The Loretta Young Show
| Letter to Loretta | |
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Letter to Loretta video cover
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| Also known as | 'The Loretta Young Show' |
| Genre | Anthology/Drama |
| Directed by | Laslo Benedek, Richard Carlson (actor), Richard Donner, Robert Florey, Norman Foster (director), Rudolph Maté, Richard Morris, John Newland, Tay Garnett, Jeffrey Hayden, Don Weis |
| Presented by | Loretta Young |
| Theme music composer | Harry Lubin |
| Opening theme | "Loretta" |
| Composer(s) | Harry Lubin |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 8 |
| No. of episodes | 165 |
| Production | |
| Camera setup | Single-camera |
| Running time | 30 minutes (including commercials) |
| Production company(s) | Lewislor Films (1953–58) Toreto Enterprises (1958–61) |
| Release | |
| Original network | NBC |
| Picture format | Black-and-white |
| Audio format | Monaural |
| Original release | September 2, 1953 – June 4, 1961 |
Letter to Loretta (later known as The Loretta Young Show) is an American anthology drama television series broadcast on Sunday nights from September 2, 1953, to June 4, 1961, on NBC for a total of 165 episodes. The series was hosted by Academy Award-winning actress Loretta Young, who also played the lead in various episodes.
Letter to Loretta was sponsored by Procter & Gamble for its first seven seasons, from 1953 to 1960. For its eighth and final season, from 1960 to 1961, the series was sponsored by Warner-Lambert's Listerine.
The program began with the premise that each drama was an answer to a question asked in her fan mail; the program's original title was Letter to Loretta. The title was changed to The Loretta Young Show during the first season (as of February 14, 1954), and the "letter" concept was dropped altogether at the end of the second season. At this time, Young's health, which had deteriorated due to a heavy production schedule during the second season, required that there be a number of guest hosts and guest stars; her first appearance in the 1955–56 season was for the Christmas show.
From this point on, Young appeared in only about half of each season's shows as an actress and merely functioned as the program hostess for the remainder. She became known for swirling around in her gowns during her entrance through a door at the start of the show, a convention parodied by many comedians, including Ernie Kovacs. This program, minus Young's introductions and summarized conclusions (Young insisted on their deletion due to her concern that the dresses she wore in those segments would "date" the program), was rerun in daytime by NBC as The Loretta Young Theatre from October 1960 to December 1964, and then appeared, again without the introductions and conclusions, in syndication through the 1970s. In 1992, selected episodes of the original series (with Young's opening and closing segments intact), authorized by Young herself and chosen from her personal collection of 16mm film prints, were released on home video, and eventually shown on cable television.
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