Hazel - "An Example for Hazel" - 11:00 am Tuesday, December 23 on WTIC 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).

Linda Watkins (Actor) .. Grace

Born: May 23, 1908
Died: January 01, 1976

Trivia: Following studies at the Theatre Guild, Linda Watkins made her Broadway debut when she was only 16 years old. She subsequently became a major theatrical star and played both leading ladies and ingénues. During the early '30s, she appeared in a few films, but she did not achieve the same popularity and so returned to the stage until the late '50s when she became a screen character actress.

Robert B. Williams (Actor) .. Barney

Born: January 01, 1905
Died: January 01, 1978

Trivia: Character actor, onscreen from 1937.

Herb Vigran (Actor) .. Mickey

Born: June 05, 1910
Died: November 28, 1986

Trivia: An alumnus of the Indiana University Law School, Herbert Vigran gave up the legal world to become an actor. Making his 1935 film debut in Vagabond Lady, Vigran had a few lean months after his first flurry of Hollywood activity, but began getting stage work in New York on the basis of a portfolio of photos showing him sharing scenes with several well-known movie actors (never mentioning that most of his film roles were bit parts). After his first Broadway success in Having Wonderful Time, Vigran returned to L.A., accepting small parts in movies while keeping busy with plenty of lucrative radio work; among his hundreds of radio assignments was the title character on the wartime sitcom "The Sad Sack." In films, the harsh-voiced, heavily eyebrowed Vigran could usually be seen as brash reporters and Runyon-esque hoodlums; his favorite role was the rumpled private eye in the 1954 Dick Powell/Debbie Reynolds comedy Susan Slept Here. During the 1950s, Vigran was most active in TV, essaying half a dozen bad guy roles on the Superman series and appearing regularly as Monte the Bartender on the Dante's Inferno episodes of the anthology series Four Star Playhouse. In the early '70s, Herb Vigran found time during his hectic movie and voice-over schedule to play the recurring role of Judge Brooker on Gunsmoke.

Jack Bernardi (Actor) .. Smitty

Born: February 18, 1909
Died: March 23, 1994

Trivia: Jack Bernardi played character and supporting roles on stage, television, and in feature films. The son of character actor Hershel Bernardi, he started out performing in Yiddish at the 2nd Avenue Theater in New York. He next travelled to the Catskill Mountains to become a social director and comedy writer for several hotels. Bernardi moved to Los Angeles in the early '50s, working on early television series such as Mama Rosa. As a guest star, he appeared on shows like McHale's Navy, Peter Gunn, Barney Miller, The Lucy Show, and Highway to Heaven. Bernardi began his film career in the mid-'60s. His film credits include It's a Bikini World (1967) and Shampoo (1975).

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