Steve Randisi, author of Penny Singleton: A Biography
Original Airdates: Dec. 13-16, 2024
TVC 670.2: Ed welcomes back film and television historian Steve Randisi (The Merv Griffin Show: The Inside Story, Behind the Crimson Cape: The Cinema of George Reeves). Steve’s latest book, Penny Singleton: A Biography, chronicles the life and career of the actress who not only achieved worldwide fame in the 1930s and ’40s at the star of the Blondie movie series from Columbia Pictures (and, later, to TV audiences as the voice of Jane Jetson on the original Jetsons TV series and, later, the Jetsons movie), who but who made history in 1958 when she became the first female president of an AFL-CIO union, the American Guild of Variety Artists. Topics this segment includes how much of Singleton’s personal history as an entertainer coincides with the history of show business at large in the 20th century. Penny Singleton: A Biography is available from Bear Manor Media.
How Dorothy McNulty Became Penny Singleton
Original Airdates: Dec. 13-16, 2024
TVC 670.3: Steve Randisi, author of Penny Singleton: A Biography, talks to Ed how about Singleton came to adopt her screen name; why Singleton had a lot of the Blondie character as a person; and why the Blondie movies continue to endure after ninety years. Penny Singleton: A Biography is available from Bear Manor Media.
Penny Singleton, Harry Cohn, and Rod Serling
Original Airdates: Jan. 3-6, 2025
TVC 672.3: Part 2 of a conversation that began just before the holidays with Steve Randisi, author of Penny Singleton: A Biography, a comprehensive look at the life and career of the actress who not only achieved worldwide fame in the 1930s and ’40s as the star of the Blondie movie series from Columbia Pictures (and, later, to TV audiences as the voice of Jane Jetson on the original Jetsons TV series and, later, the Jetsons movie), but who made history in 1958 when she became the first female president of an AFL-CIO union, the American Guild of Variety Artists. Topics this segment include how Singleton was nearly fired from the first Blondie picture because of an incident over a cigarette; the values she formed while growing up in South Philadelphia; and how her longtime connection with Rod Serling resulted in her appearance opposite John McGiver in the Twilight Zone episode “Sounds and Silences.” Penny Singleton: A Biography is available from Bear Manor Media.
