Hazel - "The Burglar in Mr. B's P.J.'s" - 10:30 am Friday, January 23 on WRGT Antenna TV

Shirley Booth (Actor) .. Hazel Burke

Born: August 30, 1898
Died: October 16, 1992
Birthplace: New York, New York, United States

Trivia: Born Thelma Ford, Shirley Booth began appearing in amateur plays at age 12, then made her professional stage debut four years later; her Broadway debut, in 1925, was opposite Humphrey Bogart in Hells' Bells. Booth toiled on Broadway for a decade before being cast in her first significant role. Ultimately, her work on stage and radio led to a lead role in Come Back, Little Sheba (1950), for which she won the Tony Award and the New York Drama Critics Award; she made her screen debut in the film version of that play (1952) and won the Best Actress Oscar for her efforts. Booth did a number of other films, but in her later years she was best-known as the maid Hazel in the TV series Hazel (1961-66). She retired after appearing in the TV series A Touch of Grace (1973).

Don DeFore (Actor) .. George Baxter

Born: August 25, 1917
Died: December 22, 1993

Trivia: Character actor Don Defore was the son of an Iowa-based locomotive engineer. His first taste of acting came while appearing in church plays directed by his mother. Defore briefly thought of becoming an attorney, but gave up a scholarship to the University of Iowa to study at the Pasadena Playhouse. He began appearing in films in 1937 and in professional theatre in 1938, billed under his given name of Deforest. Defore's career turning point was the Broadway play The Male Animal, in which he played a thickheaded college football player; he repeated the role in the 1942 film version, and later played a larger part in the 1952 remake She's Working Her Way Through College. In most of his film assignments, Defore was cast as the good-natured urbanized "rube" who didn't get the girl. For several years in the 1950s, Defore played "Thorny" Thornberry, the Nelson family's well-meaning next door neighbor, on TV's Ozzie and Harriet. Don Defore's best-known TV role was George Baxter on the Shirley Booth sitcom Hazel (1961-65).

Alan Hale (Actor)

Born: March 08, 1921
Died: January 02, 1990
Birthplace: Los Angeles, California, United States

Trivia: The son of a patent medicine manufacturer, American actor Alan Hale chose a theatrical career at a time when, according to his son Alan Hale Jr., boarding houses would post signs reading "No Dogs or Actors Allowed." Undaunted, Hale spent several years on stage after graduating from Philadelphia University, entering films as a slapstick comedian for Philly's Lubin Co. in 1911. Bolstering his acting income with odd jobs as a newspaperman and itinerant inventor (at one point he considered becoming an osteopath!), Hale finally enjoyed a measure of security as a much-in-demand character actor in the 1920s, usually as hard-hearted villains. One of his more benign roles was as Little John in Douglas Fairbanks' Robin Hood (1922), a role he would repeat opposite Errol Flynn in 1938 and John Derek in 1950. Talkies made Hale more popular than ever, especially in his many roles as Irishmen, blusterers and "best pals" for Warner Bros. Throughout his career, Hale never lost his love for inventing things, and reportedly patented or financed items as commonplace as auto brakes and as esoteric as greaseless potato chips. Alan Hale contracted pneumonia and died while working on the Warner Bros. western Montana (1950), which starred Hale's perennial screen cohort Errol Flynn.

Whitney Blake (Actor) .. Dorothy Baxter

Born: February 20, 1926

Maudie Prickett (Actor) .. Rosie

Born: January 01, 1913
Died: January 01, 1976

Howard Smith (Actor) .. Harvey Griffin

Born: August 12, 1894
Died: January 10, 1968

Trivia: An imposing presence in films of the late '40s, as well as early television shows such as The Aldrich Family (1949), New York stage actor Howard I. Smith actually made his screen debut as far back as 1918, in Young America. Relocating to Hollywood in 1946, Smith usually played overbearing politicos or other figures of authority, but is perhaps best remembered today as Uncle Charley in the 1951 screen version Death of a Salesman.

Bobby Buntrock (Actor) .. Harold Baxter

Born: January 01, 1952
Died: January 01, 1974

Hazel: The Burglar in Mr. B's P.J.'s

10:30 am - 11:00 am, Today on WRGT Antenna TV (45.3)

The Burglar in Mr. B's P.J.'s

Season 1, Episode 32