The Alfred Hitchcock Hour - "A Home Away from Home" - 01:05 am Thursday, December 18 on WJLP MeTV

Ray Milland (Actor)

Born: January 03, 1907
Died: March 10, 1986
Birthplace: Neath, Wales

Trivia: Welsh actor Ray Milland spent the 1930s and early 1940s playing light romantic leads in such films as Next Time We Love (1936); Three Smart Girls (1936); Easy Living (1937), in which he is especially charming opposite Jean Arthur in an early Preston Sturges script; Everything Happens at Night (1939); The Doctor Takes a Wife (1940); and the major in Billy Wilder's The Major and the Minor opposite Ginger Rogers. Others worth watching are Reap the Wild Wind (1942); Forever and a Day (1943), and Lady in the Dark (1944). He made The Uninvited in 1944 and won an Oscar for his intense and realistic portrait of an alcoholic in The Lost Weekend (1945). Unfortunately, it was one of his last good films or performances. With the exception of Dial M for Murder (1954), X, The Man With X-Ray Eyes (1953), Love Story (1970), and Escape to Witch Mountain (1975), his later career was made up of mediocre parts in mostly bad films. One of the worst and most laughable was the horror film The Thing with Two Heads (1972), which paired him with football player Rosie Grier as the two-headed monster. Milland was also an uninspired director in A Man Alone (1955), Lisbon (1956), The Safecracker (1958), and Panic in Year Zero (1962).

Jackie Searl (Actor) .. Nicky Long

Born: July 07, 1920

Trivia: Juvenile actor Jackie Searl began performing on local Los Angeles radio at the age of 3. Jackie came to film prominence in the early-talkie era, nearly always playing a nasty, phlegmatic brat, none more nasty or phlegmatic than Sidney Sawyer in 1930's Tom Sawyer and 1931's Huckleberry Finn. In response to overwhelming demand from his fans, Searl was teamed with his female counterpart, hoydenish young Jane Withers, in three mid-1930s films. However, the anticipated sparks never flew on screen, possibly because Searl and Withers, both pleasant and well-behaved in real life, got along too well offscreen. Even at the height of his popularity, Searl (and his family) never pocketed more than $4000 a year; thus, he sought out other forms of employment after serving in World War II. He made a brief comeback as a film character actor in 1948 before disappearing for nearly a decade into the "civilian" world. In the early 1960s, Jack Searl (Jackie no more), his trademarked weaselly facial features augmented by a stubbly chin and bald dome, enjoyed a flurry of activity as a supporting villain on TV westerns, cop shows and situation comedies.

Claire Griswold (Actor) .. Natalie

Peter Leeds (Actor) .. Andrew

Born: May 30, 1917
Died: November 12, 1996

Trivia: Peter Leeds played straight man to some of the most popular comedians of the mid- to late 20th century, including Bob Hope, Lucille Ball, Milton Berle, Carole Burnett, and Johnny Carson. Leeds was also a fine dramatic actor. He spent most of his 40-plus-year career on television, appearing an astonishing 8,000 times on situation comedies and variety shows. Leeds has appeared on Broadway, in feature films, and on over 3,000 radio shows and was a popular voice-over artist. A native of Bayonne, NJ, Leeds received his training at the Neighborhood Playhouse. He made his film debut with a bit part in Public Enemies (1941). Leeds hooked up with Bob Hope in 1954 for a television special and continued working with Hope on specials and 14 U.S.O. tours through 1991. During the '70s, Leeds spent five years as the president of the Los Angeles chapter of AFTRA and later served on the actors' union's national and local Board of Directors. In 1992, AFTRA repaid his many years of service with its highest honor, the Gold Card. Leeds later served on the Board of Governors for the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Leeds died of cancer on November 12, 1996, at age 79.

Peter Brooks (Actor) .. Donald

Virginia Gregg (Actor) .. Miss Gibson

Born: March 06, 1917
Died: September 15, 1986

Trivia: Trained as a musician, Virginia Gregg drew her first professional paychecks with the Pasadena Symphony. Gregg was sidetracked into radio in the 1940s, playing acting roles in an abundance of important California-based network programs. Her extensive radio credits include Gunsmoke, Suspense, Yours Truly Johnny Dollar, and Richard Diamond. Her first film was 1946's Notorious, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, who last cast Gregg as the voice of "Mother" in his classic chiller Psycho (1960). Virginia Gregg was most closely associated with the output of actor/producer/director Jack Webb: she co-starred in both of Webb's film versions of his popular radio and TV series Dragnet, and guest-starred in virtually every other episode of the 1967-70 Dragnet TV revival.

Beatrice Kay (Actor) .. Sara

Born: January 01, 1906
Died: January 01, 1986

Trivia: American actress/singer Beatrice Kay had a long, fruitful career in the entertainment industry that began at age six when she played "Little Lord Fauntleroy" with a local stock theater. Later, billed as "Honey Kuper" or "Honey Day," she played other theatrical roles. In film she started out at the Fort Lee film studios in New Jersey as a double for Madge Evans. Around that time she also began her Broadway career appearing in plays and musicals. For about four years during the early '40s, Kay hosted her own radio show and began appearing in such prestigious night clubs as the Moulin Rouge, Paris, Ciro's in LA and San Francisco's Fairmont Hotel. Kay was also a popular recording artist whose best known songs include "Mention My Name in Sheboygan" and "The Strawberry Bond." Kay made her film debut in 1945 in Billy Rose's Diamond Horseshoe (earlier Kay had appeared at the real Diamond Horseshoe and gained much publicity there for singing "Ta Ra Ra Boom De Ay" 1,100 times). She made only a couple films after that. Later Kay ran a dude ranch and then went into semi-retirement. After a terrible fire destroyed her home, she began working on television.

Ben Wright (Actor) .. Norton

Born: May 05, 1915
Died: July 02, 1989

Trivia: More familiar for his radio work than his film appearances, American actor Ben Wright was active professionally from the early '40s. Dialects were a specialty with Wright, as witness his two-year hitch as Chinese bellhop Hey Boy on the radio version of Have Gun Will Travel. Most of Wright's film roles were supporting or bit appearances in such productions as A Man Called Peter (1955), Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959), Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), My Fair Lady (1964), and The Fortune Cookie (1964). On TV, Wright was one of Jack Webb's stock company (including fellow radio veterans Virginia Gregg, Stacy Harris, and Vic Perrin) on the '60s version of Dragnet. Ben Wright's most frequently seen film appearance was as the humorless Nazi functionary Herr Zeller in the 1965 megahit The Sound of Music.

Mary LaRoche (Actor) .. Ruth

Born: July 20, 1920

Connie Gilchrist (Actor) .. Martha

Born: February 06, 1901
Died: January 01, 1985

Trivia: The daughter of actress Martha Daniels, Connie Gilchrist was herself on stage from the age of 16, touring both Europe and the U.S. Her theatrical credits include such long-runners as Mulatto and Ladies and Gentlemen, the latter featuring a contemporary of Gilchrist's named Helen Hayes. While acting in the pre-Broadway tour of Ladies and Gentlemen in 1939, Gilchrist was signed to a ten-year contract at MGM, where amidst the studio's patented gloss and glitter, the actress' brash, down-to-earth characterizations brought a welcome touch of urban reality. Usually cast as Irish maids, tenement housewives and worldly madams (though seldom designated as such), Gilchrist was given a rare chance to show off her musical talents in Presenting Lily Mars, where she sang a duet with Judy Garland. After her MGM tenure, Gilchrist free-lanced in such films as Houdini (1953), Auntie Mame (1958) (as governess Nora Muldoon) and The Monkey's Uncle (1965). Devoted TV fans will recall Connie Gilchrist as the bawdy pubkeeper Purity on the 1950s Australian-filmed adventure series Long John Silver.

Ronald Long (Actor) .. Major

Born: January 30, 1911
Died: October 23, 1986
Birthplace: London

Trivia: British actor Ronald Long was born in London and once performed with the Old Vic Theatre. Later he appeared in theatrical productions in New York. He also worked on American television and in a few feature films during the early '60s.

The Alfred Hitchcock Hour: A Home Away from Home

01:05 am - 02:05 am, Thursday, December 18 on WJLP MeTV (33.1)

A Home Away from Home

Season 2, Episode 1