My First Biography Is "Valentine Card To SHIRLEY BOOTH!"

Thanks to a reader for this response to a post I offered on August 19, 2010...I will comment on it in future post.

DCOLP has left a new comment on your post "Vote On Your Favorite HAZEL Episodes From Season ...":

Hi Jim. I just found this site today, and it is very impressive. Thank you for all this great information. I watched the episode "Dorothy's Birthday" last night, and while I was watching it I kept thinking that something didn't seem quite right! First of all, Ms. Booth's hair was not styled as nicely as it usually was. Then I started noticing that the set seemed different. I didn't recall the entryway floor being a checkerboard tile, and then I didn't recall so many bookshelves in the living room, and the living room furniture was arranged differently, and the kitchen just seemed very different. I also noticed that the door to the kitchen from the dining room was dark wood. There were many other differences I noticed. Ms. Blake's hair also seemed styled a bit differently than it usually was during the first season. I decided to take a quick look at the previous episode, "Hazel and the Gardener," and it verified what I was thinking. I then quickly looked at "Hazel and the Playground," which had the set we know. I always thought that "Hazel and the Playground" was the pilot, but it must have been "Dorothy's Birthday." Do you have more insight into this? By the way, I always thought the short bit before the credits in the "Hazel and the Playground" episode was one of the most succinct and brilliant introductions to a television character I have ever seen. It totally summed up Hazel's personality and what the viewers could expect.

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With Valentine's Day a week away, I decided to republish the review of my first biographical book (Love is the Reason for it All: The Shirley Booth Story), BearManor Media, 2008). This appeared in an issue of Radiogram (September 2008)....see page layout on right. Radiogram is also known as The Journal of The Society to Preserve and Encourage Radio Drama, Variety and Comedy (SPERDVAC).

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New Biography is Valentine Card to Shirley Booth

by Thomas A. DeLong

The off-stage aspects of Booth’s life reveal an introversion unusual for one in the brightest limelight. She described herself as a “loner” but not lonely. “I’m not an exuberant person but I am a happy person,” Booth stated. “I think I’m one of the few happy people I know. I feel sorry for people that cannot be alone. I feel very sorry for people that cannot find things to do.” Those things included walking her dogs, redecorating her homes, shifting furniture from room to room, and cleaning out closets.

With background in stock, Booth (1898-1992), stage-struck at an early age, made her Broadway bow in 1925 in Hell’s Bells opposite a pre-Hollywood Humphrey Bogart. Her appearances in undistinguished, short-run plays never discourage this undaunted trouper. Finally, a decade later, her break came with Three Men on a Horse, a George Abbott comedy that ran 835 performances. The Theatre Guild’s Philadelphia Story starring Katharine Hepburn followed. Booth is best remembered for her Tony-winning role as the frumpy housewife Lola in Come Back, Little Sheba—a part she reprised in the film version and for which she collected an Oscar.

She married radio actor-director Ed Gardner, and he cast her as lighthearted Miss Duffy, a memorable 1940s character with a Brooklyn twang on Duffy’s Tavern. Ed played Archie the manager, of course. Booth soon added other radio assignments on all networks, and a half-dozen pages of broadcast credits will please radio fans.

Author Jim Manago’s presentation reads like a heartfelt Valentine card to actress Shirley Booth from her friends, associates and fans. It’s loving and upbeat with fond recollections and reviews of a much-honored performer on stage, radio and television. At times a cut-and-paste approach, the story brings to the reader a career long, multifaceted and rewarding.

Booth won every major acting award without formal dramatic or musical training, notes Manago. When a youngster, he “discovered” Shirley in the role of smart, sassy, take-charge maid in the TV sitcom Hazel that placed high in the ratings. The series brought her two best actress Emmys in the 1960s. 

Manago had culled a realm of published interviews to tap Booth’s thoughts on a variety of topics: on being a “reluctant star,” on easing other people’s pain, on selecting a role, on her two marriages, on Hollywood, on housework. The book features illustrations from Booth’s later career, but there are few photos before 1951. Namely, for such Broadway hits as My Sister Eileen, Tomorrow, the World, Goodbye, My Fancy, and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, in which she introduced the Arthur Schwartz-Dorothy Fields song that is the title of this book.

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Hazel says...

In episode #120 ("Stop Rockin' Our Reception") Harold's interest in shortwave radio technology motivates Hazel to say: "Oh boy, this younger generation - he's rushing like mad to keep up with tomorrow in Bombay, and I'm just trying to keep from falling behind with today here!" Hazel displays a new blonde wig she got from the bowling tournament. Reginald Gardiner guest stars as a TV repairman.

Antenna TV broadcasts Hazel episodes nightly.

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THANKS FOR VISITING!

JOIN ME AGAIN TOMORROW!

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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.
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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