On TWO Conditions: You Gotta Be Cute and You Gotta Wear Clothes!

Phyllis Newman and Orson Bean

in Subways Are For Sleeping, 1957.

Orson started his performing career off as a 

magician!

He shifted from there into stand up comedy,

Broadway, TV, game shows, and movies.

Subways brought him a Tony nomination,

and the opportunity to sing

"I Just Can't Wait" to an often be-toweled Phyllis. 

Orson was born Dallas Frederick Burrows, in 1928,

in Burlington, Vt.

His stage name was suggested to him by 

a piano player at a Boston nightclub where "Dallas" worked.

Every night said piano man would introduce him by a 

different silly name;

Orson Bean got the most laughs!

Orson said that it was a blend of pompous and amusing.

Above, with Dick Van Dyke.

Below, with not Dick Van Dyke. 

Orson, at the far right, with some of his 

game show co-horts!

Bill Cullen, Kitty Carlisle, Bud Collyer, Bess Myerson, Henry Morgan,

and Betsy Palmer.

Orson was struck and killed by 2 cars in early February

while crossing a street (on foot) in Venice, CA.

He was 91 years old. 

We'll hear Kathryn Grayson and Howard Keel,

as Magnolia and Gaylord

in Showboat.

Their conditional love song: "Make Believe". 

Kathryn was born Zelma Kathryn Elisabeth Hedrick,

in 1922, in Winston-Salem, NC.

She trained as an opera singer,  

but got scooped by MGM to debut in 

Andy Hardy's Private Secretary, released in 1941.

(And yes, she played the secretary!)

More movie musicals followed,

and later in Kathryn's career, 

actual operas and Broadway musicals. 

One nifty example: In 1962, she replaced Julie Andrews in

Broadway's Camelot.

Below, another pic from Showboat: KG with Ava Gardner as Julie.

(Interesting note, Judy Garland and Dinah Shore were both considered for the part of Julie.)

Look at that hair!
My mom used to have that style

during her college days

(tho not quite as dramatically "pouffed" as Kathryn's!).

Two years after Showboat, it was time to

 Kiss Me, Kate...

Ann Miller as Bianca and Kathryn as Kate.

Stanley Prager, above, with

Helen Gallagher (who replaced Carol Haney) on the table,

and Thelma Pelish, aghast at the scene

in The Pajama Game.

Stanley started off as a stage manager on Broadway's

The Skin of Our Teeth.

He spent most of the 1940s doing B movies,

like A Bell For Adano, Gun Crazy, and A Foreign Affair.

Here's Stanley with Gale Robbins in

In The Meantime, Darling,

released in 1944. 

When he found himself on the Hollywood Blacklist,

it was back to Broadway for SP!

He performed in The Pajama Game, Two On The Aisle,

Room Service...

and then turned to directing.

Some of the shows he did wearing that hat include

Bravo, Giovanni,

70, Girls, 70,

and Minnie's Boys.

Stanley in Force Of Evil, 1948.

Recording the original cast album

of The Pajama Game,

with Janis Paige and John Raitt, front and center.

That's Eddie Foy, Jr. in the hat on the left,

and on the right, Carol Haney and Stanley.

Come the 1960s, he directed television shows,

like The Patty Duke Show and Car 54.

He passed away in 1972, at the age of 55.