Friday, September 2, 2011

"The Mike Douglas Show," Cleveland, 1962

Here are two pictures of my mother and Mike Douglas, taken from a copy of a 1962 videotape.  They are singing a duet of the song “Exactly Like You,” on Douglas’s Cleveland TV talk show.  

In 1962, my father, an obstetrician & gynecologist, was scheduled to be interviewed on Douglas’s program; he had co-written (with my aunt, who was, at the time, a journalist) a book about childbirth. When Douglas learned about his upcoming appearance, he asked that my mother appear on the program as well.

On the 1962 broadcast, my mother sang two additional songs: “Makin’ Whoopie,” and “It’s All Right with Me,” and she and Douglas reminisced about the period when they had performed together, with bandleader Kay Kyser.  

Douglas’s program began airing nationally in 1963, and during the 1960s my parents made periodic joint appearances on the program; my mother sang, on the shows, and my father discussed medical matters.