Ford Star Jubilee
| Ford Star Jubilee | |
|---|---|
Judy Garland rehearsing for the program's premiere, September 24, 1955.
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| Genre | Anthology |
| Written by |
Maxwell Anderson Herbert Baker Jim Bishop Robert Buckner Carroll Carroll Noël Coward Paul Gregory Ben Hecht John Hersey Jean Holloway Charles MacArthur John Cherry Monks, Jr. Denis Sanders Terry Sanders Franklin J. Schaffner John Tackaberry Herman Wouk |
| Directed by | Seymour Berns Noël Coward Frederick de Cordova Paul Harrison Delbert Mann James Neilson Ralph Nelson Paul Nickell Franklin J. Schaffner Jerome Shaw |
| Composer(s) | Frank Denning |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 12 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Richard Lewine |
| Producer(s) | Robert Alton Paul Gregory Lance Hamilton Sidney Luft Ken Murray Jack Rayal Charles Russell Arthur Schwartz |
| Running time | 90 mins. (approx) |
| Release | |
| Original network | CBS |
| Picture format |
Black-and-white Color |
| Audio format | Monaural |
| Original release | September 24, 1955 – November 3, 1956 |
Ford Star Jubilee is an American anthology series that aired once a month on Saturday nights on CBS at 9:00 P.M., E.S.T. from the fall of 1955 to the fall of 1956 (With a summer hiatus). The series was approximately 90 minutes long, broadcast in black-and-white and color, and was typically telecast live. Ford Star Jubilee was sponsored by the Ford Motor Company.
Ford Star Jubilee routinely featured major stars, such as Judy Garland, Betty Grable, Orson Welles, Julie Andrews (at the time that she was preparing for her starring role in My Fair Lady on Broadway), Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby, Lillian Gish, Charles Laughton, Jack Lemmon, Raymond Massey, Lauren Bacall, Claudette Colbert, Noël Coward, Nat 'King' Cole, Mary Martin, Eddie Fisher, Ella Fitzgerald, Red Skelton and Debbie Reynolds.
Instead of the usual live performance staged especially for Ford Star Jubilee, the final episode on November 3, 1956 was a special, two-hour presentation of the 1939 MGM theatrical Technicolor film The Wizard of Oz, hosted by Bert Lahr, 10-year-old Liza Minnelli and young Oz expert Justin Schiller. This marked the first time that the film had ever been shown on television, and the only time that one of the film's actual actors (Lahr) as well as one of the children of the film's star (Judy Garland) hosted it. The broadcast was a critical and ratings smash, but the film was not shown on TV again until 1959, when it was presented by CBS at 6:00 P.M., E.S.T. rather than 9:00 P.M., and this time as a Christmas season special in its own right, not as part of an anthology series. The 1959 telecast was hosted by comedian Red Skelton and his daughter Valentina. This broadcast attracted an even wider audience, because children were able to watch, and thus began the tradition of showing the film annually on television.
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