Our Miss Brooks
Encyclopedia
Our Miss Brooks is an American
situation comedy
starring Eve Arden
as a sardonic high school
English
teacher
. It began as a radio show broadcast on CBS
from 1948 to 1957. When the show was adapted to television
(1952–56), it became one of the medium's earliest hits. In 1956, the sitcom was adapted for big screen in the film of the same name
.
, at the time CBS's West Coast director of programming, wanted Shirley Booth
for the part, but as he told historian Gerald Nachman many years later, he realized Booth was too focused on the underpaid downside of public school teaching at the time to have fun with the role.
Lucille Ball
was believed to be the next choice, but she was already committed to My Favorite Husband
and didn't audition. Then CBS chairman Bill Paley, who was friendly with Arden, persuaded her to audition for the part. With a slightly rewritten audition script--Osgood Conklin, for example, was originally written as a school board president but was now written as the incoming new Madison principal--Arden agreed to give the newly-revamped show a try.
Produced by Larry Berns and written by director Al Lewis, Our Miss Brooks premiered on CBS July 19, 1948. According to radio critic John Crosby
, her lines were very "feline" in dialogue scenes with principal Conklin and would-be boyfriend Boynton, with sharp, witty comebacks. The interplay between the cast--blustery Conklin, nebbishy Denton, accommodating Harriet, absentminded Mrs. Davis, clueless Boynton, scheming Miss Enright--also received positive reviews.
Arden won a radio listeners' poll by Radio Mirror magazine as the top ranking comedienne of 1948-49, receiving her award at the end of an Our Miss Brooks broadcast that March. "I'm certainly going to try in the coming months to merit the honor you've bestowed upon me, because I understand that if I win this two years in a row, I get to keep Mr. Boynton," she joked. But she was also a hit with the critics; a winter 1949 poll of newspaper and magazine radio editors taken by Motion Picture Daily named her the year's best radio comedienne.
For its entire radio life, the show was sponsored by Colgate-Palmolive-Peet, promoting Palmolive soap, Lustre Creme shampoo and Toni hair care products. The radio series continued until 1957, a year after its television life ended.
This content is now available under public domain for download at http://www.archive.org at http://www.archive.org/details/Our_Miss_Brooks_190_Episodes.
, who also succeeded Jeff Chandler on the radio series. The television show, sponsored by General Foods
, shifted focus later in its run, moving Connie Brooks and Osgood Conklin from a public high school to an exclusive private school in the fall of 1955. It also changed the title character's romantic focus: Gene Barry
was cast as physical education
teacher Gene Talbot, and Connie was now the pursued instead of the pursuer, although Mr. Boynton reappeared in several episodes before the season ended.
Our Miss Brooks ran for 130 episodes on television and won an Emmy award
before it was cancelled in 1956. In the 1954-55 season, it overpowered its NBC
competition, Dear Phoebe
, starring Peter Lawford
and Charles Lane
, which failed to be renewed for a second season. For the 1955-56 season, with the format change and Rockwell (as Boynton) replaced by Gene Barry, the ratings fell. To rectify their mistake, the producers brought back Rockwell as Boynton in mid-season, but it didn't help. The show was canceled in the spring of 1956. However, in the theatrical film, Our Miss Brooks, released by Warner Brothers in the same year, Connie and Mr. Boynton finally got married. The television series was seen for several years thereafter in rebroadcasts.
, she was made an honorary member of the National Education Association
and received a 1952 award from the Teachers College of Connecticut's Alumni Association "for humanizing the American teacher."
Our Miss Brooks was considered groundbreaking for showing a woman who was neither a scatterbrained klutz nor a homebody but rather a working woman who transcended the actual or assumed limits to women's working lives of the time. Connie Brooks was considered a realistic character in an unglamorized profession (she often joked, for example, about being underpaid, as many teacher
s were at the time) who showed women could be competent and self-sufficient outside their home lives without losing their femininity
or their humanity
.
Our Miss Brooks remained Eve Arden's most identifiable and popular role, with numerous surviving recordings of both the radio and television versions continuing to entertain listeners and viewers. (The surviving radio recordings include both its audition shows.) A quarter century after the show ended, Arden told radio historian John Dunning
in an on-air interview just what the show and the role came to mean to her:
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
situation comedy
Situation comedy
A situation comedy, often shortened to sitcom, is a genre of comedy that features characters sharing the same common environment, such as a home or workplace, accompanied with jokes as part of the dialogue...
starring Eve Arden
Eve Arden
Eve Arden was an American actress. Her almost 60-year career crossed most media frontiers with supporting and leading roles, but she may be best-remembered for playing the sardonic but engaging title character, a high school teacher, on Our Miss Brooks, and as the Rydell High School principal in...
as a sardonic high school
High school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....
English
English studies
English studies is an academic discipline that includes the study of literatures written in the English language , English linguistics English studies is an academic discipline that includes the study of literatures written in the English language (including literatures from the U.K., U.S.,...
teacher
Teacher
A teacher or schoolteacher is a person who provides education for pupils and students . The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain specified professional...
. It began as a radio show broadcast on CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
from 1948 to 1957. When the show was adapted to television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
(1952–56), it became one of the medium's earliest hits. In 1956, the sitcom was adapted for big screen in the film of the same name
Our Miss Brooks (film)
Our Miss Brooks is a 1956 American comedy film based on a radio and TV sitcom hit on CBS situation comedy of the same name. Directed by Al Lewis, who was the chief writer for the radio and TV editions, and written by both him and Joseph Quillan, the movie disregarded the past four years of...
.
Characters
- Connie (Constance) Brooks (Eve ArdenEve ArdenEve Arden was an American actress. Her almost 60-year career crossed most media frontiers with supporting and leading roles, but she may be best-remembered for playing the sardonic but engaging title character, a high school teacher, on Our Miss Brooks, and as the Rydell High School principal in...
), an English teacher at fictional Madison High School. - Osgood Conklin (Gale GordonGale GordonGale Gordon was an American character actor perhaps best remembered as Lucille Ball's longtime television foil—and particularly as cantankerously combustible, tightfisted bank executive Theodore J. Mooney, on Ball's second television situation comedy, The Lucy Show...
), blustery, gruff, crooked and unsympathetic Madison High principal, a near-constant pain to his faculty and students. (Conklin was played by Joseph Forte in the show's first episode; Gordon succeeded him for the rest of the series' run.) Occasionally Conklin would rig competitions at the school–such as that for prom queen–so that his daughter Harriet would win. - Walter Denton (Richard CrennaRichard CrennaRichard Donald Crenna was an American motion picture, television, and radio actor and occasional television director. He starred in such motion pictures as The Sand Pebbles, Wait Until Dark, Body Heat, the first three Rambo movies, Hot Shots! Part Deux, and The Flamingo Kid...
, billed at the time as Dick Crenna), a Madison High student, well-intentioned and clumsy, with a nasally high, cracking voice, often driving Miss Brooks (his self-professed favorite teacher) to school in a broken-down jalopy. Miss Brooks' references to her own usually-in-the-shop car became one of the show's running gags. - Philip Boynton (Jeff ChandlerJeff Chandler (actor)Jeff Chandler was an American film actor and singer in the 1950s.-Early life:Chandler was born Ira Grossel to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York, the only child of Anna and Phillip Grossel. He attended Erasmus Hall High School, the alma mater of many stage and film personalities...
on radio, billed sometimes under his birth name Ira Grossel); Robert RockwellRobert RockwellRobert Rockwell was an American actor best known for playing the handsome, but awkward biology teacher Philip Boynton in the radio and television situation comedy Our Miss Brooks opposite Eve Arden....
on both radio and television), Madison High biologyBiologyBiology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
teacher, the shy and often clueless object of Miss Brooks' affections. - Margaret Davis (Jane Morgan), Miss Brooks' absentminded landlady, whose two trademarks are a catCatThe cat , also known as the domestic cat or housecat to distinguish it from other felids and felines, is a small, usually furry, domesticated, carnivorous mammal that is valued by humans for its companionship and for its ability to hunt vermin and household pests...
named Minerva, and a penchant for whipping up exotic and often inedible breakfasts. - Harriet Conklin (Gloria McMillan), Madison High student and daughter of principal Conklin. A sometime love interest for Walter Denton, Harriet was honest and guileless with none of her father's malevolence and dishonesty.
- Stretch (Fabian) Snodgrass (Leonard Smith), dull-witted Madison High athletic star and Walter's best friend.
- Daisy Enright (Mary Jane CroftMary Jane CroftMary Jane Croft was an American actress best known for her roles as Betty Ramsey on I Love Lucy, Mary Jane Lewis on The Lucy Show and Here's Lucy, and Clara Randolph on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet....
), Madison High English teacher, and a scheming professional and romantic rival to Miss Brooks. - Jacques Monet (Gerald MohrGerald MohrGerald Mohr was an American radio, film and television character actor who appeared in over 4,000 radio plays, 73 films and over 100 television shows....
), a FrenchFrench languageFrench is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
teacher.
Radio
Our Miss Brooks was a hit on radio from the outset; within eight months of its launch as a regular series, the show landed several honors, including four for Eve Arden, who won polls in four individual publications of the time. Arden had actually been the third choice to play the title role. Harry AckermanHarry Ackerman
Harry Stephen Ackerman was an American TV executive producer at Screen Gems, the television division of Columbia Pictures....
, at the time CBS's West Coast director of programming, wanted Shirley Booth
Shirley Booth
Shirley Booth was an American actress.Primarily a theatre actress, Booth's Broadway career began in 1925. Her most significant success was as Lola Delaney, in the drama Come Back, Little Sheba, for which she received a Tony Award in 1950...
for the part, but as he told historian Gerald Nachman many years later, he realized Booth was too focused on the underpaid downside of public school teaching at the time to have fun with the role.
Lucille Ball
Lucille Ball
Lucille Désirée Ball was an American comedian, film, television, stage and radio actress, model, film and television executive, and star of the sitcoms I Love Lucy, The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show, Here's Lucy and Life With Lucy...
was believed to be the next choice, but she was already committed to My Favorite Husband
My Favorite Husband
My Favorite Husband is the name of an American radio program and network television series. The original radio show, co-starring Lucille Ball, was the initial basis for what evolved into the groundbreaking TV sitcom I Love Lucy. The series was based on the novel Mr. and Mrs...
and didn't audition. Then CBS chairman Bill Paley, who was friendly with Arden, persuaded her to audition for the part. With a slightly rewritten audition script--Osgood Conklin, for example, was originally written as a school board president but was now written as the incoming new Madison principal--Arden agreed to give the newly-revamped show a try.
Produced by Larry Berns and written by director Al Lewis, Our Miss Brooks premiered on CBS July 19, 1948. According to radio critic John Crosby
John Crosby (media critic)
John Crosby was a newspaper columnist, radio-television critic, novelist and TV host. During the 1950s, he was generally regarded as the leading critic of television....
, her lines were very "feline" in dialogue scenes with principal Conklin and would-be boyfriend Boynton, with sharp, witty comebacks. The interplay between the cast--blustery Conklin, nebbishy Denton, accommodating Harriet, absentminded Mrs. Davis, clueless Boynton, scheming Miss Enright--also received positive reviews.
Arden won a radio listeners' poll by Radio Mirror magazine as the top ranking comedienne of 1948-49, receiving her award at the end of an Our Miss Brooks broadcast that March. "I'm certainly going to try in the coming months to merit the honor you've bestowed upon me, because I understand that if I win this two years in a row, I get to keep Mr. Boynton," she joked. But she was also a hit with the critics; a winter 1949 poll of newspaper and magazine radio editors taken by Motion Picture Daily named her the year's best radio comedienne.
For its entire radio life, the show was sponsored by Colgate-Palmolive-Peet, promoting Palmolive soap, Lustre Creme shampoo and Toni hair care products. The radio series continued until 1957, a year after its television life ended.
This content is now available under public domain for download at http://www.archive.org at http://www.archive.org/details/Our_Miss_Brooks_190_Episodes.
Television
The show's full cast, minus Jeff Chandler, played the same characters in the television version (with most of the scripts adapted from radio), which continued to revolve largely around Connie Brooks' daily relationships with Madison High students, colleagues and principal. Philip Boynton was played by Robert RockwellRobert Rockwell
Robert Rockwell was an American actor best known for playing the handsome, but awkward biology teacher Philip Boynton in the radio and television situation comedy Our Miss Brooks opposite Eve Arden....
, who also succeeded Jeff Chandler on the radio series. The television show, sponsored by General Foods
General Foods
General Foods Corporation was a company whose direct predecessor was established in the USA by Charles William Post as the Postum Cereal Company in 1895. The name General Foods was adopted in 1929, after several corporate acquisitions...
, shifted focus later in its run, moving Connie Brooks and Osgood Conklin from a public high school to an exclusive private school in the fall of 1955. It also changed the title character's romantic focus: Gene Barry
Gene Barry
Gene Barry was an American stage, screen, and television actor. Barry is best remembered for his leading roles in the films The Atomic City and The War of The Worlds and for his portrayal of the title character in the TV series Bat Masterson, among many roles.-Personal life:Barry was born...
was cast as physical education
Physical education
Physical education or gymnastics is a course taken during primary and secondary education that encourages psychomotor learning in a play or movement exploration setting....
teacher Gene Talbot, and Connie was now the pursued instead of the pursuer, although Mr. Boynton reappeared in several episodes before the season ended.
Our Miss Brooks ran for 130 episodes on television and won an Emmy award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
before it was cancelled in 1956. In the 1954-55 season, it overpowered its NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
competition, Dear Phoebe
Dear Phoebe
Dear Phoebe is an American sitcom that aired on NBC from September 1954 to April 1955. The series stars Peter Lawford, and was created and produced by Alex Gottlieb.-Synopsis:...
, starring Peter Lawford
Peter Lawford
Peter Sydney Ernest Aylen , better known as Peter Lawford, was an English-American actor.He was a member of the "Rat Pack", and brother-in-law to US President John F. Kennedy, perhaps more noted in later years for his off-screen activities as a celebrity than for his acting...
and Charles Lane
Charles Lane (actor)
Charles Gerstle Levison , better known as Charles Lane, was an American character actor seen in many movies and TV shows, and at the time of his death may have been the oldest living professional American actor. Lane appeared in many Frank Capra films, including You Can't Take It With You , Mr...
, which failed to be renewed for a second season. For the 1955-56 season, with the format change and Rockwell (as Boynton) replaced by Gene Barry, the ratings fell. To rectify their mistake, the producers brought back Rockwell as Boynton in mid-season, but it didn't help. The show was canceled in the spring of 1956. However, in the theatrical film, Our Miss Brooks, released by Warner Brothers in the same year, Connie and Mr. Boynton finally got married. The television series was seen for several years thereafter in rebroadcasts.
Awards
Both the radio and television shows drew as much attention from professional educators as from radio and television fans, viewers and critics. In addition to the 1948-49 poll of Radio Mirror listeners and the 1949 poll of Motion Picture Daily critics, Arden's notices soon expanded beyond her media. According to the Museum of Broadcast CommunicationsMuseum of Broadcast Communications
The Museum of Broadcast Communications is an American museum that currently exists exclusively on the Internet and not in any physical capacity. Its stated mission is "to collect, preserve, and present historic and contemporary radio and television content as well as educate, inform and entertain...
, she was made an honorary member of the National Education Association
National Education Association
The National Education Association is the largest professional organization and largest labor union in the United States, representing public school teachers and other support personnel, faculty and staffers at colleges and universities, retired educators, and college students preparing to become...
and received a 1952 award from the Teachers College of Connecticut's Alumni Association "for humanizing the American teacher."
Our Miss Brooks was considered groundbreaking for showing a woman who was neither a scatterbrained klutz nor a homebody but rather a working woman who transcended the actual or assumed limits to women's working lives of the time. Connie Brooks was considered a realistic character in an unglamorized profession (she often joked, for example, about being underpaid, as many teacher
Teacher
A teacher or schoolteacher is a person who provides education for pupils and students . The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain specified professional...
s were at the time) who showed women could be competent and self-sufficient outside their home lives without losing their femininity
Femininity
Femininity is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles generally associated with girls and women. Though socially constructed, femininity is made up of both socially defined and biologically created factors...
or their humanity
Compassion
Compassion is a virtue — one in which the emotional capacities of empathy and sympathy are regarded as a part of love itself, and a cornerstone of greater social interconnection and humanism — foundational to the highest principles in philosophy, society, and personhood.There is an aspect of...
.
Our Miss Brooks remained Eve Arden's most identifiable and popular role, with numerous surviving recordings of both the radio and television versions continuing to entertain listeners and viewers. (The surviving radio recordings include both its audition shows.) A quarter century after the show ended, Arden told radio historian John Dunning
John Dunning (writer)
John Dunning is an American writer of non-fiction and detective fiction. He is known for his reference books on old-time radio and his series of mysteries featuring Denver bookseller and ex-policeman Cliff Janeway.- Life :...
in an on-air interview just what the show and the role came to mean to her:
- I originally loved the theater. I still do. And I had always wanted to have a hit on BroadwayBroadway theatreBroadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
that was created by me. You know, kind of like Judy HollidayJudy HollidayJudy Holliday was an American actress.Holliday began her career as part of a night-club act, before working in Broadway plays and musicals...
and Born YesterdayBorn YesterdayBorn Yesterday is a play written by Garson Kanin which premiered on Broadway in 1946, starring Judy Holliday as Billie Dawn. The play was adapted intoa successful 1950 film of the same name.- Plot :...
. I griped about it a little, and someone said to me, "Do you realize that if you had a hit on Broadway, probably 100 or 200,000 people might have seen you in it, if you'd stayed in it long enough. And this way, you've been in Miss Brooks, everybody loves you, and you've been seen by millions." So, I figured I'd better shut up while I was ahead.
Cast
- Eve ArdenEve ArdenEve Arden was an American actress. Her almost 60-year career crossed most media frontiers with supporting and leading roles, but she may be best-remembered for playing the sardonic but engaging title character, a high school teacher, on Our Miss Brooks, and as the Rydell High School principal in...
as Connie Brooks - Gale GordonGale GordonGale Gordon was an American character actor perhaps best remembered as Lucille Ball's longtime television foil—and particularly as cantankerously combustible, tightfisted bank executive Theodore J. Mooney, on Ball's second television situation comedy, The Lucy Show...
as Osgood Conklin - Don PorterDon PorterDonald Porter was an American actor who appeared in a number of films in the 1940s, including Top Sergeant and Eagle Squadron, but is perhaps best known for his role as Russell Lawrence, the widowed father of 15-year old Frances "Gidget" Lawrence in the 1965 ABC television series...
as Lawrence Nolan - Robert RockwellRobert RockwellRobert Rockwell was an American actor best known for playing the handsome, but awkward biology teacher Philip Boynton in the radio and television situation comedy Our Miss Brooks opposite Eve Arden....
as Phillip Boynton - Jane Morgan (I)Jane Morgan (I)Jane Morgan was a British-born American entertainer whose career encompassed concert halls, vaudeville, the legitimate stage, radio, television and film.-Early life:...
as Margaret Davis - Richard CrennaRichard CrennaRichard Donald Crenna was an American motion picture, television, and radio actor and occasional television director. He starred in such motion pictures as The Sand Pebbles, Wait Until Dark, Body Heat, the first three Rambo movies, Hot Shots! Part Deux, and The Flamingo Kid...
as Walter Denton - Nick Adams as Gary Nolan
- Leonard Smith as Stretch Snodgrass
- Gloria McMillan as Harriet Conklin
- Joseph KearnsJoseph KearnsJoseph Sherrard Kearns was an American actor, who is best remembered for his role as George Wilson in the CBS television series Dennis the Menace from 1959 until his death in 1962.-Biography:...
as Superintendent Stone (eight episodes) - William Newell as Dr. Henley
- Philip Van ZandtPhilip Van ZandtPhilip "Phil" Van Zandt was a Dutch actor of film, stage and television. He made over 220 film and television appearances between 1939 and 1958.-Career:...
as Mr. Webster - Marjorie BennettMarjorie BennettMarjorie Bennett was an Australian television and film actress who began her career during the silent film era.-Career:Bennett was born in York, Western Australia; her sister Enid was also an actress...
as Mrs. J. Boynton - Joseph ForteJoseph ForteJoseph Xavier "Joe" Forte is an American professional basketball player.-Beginnings:Forte got his start at DeMatha Catholic High School in Hyattsville, Maryland. There, Forte played under the instruction of legendary high school prep coach Morgan Wootten. Forte's teammate at DeMatha, Keith Bogans,...
as Nolan's butler - OrangeyOrangeyOrangey, a red tabby cat, was a talented animal actor owned and trained by the well-known cinematic animal handler Frank Inn.Orangey had a prolific career in film and television in the 1950s and early 1960s and was the only cat to win two Patsy Awards , the first for the title role...
as Minerva the cat
Sources
- Arden, Eve. The Three Phases of Eve (1985)
- Buxton, Frank and Bill Owen, The Big Broadcast 1920-1950 (1971) (New York: Avon Books.)
- Nachman, Gerald. Raised on Radio (1998) (New York: Pantheon Books.)
- Ohmart, Ben, It's That Time Again (2002) (Albany: BearManor Media.) ISBN 0-9714570-2-6
- Wertheim, Arthur Frank, Radio Comedy (1979) Oxford University Press, USA, ISBN 0-19-502481-8