No Trouble in My Paradise

The Emmys were last night. Alerts notified me of the results. We weren't watching.

Let me tell you what we have been watching lately, "The Lieutenant" from 1963-4. It was the first series produced, and principally written, by Gene Roddenberry. It stars Gary Lockwood, pre-"2001: A Space Odyssey", in the title roll.   Robert Vaughn, "Man from U.N.C.L.E.", is the gruff captain. Looking through the cast list, I see many actors who went on to acclaim, like Greg Morris on "Mission: Impossible."

I find it fascinating to think of this show in historical context. It is similar to "Dr. Kildare", in the slice-of-life portrayal of a young, idealistic professional out to prove themselves. However, this is a lieutenant is fresh from Annapolis and Quantico, arriving at Camp Pendleton, CA. It is so hard to watch the training exercises showing napalm demonstrations without thinking about Viet Nam. I can imagine that Gene Roddenberry was happy to move his military operations into the future with Star Trek.

We often springboard on actors with our viewing. IMDB, streaming videos and our own collection of DVD's make it relatively easy to track down the careers of people who catch our fancy.

The second episode of the series featured Kathryn Hays. Although I watched some soap operas in my youth, I didn't watch "As the World Turns" or "The Guiding Light". Ms. Hays was featured in both. We put on our viewing list episodes from "Hawaiian Eye", "Surfside Six" and "Dr. Kildare".

We turned to our "Route 66" DVD to watch an episode from late in the series that I may not have seen before. It was after George Maharis was replaced by Glen Corbett and I lost interest in watching the series.

As the story unfolded, my breath was taken away. There was Miriam Hopkins, not all that much older than I am now, famed actress of  "Trouble in Paradise", "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", "Becky Sharp", "These Three" and many others. She gave a understated performance that brought tears to my eyes.

I wanted to show you an image of her from the DVD, but I can't seem to manage it. Here is a vintage poster from the great Lubitsch film.

We took a while to get there there, but we ended up in paradise. I think you can imagine what has moved to the top of my viewing list.