When Classic Film Actors Guest Star on Sitcoms

if you follow me on social media you probably know that i've been re-watching the nanny and that i'm not so subtly obsessed with it i mean what's not to love brilliant one-liners a plus physical comedy those outfits plus tons of references to broadway and classic hollywood so around the time elizabeth taylor showed up i started thinking about the relationship between classic film stars and sitcoms when and why do they guest star do they always play themselves what can we learn about celebrity and american culture from these appearances in this video i offer up some potential answers to those questions of course in the interest of time i couldn't include every single example from every single appearance in every single sitcom but i've done my best to narrow down and unpack some of the major themes that i've noticed starting in the 1950s and going through the 1990s i've narrowed this video down to that time span because i'd specifically like to focus on guest appearances made by film actors who became famous either before television was a thing or in its earliest years and given their age that's when most of them appeared on television if they did at all if i didn't include an example that you think fits the themes of this video well tell me about it in the comments i'm always looking to hunt down new episodes or revisit some greatest hits now before we begin in true sitcom fashion a quick word from our sponsor [Music] i am extremely excited to tell you about the sponsor of this video mubi a curated streaming service showing exceptional films from around the globe every day mubi presents a new film each one thoughtfully handpicked by their team of curators which makes it super easy to discover countless gems anytime anywhere click the link in the description below to get a whole month free at movie.com be kind rewind and make sure to stay tuned to the end of this video because i'm going to talk about some genuinely incredible stuff that you can watch on the service right now seriously i'm almost just as excited to talk about that as i am to talk about the rest of this essay oh right which we should get back to [Music] to understand the relationship between classic film stars and sitcoms we have to go all the way back to the beginning of television because technically film stars came first by the late 1940s the film industry had become a well-oiled machine churning out hundreds of films per year and making a business out of discovering fostering and exploiting talent as television became increasingly viable as a new method of making and distributing entertainment people wondered how it would affect the film industry from its business practices to the conception of stardom itself should film stars who had specifically trained to act for the camera migrate to the new medium what did it mean to be famous on tv how would taste and humor and drama shift with access to new formats these questions didn't necessarily have straightforward answers but they're important to think about because the way that studios and television networks set out to answer them a determined which film actors appeared on tv and b helped differentiate tv and by extension the sitcom from film so let's start with that first point which film stars would appear on tv christine becker writes in televising film stardom in the 1950s television was considered well beneath the stature of a true film star even such a lesser figure as robert young echoed this sentiment in considering the move of father knows best from radio to television when we had the chance to take it to tv he said i thought it was a step down a sign that you couldn't work anywhere else in the early 1950s it became common for studios to forbid their contract players from appearing on television they mainly feared overexposure as becker points out they assumed television viewers would not show up at the box office if they could regularly see stars at home for free this isn't to say that america's most popular stars never appeared on tv marilyn monroe for example appeared on the jack benny program to promote gentlemen prefer blogs but these guest spots were kept to a minimum if they were allowed at all and the stigma was such that no star would actively pursue opportunities on television in lieu of film while they were at their peak that being said television networks did want to recruit film stars hoping that popular names would draw in big audiences and plenty of character actors and aging actresses aka over 35 years old did choose that route anthology series like the barbara stanwyck show the loretta young show and general electric theater which was hosted by recurring guest demon on this channel ronald reagan became very popular and a relatively prestigious path for those kinds of stars so the real question wasn't would stars transition to tv it was who could transition well this conversation was very much a part of the critical discourse mary desjardins writes in her book recycled stars female film stardom in the age of television and video that critics keenly perceived how audiences had shaped distinct standards and preferences for television stars and observed that certain kinds of personas would be more successful than others on the new medium the january 1949 article is hollywood doomed in modern television and radio predicted lana turner's artificial and overly theatrical glamour wouldn't work on television but ingrid bergman's relaxed beauty would betty davis's nervousness and rita hayworth's super glamour wouldn't work but the natural charm wit and intelligence of eve arden and dorothy lamore would indeed of these four women only the down-to-earth wisecracking eve arden would end up with her own show r miss brooks in which she starred as a high school english teacher which leads us to be how to differentiate so when critics wrote an evardin type would suit television better than alana turner type what exactly were they saying television created an entirely new context for consuming entertainment rather than leaving your home and seeing a larger than life personality on a larger-than-life screen you sit in your living room with your family and welcome actors into your home networks had to find content that would work both in this viewing context and theoretically distinguish television as a new medium with unique appeal anne helen peterson writes in her article when her pictures got small gloria swanson glamour and post-war stardom that as television began to spread across the nation and into less urban locales it became clear that programs with a broader i.e middle-class and white appeal would structure the future of broadcast television exotic locales and femme fatales didn't work quite as well in the living room and would be less successful in this context seemingly too artificial and too inauthentic this is due in part to the change in the format but also because american culture changed after world war ii peterson continues during the classic era of hollywood glamour was constructed via extravagance especially in the realm of consumption but in the late 1940s she writes as millions moved from urban spaces to the suburbs the push for consumption was increasingly wetted to the home instead of buying expensive gowns one should spend money on washing machines and vacuums efficiency and durability took precedence over glitz and opulence television took advantage of this shift by emphasizing ordinary situations and characters mirroring the white middle class audiences they hoped to attract popular sitcoms and talk shows framed their female stars as domestic as an intimate of the audience member and as thoroughly relatable never too chichi you save the fantasies and the glamour for the theater and those not too overexposed stars one way to represent this difference visually is to look at the career of lucille ball lucy never had the a-list film career some of her peers did in the 1930s and 40s but take a look at how for example mgm presents her in 1946's ziegfeld follies it's exactly the kind of extravagant technicolor glamour you expect from mgm but probably not what you envision when you think about 1950s television it's a glittering contrast to lucy ricardo a character not adorned with feathers but who worries about groceries and needs to find a babysitter where mgm lucy exists in the grand illusion of having someone sing for her [Music] tv lucy is tone deaf terminally incapable of achieving that brand of cinematic glamour and irrefutably loved for that very [Applause] reason [Music] so if tv tends to anchor its characters in more quote-unquote ordinary locations in more relatable jobs or situations the appearance of a famous ostensibly more glamorous figure would seem like a good opportunity for tension or comedy because lucy could and did play both types and because she had access to major figures in film she was the perfect person to explore how these interactions would play out so while i love lucy was by no means the first show to have a celebrity cameo it essentially created the blueprint for all future episodes of this kind to demonstrate how that formula works let's take a look at i love lucy season 4 episode 16 la at last the ricardo's arrive in hollywood where ricky is set to star as don juan in a movie lucy fred and ethel head to the famous restaurant the brown derby hoping they'll spot a movie star sure enough william holden sits down in the booth next to them now at the time william holden was one of hollywood's biggest movie stars he appeared for free as a friend of lucy's and was required by his studio to promote his next movie the country girl in the episode anyway lucy has zero chill and won't stop staring at him eventually he turns the tables on her she can't handle it it doesn't go well later that day ricky also happens to meet william he says his wife is a huge fan and would hold in mind stopping by the hotel to say hello lucy who has not told ricky about the incident at the brown derby conjures a disguise to prevent william from recognizing her if he did it would not only embarrass ricky but also ruin her chance at being liked by a major celebrity again it doesn't go well but eventually she comes clean and all is resolved this is about as perfect a sitcom episode as you can get the dramatic irony isn't overly complicated its comedic climax is well earned and the physical humor is impeccable down to having lucy order spaghetti which has to be one of the top three hardest foods to eat gracefully but the core source of humor in this episode and many many episodes like it to come is the implicit understanding that william holden isn't just another man at a restaurant he's a movie star who lives outside of the world where people like lucy or like us normally tread because we identify with the ordinary or with the tv characters we understand why lucy might be inclined to gawk or why it would feel absolutely devastating to make a bad impression it's not that she butters her hand instead of her bread that's so funny is that she butters her hand instead of her bread in front of william holden and what could be more humiliating than that exploiting this dynamic is timelessly funny which is why it recurs so often in sitcoms lucy herself repeated it in pretty much every successive show she produced particularly here's lucy which paraded a new guest star almost every other episode to see how this exact formula can be recycled in other shows for any kind of celebrity we need look no further than the nanny the nanny really picked up where lucy left off in this area the show had structural similarities that allowed for frequent interactions with celebrity guests and for a familiar dynamic to unfold maxwell like ricky works in show business fran like lucy often lets her eagerness get the best of her in front of stars i mean i sit here cooped up in the house all day long you never introduced me to any of the stars that you know you never let me in any of your shows i have a good mind to go get little ricky in this was of course intentional fran drescher often speaks about how i love lucy inspired the nanny so in season five episode two first date maxwell invites fran to a screening of an elton john documentary he hopes to convince elton to star in his upcoming musical at the after party fran tells her friend val that actually she's not too nervous about meeting elton because she'd already met him once i saw him playing tennis and i yelled at him yellow you always know the perfect thing to say but then she sees this scene in the movie i just lost my temper this bloody woman at the end of the call waving to me terrified that being recognized as the you who lady will jeopardize both her relationship with maxwell and his chance at recruiting elton she goes to the bathroom and swaps clothes with her grandma yetta with grandma yeta's glasses on fran can't see a thing she consistently mistakes objects at the table and the meal becomes more and more absurd fran's disguise like lucy's is worn with the greatest intentions but it's also so misguided and outrageous that we can't help but laugh you can draw a lot of parallels between lucille ball's use of celebrity cameos to the nannies so to round things back to the classic film world we absolutely have to talk about how they use elizabeth taylor season 3 of here's lucy premiered with lucy meets the burtons in which lucy accidentally comes into possession of the infamous 68 carat taylor burton diamond ring obviously it gets stuck on her finger and in one of the most brilliant bits of physical comedy she must stand behind a curtain and act as elizabeth's hand as she meets the press season three episode 20 of the nanny titled wears the pearls similarly uses elizabeth's jewelry as a macguffin a parallel the show wants you to notice oh miss taylor i have seen everything that you've ever done cleopatra virginia woolf but you know what my favorite was he is lucy she comes to the house for a meeting with maxwell and asks fran to send a string of pearls to a certain address fran doesn't trust a courier to do the job decides to do it herself and what else loses them in a cab driven by rosie o'donnell no less also small world side note but the elizabeth taylor episode of here's lucy was directed by jerry parris who is in the dickman dike show as the husband of anne morgan gilbert who is in the elizabeth taylor episode of the nanny as fran's grandma huh it's interesting to observe how these episodes use a star's persona to generate comedy here's lucy incorporates the media fervor around burton and taylor's marriage into the plot burton only meets lucy because she falls for the disguise he needs to wear in order to escape his hotel in peace in the nanny fran's single status is always a sore spot so who better to poke fun at her for it than a woman who'd been married eight times actually i've never been married not even once jokes based on a star's persona are particularly effective if the star is known for being somewhat eccentric when tallulah bankhead appears on the lucy desi comedy hour we get to laugh at lucy's usual antics but we also get to laugh at the idea of tallulah bankhead of all people living in the suburbs he's been rehearsing all day for a show that lucy is putting on for the pta the pd1 [Applause] the pta parent teachers association oh yes that same fish out of water dynamic occurs when mae west appears on mr ed playing a parody of her persona she delivers all the raunchy one-liners you expect we've all heard so much about you miss wes yes i know but you can't prove it all while imposing her brand of glamour and extravagance on the quote-unquote normal suburban couple normal in quotes because they do have a talking horse after all not all guest appearances emphasize the difference in the world lived by the star versus the main cast for example the guest star can be used to symbolize ambition or aspiration in season 2 of that girl anne lands herself a small role in a show starring ethel merman the episode does have its fair share of gags about how starstruck anne is but also uses merman to encourage anne as an aspiring actress charlton heston symbolizes that joey finally has a decent acting job on friends there's also a reverence that sits outside of fandom guest appearances that serve to foster collective memory sick comes with black casts provided more opportunities for black actors to guest star and it's clear that some of these appearances mean much more culturally than a mere advertisement for a new album or perfume lena horne's guest appearance on a different world is a perfect example the show was originally conceived as a spin-off of the cosby show but as aisha harris wrote for the new york times when debbie allen took over as producer and director in season two she famously made it her mission to set it apart from its more benign predecessor by having the writers tackle more substantive issues including colorism within the black community aids and shopping while black you see this mission at work in season 6 episode 24 a rock a river alina horn arrives for a night in her honor at the fictional historically black hillman college her visit is used as an educational moment to pass knowledge down to the next generation her beauty and her talent brought her to hollywood where she broke stereotypes of black women always playing prostitutes and maids lena horne was our first black sex symbol the episode outlines horn's biography including her activism and the cinematic milestones she achieved it's a level of care and attention a cultivation of community that simply did not occur for black actors on shows with primarily white casts there was one part you wanted to play most a black woman passing for white and showboat but i got the part instead because i was white i figured if ava gardner got your part then then i could play her now unihorn's appearance on a different world contextualizes her as part of history another common theme for classic movie stars on sitcoms starting in the 1960s you start to see them brought in to evoke memories to recall a previous nostalgic era of stardom again lucille balls sitcoms did this a lot as a classic film actress herself and as the literal queen of television she was able to recruit friends and colleagues to appear in her various series for example in season 4 episode 11 of here's lucy ginger rogers comes to tea lucy and her boss harry attended ginger rogers film festival unbeknownst to them ginger also attends in disguise to reminisce on her career or as it's implied former career the episode is also a reunion of sorts both ginger and lucy came up at rko in the 1930s appeared together in films and ginger's mother actually helped train lucy as an actress another example in season five of the beverly hillbillies the clampetts stumble upon the home of gloria swanson who happens to be granny's favorite movie star mistakenly believing she has fallen on hard times they arrange for her to star in a silent film just like the old days again the idea of the episode hinges on former fame and how fans who still cling to another past era react to that star in the present this is also true when stars aren't playing themselves very often writers feel like they need to wink at the audience and make at least one unsubtle meta joke or reference about that actor's work or life there are innumerable examples of this but let's stick with debbie reynolds when she plays grace's mom on will and grace she enters like this it's great to stay up late good morning good morning which is of course a reference to her iconic role in singing in the rain when she plays dan's mom on roseanne the kids say this oh we're gonna go see return of the jedi this does have a few features the other two lack yeah like what well you know advancements and special effects and sound quality and a whole lot of scenes with princess leia and a bikini what did you do that for i'm sorry i don't know why i did that patty duke recently guest starred as the grandmother on liv and maddie a disney channel show in which one actress plays a set of twins paddy duke's presence alone is a meta reference here given that she starred in the patty duke show in which she played a set of not identical twins but identical cousins [Music] i don't know the 60s were weird by the 80s and 90s many classic film stars had aged enough that it had become more and more likely that they'd play the parents or grandparents of the main characters rather than themselves they might receive applause upon their entrance but by playing other characters they'd remove that veneer of otherworldly glamour that causes everyone to tremble in fear or genuflect in admiration in cases like this they tend to represent generational tension by espousing outdated ideals that conflict with their more modern younger castmates although rita moreno is a main cast member and one day at a time her character lydia is a good example of this as a cuban immigrant and an older woman she constantly learns from and challenges her family as they tackle very modern topics like mental health race and sexuality lydia is also interesting because she subverts a classic grandma trope typically in playing a parent or grandparent an actor is presumed to have aged out of desirability or overt sexuality lydia definitely hasn't although the greatest example of this of course is the golden girls this show is specifically interested in the lives of older women and allows them to be sexual many older actors appear as boyfriends such as caesar romero dick van dyke and mickey rooney while others appear as potential roommates or even competition like debbie reynolds or ruby d there are so many ways to continue breaking down this topic i could cover a variety shows or shows specifically designed to showcase guest stars like the jack benny program the carol burnett show or even the love boat anthology programs have such a rich history of bringing in classic film stars as well i'm curious let me know in the comments if you'd like to see something like that in the future and be sure to check the description box below where i've left links to where some of these shows are currently streaming so you can check them out for yourself oh speaking of streaming thank you again to mubi for sponsoring this video mubi is a curated streaming service showing exceptional films from around the globe all hand-picked by movies curators every day mubi premieres a new film from iconic directors to emerging auteurs there's always something new to discover it's like your own personal film festival streaming anytime anywhere if you're a fan of cinema if you're dying to learn more about its history i promise you one of the best things you can do is give mubi a try it can be hard to find art house classics on other streaming services especially ones from around the world but mubi really makes an effort to make these films accessible here's a personal example i once saw delphine sayrig's documentary be pretty and shut up at a theater in new york city i was obsessed you have icons like jane fonda and shirley maclaine talking about how women are treated in film and the industry's beauty standards it's amazing but when it was over i thought well i'm never going to get to see that again am i what streaming service would ever pick that up well moobi would right now they're running a series called sex truth and videotape french feminist activism which not only let me experience that documentary all over again as many times as i want but exposed me to new films i'd never even heard of before do yourself a favor and click the link in the description below you'll be supporting this channel and better still you'll get a whole month free at mubi.com be kind rewind that's movie.com be kind rewind this never would have happened if you knew your place with celebrities you have to learn to use decorum i'll miss close i loved you in sunset boulevard

Channel: Be Kind Rewind

Views: 171,164

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Id: INHP-Vahb3k

Length: 27min 10sec (1630 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 31 2021