So everything is weakened; weakened and tightened at the same time. Actor Ted de Corsia's name appears as both "de Corsia" and "deCorsia" in the onscreen credits. We are now without a mother or without a father. Brief Synopsis A factory worker tries to cope when his daughter dates the boss's son. Burial was the norm in the Western world probably until the mid-60s. It was just doing the next right thing. A factory worker's family is thrown into an uproar when his teenage daughter starts to date his boss' son. A comic book adaptation of the show was produced by Dell Comics in 1958 as part of their Four Color series of one-shots. You have to have real talent to be accepted at the Van Plantan Workshop Theatre. Thanks for any help. UP AND UNDER ANNCR: Prell brings you "The Life of Riley"! Bareiss, Warren "The Life of Riley" Encyclopedia of Television
Will that matter? That is a wheel we can only invent at the time it happens. Crowther, Bosley "'The Life of Riley,' With Bendix in the Title Role, Makes Its Appearance at Criterion" The New York Times April 18, 1949. Chester A. Riley is back, with long-suffering wife Peg, trouble-prone kids Junior and Babs, moochy pal Gillis, and Digger O'Dell, The Friendly Undertaker in sixteen hilarious half-hour episodes. And there's somebody else trying to get the choir to sing in tune. Digby 'Digger' O'Dell: It is I, Digby O'Dell, the friendly undertaker. In doing this, in accompanying the dead, getting them where they need to go, we get where we need to be. He played "Al" on the radio series "My Friend Irma". So what I find is that before people bring their expertise as an embalmer or as a manager or as an executive or as a director, before any expertise, you ante up your humanity, you know? And we laugh sometimes at all those good memories and all those silly things the person said and all those wise things that that person said and all their foibles. Junior will be glad to pitch in. The radio series greatly benefited from the immense popularity of a supporting character, Digby "Digger" O'Dell (John Brown), "the friendly undertaker." The Life of Riley starring William Bendix as lovable, blundering, Chester A. Riley, was a radio situation comedy broadcast during and after wartime 40s. So I like the word "funeral" for what we're doing here, because it doesn't require me to feel this way or that. 2 Mar. The finger food was good, the talk was uplifting, the music was life-affirming; someone, usually the reverend clergy, could be counted on to declare closure, usually just before the Merlot ran out, and everyone was there but the one who had died. I'd have to say yeah, they do. Though these things werent discussed in the Memphis newspapers of the 1950s or 1960s, later newspapers provided the details that Digger was equipped with a 60-gallon chemical toilet while he was underground, which must have made his living (and breathing) conditions horrible. He would have probably had a difficult way of managing some of the changes that we see nowadays. When his efforts to impress his boss, Carl Stevenson, apparently fail, Riley becomes incensed and finally works up the courage to confront him. He liked the idea that the culture had sort of organized these wheels, in some way liturgically, in some ways socially. His real name, it seems, was Herbert O'Dell Smith. Peg Riley: Oh? Though he's built like Boulder Dam He's tender as a lamb. I remember it hitting me there in the house: She actually died; we actually buried her today; she's actually not coming back here; she's actually gone. Vance Lauderdale is the history columnist for Memphis magazine and Inside Memphis Business. That's why I came over here tonight. Although Hollywood Reporter announced in January and February 1949 that the film would have its premiere in March 1949 in Cincinnati, no definite information about the premiere was found. Simon Vanderhopper: Well, you can't call it off! I've seen it happen to Sean [his son], where you're swinging the door at night, helping people with their coats, directing them one place or another, carrying flowers, doing all the innocuous little things that add up to taking care of a family during visitation. And oftentimes I'm impressed by how people will wrap their existential concerns about a dying parent in the prearrangement conference. But you have to do that first, because people will sense if you're not willing to do that, if you're just sort of going through the motions. Sometime in the mid-60s, probably having a lot to do with Jessica Mitford's book [The American Way of Death] and a lot to do with other social factors, there was sort of the triumphalist American sense that we didn't have to deal with any discomforts. Many customers have had positive experiences ordering from them, and their customer service has been praised for keeping buyers updated on order status. So yeah, I enjoyed writing that piece. Peg Riley: No thanks, dear. He noted that "the grave that he can't escape from" is located in Sawnee View Memorial Gardens, just outside of Cummings, Georgia. Do you hear that, Peg? John Brown, Radio and TV Actor, Dies; Played Digger O'Dell in 'Life of Riley' Give this article May 18, 1957 The New York Times Archives See the article in its original context from May 18, 1957,.
For many people I know, when families are cremated, they feel as if they've in some sense kind of disappeared. All the same, 100 percent of the people that have gone with us are grateful that we invited them to go. Digger: Every good undertaker has his ear to the ground - we pick up a lot of dirt that way. By using this site, you agree to our updated. Cast & Crew Read More Irving Brecher Director William Bendix Chester A. Riley James Gleason Gillis Rosemary Decamp Peg Riley Bill Goodwin Sidney Monahan Beulah Bondi Miss [Martha] Bogle Film Details Genre Comedy Release Date Mar 1949 Premiere Information It was during this period that Gleason played Riley on one episode of the radio series. When the film opened in New York at the Loew's Criterion theater in April 1949, Bosley Crowther, film critic for The New York Times turned his nose up at it writing, "As one whom domestic expediency occasionally compels to bear with the Friday night bull-bellowing of one Chester A. Riley on the radio, this reviewer can state with fair authority that no artistic advantage has been gained by making this same Mr. Riley and his family apparent on the screen." Too often Bendix was cast as a mental case who enjoyed smashing skulls, or his roles would take his gentle giant exterior to the extreme and he would be cast as an overgrown child as in "The Babe Ruth Story". I've come to admire the earth, the wind and the fire. When Burt finally tells Babs about his financial predicament and suggests that they marry quickly so that Riley can keep his job and he can save his life, Babs reluctantly agrees. However, it came to an end after 26 episodes because Irving Brecher and sponsor Pabst Brewing Company reached an impasse on extending the series for a full 39-week season. I really don't care. But I don't know of anybody who has come in here entirely angry at the prospect of God who has done well with this type of thing, with deaths in the family. His frequent exclamation of indignation"What a revoltin' development this is! Simon Vanderhopper: Mr. Riley, you're not angry? We are more mobile, more portable, more scattered. . They can coexist. Babs Riley: All right, but Professor Van Plantan says I have a natural gift for acting. Whats more, said one newspaper, in his heyday, he could knock down $15,000 for a 60-day burial. At the mobile home park, the only money he brought home came from contributions. We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly. Im five-foot-eleven. He'd made a few films, like Lifeboat, but he was not a name. All to the good, I say. Dear t.r. With your own mother and father and their funerals, what were the moments that had meaning for you? I really think my people will know what to do when the time comes, and these are details I won't have to worry about. Chester A. Riley: What do you mean the baby announcements? Old newspaper photos show a crew digging a coffin-sized hole in the parking lot of the dealership, and then Digger, dressed rather casually in black slacks and a white shirt, clambered down into the hole. The crematory we use is impeccably run by ethical people, people we inspect, unannounced, a couple times every year. It's possible to pay with credit card or Western Union, but PayPal isn't an option. I think the national rate now is right around 38 percent. I think we act out things that are hard to put in words. Except I want to send out those circulars, so bring me some round paper. 460 Tennessee Street #200, Memphis, TN 38103. Gillis often gave Riley bad information that got him into trouble, whereas Digger gave him good information that "helped him out of a hole," as he might have put it. He had a very good sense of that. So it's easy enough. Today he is just living the life of RileyThis is the story of Chester A. Rileywho is just livingin Los Angeles California." O'Dell was a character hastily written into the long-running radio (and, later, television) show, "The Life of Riley," which had its debut on radio in 1944, while Americans were dying by the thousands in Europe and the Far East. I think we're all complicit in the banishment of the dead to the peripheries. Some do. In some ways it is a culture that's based on convenience and cost efficiency. They need to talk to someone. Do you hear that, Peg? During a burial in California, a sudden earthquake caved in the sides of his "apartment" and he had to be rescued. But people will go home, and they will look at pictures of the dead; they'll look at movies of the dead; they'll quote the dead to one another; and they will weep and laugh and carry on. This character was extremelly successfull, with many puns based on his profession. DIGGER, Digby O'Dell, the Friendly Undertaker MOTHER, Irish and obnoxious ANNOUNCER SINGERS MUSIC: THEME . But there's no question that cremation has become normative in a way that it used to be exceptional. The local newspapers reported that an 18x24-inch plywood air shaft allowed Digger to receive air and food, and he had carefully stocked his tiny domicile with lights, reading glasses, even packs of cigarettes. There are days I can get behind that theory and have. I have children at home; my wife had taken them home from the luncheon. For some people it's not the open casket and the three-day wake and the roses and the limousines and the Panis Angelicus. The till still rings. in Literary Quotes in Movie Quotes in TV Shows So yeah, it is the good news and the bad news. Peppers take longer than tomatoes to get going, so start them first. Whether someone comes into the funeral home insisting on the least expensive or the most expensive, I see in both cases an effort to assign value to cost, and I just think in my own experience it's never had much to do with it. The supporting cast featured Paula Winslowe as Riley's wife, Peg, and as Riley's mother-in law; Brown as O'Dell and as Riley's co-worker Jim Gillis; Francis "Dink" Trout as Waldo Binney; Tommy Cook, Bobby Ellis and Scotty Beckett as Junior at various times during the show's run; Barbara Eiler as Riley's daughter, Babs; Shirley Mitchell as Honeybee Gillis; Hans Conried as Uncle Baxter; and Alan Reed as multiple characters, including Riley's boss (Mr. Stevenson) and Peg's father. But at some point it becomes more than a job, and I can see this happening to the young people who have come here to work as high school students on work-study programs. Jim Gillis: Are you kiddin'? Rosemary DeCamp (as "Peg Riley"), Lanny Rees (as "Junior Riley") and John Brown (as "Digger O'Dell, the Friendly Undertaker") all reprised their movie roles in the original The Life of Riley (1948) TV series. Jim Gillis: Of course it's right. It follows the changes in our species, certainly in our culture. We can't prearrange that. The till doesn't ring as precisely, and what works and where the values are require more discernment. Why would he leave his wife? I have often noticed the difference between the first day that a family will spend here and the next day. Executives, who immediately began production on a television series, did not share Crowther's opinion, but because Bendix's movie contract barred him from doing television (a not uncommon ban in the early days of the medium when studios wanted to discourage audiences from staying home and watching TV), Jackie Gleason played Riley for one unsuccessful season in 1950. It's something handled by "them" offsite, elsewhere, and I think that's problematical. It is really helpful on the day your mother dies or your father dies or, God help us, a child dies, to have a certain part of the wheel already invented. Why there ain't a day that goes by that I read the obituary columns! You were just married! Rejected everywhere, Riley reluctantly asks Monahan for the money, but Monahan also refuses him. And the components of a funeral sometimes change. [1], Irving Brecher pitched the radio series for friend Groucho Marx under the title The Flotsam Family, but the sponsor balked at what would have been essentially a straight head-of-household role for Marx. Riley is overjoyed by his unexpected "step up," unaware that Babs asked Burt to offer him the job, and that he did so without his father's knowledge. This character was extremelly successfull, with many puns based on his profession. She just cant help being money hungry.. And that's very seductive, because, I mean, it's human-to-human contact. The Life of Riley, 1944 to 1951. Do you speak French? Western movie question: Movie likely from the 70s, has the climax where a man/boy is racing through the desert to beat a shadow across a certain line to save a girl captured by Indians. Barbara 'Babs' Riley: There's still Christmas. And particularly when you see the transaction which involves this rather impressive life-or-death event with the rather mundane mercantility of it all. Packed among his riding gear when on tour is a trumpet, and Helm has been known to join local bands in jam sessions. Before going, Riley instructs his precocious son Junior to exchange his piggy bank coins into bills and meet him at the restaurant, assuming that Junior's savings combined with his five dollars will be enough to pay for the meal. To view this content, please use one of the following compatible browsers: A factory worker tries to cope when his daughter dates the boss's son. Sponsors of the TV show included Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer (194950), Gulf Oil (195358) and Lever Brothers (195758). Starting with the right soil and conditions can make all the difference when it comes to germination and transplanting of pepper seedlings. Well, it's showing up and just being there is worth an awful lot. Jim Gillis: So by her leavin', I'm getting away without goin' out of the house. He never came back here, as promised, but he continued to perform these stunts until he died in 1999, at the age of 83. He didnt come close to breaking his record. Digby 'Digger' O'Dell: Why, I was just taking a stroll around the pond. 461. Bendix, Rosemary DeCamp, Richard Long, Meg Randall and John Brown reprised their screen roles for an May 8, 1950 Lux Radio Theatre broadcast. And I do think that while the dead don't care, the dead matter. Babs: Well, I think he ought to get a fair trial. Peg Riley: Theatre, huh? There's been a sort of national conversation about funerals over the years. But maybe with the fact that 75 million baby boomers are working their way up to the bar of mortality now, it's dawning on them that this could happen to them. Brecher Productions, Inc.; Universal-International Pictures Co., Inc. "Digger" O'Dell, "the friendly undertaker", William Bendix came to the attention of the public in the 1944 Alfred Hitchcock film, Lifeboat , playing a dim-witted sailor who doesn't survive the ordeal. Chester A. Riley: No. Chester A. Riley: Hello, Digger. Today he is just living the life of RileyIn 1908, a starving Indian named Gray Horse drove a tent stake into the ground and struck oil. Jim Gillis: They put you to sleep. I admire entrepreneurs and performers as much as the next guy, but it was surely a miserable way to make a living. Digby 'Digger' O'Dell: No, only Latin and Greek. Dwarf Mr Snow, Fred's Tie Dye, Saucy Mary, Sweet Scarlet, Kangaroo Paw Green, Idaho Gem and Banana Toes are just a few of the varieties one gardener is growing in a 4x8 bed of "bulletproof" tomatoes. I've seen at the end of the day people walking upright away from graves, people walking upright away from fires, as if they were going to survive it. Well, I'll kiss you twice tonight. Unreliable advice on how to handle these situations came from Riley's pal Digger O'Dell, the friendly undertaker, who would sneak in a string of dark-humored jokes before he had to be "shoveling off". At the mobile home park, a local reporter didnt have a very high opinion of the aging stuntman, writing, He has the flushed face and shaking hand of a man who has seen the sun rise over many an empty bottle. Digger showed up at the park wearing only a bathrobe. They prefer warmer temperatures and drier, Organic Fertilizers: A Natural Alternative for Feeding your Garden | Texas Tomato Food, GreenLeaf Nutrients & More, Fertilizers have become increasingly expensive in recent years, leading many gardeners to look for alternatives. Opening credits conclude with the following written statement: "America! Whether a person is consigned to the earth or the fire is, at the end of the day, no difference. It's ridiculous, it's mundane, it's stupid, but at the end of the day what we are trying to do is assemble all our metaphoric weapons to do battle with this hurt, this still thing. I cant say what finally happened to Digger. Digger's morbid sense of humor buttressed by Brown's off-kilter delivery was a hit with the show's audience, and for me, often the high point of the episode. Here in Milford we're around 40 percent, and there are places where it's 60 percent and places where it's 16 percent. Riley, Riley, what a guy! Despite Gillis' accusations and Peg's doubts, Riley goes along with the wedding plan until Junior uses the Stevensons' intercom to eavesdrop on Burt's room. Not a day went by that I wasn't kept in after school. Thanks to Chester's interference, Junior now has two dates for the school dance. He always knew that the real traffic was between the living and the dead, and it is in managing that and emboldening the living to deal with their dead that you do them the most service. So yes, I think all of these things help to sort of "fix" us in the firmament of where we are at any given time with our youth and our age, our well-being or our infirmity, our dying, our death and our remembrance. [citation needed] Mel Blanc provided some voices as well, including that of Junior's dog Tiger as well as that of a dog catcher who claimed to have a special bond with dogs. Riley's annoying co-worker, Gillis, was also voiced by Brown. Just as all appears lost, Riley learns from Burt that he has been promoted to a high-paying executive position. It was later reused by Benjamin J. Grimm of the Fantastic Four. But when some widowed person comes out and takes you by the shoulders and said, "Thank you, I couldn't have done this without you," and all you did was be there, or answer the call, or show up, there's this deep sense of having been of use to people at a time of need. And we suspect there'll be more Riley movies. And they take a very sharp instrument. From NE Ohio to North Central Mississippi, everyone has their own ideas and preferences for what they will plant this year. Peg Riley: Well, he's always been so bright. She means other kinds of trouble. Who were the other musicians in that performance? As a result, when Digger delivered his first line, it was usually greeted with howls of laughter and applause from surprised audience members. 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