# Who's left from early TV? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 13, 2014, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-left-from-early-tv/681218 "2014-02-13T03:45:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 32
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2014, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-left-from-early-tv/681218/621 "2014-12-20T00:25:24Z")
**Ziva Rodann** made her TV debut in 1956 (on _The Adventures of Hiram Holliday_, with Wally Cox) before hitting the big screen in 1957 with _Pharaoh’s Curse_, followed by more television work in 1958 (on _Man Without A Gun_ and _Behind Closed Doors_) and 1959 (_Mr. Lucky_, _Not For Hire_), after which she of course kept acting in the 1960s (_Perry Mason_, _Rawhide_, _Batman_ – that’s her playing Nefertiti to Victor Buono’s King Tut – and et cetera). ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2014, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-left-from-early-tv/681218/622 "2014-12-20T01:43:47Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Groucho’s daughter **Melinda Marx** acted in _The Story Of Mankind_ like dad in '57, after appearing side-by-side with him on _You Bet Your Life_ the year before that, and the year before that – and they were still doing _You Bet Your Life_ episodes together the year _after_ that, followed by a made-for-TV version of _The Mikado_. > > No, really. > > And from a look at IMDB, that’s her singing on _The Ed Sullivan Show_ with dad nowhere in sight: after '57, sure, but that’s her on _Perry Como’s Kraft Music Hall_ – and various other TV shows – _before_ the end of 1957, which is still pretty good. she appeared on _You Bet Your Life_ in '58 with her buddy Candice Bergen and her dad. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2014, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-left-from-early-tv/681218/623 "2014-12-20T21:30:41Z")
**Bernard Kay** made his television debut in '57 before doing a TV movie in '58, followed by getting a recurring role on a TV miniseries in '59; he kept acting in the '60s and '70s and '80s and '90s and '00s, right up until his most recent credit here in the '10s in a third-rate Charisma Carpenter movie. (Quoth the IMDB reviews: _“Bad acting, bad script, pacing was 100% predictable and there was not one cliché left uncopied … went downhill quite fast, crumbling into boredom and a general lack of purpose … so bad it’s almost epic … wooden acting, predictable plot through the middle of the film and unsparkling dialogue all conspire to make this hard work to get into … linear and predictable with extra characters that really do nothing to advance or even influence the story.”_ And et cetera.) ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2014, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-left-from-early-tv/681218/624 "2014-12-21T20:38:04Z")
Sally Field’s next movie has the role of her mom going to **Norma Michaels** , who has IMDB credits dating back through the '00s and '90s and '80s and '70s and '60s back through to her television debut on _The George Gobel Show_ in '54. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2014, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-left-from-early-tv/681218/625 "2014-12-23T03:25:01Z")
Richard Chance is an actor who obviously doesn’t qualify for this thread, since his birth announcement in Variety Magazine came after the deadline. But the point is that his mom is Bobbie Chance (who misses it much closer, having acted in 1960s movies like _Beach Blanket Bingo_ and _How To Stuff A Wild Bikini_), and his dad is **Larry Chance** (who did pre-'58 TV westerns ranging from _Annie Oakley_ to _Broken Arrow_ to _The Adventures of Jim Bowie_ to _Tales of the Texas Rangers_). ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2014, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-left-from-early-tv/681218/626 "2014-12-23T23:53:24Z")
You could apparently make a case for Richard L. Bare, but I don’t feel like doing that. Instead, I’d like to mention his ex-wife, **Julie Van Zandt** , who was in a whole bunch of TV shows before the end of '57. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2014, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-left-from-early-tv/681218/627 "2014-12-24T14:03:06Z")
**Leslie Randall** appeared with Dustin Hoffman in _Last Chance Harvey_ not too long ago, after playing actor/writer/producer/director on _Joan and Leslie_ in 1970 after getting work on 1960s shows like _The Monkees_ and _I Dream of Jeannie_ after earning 1950s TV credits before the deadline – as an actor, of course, but also As Himself on episodes of _The Ed Sullivan Show_. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2014, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-left-from-early-tv/681218/628 "2014-12-25T23:25:15Z")
**Barbara Jefford** made her screen debut as the title character in a made-for-TV version of _Tess of the D’Urbervilles_ before the deadline, and after the deadline played Ophelia for a made-for-TV “Hamlet” on _The DuPont Show of the Month_, followed by work in the '50s and '60s and '70s and '80s and '90s and '00s and '10s. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2014, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-left-from-early-tv/681218/629 "2014-12-27T00:04:15Z")
**Elizabeth Sellars** got TV work in '51 and '52 and '53 before making it onto the big screen with Bogie and Ava Gardner in _The Barefoot Contessa_ in '54, and then back on the small screen in '55, and back on the big screen in '56, and did a TV movie in '57, and did a _DuPont Show of the Month_ version of “The Count of Monte Cristo” in '58, and a made-for-TV version of “The Philadelphia Story” in '59, and so on, and so on. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2014, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-left-from-early-tv/681218/630 "2014-12-27T13:12:35Z")
Delena Kidd is still with us and still acting, but her TV credits only to back to 1958 and so don’t qualify for this thread. But she’s married to **Gary Raymond** , who just this year did a cheap flick with Shannon Tweed and Jerry O’Connell’s less-talented kid brother – decades after Raymond was a castmember on _Rat Patrol_ starting in '66, a decade after his TV debut in '56. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2014, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-left-from-early-tv/681218/631 "2014-12-28T15:10:14Z")
**Don Francks** racked up a few early TV credits before the end of '57 – as a regular on shows like _Burns Chuckwagon from the Stampede Corral_ and _Riding High_ when he wasn’t getting work on _The Adventures of Tugboat Annie_ – and in the '60s you could see him on _Mannix_ and _The Wild Wild West_ and _Mission: Impossible_ and _The Man From UNCLE_ and et cetera. And in the '70s, you could see him on _Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood_ – and _hear_ him, as Boba Fett, on the legendarily bad _Star Wars History Special_. At that, in the '80s you could hear him voicing Doctor Claw, with his daughter Cree Summer voicing Penny, opposite Don Adams as _Inspector Gadget_, and that’s _beyond_ awesome. He kept getting work as a growly voice actor in the '90s and '00s – as Sabretooth, in various X-MEN incarnations – and he’s kept getting live-action work through to here in the '10s, sure as that’s him as the elderly Nicolae Rumancek on _Hemlock Grove_. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2014, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-left-from-early-tv/681218/632 "2014-12-29T07:48:44Z")
**Lisa Gastoni** got TV work in '57, and she kept acting in the '60s and '70s – so that’s her on _Alcoa Presents: One Step Beyond_, and that’s her as the striking Italian twentysomething in _Gidget Goes To Rome_ – and she’s still at it in the '00s and '10s, since she has a small part in an upcoming film starring twentysomething du jour Emilia Clarke (who apparently somehow fit it in between playing Daenerys on _Game of Thrones_ and her post-production role as Sarah Connor in _Terminator Genisys_). ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2014, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-left-from-early-tv/681218/633 "2014-12-30T13:00:00Z")
Judy Tyler, who played Princess Summerfall Winterspring on _Howdy Doody_, is, sadly, no longer with us – but **Toby Tarnow** , who played Princess Pan of the Forest before doing a made-for-TV version of _Anne of Green Gables_ in '56, and then went on to get yet other small-screen work in the '50s and '60s and '70s and '80s, _is_. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2014, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-left-from-early-tv/681218/634 "2014-12-31T18:17:11Z")
Before doing everything from _Star Trek_ to _Days of our Lives_ to _Get Smart_ to _Knight Rider_, **Sharon Acker** did a made-for-TV version of _Macbeth_ as Lady MacDuff with a pre-007 Sean Connery as the big guy. That’s not the role she beat the deadline with, but I figure it’s worth mentioning. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2015, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-left-from-early-tv/681218/635 "2015-01-01T13:53:45Z")
In her seventies, **Geraldine McEwan** was an elfin Miss Marple as surely as David Suchet was Poirot – and in her sixties, she was Miriam (and he was Aaron) in a TV movie about Moses (as played by Ben Kingsley, with Christopher Lee as Ramses). And in her fifties, there was _Robin Hood_ with Kevin Costner. And in her forties, she starred in the TV-series version of _The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie_; and in her thirties, she got all kinds of small-screen work – on _Profiles In Courage_ with Brian Keith, and on _Out Of This World_ with Boris Karloff, and on various other 1960s TV shows – and in her twenties, she made her small-screen acting debut back in '55, after making her big-screen acting debut (in, of course, a film called _There Was A Young Lady_). ---
**Author:** ![NetTrekker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nettrekker/32/2909_2.png) [@NetTrekker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NetTrekker)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-left-from-early-tv/681218/636 "2015-01-02T05:03:09Z")
Doris Day, if she wasn’t previously mentioned. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2015, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-left-from-early-tv/681218/637 "2015-01-03T03:00:08Z")
Not seeing any TV acting credits that qualify, but plenty of early TV credits, so sure. See also **Roberta Maxwell** , who has a couple of movie roles coming up this year, after getting a healthy amount of movie work in the '00s (she was Jake Gyllenhaal’s mom in _Brokeback Mountain_) and the '90s (as Sean Penn’s mom in _Dead Man Walking_) and the '80s (as Shelley Duvall’s mom in _Popeye_), and et cetera through the '70s and '60s back through to her youthful TV hosting days in '58 and '57. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2015, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-left-from-early-tv/681218/638 "2015-01-03T21:46:04Z")
As per IMDB, smiling octogenarian **John Clark** is still acting long after he was the doctor in _Jagged Edge_ in the '80s, long after doing _The Jerry Lewis Show_ in the '60s. And before that, he was acting on _The DuPont Show of the Month_ in the '50s, after making his debut in a TV movie in the '40s. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2015, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-left-from-early-tv/681218/639 "2015-01-05T00:12:01Z")
**Barbara Feldon** made her earliest TV appearances back in '57. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2015, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-left-from-early-tv/681218/640 "2015-01-05T14:35:46Z")
Wanda Ventham, who spent last year as the great detective’s mom on _Sherlock_, doesn’t qualify, because she didn’t get into TV work until '59, after her movie debut in '56. But that film also featured young **Sylvia Syms** – who you maybe remember from _Operation Crossbow_ with George Peppard and Sophia Loren – who was likewise still acting on-screen in 2014 (and 2013, and 2012, and 2011, and 2010), sure as she was acting in the '00s (in an Amanda Bynes movie) and the '90s (in a Melanie Griffith movie) and the 80s and the '70s and the '60s and the '50s (when she did [del]_Moonraker_[/del] _The Moonraker_). And before that 1956 film, she’d racked up various TV credits in 1955. (IMDB also credits her with half-a-dozen _Jack Paar Tonight Show_ appearances from 1958 to 1962 – which _also_ doesn’t count, but gives you an idea of what she was up to.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-left-from-early-tv/681218.md?page=31) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-left-from-early-tv/681218.md?page=33)