33-424: CBS Summer Playhouse is an American anthology series that ran from June 12, 1987 to August 22, 1989 on CBS . It aired unsold television pilots during the summer season. Tim Reid and Daphne Maxwell Reid acted as hosts during the first season, introducing each pilot. Viewers were also encouraged to call a 1-800 number at the end of each episode, to voice their preference. However, the "winning" pilot chosen by
66-584: A 2001 interview with Larry King , Powell's widow June Allyson stated that the cause of death was lung cancer due to his chain smoking . During the 15th Primetime Emmy Awards on May 26, 1963, the Television Academy presented a posthumous Television Academy Trustee Award to Dick Powell for his contributions to the industry. The award was accepted by two of his former partners in Four Star Television, Charles Boyer and David Niven. Dick Powell has
99-516: A Western, Station West (1948) and a French Foreign Legion tale, Rogues' Regiment (1949). He was a Mountie in Mrs. Mike (1950). From 1949 to 1953, Powell played the lead role in the NBC radio theater production Richard Diamond, Private Detective . His character in the 30-minute weekly show was a likable private detective with a quick wit. Many episodes ended with Detective Diamond having an excuse to sing
132-501: A collection of poetry, later retitled anthology – see Greek Anthology . Anthologiai were collections of small Greek poems and epigrams, because in Greek culture the flower symbolized the finer sentiments that only poetry can express. Many popular old-time radio programs were anthology series. On some series, such as Inner Sanctum Mysteries , the only constant was the host, who introduced and concluded each dramatic presentation. One of
165-837: A dance number with co-star Debbie Reynolds . By this stage, Powell had turned director. His feature debut was Split Second (1953) at RKO Pictures . He followed it with The Conqueror (1956), coproduced by Howard Hughes and starring John Wayne as Genghis Khan . The exterior scenes were filmed in St. George, Utah , downwind of U.S. above-ground atomic tests. The cast and crew totaled 220, and of that number, 91 had developed some form of cancer by 1981, and 46 had died of cancer by then, including Powell and Wayne. He directed Allyson opposite Jack Lemmon in You Can't Run Away from It (1956). Powell then made two war films at Fox with Robert Mitchum , The Enemy Below (1957) and The Hunters (1958). In
198-528: A little song to his date, showcasing Powell's vocal abilities. Many of the episodes were written by Blake Edwards . When Richard Diamond came to television in 1957, the lead role was portrayed by David Janssen , who did no singing in the series. Prior to the Richard Diamond series, he starred in Rogue's Gallery . He played Richard Rogue, private detective. The Richard Diamond tongue-in-cheek persona developed in
231-600: A model, but she found being married to an entertainer not to her liking. After a final trip to Cuba together, Mildred moved to Hemphill, Texas , and the couple divorced in 1932. Later, Powell joined the Charlie Davis Orchestra , based in Indianapolis . He recorded a number of records with Davis and on his own for the Vocalion label in the late 1920s. Powell moved to Pittsburgh , where he found great local success as
264-554: A new type of anthology format in the U.S. Each season, rather than each episode, is a standalone story. Several actors have appeared in the various seasons, but playing different roles—in an echo of the Four Star Playhouse format. The success of American Horror Story has spawned other season-long anthologies such as American Crime Story and True Detective . Anthology film series are rare compared to their TV and radio counterparts. There have been several attempts within
297-556: A permanent troupe of character actors who would appear in a different drama each week. Some anthology series, such as Studio One , began on radio and then expanded to television. The word comes from Ancient Greek ἀνθολογία ( anthología , "flower-gathering"), from ἀνθολογέω ( anthologéō , "I gather flowers"), from ἄνθος ( ánthos , "flower") + λέγω ( légō , "I gather, pick up, collect"), coined by Meleager of Gadara circa 60 BCE, originally as Στέφανος ( στέφανος ( stéphanos , "garland")) to describe
330-598: A private pilot. On September 27, 1962, Powell acknowledged rumors that he was undergoing treatment for cancer. The disease was originally diagnosed as an allergy, with Powell first experiencing symptoms while traveling east to promote his program. Upon his return to California, Powell's personal physician conducted tests and found malignant tumors on his neck and chest. The marker on Dick Powell's niche in Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California, incorrectly identifies his year of death as 1962. Powell died at
363-679: A production company financed by Davies' lover William Randolph Hearst , who released through WB. WB gave him a change of pace, casting him as Lysander in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935). More typical was Shipmates Forever (1935) with Keeler. 20th Century Fox borrowed him for Thanks a Million (1935); back at WB, he did Colleen (1936) with Keeler and Blondell. Powell was reunited with Marion Davies in another for Cosmopolitan, Hearts Divided (1936), playing Napoleon's brother. He made three films with Blondell, Broadway Gondolier (1935), Stage Struck (1936) and Gold Diggers of 1937 . 20th Century Fox then borrowed him again for On
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#1733114656214396-550: A supporting role in MGM's popular melodrama The Bad and the Beautiful (1952). His final film performance was in a romantic comedy Susan Slept Here (1954) for director Frank Tashlin . Even when he appeared in lighter fare such as The Reformer and the Redhead and Susan Slept Here , he never sang in his later roles. The latter, his final onscreen appearance in a feature film, did include
429-512: A weekly program from the second season until the end of its run in 1956. Ida Lupino was brought on board as the de facto fourth star, though unlike Powell, Boyer, and Niven, she owned no stock in the company. American television networks would sometimes run summer anthology series which consisted of unsold television pilots . Beginning in 1971, the long-run Masterpiece Theatre drama anthology series brought British productions to American television. In 2011, American Horror Story debuted
462-497: The Golden Age of Television of the 1950s with series such as The United States Steel Hour and The Philco Television Playhouse . Dick Powell came up with an idea for an anthology series, Four Star Playhouse , with a rotation of established stars every week, four stars in all. The stars would own the studio and the program, as Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz had done successfully with Desilu studio. Powell had intended for
495-580: The Rogue series. Powell took a break from tough-guy roles in The Reformer and the Redhead (1950), opposite wife June Allyson . Then he was back to tougher movies: Right Cross (1950), a boxing film with Allyson; Cry Danger (1951), as an ex-convict; The Tall Target (1951), at MGM directed by Anthony Mann , playing a detective who tries to prevent the assassination of Abraham Lincoln . He returned to comedy with You Never Can Tell (1951). Powell had
528-668: The 1950s, Powell was one of the founders of Four Star Television , with Charles Boyer , David Niven , and Ida Lupino . He appeared in and supervised several shows for that company. Shortly before his death, Powell sang on camera for the final time in a guest-star appearance on Four Star's Ensign O'Toole , singing " The Song of the Marines ", which he first sang in his 1937 film The Singing Marine . He hosted and occasionally starred in his Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater on CBS from 1956 to 1961, and his final anthology series, The Dick Powell Show on NBC from 1961 through 1963; after his death,
561-513: The Avenue (1937). Back at WB, he appeared in The Singing Marine and Varsity Show (both 1937), Hollywood Hotel , Cowboy from Brooklyn , Hard to Get , Going Places (all 1938), and Naughty but Nice (1939). Fed up with the repetitive nature of these roles, Powell left WB and went to work for Paramount Pictures . At Paramount, Blondell and Powell were cast together again in
594-443: The age of 58 on January 2, 1963. It is speculated Powell developed cancer as a result of his participation in the film The Conqueror , which was filmed at St. George, Utah, near a site used by the U.S. military for nuclear testing . About a third of the actors who participated in the film developed cancer, including Powell, who directed the film, John Wayne , Susan Hayward , Agnes Moorehead and Pedro Armendáriz . However, in
627-831: The drama I Want a Divorce (1940). Then Powell got a chance to appear in another non-musical, Christmas in July (1940), a screwball comedy which was the second feature directed by Preston Sturges . Universal borrowed him to support Abbott and Costello in In the Navy (1941), one of the most popular films of 1941. At Paramount he had a cameo in Star Spangled Rhythm and co-starred with Mary Martin in Happy Go Lucky (both 1943). He supported Dorothy Lamour in Riding High (1943). In 1944, he
660-610: The earliest such programs was The Collier Hour , broadcast on the NBC Blue Network from 1927 to 1932. As radio's first major dramatic anthology, it adapted stories and serials from Collier's Weekly in a calculated move to increase subscriptions and compete with The Saturday Evening Post . Airing on the Wednesday prior to each week's distribution of the magazine, the program soon moved to Sundays in order to avoid spoilers with dramatizations of stories simultaneously appearing in
693-433: The episodes originated from theatrical playhouses . Anthology series An anthology series is a written series, radio , television , film , or video game series that presents a different story and a different set of characters in each different episode , season , segment, or short . These usually have a different cast in each episode, but several series in the past, such as Four Star Playhouse , employed
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#1733114656214726-650: The film Cornered , a gripping post-World War II thriller that helped define the film noir style. For Columbia, he played a casino owner in Johnny O'Clock (1947) and made To the Ends of the Earth (1948). Also in 1948, he stepped out of the brutish type when he starred in Pitfall , a film noir in which a bored insurance-company worker falls for an innocent but dangerous woman, played by Lizabeth Scott . He broadened his range appearing in
759-530: The horror genre to have a franchise with an anthology format, such as with the Halloween franchise where the third film, Halloween III: Season of the Witch , was meant to be the beginning of a series of anthology horror films, but due to negative reception that plan was shelved. Anthology video games have been very rare since the 1980s. Dick Powell Richard Ewing Powell (November 14, 1904 – January 2, 1963)
792-613: The lead in Double Indemnity . He lost out to Fred MacMurray , another Hollywood nice guy. Powell's career changed dramatically when he was cast in the first of a series of films noir , as private detective Philip Marlowe in Murder, My Sweet (1944), directed by Edward Dmytryk at RKO. The film was a big hit, and Powell had successfully reinvented himself as a dramatic actor. He was the first actor to play Marlowe – by name – in motion pictures. In 1945, Dmytryk and Powell reteamed to make
825-495: The magazine. Radio anthology series provided for science fiction , horror , suspense, and mystery genres (all produced in the US, unless noted): The final episode of Suspense was broadcast on September 30, 1962, a date that has traditionally been seen as marking the end of the old-time radio era. However, genre series produced since 1962 include: In the history of television, live anthology dramas were especially popular during
858-667: The master of ceremonies at the Enright Theater and the Stanley Theater . In April 1930, Warner Bros. bought Brunswick Records , which at that time owned Vocalion. Warner Bros. was sufficiently impressed by Powell's singing and stage presence to offer him a film contract in 1932. He made his film debut as a singing bandleader in Blessed Event . He was borrowed by Fox Film to support Will Rogers in Too Busy to Work (1932). He
891-437: The program to feature himself, Charles Boyer , Joel McCrea , and Rosalind Russell . When Russell and McCrea backed out, David Niven came on board as the third star. The fourth star was initially a guest star. CBS liked the idea, and Four Star Playhouse made its debut in fall of 1952. It ran on alternate weeks only during the first season, alternating with Amos 'n' Andy . It was successful enough to be renewed and became
924-575: The series continued through the end of its second season (as The Dick Powell Theater ), with guest hosts. Powell was the son of Ewing Powell and Sallie Rowena Thompson. He married three times: Powell's ranch-style house was used for exterior filming on the ABC TV series, Hart to Hart . The estate, known as Amber Hills, was on 48 acres (19 hectares) in the Mandeville Canyon section of Brentwood , Los Angeles. Powell enjoyed general aviation as
957-415: The viewers was never picked up as a series. The series was revamped during the second and third seasons, and featured no hosts or viewer voting. David Bianculli of The Philadelphia Inquirer criticized the anthology series, writing that it "may be the most inaccurate title ever given to a TV program". Bianculli cited two aspects, that the show premiered just before summer began in 1987 and that none of
990-575: Was a boyish crooner, the sort of role in which he specialized for the next few years. Back at Warner Bros., he supported George Arliss in The King's Vacation , then was in 42nd Street (both 1933), playing the love interest for Ruby Keeler . The film was a massive hit. Warner Bros. (WB) got him basically to repeat the role in Gold Diggers of 1933 , another big success. So too was Footlight Parade (also 1933), with Keeler and James Cagney. Powell
1023-543: Was an American actor, singer, musician, producer, director, and studio head. Though he came to stardom as a musical comedy performer, he showed versatility and successfully transformed into a hardboiled leading man, starring in projects of a more dramatic nature. He was the first actor to portray private detective Philip Marlowe on screen. Powell was born the middle of three sons of Ewing Powell and mother Sally Rowena in Mountain View, Arkansas . He married Mildred Maund,
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1056-529: Was in a fantasy comedy directed by René Clair , It Happened Tomorrow , then went over to MGM to appear opposite Lucille Ball in Meet the People , which was a box-office flop. During this period, Powell starred in the musical Campana Serenade , which was broadcast on NBC radio (1942–1943) and CBS radio (1943–1944). By 1944, Powell felt he was too old to play romantic leading men anymore, so he lobbied to play
1089-583: Was upped to star for College Coach (1933), then went back to more ensemble pieces including 42nd Street , Convention City (both 1933), Wonder Bar , Twenty Million Sweethearts , and Dames (all 1934). Happiness Ahead was more of a star vehicle for Powell, as was Flirtation Walk (both 1934). He was top-billed in Gold Diggers of 1935 and Broadway Gondolier (both 1935), both with Joan Blondell . He supported Marion Davies in Page Miss Glory (1935), made for Cosmopolitan Pictures ,
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