Emily May Wow! Always a treat to hear from relatives of the contestants! Do you remember her talking at all about what her experience being on the show was like?

+Emily May What a fun and charming guest she was!

Thank you for the kind comments. I do have some stories from her about the filming of that episode. She was in the green room with Joan Fontaine. I will talk to her and get the details and share here. I just figured out how to reply to these comments. Duh. :-) Emily

Emily May That would be wonderful, Emily! I know I'm not the only WML fan who would love to hear whatever memories your mom has to share. Recently the daughter of another contestant shared some of her mom's memories of being on the show, and the folks in our Facebook group for WML were just as excited as I was. :) If you're on Facebook and have any interest in checking out the group, we'd love to see you there, but if not, I look forward to any further comments you can add here. It's pretty rare to hear from relatives of contestants-- and I've yet to ever hear from one of the actual contestants directly! Here's a link to the Facebook group if you're interested: facebook.com/groups/728471287199862/

Hi Emily, I'm the daughter referred to above. I joined the Facebook group and they are such a nice, fun group of respectful folk! Your mom is gorgeous! The atmosphere on your mom's episode is such a contrast from the one my mom was on which was the first episode after the death of Dorothy Kilgallen. Was there a meet and greet after the episode?

been sitting here watching all of these in rapid succession tonight hahahahaha

You all probably dont give a shit but does anybody know a trick to get back into an Instagram account..? I was stupid forgot the login password. I appreciate any tricks you can offer me!

@Zakai Gerald instablaster :)

@Royal Trevor i really appreciate your reply. I got to the site through google and I'm trying it out atm. I see it takes quite some time so I will reply here later when my account password hopefully is recovered.

@Royal Trevor It did the trick and I now got access to my account again. I'm so happy! Thank you so much, you saved my ass :D

@Zakai Gerald no problem :)

yes. but a lot of pointless time wasting. four minutes to go and walks in front of the panel, quite silly

A lovely man.

What do you need TV for when you can stream all of the amazingness on youtube on your TV?

Don't feel bad Time Lord, it's much better then the crap we put on modern American TV as well. As a matter of fact I enjoy watching the older shows on BBC America myself.

I stopped watching television five years ago. While there are a few things I miss (college sports, Discovery and History channels and similar), the vast majority of programming was too vulgar, too violent or too vapid to tolerate any longer. Having marvelous programs such as WML to watch is a delight!

I know what you mean! I stopped watching TV before you did for the same reason! But I don't miss it, especially today's programming!

so do i, although i no longer live in my home town . estbourne. real class and wit . cheers from Spain

The best

Rebecca is one of my favorite films.

I mean, both of her parents were British, right? So, presumably, she grew up with an English accent.

She was born in Japan , British parents, educated in UK. Both sister spoke beautiful accentless English.

She grew up in America, and with her mom and stepfather.@@llcooljay520

No. She grew up in California!@@anairenemartinez165

Oh no I just tried googling her.

When Steve Allen says: " I think she's a gym teacher and I wish I were Jim." 3:22 , that could have been Hal Block saying the same.

yup!

The spirit of Block hung on for years.

Joe Postove I liked Hal though.

+Johan Bengtsson I think the difference is that when Steve makes that comment it comes off as charming and complementary;if Hal Block had delivered the same line,it would have seemed,nothing but,lecherous.

Markxxx And she DID die first

It’s interesting. Joan usually blames the “feud” on Olivia or her mom, but I usually only see her talking about it in public.....

And she did

Narcissists always blame everybody else, and never themselves. Watch Dr. Ramani on YT.

@@llcooljay520 I always liked Joan better and as an actress.

What happend to him? Was he asked to come back another time? Depends on if he was a new yorker or not I guess. Did he get the money anyhow? There must have been lots of people never had the time being the last contestant.

Johan Bengtsson "There must have been lots of people never had the time being the last contestant"...I'll bet, I just never heard John refer to them before.

Joe Postove *From TV.com:* (www.tv.com/shows/whats-my-line/episode-190-94458/) "MYSTERY IN 2005: In an unusual move, John stated that there was no time for the next scheduled guest and named him. It sounded like John said Mr. Bernaise Johnson or perhaps Mr. Bernays Johnson. Maybe it was even Bern "Ace" Johnson - the spelling is unknown. - Suzanne (2005) MYSTERY SOLVED IN 2010: I believe that the contestant who wasn't able to appear on this episode of the show was Mr. Bernays Johnson, an inventor. He was a neighbor of my mother's as I was growing up in Wayne, New Jersey. If you Google his name, you will find links to some of his inventions. - SusanDeYoungB (2010)" . The comment from John is additionally strange, because I don't think they *ever* had more than 4 guests/contestants on one episode.

SaveThe TPC I have heard that there is at least one occasion where there this happened. I have not seen it, so I can't verify it.

Dorothy was a clear eyed genius

+corner moose A sweet recollection!

+Ginny Lorenz Don't I know it! I can remember when someone 40 years old looked old to me. And Jack Benny forever claiming that he was 39 reinforced that idea that 40 was old. And then the people in my generation were saying to never trust anyone over 30. Now I'm 64. Most of the people who advised not trusting anyone over 30 have children over age 30. I think of a 40 year old as a kid. And someone old enough to collect social security is often looking mighty attractive now. Of course, I tell myself that it's because we are aging more slowly now! :-)

Dear Lois, Thanks for the fun reply. I'm 74 now, and feeling more than ever that I have so much to learn and so much growing up to do. I'm working on it. Inside, I'm still just a girl. Best wishes to you from San Diego, CA. p.s. Aren't the clothing, manners and kindness charming on "What's My Line?"

+Ginny Lorenz And best wishes to you from the New York City Metropolitan Area. I must say that one usually doesn't see the fleur-de-lis in connection with San Diego. If you change the "7" to a "6" in the age, everything you wrote after "fun reply" up to "Best wishes" describes me to a T. As I sometimes put it, I'm 64 going on 22. In answer to your PS, most of the outfits of the women who were either on the panel or the mystery guests are to die for. I have an event to go to next weekend. I think I need to go shopping for a gown! (Many of the female non-celebrity challengers have attractive outfits, too, but not often as elegant as the female celebrities.) In general, what you are talking about is that for the most part, the people appearing on WML, especially the panel members and the moderator, had class. And while the way men and women dealt with each other was quite different from what it is now, Arlene and Dorothy present positive role models of women who enjoy being feminine, but also are proud to be intelligent, witty and charming women of accomplishment. Now and then, however, something will be said that reminds you that this was a time when there were still some ignorant prejudices in American society. As a child of the 50's and early 60's, for me they were the good old days, even though part of a family of modest means. But I know there are those who can point to things that were happening at that time that hopefully we will never see again in the U.S.

Oh Yes!!!!

+gcjerryusc I have had many delightfully warm and friendly Southern friends and acquaintances over the years. I think a Southern accent is most charming and I have heard it from Southerners of different races. I also find a Southern accent to be very infectious, and I have a good ear for accents and mimicry to start with. One reason that Vivien Leigh was able to produce a fairly authentic Southern accent in "Gone With the Wind" is that linguists will tell you that the Southern accent has experienced less change from native English-Scots-Irish accents than in other parts of the U.S. I also find the accents from the West Indies and British Caribbean regions to be charming. It's quite a contrast to how we talk if we are native to Noo Yawk, Lawn Guyland or Noo Joisey. As far as how I would find you, ah'm a wonderin' if'n ah should ask y'all for your picture, cause ah might have ta have mah smellin' salts handy, 'cos I might plumb get the vapors and have one o' mah spells. :-)

Joan Fontaine remained in California until her death. Her sister Olivia, after retiring from the movie business, went to Paris, France where she still lives. Olivia DeHavilland kept the family name; Joan had to legally change her surname so as not to be confused with her sister. Yet we had 3 Gabor Sister's, so I don't see a problem.

@@jimgeiser1570 I know.

i love them both :D

Joe Postove It's sad they didn't get along.

And of April 11th, 2016 SHE IS STILL ALIVE! But I hear that she has slowed down a bit.

As of August 29th, 2016 she is 100 years old and still with us!

De Havilland has for surpassed her usefulness. While she may be afraid, it is about time she joins Joan.

I just found out that the Martin & Lewis episode aired on 1/24/1954. That happens to be the day I was born. I've seen a video of the Martin & Lewis segment, but it's too bad the rest of the episode is lost. I've watched that 1975 show on KZfaq. IMO, it wasn't very good.

🤦🏻‍♂️. It absolutely exists. Why would you think otherwise...?

exist, not exit

Funny, I regain my sanity by doing it.

I try to watch the ones after the perp walk but before the end of Dorothy. I guess I'll run out before you.

Longest standing hostility between siblings in recorded history. 90 plus years. Empires came and went in that period of time.

+soulierinvestments 90+ would make them toddlers when it started?

according to this article, it started when Joan was born. www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/joan-fontaine-olivia-de-havilland-666087

They may be pretty but not life-wise.

@@MrYfrank14 Boy, after reading that article I have to say: Joan was one mean person. She really knew how to hurt others deeply. If it started as sibling rivalry the parents, aka mother is to be blamed. Mostly an absent or absent minded parent who is giving too little attention to the children is at the core of the problem.

+soulierinvestments Unfortunately, John may have hurt Bennett's ability to deduct all the travel expenses as business expenses by disclosing that Bennett would be doing a lot of vacationing on the trip.

@@loissimmons6558 Spoken like a true fellow tax person. I believe, though, that under the Internal Revenue Code of 1939, Bennett would have been ok if there was any business purpose for his trips. Even under the 1954 Code, the standard for business deductions was quite loose until the reforms of the 1980s.

@@mikejschin I confess that there are some details I don't know about as far as income taxes. I do know that the due date used to be March 15, not April 15 (which presumably it will revert to next year). There was an episode of "The Honeymooners" involving Ralph's taxes and his tax booklet shows the March due date. I also know that income taxes were not withheld from wages until WWII. And I had an elderly client show me his first tax return from the late 40's. The entire return fit on a 3½" x 5½" piece of paper (front and back). But as far as the details on what could and could not be deducted, I don't know a lot. I do know that at some point the IRS cracked down on vacations disguised as business trips. But whether that meant the rules had to be rewritten or simply enforced better, I didn't know. I was born in 1952, so I didn't have any experience with the 1939 Code. I probably filed my first return under the the 1954 Code when I had my first summer job and some taxes were withheld in 1969. And I didn't start preparing tax returns for a fee until after the 1982 TEFRA and 1986 TRA. (I came in when the ability to deduct most passive losses was being phased out.)

@@loissimmons6558 I'm of 1951 vintage myself. My formal tax education consists of an LL.M. in Taxation from George Washington University in 1988. From then until my retirement in 2015, my career was spent on international tax planning for corporations. Any knowledge I have of individual filing, including deductions, was gained incidentally. As a general rule, you know much more about that end of the tax field than I do. I might have only a bit more useless historical knowledge in that area.

I would appreciate input on this “vacation” tax deduction question stemming from Barbarians at the Gate, a wonderful movie about the LBO of Phillip Morris. While submitting sealed bids against others the principals of KKR discuss whether to take their annual ski trip. They say they are reluctant to go, but decide they better go because if they stay in town over the holidays it will signal their strong interest and raise the price of the acquisition. Therefore they spend thousands on a trip which has the effect of saving billions on the price. The question is whether this fun trip, when taken for the purpose of completing an acquisition, is deductible.

I think they looked more and more alike as they got older (I like both of them equally).

James B

Seems like a Love.

Not if you just ignore someone and stay away.

Brooke Hanley I have a feeling that Olivia was the ignorer, and Joan kept the feud burning publicly.

Vahan Nisanian i don't understand why they had to cannibalize these shows to get the segments they needed. Why couldn't they just copy what they needed using a video system and leave the whole reel of film in tact and put it back in the vault. Now i feel like i should be on the lookout for any rare lost episodes.

Jeff Not really. Steve’s comment had class

She was reporter - investigator which cost her life.

romeman01 Thanks for putting Bennett's comment into context. Interesting story and funny song. I wonder if the airport ever changed their landing policy.

On that fateful day, Godfrey was in such a hurry to take off that he forgot that he had pledged back in 1952 to "learn to be a slow poke, too" 1952 HITS ARCHIVE: Slow Poke - Arthur Godfrey . The conductor is Godfrey's longtime musical director Archie Bleyer, who later, as owner of Cadence Records, put out the fastest-selling album in US history at that point, The First Family, with Vaughn Meader parodying JFK (What's My Line? - Vaughn Meader; Martin Gabel [panel] (Dec 30, 1962) INCOMPLETE).

He was evidently protesting the dangerous conditions to planes created by the closing of a certain runway, due to complaints from the nearby community of Hasbrouck Heights. Their complaint was not only about noise issues but danger to their town. In the similar situation of Elizabeth, NJ & Newark airport there had been 3 airplane crashes over a period of 60 days in 1951-52! [Recently recalled in Judy Blume's book: In the Unlikely Event]. At this time there were, I think, ~12 crashes a year in the US.

49yt YT is not allowing me to "thumbs up" your post for some reason, but I agree with your assessment of Dorothy's use of the word, "weenie."

David Evans I think you're thinking of a MacGuffin.

WML used "weenie" as slang for sudden inspiration for years, clear into the early 60s. I have shown to my college composition students Arlene's 1958 use of "weenie" the night the chairs of the political parties visit the program as an example of slang. It always got a huge laugh. Frankly, I have never heard "weenie" in that context used anywhere else -- but I am in no position as a 21st century Westerner to have heard it used in the eastern 50s pop kulchur.

What's My Line? "MacGuffin" as I recall was what Hitchcock used to call his plot drivers the plots of which were not actually important to the overall movie plot. Wait --

David Evans Very interesting. You could be onto something that the rest of us were not aware of. Btw, would you by any chance be related to the Dave Evans who was a screenwriter for "The Monkees" and other TV shows in the 1960s and 70s?

Bennett revealed that his wife informed him in one episode, for logistical reasons that went awry. He disclosed that and disqualified himself. He never said, and it is not true, that he knew the identity on any occasion in which he did not disqualify himself.

Bennett was following on a statement by John Daly, who said "Neither" north nor south about the mystery guest's birthplace. Bennett verified that the mystery guest was neither born in the north nor the south and then asked if she had been born outside of the United States. There was no inside knowledge necessary to ask that question. His next question was "Were you born on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean." The answer was no.

I remember one particular episode where Bennet's son was one of the guests that is not the celebrity mystery guest but of course the panel was blindfolded because of familiarity, and Bennett very regretfully had to disqualify himself because someone played a dirty trick on him (I think those were close to, if not his exact words) and revealed to him prior to the show who the would be the guest who would require the panel to be blindfolded. I wonder if that was his wife Phyliss who told him

True.

It's arrange in all directs 😅

No one is perfect, in regard to abiding by every verse in the bible. Olivia de Havilland has been a devout Episcopalian for decades, and spent part of her 104th birthday at her local church in Paris. I don't know if Joan Fontaine followed any particular religion.

@@johnfd0210 Seems religion or no religion , stupidity won.

Sadly, just a few days after your comment, Olivia passed away at age 104.

@@mikejschin She decided not to go into covid, dockdowns and vaxx.Very wise decision.

Most salami is made from pork, and there are many variations using different cuts of the meat prepared different ways. A few recipes call for veal mixed in as well. Beef is used in kosher and halal salami; I've heard of experimental recipes using venison and poultry but have never tried them.

I can't remember the exact details, but it had something to do with some problems/issues with KZfaq. They are no longer listed as private.

So was her sister, who survives her, Olivia DeHavilland

@@jimgeiser1570 Miss Olivia de Havilland was born July 1, 1916; she celebrated her 104th birthday earlier this month. Photographs were published of her at her local church, and she looked great,

John mixed up the Atlantic and the South Pacific. He was about to object to Joan when she answered no if she was born across the Atlantic but after a whispering conference he corrected himself. 19:30

Johan Bengtsson I thought maybe he was unsure about where she was born. Or, yes it is across the Atlantic, if you you're going the looooooooooooong way!

Joe Postove Johan Bengtsson I also thought he probably did not know where she was born and had assumed it was somewhere in Europe. I laughed at the "looooooooooooong way!" idea, though. :-)

She was born to an English family, closely related to the DeHavillands of aircraft fame, so it wasn't hard to assume she was born in England, however erroneously.

+Joe Postove Was the father in the military? She is not Asian to my knowledge.

True. All sorts of educational potential.

+Joe Postove I would have thought you learned all those lessons by now! :-P

Lois Simmons When I was a teenager i used to have dance contests for some of the local beauties. They were friends of my sister and when she went to sleep, whoever was sleeping over would dance for Joe! YOWSAH!

Joe Postove This would either mean: a) You were the kind of brother they wanted to tease and get you all hot and bothered. Then they would retreat to the sanctuary of your sister's room and leave you, as they say in French, to your own devices; b) Your sister had more girlfriends than most of the girls in her class because you were the hot brother they all wanted to get close to, hoping you'd pick them to be your girl; c) You were on your way to becoming a Chuck Barris or a Howard Stern until fate intervened and you decided to use your powers for good rather than evil. Probably best not to answer that, Joe. Any answer you give would either be bragging or humiliating. And now excuse me while I try to get the image of my brother doing something like that out of my head. :-O

I plead a fifth!

It certainly would help narrow it down. There were only a handful of actresses at the time who were born in the Orient (which was what was asked and which narrowed it down more than just Asia) and who had a sister who was also an actress. Any time they can narrow down the possibilities to a group with a tiny population, they are home free. Quite often you will hear Steve Allen say (after he has narrowed down the possibilities), "the only one I can think of is ..." Or he would call it a "stab in the dark", but it was often correct (sometimes to John Daly's amazement).

Lois Simmons I just didn't realize it was such a well-known fact that she was born in Tokyo that it helped narrow it down to her. Even John didn't seem to know she was born there. Though maybe Dorothy knew from being a journalist

I thought it was well known that Joan and Olivia were born in Japan to British parents; their father was a banker working there. Maybe less well known is that the parents separated when the girls were very young, and mother and daughters settled in Saratoga, California, in the southern San Francisco bay area not far from where I live, for most of their school years. So Joan's real Anglo-American accent is authentic, unlike her "Southern" imitation. This may help explain why she disclaimed being a Northerner, too.