Hazel - "Arrivederci, Mr. B." - 10:30 am Thursday, November 6 on KWWF AntennaTV

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).

Luciana Paluzzi (Actor) .. Carla

Born: June 10, 1937

Trivia: Actress Luciana Paluzzi was one of many voluptuous Italian brunettes groomed for international stardom in the wake of Gina Lollobrigida. Working both sides of the Atlantic in the '50s in such films as Three Coins in the Fountain (1954) and Sea Fury (1958), Ms. Paluzzi was given a chance at American TV stardom in the role of Simone Genet on the 1959 espionage weekly Five Fingers. Little was required of Paluzzi other than looking gorgeous in low-cut evening gowns; while this kept Five Fingers alive in the fan magazines, it wasn't enough to sustain the series beyond 17 episodes. Her career in a slump in 1965, she accepted a villainess role in the James Bond epic Thunderball. She portrayed Fiona, one of the few women on this planet able to resist the charms of Mr. Bond; perhaps as punishment for this, Fiona is killed on the dance floor by her own companions, whereupon James deposits her body at a nearby table and says "Do you mind if my partner sits this one out? She's just dead." This fleeting association with a box-office blockbuster enabled Luciana Paluzzi to extend her European starring career well into the '70s.

Kathryn Givney (Actor) .. Mrs. Hampton

Born: January 01, 1896
Died: March 16, 1978

Trivia: Broadway actress Kathryn Givney first came to Hollywood in 1930 to repeat her stage role as "golf widow" Mrs. Bascomb in the film version of the hit musical Follow Through. She then returned to the stage, reemerging before the cameras as a character actress in 1948. Usually cast as imperious dowagers, she is best remembered for such characterizations as the haughty Mrs. Rhinelander in My Friend Irma and Salvation Army general Matilda B. Cartwright in Guys and Dolls. Kathryn Givney was also a familiar presence on television; one of her best TV assignments was as a reclusive old woman who "kidnaps" housewife Donna Stone on a mid-'60s installment of The Donna Reed Show.

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