broadcasted the 1957 thriller From Hell It Came on local stations.

The show came "on the cusp of CBS’ All in the Family," explained Booth to Kay Gardella. That is, A Touch of Grace competed against the follow-up show to All in the Family, a show called Bridget Loves Bernie. The common wisdom is that the latter benefits by following a successful show like All in the Family. It is generally more difficult to expect viewers to change channels and try another show.

"It’s a shame," Booth told Gardella, "that in this business when something is good someone comes along and tries to knock it off. It’s not enough to enjoy things, like I do All in the Family, but you have to be competitive with them."

As far as A Touch of Grace, Booth explained to TV Guide, "I wouldn’t be here unless I liked it. It’s a wholesome, wonderful show. I see it as an extension of Hazel, with the same pungent humor. That’s my mission, to make people laugh with me."

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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

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Now available on Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0076ZCBM2

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