BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: TELEVISION

ON THE SPLAYED FINGERS “LIVE LONG AND PROSPER” VULCAN 
GREETING USED BY SPOCK ON THE FAMOUS STAR TREK SERIES


‘”It is derived from part of a Hebrew blessing that
 Leonard Nimoy
 first glimpsed at an Orthodox Jewish 
synagogue in Boston as a
 boy and brought to the role.”

Adam Nagourney. “Jewish Roots of ‘Star Trek’ Are 
Explored by Exhibition” in The New York Times 
(January 5th, 2022)
*

From the artist Sanford Wurmfeld

Hey Louis,
I remember we were the first in the neighborhood in 
the Bronx to have a tv. I believe it was about 1948.   
It was a small screen with an odd shape in a yellow 
mahogany cabinet. The shape of the screen I think 
was a round cathode ray tube flattened at the top 
and bottom - by that I mean there was a horizontal 
straight edge to the screen top and bottom.  
Of course it was black and white.  There was a big 
magnifier that came with it on a stand placed in front 
to make the picture larger, but we all found that more 
annoying than helpful.  Much of the day was just a 
screen signal.  But then magically at some point in 
the evening it would come alive and a program would be introduced - Ralph Bellamy as a private eye.  Also on 
Tuesday night the big event was Milton Berle. 
That changed everything.  I was even allowed to stay 
up and watch.  A big deal at 6.  
Best
Sandy
**

from Rella Stuart-Hunt Wurmfeld, Artist & Educator
	
Thanks Louis. We acquired a television in 1955 in England ostensibly for our German nanny after my little sister 
was born because she said ‘there was nothing to do in the 
evenings’ and it would help her to learn the language. I remember thinking Phil Silvers was funny and my father 
enjoyed Maverick. (Shades of our low-brow evening 
entertainment if I wasn’t reading fairy tales)

**


THE FIRST NATIONAL TELEVISION SPONSOR

The first television national sponsor in the world 
was GILLETTE, on June 19, 1946, when it sponsored 
the boxing match between Joe Louis and Billy Conn.

The Guinness Book of TV Facts and Feats (1984)

**
SIR LAURENCE OLIVIER & TELEVISION COMMERCIALS

“Sometimes I think I’ll not be remembered for Hamlet 
nor Richard III. Nor even for Wuthering Heights. 
Sometimes I think a whole generation of youngsters 
will know me only as ‘that man who did Polaroid 
commercials.”

            Laurence Olivier

**

EARLY TELEVISION HISTORY

“For the record I made my  television debut in 
Chicago in 1929. Trixie Friganza and I had been 
asked to appear by F.A. Sanabria, who owned the 
United States Television Corporation. It was 
one of the early closed-circuit experiments. 
Things like writers didn’t exist then. My instructions 
were to do eight minutes and keep it clean, and 
don’t move around too much. Of the actual broadcast, 
all I can remember is a small room and fierce heat 
from the lights and the heavy make-up we had to wear. 
We were part of history, but I don’t think either 
of us made history. The broadcast was sent out to 
maybe twelve people in Sanabria’s company who had sets.”

Milton Berle. Milton Berle: An Autobiography with
Haskel Frankel. (New York: Delacorte Press, 1974)

**
MACBETH ON 1955 TELEVISION

“We’re doing Macbeth on a sex basis. I’m playing a 
slut (Lily Macbeth), Joe Macbeth (Paul Douglas) is 
a gangster who turns yellow and leaves the killing 
up to Lily. I’ll do it with a revolver. We thought 
a knife would be too bloody.”
                           Ruth Roman
**

COLUMBUS MAY NOT HAVE DISCOVERED AMERICA 
BUT AMERICA DISCOVERED COLUMBO

“It became clearly evident during rehearsals  that 
the plot of the play did not concern a doctor who 
murdered his wife and was subsequently apprehended 
by a bumbling detective. Rather it concerned a 
bumbling detective *who put together sufficient 
evidence to convict a murderer who happened to be 
a doctor. The detective’s name was Columbo. In 
later years, Peter Falk would don the same
wrinkled trench coat and play to more viewers 
in one night than our Rx: Murder tour could 
attract in fifty years, instead of a 
fifty-week run.”

* Thomas Mitchell was the first actor on stage 
to portray Columbo.

Joseph Cotton. Vanity Will Get  You Somewhere (San Francisco:Mercury  House, 1987)
**
"Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today 
-- for tomorrow's gonna be bad enough as it is." 
                      George Gobel

GEORGE GOBEL
 
 George Gobel
 At Yankee Stadium never had a bobble
 Doll night.
 I don’t know. Does that seem right?

LJP