Once upon a time there was a little old lady who was a frequent front row guest at talk shows. I think, among them, Jack Paar, Steve Allen, and Merv Griffin (where I remember her). She was known simply as “Miss Miller.”
I’ve seen conflicting information about her first name, though. While obviously not the, um, “singer” Mrs. Miller, Steve Allen remembered her first name as “Dorothy” and I found an online reference to a “Lillian” Miller whose 1990 obit mentioned her as being the guest.
You can find various online sources that refer to either name. Which one is correct?
My newspaper interview from 1976 said she was, at that time, 79, a widow, but she had a boyfriend with a waxed mustache. Her “hobby” began in 1940, when living in NY. She used to go to radio shows, because she didn’t have money to go to the movies. She went to “Truth or Consequences,” Irene Beasley" “John Reid King” and “The Fitzgeralds.” She actually first went on stage in 1949, helping Sammy Kaye lead his band, on the show “So You Want to Lead a Band.” Her commercials for Merv’s show won her a Cleo(according to the story).
I found another article on her in the Oakland Tribune (Oakland, California), 16 December 1966, p. 14-A (originally published in Long Island Newsday). Her full name was Lillian Dorothy Miller, and she was a spinster (as of 1966). She worked as a government typist, but retired in 1958 due to eye trouble. She was born in Massachusetts in 1897, and died in Los Angeles in 1990.
Of these, “Truth or Consequences” presumably needs no introduction. “The Fitzgeralds” would be the long-running New York talk show. Irene Beasley was a singer who had several series in the 1930s and 1940s, and this could be either one of the shows under her name or the quiz program “Grand Slam”. John Reed King (note the spelling) was a major game show host and announcer of the 1940s, and this could be any one (or every one) of his programs.
