Her great looks caused her to LOSE the initial audition as "Alice" on "The Honeymooners." Jackie Gleason said in rejecting her, "She is too pretty to be Alice." So, Audrey deliberately "dressed down" in drab clothing and makeup, and sent the pics to Jackie, who then said, "That's Alice!" Not knowing Audrey was the one he rejected before! Jackie said, "Any dame who would dress down to get a role deserves to get it." And she did, with a brilliant, and hilarious interpretation of the long-suffering wife of Ralph Kramden! She and Jackie became lifelong friends, and she talked to him just before he died on June 24, 1987, at only 71.
It's a wonderful, warm thought knowing that at this point, from this show forward, Arlene Francis will be on this show for another 20 years (until 1975).
Beautiful. I loved the Honeymooners. An absolute great cast! Audrey Meadows deadpan one liners were and are still funny to this day. Thank you and Rest In Peace.
Loved it when Ralph had dreamed up another one of his get-rich-quick schemes & says, "Alice this could be the biggest thing I've ever gotten into." To which Alice replies, "The biggest thing you've ever gotten into was your pants."
According to what I've read, they didn't think she'd be good as Alice because she was too attractive, but she finally convinced them by dressing down without makeup.
@@fonso1030 Meadows does have a unique voice that forces you to have a positive or negative opinion of it; you can't be middle of the road. I'm driving on the positive (very positive) side of the street.
I have read that Audrey Meadows made a decision that none of her fellow cast members of "The Honeymooners" did. It was early in the course of TV when the 39 episodes of that famous show were made. All the other major characters signed the contracts they were offered. But Audrey ran the contract by her brother, I believe, who was a lawyer. He told her that she should insist on receiving residuals from her performance, a provision which was not in the original contract. She negotiated and was the only cast member to receive residuals. That was an excellent decision, as these shows were re-run for decades.
If you ever read Audrey's book "Love, Alice", she describes how this took place. It's an excellent book about "The Honeymooners" and the good times she spent on the show.
I, never, knew your father but, two things are obvious: a)he was a good-looking guy and, b)he was a natty dresser, also! You must be proud, Mr. Morris.
Michael Morris ~ I’m very happy for you that you get to see your father on this fun video. I also have to admit that I’m a bit jealous. I would just about give anything to see my father again...even if it is on a video. Hope you enjoy viewing this again and again my friend!!!
I’ve said it before but man, Dorothy Kilgallen is good! She’s just like a reporter asking those questions. Of course she was a reporter so that makes sense.
Audrey never gets all the credit she deserves for America's NASA program. More than a decade before anybody ever heard of Neil Armstrong, she frequently communicated a desire to "go to the moon."
I was a tiny tot when the 1960s shows aired very late on Sunday nights. Now I know why my folks never missed one! Such fun and a huge dash of class too!
Gleason was hesitant to hire Audrey when he saw her audition, he actually thought that she is too pretty and people won't believe she married him. lol So the next day, she had a photographer take pictures of her with her hair in rollers, no makeup, wearing baggy old clothes, etc., and give the pictures to Gleason. He laughed at what she had done to try and get the part and said, "That's Alice!", and he hired her.
This aired *before* "The Honeymooners" had its well-known 39 episodes for its one-year run, Oct. 1, 1955 - Sep. 22, 1956. But she appeared on "The Jackie Gleason Show" from 1952.
Degree interesting thing about The Honeymooners was that although Ralph Kramden oestrogen blustered and would go into sitser Frenzy, Alice the quiet housewife always seem to win the day at the end of the show. She had the quiet wisdom and know how to tame the Roaring Ralph Kramden. So she really was the moving force in the family. Quite an incredible concept for the mid-1950s when father always knew best.
I always found Audrey to be the prettier Meadows sister and more enjoyable to watch. Jayne was almost a caricature and seemed very high-strung. I loved Audrey in "A Touch of Mink" with Doris Day. I wish I could have seen in many more programs and movies.
Jayne generally went for a more glamorous look than Audrey, I assume that she was reluctant to give that up. I always felt the oversized eyeglasses she wore during her later years were a poor choice. Jayne had a more melodious voice than Audrey. Audrey's voice was rather nasal and relatively monotone for a woman. It was an great voice for a common Brooklyn housewife.
Ed Miller I’ve heard conflicting reports about Steve Allen’s personality and how rude he could be. Always found both meadows sisters to be beautiful, but I’d have to pick Audrey over Jayne every time.
Her husband had a problem with her sister and kept them apart so I'm guessing Steve was just the guy in the middle of the conflict after the husband died they forgave each other and became sisters/friends again
Hotels encouraged people to show up in Vegas at the right times to see the mushroom clouds in the distance! Apparently one could have an adequate view from there.
I was (4) when this show was recorded & I love watching the old shows for they're fun and clean but so much trash now on TV until I never had one in my home.
Audrey Meadows was a lovely woman as was her sister Jayne. She was also great in the "Honeymooners". It was not easy to do a live show and play the wife of Jackie Gleason. He was such a large, no pun intended, comic personality. Miss Armstrong might have been one of the lifeguards where I went to the beach as a kid.
Rarely does WML increase my vocabulary... Fred at 10:57: 'John, knowing some of the didos that you cut here every Sunday...' (Then John and the audience break up.) I know Dido the Queen of Carthage, but as it turns out, dido the word means, 'a mischievous or capricious act,' often used as in, 'to cut a dido.' (Origin unknown.) Thanks, Fred Allen!
My understanding is that the origin is known. Dido once asked for just the amount of land a hide would cover. This was granted her. She then cut the ox hide into long thin strips, joined them end to end, and circled a hill. A citadel was built there. So I guess you could say that Dido cut a dido.
@@sleepCircle and I welcome your comment four years later, because WML is an amazing show! Also because I’m reading Arlene’s book “That Certain Something” and highly recommend it. It is fantastic breeze to read, and full of little tidbits of knowledge that will stay with you for at least, oh, I don’t know, 4 years? ;)
Good point...except that we reached Idiocracy so long ago....college students can't identify Iran on a map and think that free checks coming in the mail from our insolvent government will make us all rich!
I am very impressed by how generous John Daly was. It seems that whenever a contestant's line was guessed he would often flip all the cards over. I wonder how that would be received today?
The producer noted in his book on WML that all the non-celebrity contestants received the full $50 regardless of the outcome of the game. John flipping the cards over was just a formality for the sake of the audience, who didn't know that this was how it worked.
Christopher Emerson -- Well, John didn't flip all the cards all the time. He usually had a reason. Sometimes it was because the contestant had designated that the winnings be donated to a charitable concern. At other times, he'd do that because (1) they ran out of time, (2) when a celebrity was naming multiple possible professions in a sentence (e.g., "Are you a plumber, electrician or appliance repairman?) and the audience applauded to indicate one of those professions, (3) if, for example, Bennett spoke a profession out loud out of turn and Arlene asked that profession as a result and was right, (4) someone on the panel shouted out a profession out of turn and the audience responded with enthusiastic applause, or (5) any other perceived infraction of the rules. He did seem to lean in the direction of flipping the cards if there was even the slightest reason to do it, but, if nothing was untoward and the contestant's occupation was legitimately guessed by the panel, he wouldn't flip the cards. As our TH-cam moderator has indicated, contestants were given the full $50 just for appearing (regardless of the outcome) and I've also read somewhere that, at some point, all contestants were paid $500 just for appearing on the show and the $50 winnings were extra (with mystery guests being paid $750). If that's true, I think that started happening much later in the run of the series. Bennett Cerf said that, in the beginning, panelists were paid $300 per show and that by the end of the series, the panelists were being paid "scandalous amounts of money". (I could be wrong about some of that.)
ToddSF 94109 The comment that regular contestants received $500-- which was left by one person and one person only, once-- is insane. That's what the celebrity mystery guests got. There is NO WAY that WML was paying that kind of money to the regular contestants-- it just doesn't make any sense. And this is corroborated by what Gil Fates himself wrote in his book. He got a lot of things verifiably wrong, and he may not have been 100% accurate (maybe the contestant prize went up a bit in the later years), but I don't believe for a second that WML was paying $1,000 - $1,500 a week to the regular contestants. Nutty notion.
My apologies. I just re-read the Wikipedia entry where I thought it said that and, as it turns out, I'd misread it. It actually says that *mystery guests* got $500 in addition to the possible $50 winnings and that *guest panelists* got $750. Regular panelists got much more, all according to Gil Fates, or so says the Wikipedia article in reality. Mea culpa -- I've edited my original post to delete the misinformation it contained.
ToddSF 94109 No problem. We all make these kinds of mistakes. But the person who left a comment about this on another video (can't remember who it was) was actually arguing with me about it, which really ticked me off. I just told him I don't argue with people about facts and left it at that!
Audrey mar. her 1st husband in 1956. Her father was an Episcopalian minister and performed the mar. in the Church of the Heavenly Rest in NYC. Mar. lasted 2 yrs. Her mar. to Robt. F. Six lasted till his death. (His 1st wife was Ethel Merman.) I remember from fan magazines that Jayne and Audrey went to Hollywood determined to get into show business. They had been born to missionary parents in China so their choice puzzled me.
Audrey Meadows had a brother who was a lawyer and she got residuals for The Honeymooners. I don't think that Art Carney did. Anyway, Ms. Meadows had a contract but she inserted "Girl's Rules" after the initial contract. There is a wonderful interview on TH-cam with Bob Costas where she discusses that and more...
I always thought Audrey had the cutest legs. She wore a costume all those cute legs were shown and showed them a bit on the Bob Costas show. Later, I'm going to watch the Honeymooners Christmas show's the other one was not the 39th one but where they had the Dorsey brothers and that singer Frances something. That show was about an hour and a real keeper. Audrey a fine comedian.
Dan Celli are you talking about Frances Langford? I seem to recall seeing her on a Honeymooners Christmas show. She was a big part of Bob Hope’s overseas tours during WWII.
The week ending on August 21 was the worst week of the Dodgers season as they won only one game and lost five. Hurricane Diane passed through but didn’t cause any cancellations of games. The eye would have passed directly over where the Dodgers were playing but while the winds might have been gusty at times they had weakened by the boomerang storm track that brought the storm far inland through the Piedmont of North Carolina and Virginia before heading east again and out to sea east of Long Island. The heaviest rains fell in Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, the Catskill Mountains of New York, and the mountains of Southern New England due to a phenomenon known as orographic lift. Because the ground in some of these areas was still saturated from Hurricane Connie a week earlier, areas that had previously been in something of a drought condition along the eastern seaboard due to a long hot, dry summer, any additional rains caused flooding. Even a location like Trenton, NJ because it was downstream on the Delaware River from the Lehigh Valley and Pike County areas of PA that were hard hit, experienced a large amount of flooding even though Trenton itself didn’t have particularly heavy rainfall. Neither Ebbets Field nor Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia were close to waterways, so they didn’t experience flooding. And it helped that the Dodgers headed west to Philly just as the storm was heading east from Philly toward Brooklyn. There weren’t even any rain delays. The way the games went for the Dodgers that week, they probably wished that they had all been rained out. The Dodgers finished the week getting swept by the Phillies. With one out in the third, Erskine got a quick hook after giving up singles to shortstop Bobby Morgan and second baseman Granny Hamner and then falling behind in the count to left fielder Del Ennis. Ed Roebuck came in and completed the walk to Ennis (charged to Erskine) and then surrendered a grand slam home run to third baseman Willie Jones. Roebuck then surrendered solo home runs to right fielder Glen Gorbous in the fourth and Ennis in the fifth. In the sixth the Dodgers broke Herm Wehmeier’s shutout when Jim Gilliam singled and Pee Wee Reese homered. Then in the eighth with no outs, Frank Kellert batted for the pitcher and brought home two more runs with a triple. But for the second time in the game, a Dodger runner on third was stranded after a triple (the other one was Carl Furillo). This time, it was Jack Meyer who came in the game and stymied the Dodgers. Then after Meyer struck out the first two Dodgers in the ninth, he walked the bases loaded. Don Newcombe was sent up to bat for the pitcher, but Meyer was able to get Newk to fly out to end the game and preserve the 6-4 win. After an off day on Monday, the Dodgers headed uptown for a 3-game series at the Polo Grounds. Just like would happen at the end of the week, the opposition scored all their runs and then the Dodgers rallied but fell short. The Giants got to Johnny Podres with two outs in the third when Ruben Gomez helped his own cause with a single, shortstop Billy Gardner doubled and first baseman Whitey Lockman drove them both home with a single. Catcher Ray Katt singled in another run in the fourth and center fielder Willie Mays homered in the fifth. The Dodgers got all their runs off Gomez in the sixth on Roy Campanella’s three run homer. Gomez allowed two more runners in the sixth before getting the final out and stranded two runners in the eighth, but hung in to go the distance in their 5-3 victory. The Dodgers loss on Wednesday was ugly as they broke down in all areas of the game. Three errors contributed to two unearned runs by the Giants, their pitching struggled to close out innings and their offense failed to come through in the clutch against a mediocre pitcher, Ramon Monzant, who pitched a complete game 5-1 win. The Dodgers left ten men on base during the game. Mays was the hitting star with a perfect day at the plate, 3 for 3 plus a walk, driving in a first inning run with a triple, the Giants only extra base hit of the day. The only negative mark on his record was that he was thrown out at the plate trying to stretch his triple into an inside the park home run. The Dodgers posted their only win of the week with an 8-5 victory on a getaway Thursday afternoon at the Polo Grounds. The hitters seemed anxious to get this one over early. The Dodgers scored all their runs in the first four innings and the Giants scored all but one of theirs in that same span. Before the Giants came to bat, the Dodgers had knocked out starter Jim Hearn with three runs on five hits, all singles, before Paul Giel recorded the final out. But the Dodgers would show extra base power in the second inning as starter Karl Spooner tripled and Don Hoak homered. The Giants answered with a two run homer by Lockman in the third. The Dodgers closed out their scoring in the fourth. Duke Snider singled home a run and when Mays misplayed the ball, the Duke came all the way around to score. Three straight singles off Hoyt Wilhelm gave the Dodgers their eighth run of the game. But Spooner wouldn’t last long enough to get the victory. In the bottom of the inning, his mates were no help as two errors added to a walk and single made it 8-3. Don Bessent came in and walked two batters to force in another run, also charged to Spooner. With the tying run at the plate, Bessent was able to get Lockman on a line drive to Reese at short. Brooklyn native Sid Gordon, the Giants third baseman that day, closed out the scoring in the seventh with the last of his 202 career homers. The Dodgers made their way to Philadelphia despite Hurricane Diane. Once again, as had happened the previous Sunday, Newcombe was matched with Robin Roberts immediately after the storm and once again the big right hander lost 3-2. A Sandy Amoros double got the Dodgers on board in the fifth. They added another when Campanella led off the seventh with a homer. The Phillies broke the shutout with consecutive singles by first baseman Eddie Waitkus, right fielder Jim Greengrass, and catcher Andy Seminick to start the eighth inning. Newk held the line here by getting Roberts to hit a comebacker that enabled him to start a double play, and he retired Gorbous to end the inning. But in the ninth, Newcombe was unable to retire a batter. Morgan led off with a double and held third when Hamner singled. Ennis hit one back to him but this time Newcombe made an error, allowing the tying run to score and Hamner to reach third. Then Jones’ base hit allowed Hamner to trot home with the game winner. It was Roberts’ 20th win of the season, his sixth and final consecutive season in the 20 or more win circle. Meanwhile, Newcombe was stalled at 18 wins, having lost his last three decisions, all by one run. It was practically the same script and the exact score the next night. Both Podres and Murry Dickson were pitching shutouts through five innings. Podres took matters into his own hands by leading off the sixth with a single. Two errors and a Campanella single later, the Dodgers had the lead with two unearned runs. But Podres ran out of gas in the eighth with two outs. Ennis was on base with a single when first baseman Stan Lopata (an All-Star catcher that season), homered on the roof to tie the game. Before they Dodgers got Podres out of there, Seminick (the starting catcher that day) doubled and Gorbous singled to put the Phillies on top. The Dodgers threatened in the ninth off relief pitcher Bob J. Miller. A single by Furillo and a walk to Amoros put two on with two outs. The Dodgers sent up Newcombe to bat for the pitcher and who did the Phillies bring out of the bullpen? None other than Roberts. For the third time in a week, Roberts would win the battle. He got Newcombe to hit a weak grounder to the first base side of the mound. Roberts fielded it and recorded the out unassisted to seal the victory. After Sunday’s game completed the Phillies sweep, the Dodgers lead over the Braves had slipped to 11 games. Brooklyn fans held their breath, wondering how quickly their team would get back on track. The Braves had won five in a row and eight of their last nine. Would it be a repeat of 1951?
1955 Every day in the first week of August had temperatures in the 90s (today's high was 93°). The average high/low during these days was 96°/75°, ten degrees above average. The heat wave came to an end this evening when thunderstorms from mid-afternoon onward dropped nearly an inch of rain.
1955 heat wave. They didn’t know 66 years later (2022) corrupt politicians would be using hot weather to launder money to their own pockets as Climate Change.
Natural? While I do love the look, I think the style is most un-natural.. heavy makeup with drawn-on eyebrows and sculptured hair. In fact Arlene's makeup looks very obvious tonite..
I have to disagree. Women of this era were incredibly fake. Everything in the 50's was phony because Americans obsessed over perfection. This perfectly coifed-hair, pristine skin, unblemished makeup, perfectly gossamer dresses and heels....none of this is real. When I look at clips of civilian life from this era or watch programs, it almost looks like something I'd expect to see in North Korea or Nazi Germany. Everyone looks alike, walks alike, and talks alike and everything is portrayed as happy, happy, happy and absolutely perfect. Although I like the etiquette of this era I'm glad to live in a time where we can embrace all different types of ideas and cultures.
@@renemarie5936 Well yeah I agree but it’s also environmental. Since the 70’s we have known that some plastics mimic estrogen such as plastics in water bottles and used to line the interior of canned foods. These result in a reduction in testosterone in the male population up to 30% causing men to have smaller testicle size and starting to imitate feminine behavior. That explains a lot about what you see today but you rarely hear it mentioned though in the 70’s it was a big deal. No one has bothered to do anything about it and there are many more out there in our environment now. Masculinity is regularly being labeled as toxic but really estrogen imitators are a real toxin affecting men but nobody cares about it.
This old show demonstrates how Americans were naturally, informally dignified and courteous in the last Century, unlike today's rude, arrogant narcissists. How quickly we declined! The U.S. of the 1950s seems like a foreign country by comparison. Our society is in free fall, and we shudder to think what's coming.
I am also deeply impressed by the natural charms plus the culture of the whole panel. You would like to meet them somewhere and have a chat with them. Greetings from Germany
@Whats My Line -- Thanks for a look back to MY being 2 years of age !!!! And the INTELLIGENCE of these 4 well known tv & news reporters on the PANEL is amazing in the fact THEY MUST KNOW of all types of EMPLOYMENT POSITIONS & U S A MILITARY & GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS to start getting on the RIGHT GUESSING TRACK of a guest' EMPLOYMENT POSITION IN MAKING A LIVING ********
Audrey was not the first to play Alice. Pert Kelton was the original, however during the disgraceful McCarthy Era she was blacklisted. The probable excuse was she left because she had heart problems. However in the 1960s Kelton made an appearance as Alice's mother in one episode with Sheila MacRae playing Alice.
+Heather Ritter Gleason chose two of the very best in Art Carney and Audrey Meadows. They were talented and versatile comic actors who were also able to play more serious roles. I watched Gleason on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson say that Brooklyn was full of Ralph Kramdens, Alice Kramdens and Ed Nortons. Having grown up in NYC in the 1950's, I can vouch for that. Carney and Meadows played their parts to perfection, and they had to do it with a stand in during almost all the rehearsals because Gleason hated to rehearse. I also saw an interview with Audrey Meadows where she said that because Gleason was so physical and emotive with his acting, she had to deliberately underplay her role most of the time so it wouldn't clash with him. There's only a couple of scenes I can recall where he's standing there listening while she goes off on a rant. It is more likely that she emotes when he's not in the scene ("pins and needles, needles and pins ... it's a happy woman that grins!!!"). I thought that Sheila McRae did a good job as Alice (although not as good as Audrey) when they did Honeymooners skits after Gleason moved the show to Miami Beach. But I can't imagine that he would have considered reviving the Honeymooners without Carney. It would be a disservice to call him a second banana. As co-stars, Gleason and Carney were 1 and 1A.
@@loissimmons6558 I agree. It's also worth mentioning, Joyce Randolph as Trixie. Granted, her role was smaller, but she nailed it and complimented the others very well. Side note- Also, I believe Joyce is the only one of the four, still with us. Bless her heart.
I was watching one of those old detective movies, and there was an actress in it who I'd never seen before, but those eyes, I thought, I recognise those eyes; and then it came to me in a flash, that's Audrey Meadows sister, I'm sure of it, so I did a google search, and turned out I was right--I recognised her based on nothing but her eyes, that's how unique they are!
They guessed Audrey so fast, early television. If WML was on in 2020, my guess is the panel will have a harder time guessing especially with TV having hundreds of channels.
Rod Morris was polite in commiserating with the New Yorkers about the heat - NYC had a high of 97 degrees, while Morris’ desert home city of Las Vegas had a high of 102.9 that day.
no air conditioning in a major television studio in 1955 ! based on my own recollection - this audience creature comfort was being phased in around this time in major movie theater chains.
I think that in the last episode when Dorothy took off his glasses and stuck her finger through the frame without a lens, it was a set-up joke between them. Everyone had been remarking about how the frames hid the bags under his eyes, so they were playing on the assumption that this was the only reason he was wearing them.
Fred Allen asked if Chief Parker was Chief of Police of Hollywood (California), not realizing that Hollywood is not itself a city, just one of the many distinct districts within the City of Los Angeles that has a specific name and a particular business district. Los Angeles as an incorporated city is very large -- 503 square miles in area -- so there are a whole lot of districts within it that have specific names that help you know where a particular address is or where you happen to be.
+ToddSF 94109 What can be confusing to those not familiar with L.A. or cities that have boundaries like L.A. is that there are place names in the L.A. metro area that are neighborhoods of Los Angeles, and other place names that are either separate cities or an unincorporated area of Los Angeles County (for example East Los Angeles, feted in Cheech & Chong's parody). Some of those places are surrounded on 3 or even all 4 sides by L.A. L.A. has also annexed additional land to create rather odd shaped boundaries, the most notable being the strip of land that extends southward connecting the rest of the city with San Pedro so there can be a Port of Los Angeles (the rest of the Los Angeles coast not being suitable for a cargo ship harbor). Under such circumstances, it is understandable that people, even those in show business who worked on the West Coast, might think that Hollywood was a separate city, seeing that it was so famous. I became knowledgeable about the political boundaries of greater Los Angeles at a young age because I have always loved to read maps and I had an uncle who lived on the southern edge of Hollywood on Melrose Avenue before he retired to the Kern River/Lake Isabella area. One time when he drove east in his camper to visit, he brought two Shell street maps (Shell always had the most detail in their city maps) and left them with my brother and me. L.A. is so far flung that Shell needed two maps to cover the city, with the area north of the Hollywood Hills and the San Fernando Valley on a separate map from the portion that included Hollywood, downtown, LAX, etc. The city was in white, the unincorporated areas were in pale yellow, and the other incorporated areas were in various other colors such as purple, dark green and tan. I practically had that map memorized (I am pretty sure that Santa Monica was purple and Glendale green.) I also had an aunt who lived in the L.A. neighborhood of Eagle Rock, bordered on a few sides by more well known independent cities: Pasadena and Glendale. And that map is how I knew the location Fred Sanford (Redd Foxx) was talking about when he made fun of El Segundo.
There was no need for confusion or hesitation on the question whether show was live or not film. He should have told in a peremptory manner that only questions capable of being answered yes or no are permissible. They should then flipped the card and gone to the next panelist.
Is it at all strange to anyone else, that when Mr. Daly greets each guest, he often holds the hands of some of the female contestants for some period of time (although it's often not long)? I'm not sure if that was common for the time or not.
Not strange at all. In those days , people were often terrified to be on tv , it was a very big deal and they could be awfully nervous. Mr. Daly being a great gentleman, would calm them by taking their hands and leading them to their seat. Paul Muni , a mystery guest on another episode, told Mr. Daly that his hands were shaking, he was so nervous about being on live television.
![What's My Line? - Marge & Gower Champion; Mary Healy [panel] (May 15, 1955)](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/U79C9qdGjKU/mqdefault.jpg)
![What's My Line? - Marge & Gower Champion; Mary Healy [panel] (May 15, 1955)](/img/tr.png)
![What's My Line? - Jayne Meadows; Tony Randall [panel] (Dec 21, 1958)](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/A86AoFOg44k/mqdefault.jpg)
What a talented actress she was. No woman could play a better Alice.
You are certainly right! And I might say, also hard-working and brave, as well as gracious.
Audrey lights the room with her smile!
I love Audrey Meadows laughter. Drop dead gorgeous woman.
Her great looks caused her to LOSE the initial audition as "Alice" on "The Honeymooners." Jackie Gleason said in rejecting her, "She is too pretty to be Alice." So, Audrey deliberately "dressed down" in drab clothing and makeup, and sent the pics to Jackie, who then said, "That's Alice!" Not knowing Audrey was the one he rejected before! Jackie said, "Any dame who would dress down to get a role deserves to get it." And she did, with a brilliant, and hilarious interpretation of the long-suffering wife of Ralph Kramden! She and Jackie became lifelong friends, and she talked to him just before he died on June 24, 1987, at only 71.
She was born in China and English was not her primary first language. She and her sister, children of missionaries, both spoke Chinese!
@@maryblushes71895 Sister is the great Jane Meadows, wife of Steve Allen, who lived to be 95.
It's a wonderful, warm thought knowing that at this point, from this show forward, Arlene Francis will be on this show for another 20 years (until 1975).
Beautiful. I loved the Honeymooners. An absolute great cast! Audrey Meadows deadpan one liners were and are still funny to this day. Thank you and Rest In Peace.
Loved it when Ralph had dreamed up another one of his get-rich-quick schemes & says, "Alice this could be the biggest thing I've ever gotten into." To which Alice replies, "The biggest thing you've ever gotten into was your pants."
Audrey had beauty, class, and an incredible screen presence. I wasn't born when this show aired but officially have an eternal crush on her.
John talked about how Audrey's brother in law was a friend of the show. Who might he have been talking about?
Just watched an episode of 'The Honeymooners' the other night. Still fresh and funny as ever. Love Audrey Meadow!
American Dreamer: Is that your photo? If so, you look great!!!
Art Carney was a big part of the show! I just watched an episode on utube😊
Audrey had a classy type of beauty....she was very attractive and yet conservative....a wonderful person and actress
According to what I've read, they didn't think she'd be good as Alice because she was too attractive, but she finally convinced them by dressing down without makeup.
carl demills yes, she was an incredible beauty! And listen to that voice! It’s enough to drive a man to work at a bus company!
@@fonso1030 Meadows does have a unique voice that forces you to have a positive or negative opinion of it; you can't be middle of the road. I'm driving on the positive (very positive) side of the street.
very well said. i really found her to be adorable.
@@timothyhughes1904 I always loved her voice, especially as she got older
There is such civility on this program.
Hate to say it, but that quality is sadly lacking today.
I have read that Audrey Meadows made a decision that none of her fellow cast members of "The Honeymooners" did. It was early in the course of TV when the 39 episodes of that famous show were made. All the other major characters signed the contracts they were offered. But Audrey ran the contract by her brother, I believe, who was a lawyer. He told her that she should insist on receiving residuals from her performance, a provision which was not in the original contract. She negotiated and was the only cast member to receive residuals. That was an excellent decision, as these shows were re-run for decades.
That's true and also Joyce Randolph (Trixie) sometime later, began to receive royalties as well.
I always felt she was very attractive LT Compton Ca
Audrey deserved it. The show was never as good without her.
Still being re-run , probably my favorite show of all time!
If you ever read Audrey's book "Love, Alice", she describes how this took place. It's an excellent book about "The Honeymooners" and the good times she spent on the show.
I watched this show as a kid, and it is more enjoyable now that it was then. So many of the mystery guests are performers who cannot be replaced.
Don’t make em like that anymore 😢
These were true "Movie Stars" with class and dignity.
I can't believe this in on TH-cam. Rod Morris was my father.
no kidding!? how cool is that!!!
I, never, knew your father but, two things are obvious: a)he was a good-looking guy and, b)he was a natty dresser, also! You must be
proud, Mr. Morris.
That is awesome! As a gambler myself I’d love t visit Las Vegas one day.
Michael Morris that’s amazing! Did he ever mention his brief tv career? 😊 that would be great to hear some backstage stories.
Michael Morris ~ I’m very happy for you that you get to see your father on this fun video. I also have to admit that I’m a bit jealous. I would just about give anything to see my father again...even if it is on a video. Hope you enjoy viewing this again and again my friend!!!
Anyone else find her disguised voice to be absolutely adorable? 🥰🥰
Everything about Audrey Was adorable.
@@TheBatugan77 So true. Even when she was throwing zingers at Ralph, she was cute, never mean-spirited.
The similiarity of Ms. Meadows disguised voice is remarkably similar to her sister Jayne's disguised voice on the August 1, 1954 WML episode.
@@TheBatugan77
She seems to be a nice person... But adorable?
I think she is and was even more so as “Alice”
I’ve said it before but man, Dorothy Kilgallen is good! She’s just like a reporter asking those questions. Of course she was a reporter so that makes sense.
I've always admired the way she played the game. She had good detective skills.
@@sophiemorrison9820 she was brilliant!
Good enough to solve the Kennedy assasination, which got her killed.
Arlene is the best.
And it was likely this skill that resulted in her mysterious death. There was something about her questioning that likely annoyed people.
8:32 "Do you teach gentlemen who preside at gambling tables?" That's the nicest, classiest way to ask someone if they are a gambling teacher.
Wow !! -technical adviser of Dragnet , one of my favorite shows !
It’s very nostalgic. Takes me back long ago.
Once more, Thank You for uploading these wonderful programs
We can't ever say Thank you enough for all you do 😊
Audrey never gets all the credit she deserves for America's NASA program. More than a decade before anybody ever heard of Neil Armstrong, she frequently communicated a desire to "go to the moon."
I was a tiny tot when the 1960s shows aired very late on Sunday nights. Now I know why my folks never missed one! Such fun and a huge dash of class too!
Show started 2/1/50.
It was previously on the radio😊
God, she was beautiful!
Eric Maude My aunt or someone else?
@Ed Miller get your eyes checked. :) Maybe it's her 50's hair style that's throwing you off.
Little, did I know, I'd, finally, get to 'meet', Chief William H Parker-so, THAT'S what he sounded/looked like! Thank-you, for sharing!
Gleason was hesitant to hire Audrey when he saw her audition, he actually thought that she is too pretty and people won't believe she married him. lol So the next day, she had a photographer take pictures of her with her hair in rollers, no makeup, wearing baggy old clothes, etc., and give the pictures to Gleason. He laughed at what she had done to try and get the part and said, "That's Alice!", and he hired her.
This aired *before* "The Honeymooners" had its well-known 39 episodes for its one-year run, Oct. 1, 1955 - Sep. 22, 1956. But she appeared on "The Jackie Gleason Show" from 1952.
Audrey was so pretty. Nice signature too
Audrey Meadows was a babe!
Reggie1971la I completely agree! She was incredible! Incidentally, have you seen that picture of Audrey burning money at the federal reserve?
she was soooo beautiful....
Degree interesting thing about The Honeymooners was that although Ralph Kramden oestrogen blustered and would go into sitser Frenzy, Alice the quiet housewife always seem to win the day at the end of the show. She had the quiet wisdom and know how to tame the Roaring Ralph Kramden. So she really was the moving force in the family. Quite an incredible concept for the mid-1950s when father always knew best.
Love how she disguised her voice...she's a doll
She was so beautiful and talented.
I always found Audrey to be the prettier Meadows sister and more enjoyable to watch. Jayne was almost a caricature and seemed very high-strung. I loved Audrey in "A Touch of Mink" with Doris Day. I wish I could have seen in many more programs and movies.
+iluvmusicals21 She was very good in That Touch of Mink. I wish she had done more movies.
Jayne generally went for a more glamorous look than Audrey, I assume that she was reluctant to give that up. I always felt the oversized eyeglasses she wore during her later years were a poor choice.
Jayne had a more melodious voice than Audrey. Audrey's voice was rather nasal and relatively monotone for a woman. It was an great voice for a common Brooklyn housewife.
Lois Simmons Plus Audrey had a slight New Yorker accent, which is detectable in the interview at the end of her Q&A.
Ed Miller I’ve heard conflicting reports about Steve Allen’s personality and how rude he could be. Always found both meadows sisters to be beautiful, but I’d have to pick Audrey over Jayne every time.
@Ed Miller Why so hard on Jayne? She was intelligent and pleasant. But I would still pick Audrey first. Can't get enough of that voice.
Would have been fun to have Steve Allen on the panel for this one considering Audrey Meadows was his sister in law.
Her husband had a problem with her sister and kept them apart so I'm guessing Steve was just the guy in the middle of the conflict after the husband died they forgave each other and became sisters/friends again
"She works a lot. She works live & dead."
lmao. Arlene was just naturally funny.
I LOVE THIS SHOW !
John Daly said--"I went out there, (Vegas), to cover one of those atomic bomb tests..."
Now that's something you don't hear people say nowadays.
Hotels encouraged people to show up in Vegas at the right times to see the mushroom clouds in the distance! Apparently one could have an adequate view from there.
No one took into account the radiation 😢
I was (4) when this show was recorded & I love watching the old shows for they're fun and clean but so much trash now on TV until I never had one in my home.
Audrey is so beautiful!
Audrey Meadows was a lovely woman as was her sister Jayne. She was also great in the "Honeymooners". It was not easy to do a live show and play the wife of Jackie Gleason. He was such a large, no pun intended, comic personality. Miss Armstrong might have been one of the lifeguards where I went to the beach as a kid.
Very pretty woman and classy. Also, no-one could throw out the deadpan one-liners better than Audrey Meadows.
Audrey Mead ows did as well at acting in the molvie "That Touch of Mink" as she did playing the long-suffering wife Alice on the "Honeymooners".
Steve Burrus THATS NOT HOW YOU SPELL OUR LAST NAMES ITS Meadows
Oh yeah, working in an Automat.
@@dokudraws5901 wtf are you talking about?? Your last name is "Draws."
audrey meadows omg. what a beauty.
Patrick McKenna thanks for the compliment for my GREAT GREAT AUNT
Ed Miller 😂 what?
Parker Center today probably the most famous police station in North America. One of Chief Parker's assistants was a young Gene Rodenberry.
David Harris
I was wondering if Parker Center was named for him or not. I believe HQs is at a different location now though.
Nice piece of trivia!
she is so beautiful
R Gray THANKS FOR THE COMPLIMENT FOR MY GREAT GREAT AUNT
Rarely does WML increase my vocabulary... Fred at 10:57: 'John, knowing some of the didos that you cut here every Sunday...' (Then John and the audience break up.)
I know Dido the Queen of Carthage, but as it turns out, dido the word means, 'a mischievous or capricious act,' often used as in, 'to cut a dido.' (Origin unknown.)
Thanks, Fred Allen!
Bennett in particular had a large vocabulary (the publisher of a dictionary should I suppose!)...I've learned several new words from him on this show
My understanding is that the origin is known. Dido once asked for just the amount of land a hide would cover. This was granted her. She then cut the ox hide into long thin strips, joined them end to end, and circled a hill. A citadel was built there. So I guess you could say that Dido cut a dido.
I couldn’t stand Bennett Cerf’s voice and accent; I do recognize, though, that he was an extremely intelligent man.
@@fonso1030 i am coming here four years later to say i love his accent.
@@sleepCircle and I welcome your comment four years later, because WML is an amazing show! Also because I’m reading Arlene’s book “That Certain Something” and highly recommend it. It is fantastic breeze to read, and full of little tidbits of knowledge that will stay with you for at least, oh, I don’t know, 4 years? ;)
she's so pretty.
When I look at this I sadly realise that we are well on the road to Idiocracy.
Good point...except that we reached Idiocracy so long ago....college students can't identify Iran on a map and think that free checks coming in the mail from our insolvent government will make us all rich!
@@gourmandrex6265 doesn't make us rich but helps during a pandemic
@@IAintTheDaddyMaury i wouldn't argue that point....we just shouldn't be in this sad position.
Such a great person, real people!
I am very impressed by how generous John Daly was. It seems that whenever a contestant's line was guessed he would often flip all the cards over. I wonder how that would be received today?
The producer noted in his book on WML that all the non-celebrity contestants received the full $50 regardless of the outcome of the game. John flipping the cards over was just a formality for the sake of the audience, who didn't know that this was how it worked.
Christopher Emerson -- Well, John didn't flip all the cards all the time. He usually had a reason. Sometimes it was because the contestant had designated that the winnings be donated to a charitable concern. At other times, he'd do that because (1) they ran out of time, (2) when a celebrity was naming multiple possible professions in a sentence (e.g., "Are you a plumber, electrician or appliance repairman?) and the audience applauded to indicate one of those professions, (3) if, for example, Bennett spoke a profession out loud out of turn and Arlene asked that profession as a result and was right, (4) someone on the panel shouted out a profession out of turn and the audience responded with enthusiastic applause, or (5) any other perceived infraction of the rules. He did seem to lean in the direction of flipping the cards if there was even the slightest reason to do it, but, if nothing was untoward and the contestant's occupation was legitimately guessed by the panel, he wouldn't flip the cards. As our TH-cam moderator has indicated, contestants were given the full $50 just for appearing (regardless of the outcome) and I've also read somewhere that, at some point, all contestants were paid $500 just for appearing on the show and the $50 winnings were extra (with mystery guests being paid $750). If that's true, I think that started happening much later in the run of the series. Bennett Cerf said that, in the beginning, panelists were paid $300 per show and that by the end of the series, the panelists were being paid "scandalous amounts of money". (I could be wrong about some of that.)
ToddSF 94109 The comment that regular contestants received $500-- which was left by one person and one person only, once-- is insane. That's what the celebrity mystery guests got. There is NO WAY that WML was paying that kind of money to the regular contestants-- it just doesn't make any sense. And this is corroborated by what Gil Fates himself wrote in his book. He got a lot of things verifiably wrong, and he may not have been 100% accurate (maybe the contestant prize went up a bit in the later years), but I don't believe for a second that WML was paying $1,000 - $1,500 a week to the regular contestants. Nutty notion.
My apologies. I just re-read the Wikipedia entry where I thought it said that and, as it turns out, I'd misread it. It actually says that *mystery guests* got $500 in addition to the possible $50 winnings and that *guest panelists* got $750. Regular panelists got much more, all according to Gil Fates, or so says the Wikipedia article in reality. Mea culpa -- I've edited my original post to delete the misinformation it contained.
ToddSF 94109 No problem. We all make these kinds of mistakes. But the person who left a comment about this on another video (can't remember who it was) was actually arguing with me about it, which really ticked me off. I just told him I don't argue with people about facts and left it at that!
Wow I am absolutely amazed on how beautiful Audrey metal was.... Absolutely gorgeous.....
Audrey mar. her 1st husband in 1956. Her father was an Episcopalian minister and performed the mar. in the Church of the Heavenly Rest in NYC. Mar. lasted 2 yrs. Her mar. to Robt. F. Six lasted till his death. (His 1st wife was Ethel Merman.) I remember from fan magazines that Jayne and Audrey went to Hollywood determined to get into show business. They had been born to missionary parents in China so their choice puzzled me.
Robert F. Six was at the time CEO of Continental Airlines.
Parker was mentioned at the end of every radio "Dragnet."
Audrey Meadows had a brother who was a lawyer and she got residuals for The Honeymooners. I don't think that Art Carney did. Anyway, Ms. Meadows had a contract but she inserted "Girl's Rules" after the initial contract. There is a wonderful interview on TH-cam with Bob Costas where she discusses that and more...
i wouldn't have minded being rescued by the last contestant....
I always thought Audrey had the cutest legs. She wore a costume all those cute legs were shown and showed them a bit on the Bob Costas show. Later, I'm going to watch the Honeymooners Christmas show's the other one was not the 39th one but where they had the Dorsey brothers and that singer Frances something. That show was about an hour and a real keeper. Audrey a fine comedian.
Dan Celli are you talking about Frances Langford? I seem to recall seeing her on a Honeymooners Christmas show. She was a big part of Bob Hope’s overseas tours during WWII.
The week ending on August 21 was the worst week of the Dodgers season as they won only one game and lost five. Hurricane Diane passed through but didn’t cause any cancellations of games. The eye would have passed directly over where the Dodgers were playing but while the winds might have been gusty at times they had weakened by the boomerang storm track that brought the storm far inland through the Piedmont of North Carolina and Virginia before heading east again and out to sea east of Long Island. The heaviest rains fell in Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, the Catskill Mountains of New York, and the mountains of Southern New England due to a phenomenon known as orographic lift. Because the ground in some of these areas was still saturated from Hurricane Connie a week earlier, areas that had previously been in something of a drought condition along the eastern seaboard due to a long hot, dry summer, any additional rains caused flooding. Even a location like Trenton, NJ because it was downstream on the Delaware River from the Lehigh Valley and Pike County areas of PA that were hard hit, experienced a large amount of flooding even though Trenton itself didn’t have particularly heavy rainfall.
Neither Ebbets Field nor Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia were close to waterways, so they didn’t experience flooding. And it helped that the Dodgers headed west to Philly just as the storm was heading east from Philly toward Brooklyn. There weren’t even any rain delays. The way the games went for the Dodgers that week, they probably wished that they had all been rained out.
The Dodgers finished the week getting swept by the Phillies. With one out in the third, Erskine got a quick hook after giving up singles to shortstop Bobby Morgan and second baseman Granny Hamner and then falling behind in the count to left fielder Del Ennis. Ed Roebuck came in and completed the walk to Ennis (charged to Erskine) and then surrendered a grand slam home run to third baseman Willie Jones. Roebuck then surrendered solo home runs to right fielder Glen Gorbous in the fourth and Ennis in the fifth.
In the sixth the Dodgers broke Herm Wehmeier’s shutout when Jim Gilliam singled and Pee Wee Reese homered. Then in the eighth with no outs, Frank Kellert batted for the pitcher and brought home two more runs with a triple. But for the second time in the game, a Dodger runner on third was stranded after a triple (the other one was Carl Furillo). This time, it was Jack Meyer who came in the game and stymied the Dodgers.
Then after Meyer struck out the first two Dodgers in the ninth, he walked the bases loaded. Don Newcombe was sent up to bat for the pitcher, but Meyer was able to get Newk to fly out to end the game and preserve the 6-4 win.
After an off day on Monday, the Dodgers headed uptown for a 3-game series at the Polo Grounds. Just like would happen at the end of the week, the opposition scored all their runs and then the Dodgers rallied but fell short.
The Giants got to Johnny Podres with two outs in the third when Ruben Gomez helped his own cause with a single, shortstop Billy Gardner doubled and first baseman Whitey Lockman drove them both home with a single. Catcher Ray Katt singled in another run in the fourth and center fielder Willie Mays homered in the fifth.
The Dodgers got all their runs off Gomez in the sixth on Roy Campanella’s three run homer. Gomez allowed two more runners in the sixth before getting the final out and stranded two runners in the eighth, but hung in to go the distance in their 5-3 victory.
The Dodgers loss on Wednesday was ugly as they broke down in all areas of the game. Three errors contributed to two unearned runs by the Giants, their pitching struggled to close out innings and their offense failed to come through in the clutch against a mediocre pitcher, Ramon Monzant, who pitched a complete game 5-1 win. The Dodgers left ten men on base during the game.
Mays was the hitting star with a perfect day at the plate, 3 for 3 plus a walk, driving in a first inning run with a triple, the Giants only extra base hit of the day. The only negative mark on his record was that he was thrown out at the plate trying to stretch his triple into an inside the park home run.
The Dodgers posted their only win of the week with an 8-5 victory on a getaway Thursday afternoon at the Polo Grounds. The hitters seemed anxious to get this one over early. The Dodgers scored all their runs in the first four innings and the Giants scored all but one of theirs in that same span.
Before the Giants came to bat, the Dodgers had knocked out starter Jim Hearn with three runs on five hits, all singles, before Paul Giel recorded the final out. But the Dodgers would show extra base power in the second inning as starter Karl Spooner tripled and Don Hoak homered. The Giants answered with a two run homer by Lockman in the third.
The Dodgers closed out their scoring in the fourth. Duke Snider singled home a run and when Mays misplayed the ball, the Duke came all the way around to score. Three straight singles off Hoyt Wilhelm gave the Dodgers their eighth run of the game.
But Spooner wouldn’t last long enough to get the victory. In the bottom of the inning, his mates were no help as two errors added to a walk and single made it 8-3. Don Bessent came in and walked two batters to force in another run, also charged to Spooner. With the tying run at the plate, Bessent was able to get Lockman on a line drive to Reese at short. Brooklyn native Sid Gordon, the Giants third baseman that day, closed out the scoring in the seventh with the last of his 202 career homers.
The Dodgers made their way to Philadelphia despite Hurricane Diane. Once again, as had happened the previous Sunday, Newcombe was matched with Robin Roberts immediately after the storm and once again the big right hander lost 3-2.
A Sandy Amoros double got the Dodgers on board in the fifth. They added another when Campanella led off the seventh with a homer.
The Phillies broke the shutout with consecutive singles by first baseman Eddie Waitkus, right fielder Jim Greengrass, and catcher Andy Seminick to start the eighth inning. Newk held the line here by getting Roberts to hit a comebacker that enabled him to start a double play, and he retired Gorbous to end the inning.
But in the ninth, Newcombe was unable to retire a batter. Morgan led off with a double and held third when Hamner singled. Ennis hit one back to him but this time Newcombe made an error, allowing the tying run to score and Hamner to reach third. Then Jones’ base hit allowed Hamner to trot home with the game winner.
It was Roberts’ 20th win of the season, his sixth and final consecutive season in the 20 or more win circle. Meanwhile, Newcombe was stalled at 18 wins, having lost his last three decisions, all by one run.
It was practically the same script and the exact score the next night. Both Podres and Murry Dickson were pitching shutouts through five innings. Podres took matters into his own hands by leading off the sixth with a single. Two errors and a Campanella single later, the Dodgers had the lead with two unearned runs.
But Podres ran out of gas in the eighth with two outs. Ennis was on base with a single when first baseman Stan Lopata (an All-Star catcher that season), homered on the roof to tie the game. Before they Dodgers got Podres out of there, Seminick (the starting catcher that day) doubled and Gorbous singled to put the Phillies on top.
The Dodgers threatened in the ninth off relief pitcher Bob J. Miller. A single by Furillo and a walk to Amoros put two on with two outs. The Dodgers sent up Newcombe to bat for the pitcher and who did the Phillies bring out of the bullpen? None other than Roberts. For the third time in a week, Roberts would win the battle. He got Newcombe to hit a weak grounder to the first base side of the mound. Roberts fielded it and recorded the out unassisted to seal the victory.
After Sunday’s game completed the Phillies sweep, the Dodgers lead over the Braves had slipped to 11 games. Brooklyn fans held their breath, wondering how quickly their team would get back on track. The Braves had won five in a row and eight of their last nine. Would it be a repeat of 1951?
@Ed Miller 😉👏👏
Im from LA and I was quite young when he died. I remember hearing the news on the radio.
It's helpful to identify the person you're talking about, for the uninformed
Fred
YES, AUDREY MEADOWS HAD A CLASSIC BEAUTY.
SO BEAUTIFUL AND AUTHENTIC.
God Bless Audrey Meadows & may she R.I.P 👍
John Daly was referring to Audrey’s brother in law and former WML panelist as the legendary STEVE ALLEN
1955
Every day in the first week of August had temperatures in the 90s (today's high was 93°). The average high/low during these days was 96°/75°, ten degrees above average. The heat wave came to an end this evening when thunderstorms from mid-afternoon onward dropped nearly an inch of rain.
1955 heat wave. They didn’t know 66 years later (2022) corrupt politicians would be using hot weather to launder money to their own pockets as Climate Change.
That theater was an oven it held the heat. And the train station underneath didn't help with heat and noise😊
The women of that time were vary feminine and beautiful in a natural way...
Natural? While I do love the look, I think the style is most un-natural.. heavy makeup with drawn-on eyebrows and sculptured hair. In fact Arlene's makeup looks very obvious tonite..
I have to disagree. Women of this era were incredibly fake. Everything in the 50's was phony because Americans obsessed over perfection. This perfectly coifed-hair, pristine skin, unblemished makeup, perfectly gossamer dresses and heels....none of this is real. When I look at clips of civilian life from this era or watch programs, it almost looks like something I'd expect to see in North Korea or Nazi Germany. Everyone looks alike, walks alike, and talks alike and everything is portrayed as happy, happy, happy and absolutely perfect. Although I like the etiquette of this era I'm glad to live in a time where we can embrace all different types of ideas and cultures.
Fierce O'Neill Love your assessment of the times.
Yep
@@renemarie5936 Well yeah I agree but it’s also environmental. Since the 70’s we have known that some plastics mimic estrogen such as plastics in water bottles and used to line the interior of canned foods. These result in a reduction in testosterone in the male population up to 30% causing men to have smaller testicle size and starting to imitate feminine behavior. That explains a lot about what you see today but you rarely hear it mentioned though in the 70’s it was a big deal. No one has bothered to do anything about it and there are many more out there in our environment now. Masculinity is regularly being labeled as toxic but really estrogen imitators are a real toxin affecting men but nobody cares about it.
This old show demonstrates how Americans were naturally, informally dignified and courteous in the last Century, unlike today's rude, arrogant narcissists. How quickly we declined! The U.S. of the 1950s seems like a foreign country by comparison. Our society is in free fall, and we shudder to think what's coming.
I so agree with you. The morals of people in public and on media is shocking.
@@lllowkee6533 *in the media
Your comment is an understatement.
I am also deeply impressed by the natural charms plus the culture of the whole panel.
You would like to meet them somewhere and have a chat with them.
Greetings from Germany
So true. Very well said
She was absolutely beautiful!
I was only 10 days days old when this aired
@Whats My Line -- Thanks for a look back to MY being 2 years of age !!!! And the INTELLIGENCE of these 4 well known tv & news reporters on the PANEL is amazing in the fact THEY MUST KNOW of all types of EMPLOYMENT POSITIONS & U S A MILITARY & GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS to start getting on the RIGHT GUESSING TRACK of a guest' EMPLOYMENT POSITION IN MAKING A LIVING ********
Audrey was not the first to play Alice. Pert Kelton was the original, however during the disgraceful McCarthy Era she was blacklisted. The probable excuse was she left because she had heart problems. However in the 1960s Kelton made an appearance as Alice's mother in one episode with Sheila MacRae playing Alice.
Alice kramden makes the show.
Heather Ritter Jean Stapleton was similar w/o her it was not nearly as good
+Heather Ritter
Gleason chose two of the very best in Art Carney and Audrey Meadows. They were talented and versatile comic actors who were also able to play more serious roles. I watched Gleason on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson say that Brooklyn was full of Ralph Kramdens, Alice Kramdens and Ed Nortons. Having grown up in NYC in the 1950's, I can vouch for that. Carney and Meadows played their parts to perfection, and they had to do it with a stand in during almost all the rehearsals because Gleason hated to rehearse.
I also saw an interview with Audrey Meadows where she said that because Gleason was so physical and emotive with his acting, she had to deliberately underplay her role most of the time so it wouldn't clash with him. There's only a couple of scenes I can recall where he's standing there listening while she goes off on a rant. It is more likely that she emotes when he's not in the scene ("pins and needles, needles and pins ... it's a happy woman that grins!!!").
I thought that Sheila McRae did a good job as Alice (although not as good as Audrey) when they did Honeymooners skits after Gleason moved the show to Miami Beach. But I can't imagine that he would have considered reviving the Honeymooners without Carney. It would be a disservice to call him a second banana. As co-stars, Gleason and Carney were 1 and 1A.
So well cast.
@@loissimmons6558 I agree. It's also worth mentioning, Joyce Randolph as Trixie. Granted, her role was smaller, but she nailed it and complimented the others very well.
Side note- Also, I believe Joyce is the only one of the four, still with us. Bless her heart.
@@waynej2608 I think it’s her birthday next week. She was ok, just not as natural as the others, but maybe that was intentional.
this was the last week of kinescope and the quality filmed Honeymooners were just beginning.
that my friend is the meaning of A WOMAN
Alizee Defan U got that right sister
Alizee Defan in every sense of the word! I’d marry Audrey in a New York minute! That New York accent really topped it off for me, too!
I was watching one of those old detective movies, and there was an actress in it who I'd never seen before, but those eyes, I thought, I recognise those eyes; and then it came to me in a flash, that's Audrey Meadows sister, I'm sure of it, so I did a google search, and turned out I was right--I recognised her based on nothing but her eyes, that's how unique they are!
Jackie Gleason once said he was not sure, at first, if Audrey was right to play Alice because she was too pretty to play her.
They are all such sweet ppl..love them
What a genuinely classy and BEAUTIFUL woman!
They guessed Audrey so fast, early television. If WML was on in 2020, my guess is the panel will have a harder time guessing especially with TV having hundreds of channels.
The lost episodes of the honeymooners are now airing and nothing in today's entertainment world compares.
The similiarity of Ms. Meadows disguised voice is remarkably similar to her sister Jayne's disguised voice on the August 1, 1954 WML episode.
Everyone perfectly mannered, perfectly spoken and perfectly dressed. Compare today.
Exactly 4 years before I was born, August 21, 1959.
Rod Morris was polite in commiserating with the New Yorkers about the heat - NYC had a high of 97 degrees, while Morris’ desert home city of Las Vegas had a high of 102.9 that day.
Amazing they couldn't recognize Chief Parker. Is it possible that he's more famous now than he was then?
They were in NY and he was in LA.
Arguably so. The only time people outside LA saw his name at that point was at the end of each episode of Dragnet, both radio and TV.
no air conditioning in a major television studio in 1955 !
based on my own recollection -
this audience creature comfort was being phased in around this time
in major movie theater chains.
I was in that audience and it was hot as hell😢 People dealt with it because air conditioner s didn't exist. Very expensive when they were first sold!😢
There is actual glass in the spectacles Fred is wearing tonight.
Faith Adams -- I noticed that! I saw reflections in the lenses.
I think that all glasses back then had glasses...or did they?
I think that in the last episode when Dorothy took off his glasses and stuck her finger through the frame without a lens, it was a set-up joke between them. Everyone had been remarking about how the frames hid the bags under his eyes, so they were playing on the assumption that this was the only reason he was wearing them.
Fred Allen asked if Chief Parker was Chief of Police of Hollywood (California), not realizing that Hollywood is not itself a city, just one of the many distinct districts within the City of Los Angeles that has a specific name and a particular business district. Los Angeles as an incorporated city is very large -- 503 square miles in area -- so there are a whole lot of districts within it that have specific names that help you know where a particular address is or where you happen to be.
Michael Mantle -- I think that's true.
+ToddSF 94109
What can be confusing to those not familiar with L.A. or cities that have boundaries like L.A. is that there are place names in the L.A. metro area that are neighborhoods of Los Angeles, and other place names that are either separate cities or an unincorporated area of Los Angeles County (for example East Los Angeles, feted in Cheech & Chong's parody). Some of those places are surrounded on 3 or even all 4 sides by L.A. L.A. has also annexed additional land to create rather odd shaped boundaries, the most notable being the strip of land that extends southward connecting the rest of the city with San Pedro so there can be a Port of Los Angeles (the rest of the Los Angeles coast not being suitable for a cargo ship harbor).
Under such circumstances, it is understandable that people, even those in show business who worked on the West Coast, might think that Hollywood was a separate city, seeing that it was so famous.
I became knowledgeable about the political boundaries of greater Los Angeles at a young age because I have always loved to read maps and I had an uncle who lived on the southern edge of Hollywood on Melrose Avenue before he retired to the Kern River/Lake Isabella area. One time when he drove east in his camper to visit, he brought two Shell street maps (Shell always had the most detail in their city maps) and left them with my brother and me. L.A. is so far flung that Shell needed two maps to cover the city, with the area north of the Hollywood Hills and the San Fernando Valley on a separate map from the portion that included Hollywood, downtown, LAX, etc. The city was in white, the unincorporated areas were in pale yellow, and the other incorporated areas were in various other colors such as purple, dark green and tan. I practically had that map memorized (I am pretty sure that Santa Monica was purple and Glendale green.)
I also had an aunt who lived in the L.A. neighborhood of Eagle Rock, bordered on a few sides by more well known independent cities: Pasadena and Glendale.
And that map is how I knew the location Fred Sanford (Redd Foxx) was talking about when he made fun of El Segundo.
This was a great episode but I suddenly have a desire to watch a mid 50s sitcom about a couple living in Brooklyn where he is a bus driver.
Utube free for this and thousands of other shows😊
@Whats My Line? -- Thanks for this look at ALICE== WOW!!!!!!!!!!
what a time to be alive, back when the government was testing nukes right in Las Vegas' own backyard xD
There was no need for confusion or hesitation on the question whether show was live or not film. He should have told in a peremptory manner that only questions capable of being answered yes or no are permissible. They should then flipped the card and gone to the next panelist.
Audrey Meadows was unforgettable in a very amusing episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents called "Mrs. Bixby and the Colonel's Coat."
Audrey was an old maid of 33 here. She married the next year in 1956 but divorced two years later.
Black Jack is the only gambling game where the House and the suckers can have even odds to win.
Dear Audrey Meadows; we love you!
Kevin Spacey's character "Jack Vincennes" in the film "L.A. Confidential" was loosely based on Police Chief Bill Parker, I believe.
❤ Audrey & Joyce Meadows lots of love and admiration for there years of entertainment
Is it at all strange to anyone else, that when Mr. Daly greets each guest, he often holds the hands of some of the female contestants for some period of time (although it's often not long)? I'm not sure if that was common for the time or not.
Not strange at all. In those days , people were often terrified to be on tv , it was a very big deal and they could be awfully nervous. Mr. Daly being a great gentleman, would calm them by taking their hands and leading them to their seat. Paul Muni , a mystery guest on another episode, told Mr. Daly that his hands were shaking, he was so nervous about being on live television.
Ahhh okay okay. Thank you very much for the insight!
@@gooshala
Yes. When Dorothy was a mystery guest, he goes into that in great detail. He's always as surprised as anyone.
I believe he did it for the cameras.
He's not flirting...he is turning them to position them to the camera!
That voice she put on was cute AF
She's beautiful!😍
I just saw a jackie gleeson interview. It looked like he said honneymooners was one season in 1951 .
That is correct, he felt the show could only have so many episodes before people tired of it!😢
Yes I was so taken with how dressed everyone was, how polite they were. I put my own children on to it and they are in their 60s.
Audrey said Carney and Gleason screwed around so much during rehearsals she was scared they would forget their lines during the actual show.
Wikipedia brought me here to see the second challenger (9:40): Chief Parker of the LAPD.