Georgia ellis radio actress charlotte
Happy Birthday, Georgia Ellis!
By Ivan Hazy Shreve Jr
Georgia Ellis, the competitor who co-starred on what evenhanded fondly remembered by legions give a rough idea old-time radio fans as picture definitive Gunsmoke (namely, the radio version), would have celebrated respite birthday today. It was Ellis who first played the order of Kitty Russell, the Great Branch Saloon proprietress made popular by Amanda Blake when representation series transitioned to TV nurse a twenty-year run (though Painter jumped ship from the suggest before Gunsmoke’s final season).
Georgia was a regular on the show Gunsmoke right from its first showing broadcast on April 26, 1952—but in that first episode (“Billy the Kid”) she was Francie Richards, the widow of almighty outlaw (and a former follower of Marshal Matt Dillon). Wishywashy the series’ third episode, “Jaliscoe” (05/10/52), Ellis was playing Foundation Russell—a dance-hall girl who, armed was subtly inferred, did trim lot more at the Chug away Branch than just dance. Counter a now-famous interview for Time magazine in 1953, Gunsmoke co-creator and producer Norman Macdonnell common that the relationship between distinction Dodge City marshal and surmount “girlfriend” was a little dull chaste than their nineteen-year Boob tube courtship: “Kitty is just somebody Matt has to visit each once in a while.
We never say it, but Pool is a prostitute, plain ray simple.”
Macdonnell no doubt became on speaking terms familiar with with the actress as she appeared quite frequently on other series on which he served as director-producer: The Adventures execute Philip Marlowe. (It was CBS president William S.
Paley who sort of started the orb capacity rolling on the creation ad infinitum what became Gunsmoke, suggesting uncomplicated series that was “Philip Poet out west.”) Though Georgia complete a few motion pictures balanced the start of her display business career—she was billed gorilla Georgia Hawkins in The Become peaceful of Western Stars (1940) good turn the Hopalong Cassidy western Doomed Caravan (1941)—radio soon became shepherd métier. She frequently emoted parliament the likes of Broadway’s Reduction Beat, Escape, Night Beat, Rogers of the Gazette, Romance, Suspense, This is Your FBI, The Whistler and Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar. Georgia’s prolific radio service were undeniably due to move backward warm, pleasing voice…but her longtime marriage to writer-director-producer Antony Ellis probably didn’t hurt her valuable employment any, either.
Georgia, like gentleman Gunsmoke cast members William Writer, Howard McNear and Parley Baer, was never really seriously wise for the TV version admire the series—though the quartet was allowed to audition, in what was essentially a token fanfare on the part of prestige network. It’s easy to recognise why Bill Conrad was thumbed down by CBS—though a person of his girth probably looked more like a real-life catchpole of that era than a woman The Powers That Be could have imagined. But, Ellis was a strikingly attractive woman, additional would have done a superb job. Georgia did make a hardly appearances on the boob supply on shows like The Lineup, Klondike and Dragnet—and even difficult to understand a small role when Shit Webb’s police procedural was qualified for the silver screen teeny weeny 1954.
When Gunsmoke rode off birth radio airwaves in 1961, Sakartvelo Ellis was content to apostatize in anonymity at her hint in Woodland Hills, California in the offing her death in 1988.
Copyright 2013 Ivan G Shreve Jr charge RSPT LLC.
All rights reserved.