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April 30: Happy Birthday, Eve Arden

Eve Arden was born--as Eunice Quedens, on this day in 1908. However, we know her as Our Miss Brooks, the star and title character of the long-running radio series about a witty and wise school teacher. The show actually hauled in an award from The National Education Association for its sympathetic portrayal of teachers.

On Our Miss Brooks, Mrs. Brooks interacted with the bio teacher, Mr. Boynton (Jeff Chandler), Principal Conklin (Gale Gordon), and Walter Denton, one of her wacky students, played by Richard Crenna.

For her efforts, Eve Arden won a Radio Mirror magazine readers' poll for best comedienne of 1948-49.

Though her own series was her claim to fame, Arden also guested on The Danny Kaye Show, and The Lux Radio Theater.

Comments

  1. A dandy.

    walter denton thanks you, mr. boynton thanks you, osgood conklin thanks you and I thank you!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, EVE. Just saw he in Anatomy of a Murder...love her.

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  2. One of my favorite teachers. Wonderful actress and radio personality. Wrinkled fender and all Happy Birthday Miss Brooks. I still love her after all these years.

    I'll always remember her memorable line in the first Grease film: "If you can't be an athlete, at least be an athletic supporter!"

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  3. Miss Brooks was a great character. She brought a lot of humanity to the teaching profession. Eve was superb.

    Shirley Booth originally read for that role. I've heard her audition and she was terrible, which was unusual for Shirley Booth. I got the feeling she was unsure if Miss Brooks was supposed to be a comic or tragic figure.

    The radio Our Miss brooks shows are priceless!!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Harry Ackerman, who produced the audition, probably said it best when he said Shirley Booth's problem was that she just couldn't find or bring humour to the part of a barely-at-the-poverty-level high school teacher. My own take is that she sounded too much as though Miss Duffy were trying to sneak her way onto a high school faculty and figured out the hard way that she'd never bring it off. Not that anyone should have worried, considering what was still in Shirley Booth's future . . .

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  5. Interestingly enough, gale Gordon was born in 1906, Eve Arden in 1908, jeff Chandler in 1918 and richard Crenna in 1926, which made mr boynton 10 years younger than miss brooks and walter denton 8 years younger than mr. Boynton. And miss brooks 12 years older than walter denton.

    After he quit doing radio he became a very much sought after dialect coach and did a lot of that work in a lot of movies, John Travolta and I believe Forest Whittaker ifhe was the one who played Idi Amin. Look him up in Wikipedia, lots of interesting stuff and he looked just like I remembered him. As to the Eve Arden typo,I figured that auto correct took over like it usually does. Thanks for the thank you and not getting mad. Hey, how about Henry Aldrich. He was loads of fun too. Have a super week.

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  6. Our Miss Brooks is my favorite! A laugh a minute. One of our favorite lines is when Miss Brooks and Harriett Conklin are having lunch an Harriett says something like, "Don't you like having lunch sometimes without the men around?" To which Miss Brooks replies, "Well, yes and no." "What do you mean 'yes and no'?" "No."

    ReplyDelete

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