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H
APPINESS TO SHARE
The Kuklapolitans are a gay family off the stage, too — for each gambled and won a future which embraces a heart as well as a mind
By LILLA ANDERSON
Fran Allison had the sniffles. Being Fran, she also had a morning-to-midnight schedule. Fitted tightly around the week's professional commitments — to do three Aunt Fanny dissertations for Breakfast Club, five Kukla, Fran And Ollie radio shows and Sunday's big NBC television production — were a multitude of business and social appointments.
In the habit of sailing through them as happy as a high-school girl at prom time, she refused to admit a stubborn cold could stop her.
It worried Burr Tillstrom. His concern increased when Fran's husband, Archie Levington, went out of town on a business trip and asked Burr to watch out for her.
As they plotted the radio program, he felt the time had come for drastic action and suggested, "Frannie, let's put a second show on tape. Then you stay home all day tomorrow and get some rest."
Fran shook her head. "You know some one would telephone, expecting me somewhere, and away I'd go."
Burr had thought of that. "What you need is sitters. I'll bring you lunch at noon. Beulah will take over at 2:00 P.M. Cathy will get all the newspapers. Mary will cook dinner. Jack will bring you that new song. When I return, I'll pick up Gommy and Joe. We'll all have a
quiet little party and you'll get over your cold."
Such projects, executed in real life, account for the spirit which wins Kukla, Fran And Ollie a place among the most lovable characters in radio and television. The fondness so apparent in all the doings of the little people is only a public reflection of the affection which, in private life, binds — into a large and lively family — Burr Tillstrom, Fran Allison and the people who work with them.
It's a "professional" family rather than a "bybirth" affiliation. No one of its eight members is related to another. They first met in 1947 at WBKB, Paramount's pioneer station, when all Chicago had only 353 television sets, network broadcasting was only a hope, and theirs became the first commercially sponsored program. When the show moved to NBC, all went along.
Head-of-the-family Burr Tillstrom includes himself when he says it is composed of "a bunch of strong-minded, stubborn, independent individuals— thank goodness."
Their backgrounds vary, yet that strongminded independence of which he speaks accounts for one experience unanimously possessed. Prior to their working together, each has sometime walked out of the safe, secure career and gambled his future to achieve a goal sensed rather than seen. (Continued on page 73)
Kukla, Fran And Ollie— NBC-TV, Sun ., 4 P.M. EST ( sponsored every other week by RCA Victor ) — NBC Radio, M-F, 2 :45 P.M.
Heads of the family: Burr Tillstrom's the lad
who created Kukla, Fran And Ollie — Beulah Zachary (at
left) produces it — Fran Allison stars in it!
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