RIP Allan Burns

Allan Burns Dies: TV Producer Created ‘The Munsters’ And ‘Mary Tyler Moore Show’ Was 85

DEADLINE

By Bruce Haring

January 31, 2021

Allan Burns, a television producer and screenwriter best known for cocreating and cowriting for the television sitcoms The Munsters, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and Rhoda, has died. He was 85 and no details were immediately available on the cause of death.

Burns was born June 14, 1935 in Baltimore, Maryland. He attended the University of Oregon from 1953 to 1957 before heading to Los Angeles and breaking into show business. 

His first venture included working in animation for Jay Ward on The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, Dudley Do-Right, and George of the Jungle. He also is credited with cowriting the unaired pilot episode of The Smothers Brothers Show from 1965.

Among his other accomplishments in his early days was creating the Cap’n Crunch cartoon character for Quaker Oats.

Burns formed a writing partnership with Chris Hayward, and the team created The Munsters (1964) and My Mother The Car (1965). They also worked as story editors for the CBS series He & She, winning an Emmy Award for comedy writing. They also teamed as story editors for the classic Get Smart.

In 1969, Burns joined forces with James L. Brooks. Burns joined the writing staff of Room 222 and later produced the series.

Grant Tinker took notice, and hired Burns and Brooks to develop a show for Mary Tyler Moore. The vehicle premiered in 1970, and its popularity spawned such spin-offs as Lou Grant and Rhoda.

Burns’s film resume includes screenwriting for the film A Little Romance, which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. He also wrote the screenplays for Butch and Sundance: The Early Days, Just the Way You Are, and wrote and directed Just Between Friends.

Actor Ed Asner, who played the gruff Lou Grant on the Mary Tyler Moore Show and his own series, sent out a tweet acknowledging the passing.

No details on survivors or a memorial service were immediately available.

 

BURNS, Allan

Born: 6/14/1935, Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A.

Died: 1/30/2021, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

Allan Burns’ western – writer:

Butch and Sundance: The Early Days - 1979

Cicely Tyson

 

Cicely Tyson, Pioneering Hollywood Icon, Dies at 96

Variety

By Carmel Dagan

January 28, 2021

 

Emmy- and Tony-winning actress Cicely Tyson, who distinguished herself in theater, film and television, died on Thursday afternoon. She was 96.

“I have managed Miss Tyson’s career for over 40 years, and each year was a privilege and blessing,” her manager, Larry Thompson, said in a statement. “Cicely thought of her new memoir as a Christmas tree decorated with all the ornaments of her personal and professional life. Today she placed the last ornament, a Star, on top of the tree.”

Throughout her career Tyson refused to play drug addicts, prostitutes or maids, roles she thought demeaning to Black women. But when a good part came along she grabbed hold of it with tenacity.

Onstage she was in the original 1961 Off Broadway production of Jean Genet’s “The Blacks” and, decades later, she won a Tony for her starring role in a revival of “The Trip to Bountiful.”

In television she nabbed the first recurring role for an Black woman in a drama series, “East Side/West Side,” and the actress later won two much-deserved Emmys for 1974’s memorable “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman.” She was nominated a total of 16 times in her career, also winning for supporting actress, in 1994 for an adaptation of “Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All”; she was nominated five times for guest actress in a drama for “How to Get Away With Murder.”

Tyson received an Oscar nomination in 1973 for Martin Ritt’s drama “Sounder” and an Honorary Oscar in 2018.

The actress became a household name thanks to her starring role in “Miss Jane Pittman.” The TV movie, in which a 110-year-old woman recalls her life, required her to portray the heroine over a nine-decade period. Writing about Tyson’s performance, Pauline Kael compared her “to the highest, because that’s the comparison she invites and has earned.”

In 1961 Tyson was one of the original cast members in “The Blacks,” which ran for two years at the St. Mark’s Playhouse. Her co-stars included Roscoe Lee Browne, James Earl Jones, Godfrey Cambridge and Raymond St. Jacques. The role of Virtue won her the Vernon Rice Award, a feat she repeated for the 1962 production of “Moon on a Rainbow Shawl.” She starred with Diana Sands in the 1963 Broadway production of “Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright,” which closed during a newspaper strike, and later that year appeared Off Broadway in “The Blue Boy in Black” with Billy Dee Williams. She moved on to Carroll’s musical “Trumpets of the Lord” (she also appeared in the 1968 Broadway staging) as well as the 1966 production of “A Hand Is at the Gate,” the 1968 play “Carry Me Back to Morningside Heights” and the 1969 program of Lorraine Hansberry readings “To Be Young, Gifted and Black.”

Tyson was also one of the founding members of the Dance Theater of Harlem in 1969.

Interspersed with her stage gigs, Tyson appeared in a number of television shows, including a dramatic presentation of “Brown Girl, Brown Stones” in 1960 and “Between Yesterday and Today.” “East Side/West Side” star George C. Scott, having been impressed by her performance in “The Blacks,” asked for her to play his assistant in the 1963 CBS series. Though the show lasted only 26 episodes, it increased her visibility, and she followed it with appearances on shows including “Naked City,” “The Nurses,” “I Spy,” “Slattery’s People” and “The Bill Cosby Show.”

During this period she curtailed her work schedule to devote more time to her relationship with jazz great Miles Davis.

Tyson made her film debut with a small role in 1957’s “Twelve Angry Men” and her formal debut in the 1959 Sidney Poitier film “Odds Against Tomorrow,” followed by “The Comedians,” “The Last Angry Man,” “A Man Called Adam” and “The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.” Refusing to participate in the blaxploitation movies that became popular in the late ’60s, she waited until 1972 to return to the screen in the drama “Sounder,” which captured several Oscar nominations including one for Tyson as best actress.

Variety reviewer A.D. Murphy enthused that the film was “outstanding” and added, “The performances of Paul Winfield and Cicely Tyson, as the devoted though impoverished parents, are milestones in their own careers.”

Despite her achievements onstage and in films, however, most of the actress’s best work was done for television. In addition to “Miss Jane Pittman,” she did outstanding work in “Roots,” “The Wilma Rudolph Story,” “King: The Martin Luther King Story,” “When No One Would Listen,” “A Woman Called Moses,” “The Marva Collins Story,” “The Women of Brewster Place,” “The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All” and the TV adaptation of “Trip to Bountiful.”

She remained an occasional presence on the big screen as well in films including “A Hero Ain’t Nothin’ But a Sandwich,” Richard Pryor comedy “Bustin’ Loose,” “Fried Green Tomatoes” and “Hoodlum.”

Tyson returned to Broadway in 1983 to star in a brief revival of “The Corn Is Green.”

On television she also appeared in the title role of “Ms. Scrooge,” a gender-reversed adaptation of Charles Dickens, as well as telepics including “Benny’s Place,” “Playing With Fire,” “Acceptable Risks,” “Heat Wave,” “Duplicates,” “A Lesson Before Dying” and “The Rosa Parks Story.”

In 1994-95 she played a Southern attorney in NBC’s brief, civil rights-themed legal drama “Sweet Justice,” and she appeared in a 2009 episode of “Law and Order: SVU.”

In her 70s, Tyson worked more in film than at any other time in her career, thanks in part to Tyler Perry: She appeared in his films “Diary of a Mad Black Woman” (2005), “Madea’s Family Reunion (2006) and “Why Did I Get Married Too?” (2010) as well as in the 2012 Perry starrer “Alex Cross,” which he did not direct. The actress also had supporting roles in “Because of Winn-Dixie,” “Fat Rose and Squeaky,” “Idlewild” and 2011’s “The Help.”

And capping an already-impressive career, Tyson won the Tony for best actress for her role as Carrie Watts in the 2013 revival of “A Trip to Bountiful,” then repeated the performance in a 2014 Lifetime TV adaptation.

Born in East Harlem to West Indian immigrant parents, Tyson rose from humble beginnings. After graduating from high school she worked as a secretary for the American Red Cross before becoming a model; at the top of her game she appeared in Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. She was bitten by the acting bug after an appearance in an aborted independent film, “The Spectrum.” She studied at the Actors Studio and with Lloyd Richards and Vinnette Carroll, who featured Tyson as Barbara Allen in a 1959 Off Broadway revival of the musical “The Dark of the Moon.” She segued into the variety show “Talent ’59” on Broadway and appeared in a production of “Jolly’s Progress” in which she also understudied Eartha Kitt, before a role in “The Blacks” ignited her stage career.

Tyson was active in charity and arts organizations including Urban Gateways, the Human Family Institute and the American Film Institute. She received awards from the National Council of Negro Women and the NAACP as well as the Capitol Press Award.

The actress was one of 25 Black women honored for their contributions to art, entertainment and civil rights as part of Oprah Winfrey’s 2005 Legends Ball.

Tyson remained feisty even as she reached 90. She criticized an upcoming remake of “Roots” as unnecessary and, in a speech at the Grace Awards, where Tyson received a lifetime achievement award from the Alliance for Women in Media in May 2015, the actress recounted being asked, “Now that you have made it, what else are you going to do?,” to which she responded, “‘My dear, the day I feel that I have made it, I am finished.”‘

Tyson was married to Davis from 1981-88.

Survivors include her niece, English actress Cathy Tyson.

 

TYSON, Cicely

Born: 12/19/1924, Harlem, New York City, New York, U.S.A.

Died:1/28/2021, Harlem, New York City, New York, U.S.A.

Cicely Tyson’s westerns – actress:

Cowboy in Africa (TV) – 1967 (Julie Anderson)

Gunsmoke (TV) – 1970 (Rachel Biggs)

Here Come the Brides (TV) – 1970 (Princess Lucenda)

RIP Sonny Fox

 

Sonny Fox, TV Host Who Connected With Kids on 'Wonderama,' Dies at 95

The Hollywood Reporter

By Mike Barnes, Scott Feinberg

1/28/2021

 

A POW during World War II, he also emceed the game show 'The $64,000 Challenge' and produced Tom Snyder's 'Tomorrow.'

Sonny Fox, the beloved pioneer of kids television who demonstrated an amazing one-on-one rapport with children as the host of the New York-based Sunday morning program Wonderama, has died. He was 95.

Fox died Sunday of pneumonia induced by COVID-19 in a hospital in Encino, his daughter, Meredith Fox, told The Hollywood Reporter.

A native of Brooklyn who was a prisoner of war during World War II, Fox also served as a wartime correspondent for the Voice of America; emceed game shows like The $64,000 Challenge and The Price Is Right; and was the inaugural producer on the groundbreaking late-night talk show Tomorrow, hosted by Tom Snyder.

In 1959, Fox was hired to replace Bill Britten and Doris Faye as the host of Wonderama on the Metromedia station WNEW-TV, Channel 5 in New York.

"We had an audience, maybe 50 kids in the studio," he recalled in a 2008 chat with Karen Herman for the TV Academy Foundation website The Interviews. "Just from keeping them from getting bored between takes, I started talking with them, doing some games with them, and then one of the guys said, 'Why don't you do that on the air?'

"I gradually began to understand what the show was about; the show was about me and the kids and about exploring their minds and getting to see where I could take them. Then the show began to be hugely successful. After about a year, I had [the kids'] trust, their loyalty."

Wonderama was on for four hours every Sunday when Fox was on board, and it also featured cartoons; games like Musical Chairs and Simon Says; magic tricks from The Amazing Randi; art instruction and spelling bees; and lots and lots of prizes. Parents pleaded to get their kids on the show.

Popular segments included Fox trying to guess the punch lines to kids' jokes, and guests included Sen. Robert Kennedy, who appeared for four straight years around Christmastime to take questions from youngsters in a news conference format.

He was called "the Carson of our elementary school years."

Fox stuck with the show until exiting in 1967 to co-host an adult talk show for Channel 5 in 1967, but it was his time on Wonderama that would remain unforgettable.

A half-century later, he was still getting emails "from my kids who are now in their 50s, and some of them are quite extraordinary. One came from a young man who said, 'I lived in a house where my father was cold and distant, and you were my father figure. I know you thought of it as a job, but to a lot of us, it was a lot more.' "

Born in his home in Brooklyn on June 17, 1925, Irwin "Sonny" Fox attended P.S. 217, Erasmus Hall High School and then James Madison High School, from which he graduated in 1942.

He intended to follow his father, Abe, in the textile business, but that changed when he took courses in radio writing and producing at NYU. "Halfway through the term, I said, 'Ooh, that's what I really want to do,' " he said.

Fox had to leave school when he was drafted into the U.S. Army, and he was serving as an infantryman when he was captured in Germany in 1944 and held as a POW for about 3 1/2 months before being rescued. He survived even after insisting that he was a Jew.

Back home, Fox finished college and landed a job for $35 a week on Allen Funt's Candid Microphone — the radio forerunner of TV's Candid Camera — helped by the fact that his mother knew Funt's mother.

After writing for a radio comedy show and working in advertising, Fox joined the Voice of America as a correspondent. He traveled around the country "trying to explain the U.S.A. to the rest of the world" and covered the Korean War for a year.

In 1954, Fox moved to St. Louis to host and produce The Finder, a kids show on KETC, one of the first educational TV stations in the U.S. That in turn led him back to New York for a three-year gig as host of CBS' Let's Take a Trip, a live Sunday program that took the same two kids on a field trip to an iconic U.S. location every week.

While working on Let's Take a Trip, Fox was hired in 1956 to host the CBS game show The $64,000 Challenge, a new Sunday night spinoff of the Tuesday night ratings sensation The $64,000 Question. Even though the show was a hit, he never found his footing and was fired after five months, to be replaced by Ralph Story. "I was sort of relieved," he said.

Although he was never crazy about game shows, he did work occasionally as host of The Price Is Right, Beat the Clock, To Tell the Truth, I've Got a Secret and The Movie Game.

During his 8 1/2-year stint on Wonderama, Fox also created and hosted another Channel 5 kids show, the 2 1/2-hour Saturday morning program Just for Fun!, and hosted and packaged On Your Mark, an ABC game show for children.

On Wonderama, "I had four hours, so I could watch the kid after he said his first sentence, stop talking and keep on watching him or her, and then pause, and then the kid would start up again, and that's when the gold would come out," he recalled. "You had to have time for that.

"Remember, when I was doing it, to change the channel you had to get off the sofa, go over to the television set and change the bloody channel. Now the kids have the wands in their hands and everyone is afraid that if we take a breath, click, they're on to something else. So it has made silence, such as we had on my show, or time, such as we had on Wonderama, precious and almost nonexistent."

Fox left to co-host a daily 2 1/2-hour Channel 5 talk show called The New Yorkers, but that didn't last long. In 1976, he helped get Tomorrow, a 1 a.m.-2 a.m. on NBC, off the ground but quit after seven months.

He then ran children's programming for NBC in 1977; served as the president of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in New York; and produced telefilms and programs like The Songwriters and The Golden Age of Television.

His memoir, But You Made the Front Page: Wonderama, War, and a Whole Bunch of Life, was published in 2012.

In addition to his daughter, survivors include sons Dana and Tracy and grandchildren Shaun, Kelley, Corrin, Casey, Melissa, Rachel and Kelly. His son Christopher died in 2014.

Asked in his TV Academy interview about his legacy, he replied: "I'd like to be remembered as somebody who understood and appreciated the moments as they happened, not just in retrospect. I knew, as I was doing what I was doing, how special all of this was — because I assume I've been on borrowed time since a bullet went through my clothing at 19 and missed me."

 

FOX, Sonny (Fox Irwin)

Born: 6/17/1925, Brooklyn, New York, U.S.A.

Died: 1/24/2021, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

Sonny Fox’s western – producer:

Cowboy and the Tiger - 1963