My dad was an extremely frugal and unassuming gentle man. He would go to the NYC barber school to get his haircut for $1. For his birthday, my sisters and I chipped in and got him an appointment at Kenneth's Salon where they did cut men's hair. It looked great, but alas, dad went back for his next cut to the school, lol.
Since I don't see a comment from Vahan Nisanian on this episode, I'll just add that this episode is pre-recorded. Taping date was Sunday, 28 May 1961. Mention of Kenneth Battelle working for the Lily Dache salon reminds me that Lily Dache herself once appeared as a contestant on WHAT'S MY LINE? - on 28 August 1955. (Pretty, perky Peggy King was the main Mystery Guest that evening.) The Peter Lind Hayes/Mary Healy Mystery Guest segment is one of the funniest and most entertaining of the segments that I've seen - as funny and entertaining in its own way as the Mystery Guest segments on all of the July 1961 episodes, whether live or pre-recorded. And I enjoyed seeing them once again on the show (they had, of course, each appeared as guest panelist and as Mystery Guest on some of the 1950s episodes - and I like those episodes, too). Apropos of the final contestant, Alfena Barton: While the southwest extremities of the city of Chicago are within a mile or two of the borders of Chicago Ridge, strictly speaking there is no part of Chicago Ridge which is "right across the street from Chicago," as she says. Chicago Ridge is bordered on the north and on the east by Oak Lawn; on the south by Worth; and on the west by Bridgeview (further north) and Palos Hills (further south). Great episode, in general, by the way. Thank you very much for sharing these with us, in as good a quality as we're going to get from kinescopes of episodes which aired 50 to 67 years ago - and for organizing them into playlists, so that those of us who wish to watch them chronologically can do so with relative ease. (And thank you and all of those in your CZcams community and especially in your Facebook community who helped you to fight a good and tenacious legal battle for right against the corporate media conglomerate which shall remain nameless, the end result being that WHAT'S MY LINE? fans and those who, like myself, came to watch these episodes decades, after the show's cancellation, can watch them whenever we wish - and for free, as is only proper for public-domain material.)
I love that that female judge was a Miss Idaho in 52. It shows that beauty contestants do have brains and can make it beyond their beauty. Good example for Bennett lol.
At about 2 and 2 1/2 minutes in, Bennett and John mention Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. This was in the month before the new edition (formally Webster's Third New International Dictionary) was published, September 28, 1961, and it would prove to be controversial because of its "descriptive" approach -- recording the language as it was used in practice -- rather than "prescriptive" (saying how the language should be used). Perhaps most commonly cited was its inclusion of "ain't" (even though categorized as "disapproved by many and more common in less educated speech"); teachers could no longer say "that word isn't in the dictionary." It's a massive volume, over 13 x 9 x 4 inches. I bought a copy for a buck or two at a library sale and keep it near when watching WML -- it's especially helpful when CZcams commenters complain about the way Bennett says something and it turns out to be a formerly acceptable pronunciation that has since become rare, like "helicopter" with a long "e" sound. Bennett's Random House did publish the American College Dictionary at this time (Arlene and Dorothy often mention it in their introductions of Bennett) but the first edition of the Random House Unabridged Dictionary didn't come out until 1966, so he didn't have a direct competitor to Webster's Unabridged at this time.
The final contestant (building contractor) is the third WML contestant I have noticed wearing a "copycat" Arlene diamond heart necklace. The contestant can be seen chatting a bit with Arlene on her way out -- I wonder if that might have been the topic of conversation. From what I've read, Arlene was responsible for making such necklaces very popular for a while. I can understand wanting to talk to Arlene about it if one wore such an obvious homage to her on the show, but I would think it would be a bit embarrassing to be noticed wearing such a necklace without having a chance to say something about it in that situation. But maybe that's just my own idiosyncrasy. I have not noticed either of the other contestants who wore similar necklaces talking to Arlene beyond the game and the usual quick handshake on the way out. Also, regarding this contestant... Tony Randall seemed to go kind of "loopy" in his questions to her at the beginning! It was funny, and I'm assuming he intended it to be, but his deadpan delivery of the question about the hole in her dress was a bit unnerving -- to me, anyway. I hope the contestant wasn't offended.
+YT Smith The URL you pasted was actually the link to the same video page we are on now! You must have forgotten to copy the URL you wanted before you pasted. ;) +juliansinger posted links to two different obituaries of Alfena Norville in another comment on this page, though.
I consider myself reasonably knowledgeable in TV history, but Peter Lind Hayes and wife flew completely under my radar. Never heard of them outside of seeing them on WML. They must've been a NYC phenomenon.
dgoldg I had never heard of them before I started watching these "What's My Line?" videos either, but I've been watching all the episodes on this channel in order over the past few months, and they had both been on the show numerous times by this point, both as mystery guests (usually together) and separately as guest panelists. I think Mary Healy was also a mystery guest on the May 6, 1956 episode on which Peter Lind Hayes was a panelist. According to IMDb, this episode is the last appearance by either of them on the show. I have recently started reading Lee Israel's biography of Dorothy Kilgallen and was very surprised to read a quote from one of Dorothy's late 1940s "Voice of Broadway" columns in which she totally pans Peter Lind Hayes and his act. I had never noticed any awkwardness between them in any of Peter's previous appearances on WML?, and this is the first time that I have seen the two of them together since I read that. Judging by the warm way they greeted each other on Peter's way offstage, I am assuming that whatever issues they may have had with each other in the past had long since been resolved by this time.
Chaya Shalom Thanks for the information. I'm sorry to hear that. :( (P.S. Would it be presumptuous to wish you a Happy Chanukah based on your name? ;) )
Looks like this program was pre-recorded so no reference to the Berlin issue. This episode was broadcast the day after my mom and dad were married. My dad was in the reserves, so while driving to their honeymoon, they had to listen to the radio to find out if his unit was called. Luckily it wasn’t
Whenever I see Benet Serf, I have the overwhelming urge to begin to speak with an exaggerated upper class British accent…. My GAWD, why it’s Benet Serf….wortever shell we do?
HAIR STYLIST (DOES JACQUELINE KENNEDY'S HAIR) JUDGE BUILDING CONTRACTOR Peter Lind Hayes was a notorious philanderer. Despite that, he and Mary had a marriage that lasted 58 years until his death. 18:40 When you can't afford a new dress, just haul out the sewing machine and transform that picnic tablecloth into a dress.
I don't like all Dorothy's hair dos since the 60s started . I hope he wasn't responsible for her styles lately. Just my opinion. Maybe it was just early 60s dos weren't nice in general.
In an earlier episode where a guest was wearing one, he immediately got the question if the had anything to do with the sea because of it. (Which was true, IIRC.)
Joe Postove I don't know that they've ever gone out of style. Perhaps some years are just more popular than others for the double breasted suit. I know in some recent years they've been very popular.
Yeah, it's beginning to get on my nerves, lol. Enough already. Maybe they'll have whoever cleaned the White House toilets on next. With Eisenhower they would have people in his administration sometimes but none of this constant fawning over anything Kennedy. But Jackie was flamboyant and the Kennedys were Northeast democrats, which no doubt everybody but Daly was, at least that would be my guess.
@@thamnosma Not just this show, but the Kennedys were very much in the news, much more than the Eisenhowers. I mean, who cared about Mamie when we now had Jackie? And could anyone even name Ike's kids? The entire Kennedy family was talked about incessantly, not just on WML.
![What's My Line? - Jacques Picard; Mitch Miller; Joey Bishop [panel] (Aug 20, 1961)](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Yo_nTMo5AX0/mqdefault.jpg)
![What's My Line? - Jacques Picard; Mitch Miller; Joey Bishop [panel] (Aug 20, 1961)](/img/tr.png)
![What's My Line? - Dick Powell; Art Linkletter [panel] (Sep 17, 1961)](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/QEJas8LXF-Q/mqdefault.jpg)
![What's My Line? - Peter Lind Hayes & Mary Healy; James Roosevelt [panel] (Mar 16, 1958)](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/X2n_0qEY8h4/mqdefault.jpg)
![What's My Line? - Simone Signoret; Ray Bolger [panel] (Nov 12, 1961)](/img/n.gif)
My dad was an extremely frugal and unassuming gentle man. He would go to the NYC barber school to get his haircut for $1. For his birthday, my sisters and I chipped in and got him an appointment at Kenneth's Salon where they did cut men's hair. It looked great, but alas, dad went back for his next cut to the school, lol.
Since I don't see a comment from Vahan Nisanian on this episode, I'll just add that this episode is pre-recorded. Taping date was Sunday, 28 May 1961.
Mention of Kenneth Battelle working for the Lily Dache salon reminds me that Lily Dache herself once appeared as a contestant on WHAT'S MY LINE? - on 28 August 1955. (Pretty, perky Peggy King was the main Mystery Guest that evening.)
The Peter Lind Hayes/Mary Healy Mystery Guest segment is one of the funniest and most entertaining of the segments that I've seen - as funny and entertaining in its own way as the Mystery Guest segments on all of the July 1961 episodes, whether live or pre-recorded. And I enjoyed seeing them once again on the show (they had, of course, each appeared as guest panelist and as Mystery Guest on some of the 1950s episodes - and I like those episodes, too).
Apropos of the final contestant, Alfena Barton: While the southwest extremities of the city of Chicago are within a mile or two of the borders of Chicago Ridge, strictly speaking there is no part of Chicago Ridge which is "right across the street from Chicago," as she says. Chicago Ridge is bordered on the north and on the east by Oak Lawn; on the south by Worth; and on the west by Bridgeview (further north) and Palos Hills (further south).
Great episode, in general, by the way. Thank you very much for sharing these with us, in as good a quality as we're going to get from kinescopes of episodes which aired 50 to 67 years ago - and for organizing them into playlists, so that those of us who wish to watch them chronologically can do so with relative ease.
(And thank you and all of those in your CZcams community and especially in your Facebook community who helped you to fight a good and tenacious legal battle for right against the corporate media conglomerate which shall remain nameless, the end result being that WHAT'S MY LINE? fans and those who, like myself, came to watch these episodes decades, after the show's cancellation, can watch them whenever we wish - and for free, as is only proper for public-domain material.)
I love that that female judge was a Miss Idaho in 52. It shows that beauty contestants do have brains and can make it beyond their beauty. Good example for Bennett lol.
At about 2 and 2 1/2 minutes in, Bennett and John mention Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. This was in the month before the new edition (formally Webster's Third New International Dictionary) was published, September 28, 1961, and it would prove to be controversial because of its "descriptive" approach -- recording the language as it was used in practice -- rather than "prescriptive" (saying how the language should be used). Perhaps most commonly cited was its inclusion of "ain't" (even though categorized as "disapproved by many and more common in less educated speech"); teachers could no longer say "that word isn't in the dictionary." It's a massive volume, over 13 x 9 x 4 inches. I bought a copy for a buck or two at a library sale and keep it near when watching WML -- it's especially helpful when CZcams commenters complain about the way Bennett says something and it turns out to be a formerly acceptable pronunciation that has since become rare, like "helicopter" with a long "e" sound.
Bennett's Random House did publish the American College Dictionary at this time (Arlene and Dorothy often mention it in their introductions of Bennett) but the first edition of the Random House Unabridged Dictionary didn't come out until 1966, so he didn't have a direct competitor to Webster's Unabridged at this time.
What a beautiful judge.
As is the Contractor.
The final contestant (building contractor) is the third WML contestant I have noticed wearing a "copycat" Arlene diamond heart necklace. The contestant can be seen chatting a bit with Arlene on her way out -- I wonder if that might have been the topic of conversation. From what I've read, Arlene was responsible for making such necklaces very popular for a while. I can understand wanting to talk to Arlene about it if one wore such an obvious homage to her on the show, but I would think it would be a bit embarrassing to be noticed wearing such a necklace without having a chance to say something about it in that situation. But maybe that's just my own idiosyncrasy. I have not noticed either of the other contestants who wore similar necklaces talking to Arlene beyond the game and the usual quick handshake on the way out.
Also, regarding this contestant... Tony Randall seemed to go kind of "loopy" in his questions to her at the beginning! It was funny, and I'm assuming he intended it to be, but his deadpan delivery of the question about the hole in her dress was a bit unnerving -- to me, anyway. I hope the contestant wasn't offended.
She just passed away in February 2015. Here is her obituary: czcams.com/video/jHhN6_jTTqM/video.html Sounds like she was a lovely person!
+YT Smith
The URL you pasted was actually the link to the same video page we are on now! You must have forgotten to copy the URL you wanted before you pasted. ;) +juliansinger posted links to two different obituaries of Alfena Norville in another comment on this page, though.
A heart necklace wasn't, and still not, unusual for women to wear. Doubt it was a "copycat." They were, and still are, pretty conventional.
My Grandma had one, with matching earrings. My Grandpa gave them to her for their 25th anniversary in 1954.
This episode aired at approx the time I was born almost 60 years ago at around lunch time Aug 14 in Sydney Australia
Peter Lind Hayes has been on as a mystery guest a lot. He must be the one they call when someone else calls off.
Markxxx they've called on Phil Silvers as a last.minute sub also.
I consider myself reasonably knowledgeable in TV history, but Peter Lind Hayes and wife flew completely under my radar. Never heard of them outside of seeing them on WML. They must've been a NYC phenomenon.
Arlene calls Tony Randall a comedian. He wasn't, he was a comedic actor, a very different thing I would say.
Bennett always nails mystery guest segment
This was one of the rare times that I had to Google the name of the mystery guest. I had no idea who this couple was. BTW, Mary Healy is still living.
dgoldg
I had never heard of them before I started watching these "What's My Line?" videos either, but I've been watching all the episodes on this channel in order over the past few months, and they had both been on the show numerous times by this point, both as mystery guests (usually together) and separately as guest panelists. I think Mary Healy was also a mystery guest on the May 6, 1956 episode on which Peter Lind Hayes was a panelist. According to IMDb, this episode is the last appearance by either of them on the show.
I have recently started reading Lee Israel's biography of Dorothy Kilgallen and was very surprised to read a quote from one of Dorothy's late 1940s "Voice of Broadway" columns in which she totally pans Peter Lind Hayes and his act. I had never noticed any awkwardness between them in any of Peter's previous appearances on WML?, and this is the first time that I have seen the two of them together since I read that. Judging by the warm way they greeted each other on Peter's way offstage, I am assuming that whatever issues they may have had with each other in the past had long since been resolved by this time.
+dgoldg Mary Healy died this year, Feb 2015.
Chaya Shalom Thanks for the information. I'm sorry to hear that. :(
(P.S. Would it be presumptuous to wish you a Happy Chanukah based on your name? ;) )
She signed in as Mary Hayes rather than Healy this time.
+Neil Midkiff
And he signed in as Peter Lind Healy.
The judge died in a car accident at age 83 in 2017. Reportedly she also appeared on "To Tell the Truth."
The same day East Germany started
to build what would become known
as the Berlin wall.
Looks like this program was pre-recorded so no reference to the Berlin issue. This episode was broadcast the day after my mom and dad were married. My dad was in the reserves, so while driving to their honeymoon, they had to listen to the radio to find out if his unit was called. Luckily it wasn’t
I'm pretty sure that these are the only WML mystery guests that I've never heard of.
Holdenon3 Both had been on many times, Hayes even as a panelist
Whenever I see Benet Serf, I have the overwhelming urge to begin to speak with an exaggerated upper class British accent….
My GAWD, why it’s Benet Serf….wortever shell we do?
Where is the Aug. 6, 1961 episode? I can't seem to find it?
There was no episode on 8/6/61. The show was preempted that week.
HAIR STYLIST (DOES JACQUELINE KENNEDY'S HAIR)
JUDGE
BUILDING CONTRACTOR
Peter Lind Hayes was a notorious philanderer. Despite that, he and Mary had a marriage that lasted 58 years until his death.
18:40 When you can't afford a new dress, just haul out the sewing machine and transform that picnic tablecloth into a dress.
I'm watching all the episodes in chronological order; so far no mention of Arlene's trip to Europe. I assume this show was prerecorded as well?
I wondered too
It was earlier.
Too bad Kenneth hasn't been around to help Dorothy for the few shows prior to this!
Keep in mind that this was videotaped two-and-a-half months before its broadcast. Which episodes are you referring to?
I don't like all Dorothy's hair dos since the 60s started . I hope he wasn't responsible for her styles lately. Just my opinion. Maybe it was just early 60s dos weren't nice in general.
Could you do something with Daly's hair? LOL!
Cerf should talk...he has NO hair
We pronounce Zoe zoh-ee in uk🎩
Was Tony a little buzzed here? His reaction to the last guest seemed a little uncouth.
Mr. Kenneth was wearing a double breasted suit! I wonder when they went out of style?
In an earlier episode where a guest was wearing one, he immediately got the question if the had anything to do with the sea because of it. (Which was true, IIRC.)
Joe Postove I don't know that they've ever gone out of style. Perhaps some years are just more popular than others for the double breasted suit. I know in some recent years they've been very popular.
I don't get Peter Lind Hayes
Wow Tony Randall what a way with words, man. Can you insult the contestant any further, by way of an introduction?
Tony Randall was much more amused by his wit than those around him. Watch.
I have never liked Peter Lind Hayes.
I have never liked the way his smile resembled a sneer.
Can't fool Cerf...cause he cheats
You got that right.
Back then flight records were public. Cerf always browsed the flight records & knew who was in town.
This has been widely known & spoke about it.
Yet ANOTHER contestant dealing with the Kennedys, man this show sucked up to them constantly.
Yeah, it's beginning to get on my nerves, lol. Enough already. Maybe they'll have whoever cleaned the White House toilets on next. With Eisenhower they would have people in his administration sometimes but none of this constant fawning over anything Kennedy. But Jackie was flamboyant and the Kennedys were Northeast democrats, which no doubt everybody but Daly was, at least that would be my guess.
+Stephen Dreher
Dorothy Kilgallen was a conservative reporter from Chicago working for the very conservative Hearst newspaper chain.
She was based in New York City since her career with Hearst began in 1931. Exception : based in Los Angeles in 1936 and 1937
@@thamnosma Not just this show, but the Kennedys were very much in the news, much more than the Eisenhowers. I mean, who cared about Mamie when we now had Jackie? And could anyone even name Ike's kids? The entire Kennedy family was talked about incessantly, not just on WML.
I'm wondering if you were alive when the Kennedys were in the White House. They had a huge effect on popular culture.