Peter Marshall, the host (from 1966 to 1981) of the television game show The Hollywood Squares, died on August 15th in California, at age 98.
There was the following interesting paragraph about Mr. Marshall, and The Hollywood Squares, in the New York Times obituary about him--which also referred to Bob Quigley, one of the program's producers (to whom I will return shortly).
Mr. Marshall played the straight man to his comic co-stars. He recalled that the show’s producers, Bob Quigley and Merrill Heatter, had said that they prized one quality in particular when they sought a host: “‘We’re looking for a complete nonentity,’ they told me. ‘Well, look no further,’ I said, and they offered me an audition.”
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| The Hollywood Squares |
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| Hollywood Squares publicity photo: Peter Marshall, in foreground, with Rose Marie. Also pictured, from left to right: Wally Cox, Morey Amsterdam (at top center), and Abby Dalton |
While I don't think that Mr. Marshall became, in actuality, a non-entity on the show--he was a very likeable and talented host--it is nevertheless true that the program was not, in the end, about him. The focus of the show was the stars who sat in the nine "Hollywood Squares," and who responded to the quiz questions Mr. Marshall posed--such as Wally Cox, Cliff Arquette (playing the character Charley Weaver), Rose Marie, and Paul Lynde. Yet Mr. Marshall's role, as host and straight man, was one he carried out deftly. His friendly and appreciative laughter, at the jokes made by the stars, was one of the show's essential and appealing elements. (One also recalls his friendly interactions with the show's contestants, who flanked him on the stage.)
Mr. Marshall had had training, indeed, as a straight man, as part of a comedy team, Noonan and Marshall (with performer Tommy Noonan). They worked together from 1949 until the early 1960s.
In 1949, as well (at the start of December of that year), bandleader Kay Kyser's College of Musical Knowledge, a comedy, music and game show, about which I have written many times in this space, made its debut on NBC-TV; it had for years been a hit program on radio.
Bob Quigley--who with Merrill Heatter would, beginning in the 1960s, achieve great success producing The Hollywood Squares and other game shows--was the head writer for Kay Kyser's show.
In addition to writing for the program, Mr. Quigley performed regularly in the show's sketches, and scenes.
(In addition to sketches--often comic--in which the show's cast members performed/sang/acted out clues for contestants, the show featured musical production numbers, somewhat akin to the manner of Your Hit Parade, which would come to television in the fall of 1950, in which songs were dramatized. Songs on Kay Kyser's program were, similarly, often presented in the form of stories, vignettes. In the program's 1949 debut telecast, for example, one song--"Toot, Toot, Tootsie (Goodbye!)"--took place at a mock train station, where a wife was seeing her husband off; he was carrying a suitcase, so was evidently going on a trip. The husband was played by Michael "Mike" Douglas, the featured male vocalist on the show; my mother, Sue Bennett, played the wife. They took turns singing the song to one another. Soon, the show's vocal group, The Honeydreamers, joined the production number.)
The first season of Kay Kyser's show continued until June of 1950. The show's second season--which relied more heavily on guest stars, such as Louis Armstrong, Mindy Carson, Hoagy Carmichael, and Ella Fitzgerald--began in early October of 1950. The program went off the air at the end of December 1950.
In the picture below, from Kay Kyser's program, my mother and Bob Quigley are seen together in a street setting. My mother--who was featured on the program during both of its seasons on the air--looks to be singing to Mr. Quigley. I am fairly sure--based on a conversation with her that I'm remembering from years ago--that Mr. Quigley, in the scene, was playing a gangster, and that my mother was playing his girlfriend/"moll."
Mr. Quigley died in 1989, at age 77.
