Move To Television
In 1948, Markle made a quantum leap from radio to television. Sponsored by Westinghouse Electric Corporation, the television series was seen on CBS (which Westinghouse owned between 1995 and 2000), from 1948 through 1958, under several variant titles: Studio One Summer Theatre, Studio One in Hollywood, Summer Theatre, Westinghouse Studio One and Westinghouse Summer Theatre. It was telecast in black-and-white only.
Offering a wide range of dramas, Studio One received Emmy nominations every year from 1950 to 1958. The series staged some notable and memorable teleplays among its 466 episodes. Some created such an impact they were adapted into theatrical films. In 1953, William Templeton's adaptation of George Orwell's novel, starring Eddie Fisher as WInston Smith, in turn led to the 1956 Feature film version with Edmond O'Brien in the title role. Reginald Rose's drama Twelve Angry Men, about the conflicts of jurors deciding a murder case, originated on Studio One on 20 September 1954, and the 1957 motion picture remake with Henry Fonda was nominated for three Academy Awards. Sal Mineo had the title role in the 2 January 1956 episode of Reginald Rose's Dino, and he reprised the role for the movie Dino (1957).
In 1954, "Crime at Blossoms", scripted by Jerome Ross, was given an Edgar Award for Best Episode in a TV Series. Nathaniel Hawthorne's granddaughter received a plaque in recognition of her grandfather's writing achievements, during the 3 April 1950 telecast of The Scarlet Letter.
The Night America Trembled was Studio One's 9 September 1957 top-rated television recreation of Orson Welles' radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds on 30 October 1938. The cast included Alexander Scourby, Ed Asner and Warren Oates. James Coburn made his television debut, and John Astin appeared uncredited as a reporter. In one of his earliest acting roles, Warren Beatty appeared in the bit part of a card-playing college student.
Another notable presentation was an adaptation in 1952 of a medieval mystery play about the birth of Christ, The Nativity, based on the Chester and York Mystery Plays of the 14th and 15th centuries, reworked into Elizabethan English. With musical accompaniment by the Robert Shaw Chorale, and presented during the Christmas season of 1952, this was one of the few medieval mystery plays telecast on commercial network television. The cast included Thomas Hardie Chalmers, Miriam Wolfe, Hurd Hatfield, and Paul Tripp.
During the 1953 presentation Dry Run, whole sections of a submarine were built inside the studio and the entire cast was nearly electrocuted when water that was being used for special effects got very close to power cables.
The show's run ended when Westinghouse switched its sponsorship to the Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse, which premiered in 1958.
Worthington Miner, Martin Manulis and others produced. As spokeswoman for Westinghouse, Betty Furness became strongly identified with Westinghouse products, and she also was seen in eight Studio One dramas. The show's musical directors were Milton C. Anderson, who also created music for Playhouse 90, and Eugene Cines.
Read more about this topic: Westinghouse Studio One
Famous quotes containing the words move to, move and/or television:
“To higher or lower ends, they [the majority of mankind] move too often with something of a sad countenance, with hurried and ignoble gait, becoming, unconsciously, something like thorns, in their anxiety to bear grapes; it being possible for people, in the pursuit of even great ends, to become themselves thin and impoverished in spirit and temper, thus diminishing the sum of perfection in the world, at its very sources.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
“By act of Congress, male officers are gentlemen, but by act of God, we are ladies. We don’t have to be little mini-men and try to be masculine and use obscene language to come across. I can take you and flip you on the floor and put your arms behind your back and you’ll never move again, without your ever knowing that I can do it.”
—Sherian Grace Cadoria (b. 1940)
“So by all means let’s have a television show quick and long, even if the commercial has to be delivered by a man in a white coat with a stethoscope hanging around his neck, selling ergot pills. After all the public is entitled to what it wants, isn’t it? The Romans knew that and even they lasted four hundred years after they started to putrefy.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)