Gidget - "One More for the Road" - 05:30 am Saturday, December 20 on WJLP MeTV+

John Mcgiver (Actor) .. Franklin Whiting

Born: November 05, 1913
Died: September 09, 1975

Trivia: Portly, tight-jawed John McGiver had intended to become a professional actor upon graduating from Catholic University in Washington D.C., but he became an English teacher at New York's Christopher Columbus High School instead. One day in the mid-1950s, McGiver bumped into one of his old Catholic University classmates, who'd become an off-Broadway producer; the star of the producer's newest play had just walked out, and would McGiver be interested in taking his place? This little favor led to a 20-year career in TV and films for the balding, bookish McGiver. He was featured in such films as Love in the Afternoon (1957), Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), The Manchurian Candidate (1962) and Mame (1974). McGiver's funniest screen portrayal was the thick-eared landscaper in The Gazebo (1959), who insisted upon referring to the title object as a "GAZE-bow". In 1964, John McGiver starred as Walter Burnley, supervisor of a department store complaint department, on the weekly TV sitcom Many Happy Returns.

Don Porter (Actor) .. Prof. Russ Lawrence

Born: January 01, 1912
Died: February 11, 1997

Trivia: After a few seasons of stage work, Don Porter signed a Universal Pictures contract in 1939. Porter spent most of his screen time at Universal as a general-purpose actor: he was most interestingly cast in Abbott and Costello's Who Done It? (1942), energetically participating in the film's slapstick climax. In the postwar years, Porter played many a stuffed-shirt businessman, often with a few illegal irons in the fire. On television, he played Ann Sothern's eternally flummoxed boss, theatrical agent Peter Sands, in the long-running (1953-57) sitcom Private Secretary (aka Susie). When Sothern decided to make a few alterations in her subsequent Ann Sothern Show(1958-61), she brought in her old friend and colleague Porter to play another boss, hotelier James Devery. In 1963, Porter was cast as Gidget's dad Mr. Lawrence in the theatrical feature Gidget Goes to Rome (1963); this led to his being recast in the same role on the 1965 TV version of Gidget starring Sally Field. One of Porter's more rewarding post-Gidget assignments was the part of the teflon-coated Republican incumbent in Robert Redford's The Candidate. Don Porter was married to actress Peggy Converse. Porter passed away in Los Angeles at age 84.

Douglas Lambert (Actor) .. Eric

Born: January 01, 1935
Died: January 01, 1986

Trivia: American supporting actor Douglas Lambert worked on both Broadway and the London stage before launching a long, successful television career in Hollywood during the '60s. Beginning in the early '70s, Lambert appeared in a handful of feature films including Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971).

Betty Conner (Actor) .. Anne Cooper

Jimmy Cross (Actor) .. Policeman

Born: May 08, 1907
Died: June 01, 1981

Lynette Winter (Actor) .. Larue

Murray Alper (Actor) .. Cab Driver

Born: January 01, 1904

Trivia: Supporting actor Murray Alper's earliest screen credit was 1930's The Royal Family of Broadway. For the next 35 years, Alper was an inescapable movie presence, playing dozens of cab drivers, bookies, cops and GIs. One of his few credited appearances in an "A" picture was in The Maltese Falcon; he plays the friendly cabbie who drives Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) on a mid-film wild goose chase. Frequently seen in comedies, Alper showed up in eight Bowery Boys farces of the 1940s and 1950s, and was prominently featured in the Three Stooges' Trick Dicks (1953) and The Outlaws is Coming (1965, as Chief Crazy Horse!). One of Murray Alper's least characteristic roles was the judo instructor in Jerry Lewis' The Nutty Professor (1963).

Gidget: One More for the Road

05:30 am - 06:00 am, Saturday, December 20 on WJLP MeTV+ (33.8)

One More for the Road

Season 1, Episode 27