- Patricia Neal, Weekend With Father, 1950. Hale and John Lund e were first choices for the single parents meeting at the rail stationn when sending their kids off to summer camp. And love blooms? Sure, but for Neal and Van Heflin in one of director Douglas Sirk’s rare (intended) comedies.
- Phyllis Avery, Meet Mr McNulty (aka The Ray Milland Show), TV 1953-1955. “My children are too young. I simply can’t do it.” Hale passed on the professor’s wife and gave the same reply to Make Room For Daddy (aka The Danny Thomas Show), and the makers of something called… Perry Mason. The Mason gang insisted. “Gail Patrick, the producer, said I’d be a secretary, not married, so there would be no children on the show (which might confuse my own children), and there wouldn’t be another husband (to upset my own husband). [Laugh]. There’s only be 18 shows, it wouldn’t be that long. Eighteen was okay, but it turned into 300 shows and ran from 1957-1966, and later came back and ran from 1985-1994!” In total, she played Della Street – Perry called “Beautiful!” – for 271 episodes and 30 tele-films!
- Jean Hagen, Make Room For Daddy (aka The Danny Thomas Show), TV, 1953-1956. “My agent even made me go see Danny, but I didn’t want to work at the time; a guest shot was all right. The day I went, at my agent’s insistence, I found out I was pregnant, and you couldn’t be pregnant on TV in those days.” Danny Thomas couldn’t stand Hagen, he never wanted her and when stuck with her, he couldn’t stand her slovenliness. “For God’s sake, Jean, put on a little lipstick.” He got rid of her after the third season and had her character killed off in the fourth – and Marjorie Lord took over for the following 228 episodes
- Yvonne De Carlo, The Ten Commandments, 1954.
- Dana Wynter, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1956. Hale quit movies to became Perry Mason‘s better half – secretary Della Street, 1957-1966, plus some 31 tele-movies, 1985-1995.
Birth year: 1922Death year: 2017Other name: Casting Calls: 5