1958 - Theater, Film

Theater, Film

Theater: The Garden District (Suddenly Last Summer and Something Unspoken) by Tennessee Williams 1/7 at New York's York Theater, with Anne Meacham; Two for the Seesaw by New York-born playwright William Gibson, 42, 1/16 at New York's Booth Theater, with Henry Fonda, New York-born actress Anne Bancroft (Anna Maria Italiano), 26, as Gittel Mosca, 750 perfs.; Sunrise at Campobello by Newark, N.J.-born playwright (and former M-G-M production chief) Dore Schary, 52, 1/30 at New York's Cort Theater, with Ralph Bellamy as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Mary Fickett as Eleanor, 556 perfs.; Biedermann and the Firebugs (Biedermann und die Brandstifter) by Max Frisch 3/29 at Zürich's Schauspielhaus; Teahouse (Chaguan) by novelist-playwright Lao She (Shu She Yu), now 58, 3/29 at Beijing's (Peking's) People's Art Theater; Variations on a Theme by Terence Rattigan 3/31 at London's Globe Theatre, with Jeremy Brett, Margaret Leighton, 132 perfs.; The Killer (Tueur sans gages) by Eugène Ionesco 4/4 at Darmstadt's Landestheater; The Birthday Party by English playwright Harold Pinter, 27, 5/19 at London's Lyric Theatre, with Beatrix Lehmann, 8 perfs.; Epitaph for George Dillon by John Osborne and Anthony Creighton 2/11 at London's Comedy Theatre, with Robert Stephens, Philip Locke, Wendy Craig, Malcolm Hays, 52 perfs.; Five Finger Exercise by English playwright Peter Shaffer, 32, 7/16 at London's Comedy Theatre, with Brian Bedford, Roland Culver, Michael Bryant, Adrianne Allan, 609 perfs.; A Touch of the Poet by the late Eugene O'Neill 10/2 at New York's Helen Hayes Theater with Tom Clancy, Eric Portman, Helen Hayes, Kim Stanley, Betty Field, 284 perfs.; The Hostage by Brendan Behan 10/14 at London's Theatre Royal, Stratford; The World of Suzie Wong by Paul Osborn 10/14 at New York's Broadhurst Theater, with France Nuyen, William Shatner, 508 perfs.; The Girls in 509 by Howard Teichmann 10/15 at New York's Belasco Theater, with Imogene Coca, Peggy Wood, 117 perfs.; The Pleasure of His Company by Cornelia Otis Skinner and Samuel Taylor 10/22 at New York's Longacre Theater, with Skinner, Cyril Ritchard, Charles Ruggles, Walter Abel, George Peppard, sets by Donald Oenslager, 474 perfs.; Make a Million by Norman Barasch and Carroll Moore 10/23 at New York's Playhouse Theater (to Morosco 4/13/1959), with Conrad Janis, Neva Patterson, Sam Levene, 308 perfs.; End-Game (Fin de Partie) and Krapp's Last Tape by Samuel Beckett 10/28 at London's Royal Court Theatre, with George Devine, Jack McGowran, Richard Golden, Frances Cuka, 38 perfs.; The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (Der aujhaltsame Aufstieg des Arturo Ui) by Bertolt Brecht 11/10 at Stuttgart; The Disenchanted by Budd Schulberg and Harvey Breit (based on Schulberg's novel) 12/3 at New York's Coronet Theater, with Jason Robards Jr. (and Sr.), English actress Rosemary Harris, 28, Milwaukee-born actress Salome Jens, 23, George Grizzard, 189 perfs.; The Cold Wind and the Warm by S. N. Behrman 12/8 at New York's Morosco Theater, with Eli Wallach, Sanford Meisner, Maureen Stapleton, Naples-born actor Vincent Gardenia (originally Scognamiglio), 36, Morris Carnovsky, Suzanne Pleshette, 120 perfs.; JB by poet-playwright-statesman Archibald MacLeish, now 66, 12/11 at New York's ANTA Theater, with Raymond Massey, Christopher Plummer, Pat Hingle, 364 perfs.; The Gazebo by Australian playwright-screenwriter Alec Coppel, 49, 12/12 at New York's Lyceum Theater, with China-born actress Jayne Meadows (originally Jane Cotter), 38, Walter Slezak, 218 perfs.; A Dream for the People (Un soñador para un pueblo) by Antonio Buero Vallejo 12/18 at Madrid's Teatro Español.

Actor Thurston Hall dies at Beverly Hills, Calif., February 20 at age 75; drama critic George Jean Nathan at New York April 8 at age 76; playwright-lyricist Frank Mandel at Los Angeles April 20 at age 73; playwright-composer-lyricist Clare Kummer at Carmel, Calif., April 22 at age 85; playwright F. Hugh Herbert at Beverly Hills May 17 at age 60; actress Catherine Calhoun Doucet at New York June 24 at age 83; playwright-director-producer Rachel Crothers at Danbury, Conn., July 5 at age 79; actor Raymond Hackett at Los Angeles July 7 at age 55; actress Evelyn Varden at New York July 11 at age 65; playwright Lennox Robinson at Dublin October 14 at age 72.

Television: Bluebeard on BBC with Christopher Treece and Leila Williams in a 15-minute children's show that will be expanded to 30 minutes and continue for more than 35 years; The Garry Moore Show 6/26 on CBS with Baltimore-born personality Moore (originally Thomas Garrison Morfit), 43, in a daytime variety show (to 1964 and from 1966 to 1967); Concentration (daytime game show) 8/25 on NBC with host Hugh Downs and Lindenhurst, N.Y.-born emcee Jack Barry, 40, in a format created by Barry and producer Dan Enright, 41 (to 3/23/1973, nearly 3,800 episodes); Huckleberry Hound in September on syndicated stations with Hanna-Barbera animation; The Donna Reed Show 9/24 on ABC with Reed as physician's wife Donna Stone, Carl Betz as her husband (to 9/3/1966, 274 episodes); The Naked City 9/30 on ABC with James Franciscus, John McIntyre (to 9/11/1963).

Soap opera creator Elaine Carrington dies at her native New York May 4 at age 66, having earned upwards of $200,000 per year for churning out 38,000 words per week for her 25-minute radio episodes.

Columbia University English instructor Charles Van Doren, 32, denies any wrongdoing when accused in August of having received answers in advance as a contestant on NBC's 2-year-old quiz show Twenty-One. Van Doren's salary at Columbia is $4,400 per year, his appearances on the show have brought him $129,000 (plus a $50,000-per-year contract to appear on the Today show when he lost his title), and he finally comes clean November 2; a grand jury indicts the show's producers (notably Dan Enright) for fraud. President Eisenhower calls the deception "a terrible thing to do to the American public"; Atlanta Constitution editor Ralph McGill will write that "television had robbed people of a kind of faith which it is dangerous to destroy in a democracy, and it is the more so because it is a reflection on all of us and on our national character. The quizzes revealed our deep psychological lust for material things." NBC cancels Twenty-One November 2 (CBS has canceled its $64,000 Question and $64,000 Challenge earlier because of plummeting ratings). The three networks take control of all programming out of the hands of advertising agencies, and a congressional committee will conduct hearings on the quiz-show fraud next year (but see 1999).

Films: Stanley Kramer's The Defiant Ones with Tony Curtis, Sidney Poitier; Jacques Tati's Mon Oncle with Tati; Roy Baker's A Night to Remember with Kenneth More; Jack Clayton's Room at the Top with Laurence Harvey, Simone Signoret; Delbert Mann's Separate Tables with Rita Hayworth, Deborah Kerr, David Niven, Wendy Hiller, Burt Lancaster, Gladys Cooper; Orson Welles's Touch of Evil with Welles, Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh; Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo with James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes. Also: Andrzej Wajda's Ashes and Diamonds with Zbigniew Cybulski; Richard Brooks's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman, Burl Ives; Jacques Tourneur's Curse of the Demon with Dana Andrews; Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress with Toshiro Mifune; Ronald Neame's The Horse's Mouth with Alec Guinness; Melville Shavelson's Houseboat with Cary Grant, Sophia Loren; Robert Wise's I Want to Live! with Susan Hayward; John Guillermin's I Was Monty's Double with M. E. Clifton-James, John Mills; John Ford's The Last Hurrah with Spencer Tracy; Tanji Yabushita's Legend of the White Serpent (animated) introduces a new style of "anime" animation that will have far-reaching influence; Tony Richardson's Look Back in Anger with Richard Burton, Claire Bloom, Edith Evans; Satyajit Ray's The Music Room; Douglas Sirk's The Tarnished Angels with Rock Hudson, Dorothy Malone, Robert Stack; George Pal's tom thumb with Russ Tamblyn, June Thornton, London-born comedian Terry-Thomas (Thomas Terry Hoar Stevens), 47; Edward Dmytryk's The Young Lions with Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, Dean Martin, Hope Lange.

Pioneer film producer Jesse L. Lasky dies at Beverly Hills January 13 at age 77; Columbia Pictures president Harry Cohn of a coronary occlusion en route to a Phoenix hospital February 27 at age 66 (he has been widely detested in the picture community, but his funeral brings out more than 2,000 mourners, prompting comedian Red Skelton to say, "It only proves what they always say—give the public something they want to see and they'll come out for it"; actor Ronald Colman dies at San Ysitro, Calif., May 14 at age 67; Tyrone Power of a heart attack on location at Madrid November 15 at age 45 while making King Vidor's film Solomon and Sheba.