Seven Things to Know About Connie Stevens

1. Connie Stevens was married and divorced twice by the age of 31. Her first marriage was to actor James Stacy (from the TV series Lancer) from 1963-66. They met while he was filming the Disney movie Summer Magic in Palm Springs. Following their divorce, Connie wed Eddie Fisher in 1967. His marriage to Elizabeth Taylor had ended three years earlier. Although they divorced in 1969, Connie gave birth to two daughters: Joely and Tricia. In his second autobiographical book, Been There, Done That, Fisher wrote: "Connie Stevens remains the nicest ex-wife."

2. Connie was born Concetta Rosalie Ann Ingoglia in Brooklyn, New York. Her father was a jazz drummer who worked under the name Teddy Stevens. Connie adapted "Stevens" as her last name when she became interested in acting and singing. As a teenager, she sang in a quartet called The Fourmost (not to be confused the later British band). That group also included Tony Butala, who would later become a founding member of The Lettermen.

3. After several minor roles in films and TV shows, Connie Stevens landed the part of Cricket Blake on the Warner Bros. television series Hawaiian Eye. The bubbly Cricket was a photographer who helped out private eyes played by Anthony Eisley and Robert Conrad. Cricket also performed at a hotel's shell bar, which gave Stevens plenty of opportunities to sing on the show.

4. In 1959, Connie performed the song "Kookie, Kookie (Lend Me Your Comb)" with Edd Byrnes, who starred as Kookie on 77 Sunset Strip, another Warner Bros. detective show. The novelty song is mostly spoken, but it hit an impressive No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. A year later, Connie Stevens had a #3 hit with the song Sixteen Reasons. It was her only other Top 40 record, although she continued to record for many years.

Troy Donahue and Connie.

5. Concurrent with starring in Hawaiian Eye, Warner Bros. also cast Connie Stevens in movies targeted at young adult audiences. She had a supporting role as one of Troy Donahue's three loves in Parrish (1961), which made a nice profit at the box office. She was teamed with Troy again that same year as the title character in Susan Slade. In 1963, she made a third film with Donahue, the teen comedy Palm Springs Weekend--though her love interest was Ty Hardin and Troy was paired with Stefanie Powers.

6. When Hawaiian Eye was canceled, Connie Stevens starred in the TV sitcom Wendy and Me, in which she and Ron Harper played a young couple living in an apartment building owned by George Burns. In our interview with Ron Harper, he spoke fondly of working with Connie, but was frustrated with Burns' lengthy monologues which opened every episode. The series lasted one season.


7. When her film and TV career slowed down in the 1960s, she began appearing regularly in Las Vegas nightclubs--something that would continue for many years. In her autobiography Growing Up Fisher, daughter Joely Fisher wrote of her mother's Vegas act: "She was ahead of her time in her eclectic choices, which were sometimes met with criticism, because everyone wanted to hear 'Sixteen Reasons' ...It wasn't always what the audience thought they wanted but she wooed them, won them over with her set list, her sensibility, her sexual, sensual performance. It was electric."

Parrish: Our Choice for the Classic Comfort Movie Blogathon

Troy Donahue as Parrish.

A "comfort movie" is like a good friend who is always a welcomed visitor, no matter how long it's been since you seen him or her. It's fun to share familiar characters, plots, and settings and remember how one felt when that movie first became your chum. That's certainly the case with Parrish (1961), which I first saw on TNT in the early 1990s.

I think I inherited an enjoyment of big-screen soaps from my mother. Make no mistake, Parrish is unabashedly a soap, but don't let that sway you from watching this opus about young Parrish McLean (Troy Donahue) and the four women in his life. The first of those is his mother Ellen, who has perhaps kept her son too close in the ten years following her husband's death. That changes when Ellen (Claudette Colbert) takes a job as a chaperone for the daughter of Connecticut tobacco farmer Sala Post (Dean Jagger).

Diane McBain as Alison.

Parrish winds up working for Sala and quickly falls for Lucy (Connie Stevens), one of his fellow crop workers. Lucy has the hots for Parrish, too, but is reluctantly seeing someone else. However, what  really cools their passion is the arrival of Sala's debutante daughter Alison (Diane McBain). She wants three things in life: wealth, fun, and Parrish. 

Meanwhile, Ellen is being wooed by Sala's tobacco rival Judd Raike (Karl Malden). Judd is a ruthless, powerful man, but he genuinely cares for Ellen and, as she admits to her son, Judd's fortune is an attraction, too. While the Raike sons, wimpy Wiley and hateful Edgar, make quick enemies of Parrish, Judd's teenage daughter Paige develops a crush on him. 

Who will Parrish end up with? The passionate Lucy, the sultry Alison, or the sweet Paige? Or none of the above?

Troy Donahue and Connie Stevens.

Parrish is a faithful adaptation of Mildred Savage's 1958 bestseller. According to Diane McBain's autobiography, Warner Bros. originally purchased the film rights for director Joshua Logan (Picnic). Logan wanted Vivien Leigh as Ellen and Clark Gable as Judd. He also screen tested Warren Beatty for the lead role. McBain says that Logan rejected the first draft of the screenplay and he was replaced by Delmer Daves. The latter was coming off A Summer Place, a big hit which shared a lot in common with Parrish (e.g., parents experiencing romance as well as the youths, star Troy Donahue).

I can't imagine a more appropriate cast than the one assembled by Daves. Troy Donahue certainly lacks Beatty's dramatic chops, but he brings sincerity and naivety to the lead role. Colbert (in her final film appearance) and Jagger add a nice touch of class.

Malden looking intense as Judd.

But the film belongs to Karl Malden and the young actresses who play Parrish's loves. Malden is delightfully over-the-top as Raike and makes him the most demanding movie boss this side of Everett Sloane in Patterns. Connie Stevens shines as the vulnerable, free-spirited Lucy, her performance earning her the lead in another Daves-Donahue collaboration Susan Slade (1961). Diane McBain smolders as Alison, although she was subsequently typecast as the bad girl in films like Claudelle Inglish (1961). (Interestingly, McBain claims there was a bit of a rift on the set between the young performers and the older ones.)

Actress Susan Hugueny, who played Paige, met producer Robert Evans (Chinatown) while making Parrish. She was 17 and he was 30, but they were married (though it was short-lived). It was the first of seven marriages for Evans, who once described Hugueny as "so pure I felt guilty kissing her."

Susan Hugueny as Paige.

In addition to the cast, Parrish's other virtues are its colorful outdoor photography (a staple of Daves' latter films) and another fabulous score from frequent Daves' collaborator Max Steiner. The famed composer includes separate themes for each of the four female characters, with my favorite being the lilting melody for Paige.

I saved one of the most fascinating facts about Parrish for last. Hampton Fancher, who played Edgar, was relegated to TV guest star roles for much of his career. In 1982, though, he tried his hand as a screenwriter and adapted Blade Runner. He also penned the story and co-wrote the script for Blade Runner 2049 (2017). As always, should this knowledge net you a large cash prize on Jeopardy!, be sure to show your gratitude to the Cafe.


Click here to check out the rest of the awesome schedule the Classic Comfort Movie Blogathon in support of National Classic Movie Day.

Connie Stevens and Dean Jones Make for "Two on a Guillotine"

Connie Stevens as Cassie.

Who is the mysterious young woman at the funeral of The Great Duquesne? She could be the spitting image of the famous magician's wife Melinda, who disappeared without explanation twenty years earlier. And what's up with the casket fitted with a window and wrapped in chains?

The young woman turns out to be Duquesne's daughter Cassie, who was raised by an aunt in Wisconsin and barely knew her parents. As for the unusual casket, a newspaper headline informs us that Duquesne has vowed to return from the dead.

As if being hounded by the press wasn't bad enough, Cassie (Connie Stevens) learns of an unusual condition to her $300,000 inheritance. She must spend seven consecutive nights in her father's mansion from midnight to dawn. If she fails to do so, then the estate will be divided between Duquesne's agent Buzzy and his caretaker Dolly.

The Great Duquesne and his guillotine.

Two on a Guillotine sounds like a William Castle film and one can just imagine the kind of gimmicks that could have accompanied it. However, this easygoing 1965 thriller was helmed by William Conrad. Yes, the man who voiced Matt Dillon on radio and later played Cannon on TV also directed movies. In fact, his follow-up was another 1965 thriller, My Blood Runs Cold, which featured Connie Stevens' frequent co-star Troy Donahue.

Dean Jones as Connie's love interest.

In lieu of Troy, Connie is paired with Disney regular Dean Jones in Two on a Guillotine. The affable Jones plays a newspaper journalist who starts out to get a story on Cassie and ends up falling in love with her. He also helps her figure out the source of the midnight moans and rattling chains in the Duquesne house.

Two on a Guillotine is a genial diversion, though it's easily seventeen minutes too long (90 minutes should be the standard for teen-oriented drive-in pictures!). Also, assuming that there are no ghosts, there's a paucity of suspects trying to drive Connie out of the house (if that's the intent).

Cesar Romero as the magician.

Conrad's direction is pretty straightforward with the exception of one Hithcockian moment. As Dean leans in to kiss Connie in a loud, rock'n'roll club, the music segues to Max Steiner's lush score. Dean pulls back from the kiss to reveal that he and Connie are now alone in her father's house.

There's also a priceless instance of unintentional foreshadowing. When Dean's character wants to reassure Cassie that he's the protective type, he jokes: "I'm half Saint Bernard." Eleven years later, Dean starred in Disney's The Shaggy D.A. His character wasn't a Saint Bernard, but he could transform into a sheepdog. Now, that's spooky!

Here's a clip from Two on Guillotine, courtesy of warnerarchive.com, which you can view full-screen on the Classic Film & TV Cafe YouTube channel. (You can also stream the entire movie at Warner Archive).

Get Ready for a Palm Springs Weekend!

Stefanie Powers and Troy Donahue.

As soon as Troy Donahue starts warbling "Live Young" over the opening credits, it's clear that you'll either find Palm Springs Weekend to be nostalgic fun or a dated disaster. I fall into the former camp; I hold a special affection for the fluffy teen pics of the 1960s, from classics like Beach Blanket Bingo to lesser-known imitations like A Swingin' Summer. Unlike many of those youth films, Palm Springs Weekend isn't a musical, though it does boast the only known duet between Ty (Bronco) Hardin and Jerry Van Dyke. Plus, it offers something that its competitors can't--a wealth of promising young performers who were all under contract to Warner Bros. at the time.

Ty Hardin and Connie Stevens.

Written by Earl Hamner, Jr. (who would later create The Waltons), Palm Springs Weekend opens with the spring vacation invasion of the famed California resort city. College basketball star Jim Munroe (Donahue) and his teammates believe they have elluded their coach en route from L.A. to Palm Springs. Alas, their crafty coach (Jack Weston) is onboard the bus, too, and his presence puts a crimp in their plans. That doesn't stop Jim from meeting Gail (Connie Stevens), who also claims to be a college student seeking fun in the sun.

Robert Conrad as the rich bad boy.

But romance isn't in the cards for Jim and Gail. She becomes wooed by both a rich bad boy (Robert Conrad) and a nice Hollywood stunt man named Stretch (Hardin). Meanwhile, Jim hooks up with Palm Springs local Bunny (Stefanie Powers), whose father is the grumpy chief of police. As if there was any doubt that love is the air, Coach Campbell becomes smitten with the motel owner (Carole Cook) and Jim's pal Biff (Van Dyke) finds love with Gail's roommate Amanda (Zeme North). Just to make sure things don't get too icky with all the romance, there's a young brat named Boom Boom (Billy Mumy), who wreaks havoc by turning the swimming pool into a giant bubble bath.

Yes, Palm Springs Weekend is frequently silly, but the peppy young cast keeps it entertaining and never lets the proceedings turn into a spoof. There's even a modest amount of depth to some of the characters. Conrad's troublemaker turns out to be a lonely lad dealing with an absentee father. Connie Stevens' Gail is actually a high school student named Jane, whose identity crisis almost leads to a bad situation. Still, Palm Springs Weekend has no illusions of being taken seriously, not even to the point of Gidget or Where the Boys Are (both of which dealt fleetingly with more mature themes).

Jerry Van Dyke and Zeme North, whose
career fizzled in the late 1960s.

Interestingly, about half the Palm Springs Weekend cast was appearing in Warner Bros. TV series concurrently and the other half were set to launch long-running TV careers. Ty Hardin was starring in the Western Bronco, a spinoff of Cheyenne that was created when Clint Walker had a contract dispute with Warners. Robert Conrad and Connie Stevens both appeared in the exotic detective series Hawaiian Eye (Conrad later starred in Wild, Wild West). Troy appeared in the Miami-set private eye series Surfside 6. Stefanie Powers would become The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. before the decade ended and Billy Mumy would gain fame as Will Robinson in Lost in Space. Jerry Van Dyke appeared in many sitcoms, the most unususal being My Mother the Car, in which his deceased mother was reincarnated as a 1928 antique auto voiced by Ann Sothern. Decades later, he'd have greater success as a supporting player on the sitcom Coach.

The bottom line is that if you like these performers and enjoy the "1960s teen pic" genre, Palm Springs Weekend is a celluloid gretaway for you.

Connie and Troy Find Love (Eventually) in "Susan Slade"

This third collaboration between writer-director Delmer Daves and teen heartthrob Troy Donahue lacks the youthful passion of A Summer Place and the entertaining subplots of Parrish. Still, it’s a diverting big-screen soap with all the elements of Daves’s polished formula: beautiful scenery (the Monterey coast line), first-time love, affluent people, well-developed relationships between young people and their parents, and a lovely music score by Max Steiner (though it’s not as memorable as the ones he did for the previous two films).

Connie Stevens (graduating from a supporting role in Parrish) plays the title character, a naïve young woman who has spent her teenage years in Chile with her parents. Her father, Roger Slade (Lloyd Nolan), has worked as a chief engineer for a mine company, earning his boss, Stanton Corbett, over $20 million. To show his gratitude, Corbett has bought a home along the Monterey coast for Roger’s family and provided a substantial pension.

Connie Stevens in the title role.

On the ocean cruise to California, Susan falls in love with rich playboy Conn White (Grant Williams), who climbs mountains in lieu of a job. It’s hard to tell initially if Conn (I love that name) truly cares for Susan, but he is physically attracted to her. Believing that she has found her true love, Susan gives in to Conn’s desires. As is inevitable in any good soap, Susan becomes pregnant. When fate intervenes to keep Susan and Conn apart, Susan’s mother devises an unintentionally cruel plan to protect the family from scandal.

Dorothy McGuire as Susan's mother.

A strong cast puts their all into this melodrama, especially Connie Stevens who is winningly vulnerable and believable in her best film role. As her mother, the ever-elegant Dorothy McGuire gets the picture’s juiciest part—her Leah Slade is a well-meaning parent whose motives for helping her daughter ultimately become questionable. Surprisingly, Troy’s role is pretty much a supporting one, a slight variation of the chip-on-his-shoulder young man he played in Parrish. Still, as in that film, he and Connie share a natural chemistry that brings a sweetness to their scenes together.

TV fans can also take delight in seeing Natalie Schafer giving what amounts to a dress rehearsal for her most famous role—as Mrs. Howell on Gilligan’s Island. Almost as rewarding is the opportunity to see future game show host Bert Convy as Wells (another great name), Susan’s snobby, stinking-rich suitor (you just know that he doesn’t have a chance).

After Susan Slade, Delmer Daves and Troy Donahue would pair up one last time. However, the travelogue romance Rome Adventure broke from the successful soap formula and, perhaps as a result, its boxoffice failed to match A Summer Place, Parrish, and Susan Slade. It could also be that—as always happens with teen heartthrobs—Troy’s popularity was beginning to fade. Still, Rome Adventure had one positive result for Troy: It introduced him to his wife Suzanne Pleshette.

Warner Bros. Classic TV Detectives Were the "Ginchiest" - Part 2

Inspired by the success of 77 Sunset Strip, Warner Bros. launched three other TV detective series over the next two years. They all featured the same formula: attractive performers, exotic locales, straightforward mysteries, and a healthy dose of humor. Characters often crossed over from one series to another, a nifty way to promote the less successful shows on the more popular ones.

The biggest hit of the new series was Hawaiian Eye (1959-63), which starred Anthony Eisely and Robert Conrad (whose character was supposed to be half-Hawaiian) as private investigators in Honolulu. They worked out of the posh Hawaiian Village Hotel. They were often aided--even when they didn't want it--by Cricket (Connie Stevens), a nightclub singer/photographer, and ukulele-playing cabbie Kim (Poncie Ponce). One of the running gags of the show was that Kim had relatives all over the island. That often proved handy when looking for a missing person or gathering evidence to solve a murder.

Later in the first season, the agency hired another investgator played by Grant Williams (The Incredible Shrinking Man). When Eiseley left after three years, Troy Donahue joined the cast as the social director of the hotel for the fourth and final season.

Although it never captured the public fancy to the extent of 77 Sunset Strip, Hawaiian Eye was a solid hit and laid the groundwork for future private eye shows set in the islands (e.g., Hawaii Five-O, Magnum, P.I.).

Duggan, Howell, Williams, and Long.

Bourbon Street Beat (1959-60) starred Andrew Duggan and Richard Long as private detectives in New Orleans. They operated the agency Randolph and Calhoun Special Services on the second floor of The Old Absinthe House restaurant in the French Quarter. Kenny Madison (Van Williams), a young law student, assisted them on some cases and Melody Lee Mercer (Arlene Howell) keep the office running. When the series was cancelled after one season, Richard Long's character, Rex Randolph, joined 77 Sunset Strip. Van Williams returned as Kenny Madison the following year in a new series called Surfside 6. Ironically, his new show even stayed in the same slot of Monday, 0830-9:30.


Sierra, Donahue, Patterson, McBain,
and Williams.

Set in Miami, Surfside 6 (the title is a telephone exchange) cast Van Williams with Lee Patterson and Troy Donahue as a trio of young private detectives who worked out of a houseboat that doubled as their digs. They also received their share of unwanted help from ditzy socialite Daphne Dutton (Diane McBain), whose yacht was anchored next door, and Cha Cha O'Brien (Margarite Sierra), who sang in the Boom Boom Room in the ritzy Fountainebleau Hotel. Surfside 6  lasted for two seasons.
While these TV series were still on the air, Warner Bros. capitalized on the popularity of its young stable of stars by casting them in theatrical films--even at the risk of overexpose. Troy Donahue, Connie Stevens, and Diane McBain all appeared in Parrish (1961). Stevens and Donahue paired up again for Susan Slade (1961), with Grant Williams making a brief appearance as well. Donahue and Conrad played adversaries in Palm Springs Weekend. And Diane McBaine got a starring role (and was very good) as Claudelle Inglish (1961), an  Erskine Caldwell Southern tale about a girl with a bad reputation.

Diane McBain.

While none of the Warner Bros. detective series could be described as great television, they were all diverting and provided great experience for a number of likable young actors who continued to appear on the big screen and small screen. Richard Long surfaced opposite Barbara Stanwyck in the TV series The Big Valley. Robert Conrad landed his most famous role in Wild, Wild West. Connie Stevens had a #3 hit song with "Sixteen Reasons" and parlayed that into a long-lasting career as an entertainer. Troy Donahue's film career gradually declined, though he later appeared in a supporting role in The Godfather Part II. Finally, Van Williams starred in The Green Hornet TV with Bruce Lee. The show only lasted a season and Williams retired from acting shortly afterwards. However, he used his business savvy to amass a tidy fortune.