AN ANNOYING TREND ON EARLY TV

Yes, it does to me, too. The thing is, TV shows of the era we're discussing here, mostly mid-Fifties to mid-Sixties, were still trying to a.) lure veteran players, from stars to character actors, singers to comedians, who were known commodities, and b.) to create new stars, including "star" character payers, some of whom went on to big screen stardom or to having TV shows of their own (Charles Bronson, Lee Marvin, Telly Savalas, Jack Klugman). Thus network television in those days was still trying to get a feel of demographic trends; alas, what often happened was that a player would "click" with younger viewers, then fail to go on to a disappointing career, or a disappointing career for someone who'd been on the cover of TV Guide, even had hits songs or, in the case of the Sunset Strip's Edd Byrnes, have songs written about them.

That's a whole lot of name and face and even voice recognition for someone new to the business. One only has to think back on the young dudes being groomed to become the "next", well, fill in the blanks, usually Marlon Brando or James Dean. Robert Conrad was compared, early on, to Alan Ladd (being a short blonde tough guy). Even later on, in the Seventies, there was talk of Tom Selleck being the New Age Clark Gable. Selleck's done well for himself, but he's not a legend at the Gable, Tracy, Bogart or Cooper level; and feature film stardom eluded him, in spite of a good beginning (one only has to compare Selleck's perfectly respectable but scarcely dazzling early Magnum success to Clint Eastwood's more journeyman turn on Rawhide and how big he got in the movies.