Herb Vigran

His full name was Herbert Vigran, and he was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, although his family moved to Fort Wayne, Indiana, when he was 16. He got his Bachelor of Laws degree from Indiana University, but later chose to pursue acting.

Herb Vigran (Cincinnati, United States; June 5, 1910 - Los Angeles, United States, November 29, 1986) was an American character actor, active in Hollywood from the 1930s to the 1980s. Throughout a career of more than 50 years, he acted in more than 350 television and film productions.

Under the name Herbert Vigran, he was a Broadway stage actor in three plays between 1935 and 1938.

After starting out on Broadway, Vigran soon moved to Hollywood with no money and only the Broadway acting experience. 

In 1939, Vigran's agent secured him a lead role in the radio drama Silver Theatre. The actor had a $5 recording made of the radio show and used it as a demo to get other jobs with his unique voice. He later appeared in similar radio shows with Jack Benny, Bob Hope, Lucille Ball, and Jimmy Durante.

He later made several hundred appearances on television shows such as The Adventures of Superman (six episodes), Dragnet 1951(eleven episodes), I Love Lucy (four episodes), The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (seven), The Dick Van Dyke Show (three), Perry Mason (two episodes), Dragnet 1967 (seven), Petticoat Junction (one episode in 1969), and The Brady Bunch (two episodes). One of Vigran's recurring roles was as Judge Brooker in Gunsmoke between 1970 and 1975. Among Vigran's many roles were police officers, judges, jurors, waiters, neighbors, shopkeepers and others.

Vigran had a small but significant role in Charlie Chaplin's film Monsieur Verdoux (1947), as a reporter interviewing Chaplin as the main character awaits execution. The 1954 film White Christmas, starring Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye, featured Vigran in the role of Novello, a nightclub owner.

In the rock and roll film Go, Johnny, Go (1959), Vigran played promoter Alan Freed's assistant, engaging in dialogue with rock legend Chuck Berry.

In 1952, Vigran married Belle Pasternack, with whom he had two children.

Active until his death, Herb Vigran died of complications from cancer on November 29, 1986, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California. His remains were cremated.

Eleanor Audley

Eleanor Zellman, better known as Eleanor Audley, was an American voice, radio, and television actress, known for voicing Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty and Lady Tremaine, the evil stepmother in Cinderella, the two famous villains in Disney animated films. She also voiced Madame Leota in the Disneyland attraction "The Haunted Mansion."

Eleanor Audley was born on November 19th, 1905 as Eleanor Zellman. She grew up in New Jersey, and at about 12 years old her family moved to New York City. It was the perfect location to launch her career in entertainment, where she began on Broadway. Her first ever role was the “Guest of the Hotel” in Howdy, King in December 1926. That show ran for a month and had 40 performances. She continued on Broadway all the way through to 1944, starring in shows such as On Call, Pigeons and People, Thunder on the Left, Kill that Story, Ladies’ Money, Susan and God, and In Bed We Cry. Her longest running role was Charlotte Marley in Susan and God.

After Eleanor’s career on Broadway, she began making appearances on radio shows. This is where her recognizable voice really started to become synonymous to her. One of her most famous roles was on a radio sitcom called My Favorite Husband that starred Lucille Ball and Richard Denning. The radio show ran from 1948 to 1951, with Eleanor starring as the mother-in-law, Mrs. Cooper, in a few episodes. She also starred in Father Knows Best, another radio sitcom that aired on NBC every Thursday night in the 1950s. She played the neighbor, Mrs. Smith.

Eleanor soon after began her work in film, with her first role in The Story of Molly X in 1949. She had already begun to make a name for herself in the industry, and was soon casted to be the evil stepmother in Disney’s newest animated film, Cinderella, in 1950. Disney animator Andreas Deja speaks about how she was the perfect fit for the role in the documentary From Rags to Riches: The Making of Cinderella.

Eleanor not only served as the voice of Lady Tremaine, but was also the live action reference model for her as well. In certain photos of Audley you can see the great similarities the 2 have. Frank Thomas was the supervising animator for the character of the Step-Mother, Lady Tremaine, in Cinderella. He recalls their time working together on the project, as he modelled the majority of the look of the character after Audley. The look and the voice together just made sense.

After her successful time at Disney working on Cinderella, she was then cast as the villain again in Disney’s next princess film, Sleeping Beauty. According to the 1997 VHS documentary of the making of Sleeping Beauty, it is said that Walt personally suggested Eleanor for the role. It’s been said that she initially turned down the role due to having tuberculosis at the time of the offer, but luckily was able to recover before having to record. The lead animator for Maleficent, Disney Legend Marc Davis, worked closely with Eleanor as he wanted to model the facial features after her as well, similarly to Lady Tremaine. He got the idea for the cape and horns from different historical religious texts he studied.

Her experience on radio sitcoms and films then translated into her getting roles on television sitcoms through the 1950s to the 1970s. Her first television appearance was on The Mickey Rooney Show as Bessie, which was actually the pilot episode of the series in 1954. She continued to play supporting characters on other successful TV shows such as I Love Lucy (1957), The Millionaire (1958), The Twilight Zone (1960), The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961), and Green Acres (1965). Audley continued to appear on television shows all the way up until 1970, her last series being My Three Sons.

She appeared in both versions of Father Knows Best, on radio (in the recurring role of neighbor Mrs. Elizabeth Smith), and in other roles.

She also participated in Romance, Escape, Suspense, Lux Radio Theatre, The Story of Dr. Kildare, The Railroad Hour, and Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar. She appeared as Mrs. Humphrey in All That Heaven Allows.

She also appeared in two episodes of the television series The Beverly Hillbillies as Millicent Schuyler-Potts, the strict headmistress of Potts School, where Jethro Bodine enters the 5th grade.

Other television appearances included Carlton Murdock in the series Honey West, starring Anne Francis and John Ericson, and Agnes Wilton in the television series Richard Diamond, starring David Janssen.

He died on November 25, 1991, due to respiratory failure, at age 86.

Father Knows Best

Father Knows Best is an American television series that aired in 203 25-minute episodes in black and white, created by writer Ed James in the 1940s, and aired on radio from 1949 to 1954 and on television from 1954 to 1960. It portrayed life in a middle-class American household, centered around the Anderson family in Springfield.

It was created by writer Ed James, who made an audition disc on December 20, 1948. On the audition disc, the father is known as Jim Henderson rather than Jim Anderson. Eight months later, the series began August 25, 1949, on NBC Radio. Set in the Midwest, it starred Robert Young as General Insurance agent Jim Anderson. His wife Margaret was first portrayed by June Whitley and later by Jean Vander Pyl. The Anderson children were Betty (Rhoda Williams), Bud (Ted Donaldson) and Kathy (Norma Jean Nillson). Others in the cast were Eleanor Audley, Herb Vigran and Sam Edwards. Sponsored by General Foods, the series was heard Thursday evenings on NBC until November 19, 1953.

It starred actor Robert Young as Jim Anderson, a kindly father in a happy family; his wife, Margaret, played by Jane Wyatt, and their three children: Betty (Elinor Donahue), Bud (Billy Gray), and Kathy (Lauren Chapin).

Jane Wyatt won the Emmy for Best Actress three consecutive years (1958, 1959, 1960) for her work on the series, while Robert Young won the Emmy for Best Actor two consecutive years (1957 and 1958).

The family comedy revolves around the dilemmas, problems, and concerns of a typical middle-class family's daily life and the way resourceful father Jim Anderson confronts and resolves them, weighing the consensus of his wife, Margaret, who possesses a great deal of common sense. The children know that whenever they need support, advice, or anything else, they can count on their father, because "Daddy knows best."

Characters: 

Jim Anderson (197 episodes, 1954-1960): The father, played by Robert Young.
Margaret Anderson (196 episodes, 1954-1960): The mother, played by Jane Wyatt.
Betty (192 episodes, 1954-1960): The eldest daughter, played by Elinor Donahue.
Bud (196 episodes, 1954-1960): The middle child, played by Billy Gray.
Kathy (196 episodes, 1954-1960): The youngest daughter, played by Lauren Chapin.

Matt Groening, the creator of The Simpsons, revealed that, of all the Springfields in the United States, the one that inspired him to be the city where the dysfunctional family lives is in Oregon and he also chose that city because his father liked watching the series Father Knows Best.

While the show is often regarded as an example of the conservative and paternalistic nature of American family life in the 1950s, it is also cited as an overly rosy portrayal of American family life.

A feature-length live-action movie remake starring Tim Allen was announced by Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies for theatrical release in 2008.

Frederick William Ziv

Frederick William Ziv was born on August 17, 1905. He was an American broadcasting producer and syndicator who was considered as the father of television first-run syndication and once operated the nation's largest independent television production company. An obituary in The Cincinnati Enquirer noted that Ziv "was known throughout the television industry for pioneering production, sales, promotion and marketing of TV series."

Frederick Ziv was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, to William and Rose Ziv. His parents were Jewish immigrants: his father William, a manufacturer of button holes for overalls, came to the US in 1884 from Kelm, Lithuania and his mother Rose from Bessarabia three years later. He had a sister named Irma. He graduated from Hughes High School.

He earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1928, however, Ziv did not practice law, but instead opened an advertising agency. His birth city, Cincinnati, was an important center for radio in the 1920s. The nation's largest radio sponsor, Procter & Gamble, and one of its most powerful radio stations, WLW, were based there. Ziv and writer John L. Sinn, who later became his business partner and son-in-law, founded the Frederic W. Ziv Company (also given as Frederick W. Ziv Company) that produced syndicated radio and television programs in the United States. Horace Newcomb's Encyclopedia of Television described the company as "by 1948, the largest packager and syndicator of radio programs" and later "the most prolific producer of programming for the first-run syndication market during the 1950s. They produced pre-recorded radio shows such as Boston Blackie and The Cisco Kid and occasionally bought old shows for new syndicated rerun broadcast. The best known was the serial comedy Easy Aces in 1945.

Ziv sold his company to United Artists in 1959 for $20 million. He later taught for 22 years at the University of Cincinnati-College Conservatory of Music, which presents an award for broadcasting achievement in his name each year.

By the 1950s, Ziv's company was the largest privately owned TV film firm in the industry, with nearly 2,000 employees worldwide.

Ziv died at the age of 96 on October 13, 2001. He was survived by a son and a daughter.
He is buried in the United Jewish Cemetery in his city, Cincinnati, Ohio.

Bold Venture

Bold Venture is the radio adventure series starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall that originally aired in 1951-52. Bogart plays hotel and boat owner Slate Shannon, and Bacall plays his ward, Sailor Duval. The two often became entangled in tight situations when hiring their services to shady characters.

Salty seadog Slate Shannon (Bogart) owns a Cuban hotel sheltering an assortment of treasure hunters, revolutionaries and other shady characters. With his sidekick and ward, the sultry Sailor Duval (Bacall), tagging along, he encounters modern-day pirates and other tough situations while navigating the waters around Havana. Aboard his boat, the Bold Venture, Slate and Sailor experience "adventure, intrigue, mystery and romance in the sultry settings of tropical Havana and the mysterious islands of the Caribbean."

Calypso singer King Moses (Jester Hairston) provided musical bridges by threading plot situations into the lyrics of his songs. Music by David Rose. Beginning March 26, 1951, the Frederic W. Ziv Company syndicated 78 episodes. Other sources claim that the 78 episodes include reruns, and that there were only around 30 episodes. Heard on 423 stations, the 30-minute series earned $4000 weekly for Bogart and Bacall.

Fredric Ziv, a syndicated transcribed program producer, presented Bogart and Bacall with an offer, "just record your lines and we'll do the rest". Beginning in March 1951, the Frederic W. Ziv Company syndicated 78 episodes via electrical transcription. Heard on 423 stations, the 30-minute series earned $5,000 weekly for Bogart and Bacall. 

All of Frederic Ziv's 40+ radio series (some 10,000 radio programs), including all 78 episodes of Bold Venture, were donated by the Ziv Estate to Media Heritage and exclusively licensed to Carl Amari who successfully launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds necessary to professionally transfer the complete run of Bold Venture. Soon, all 78 episodes will be available, including 18 "lost" Bold Venture episodes which have not been heard in more than 70 years. 

A definitive collection of all 78 Bold Venture episodes, which will include a detailed historical booklet, will be available beginning in 2024 through Amari's company.

Bold Venture is also a 30-minute American adventure television series syndicated in 1959. It was based on the radio series.