The year 1955 in television involved some significant events. Below is a list of television-related events during 1955.
Charles Sebastian Thomas Cabot was a British actor. He is best remembered as the gentleman's gentleman Giles French in the CBS-TV sitcom Family Affair (1966–1971). He was also known for playing the Wazir in the film Kismet (1955) and Dr. Carl Hyatt in the CBS-TV series Checkmate (1960–1962).
Howdy Doody is an American children's television program that was created and produced by Victor F. Campbell and E. Roger Muir. It was broadcast on the NBC television network in the United States from December 27, 1947, until September 24, 1960. It was a pioneer of children's programming and set the pattern for many similar shows. One of the first television series produced at NBC in Rockefeller Center, in Studio 3A, it pioneered color production in 1956 and NBC used the show to promote color television sets in the late 1950s.
Annie Oakley is an American Western television series that fictionalizes the life of the famous Annie Oakley. Featuring actress Gail Davis in the title role, the weekly program ran from January 1954 to February 1957 in syndication. A total of 81 black-and-white episodes were produced, with each installment running 25 minutes in length. ABC aired daytime reruns of the series on Saturdays and Sundays from 1959 to 1960 and then again from 1964 to 1965.
Pincus Leff, better known as Pinky Lee, was an American actor.
John Keith Patrick Allen was a British actor.
Jewel Franklin Guy, known professionally as James Best, was an American television, film, stage, and voice actor, as well as a writer, director, acting coach, artist, college professor, and musician. During a career that spanned more than 60 years, Best was known for his high-pitched, exasperated voice, who performed not only in feature films, but also in scores of television series, his appearances were almost all on Western programs, as well as appearing on various country music programs and talk shows. He played Captain Thorne Sherman in both films: The Killer Shrews (1959) and its spin-off, Return of the Killer Shrews (2012). Television audiences, however, perhaps most closely associate Best with his starring role as the bumbling Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane in the action-comedy series The Dukes of Hazzard, which originally aired on CBS between 1979 and 1985. He reprised the role in 1997 and 2000 for the made-for-television movies The Dukes of Hazzard: Reunion! and The Dukes of Hazzard: Hazzard in Hollywood (2000).
Robert Shayne was an American actor whose career lasted for over 60 years. He was best known for portraying Inspector Bill Henderson in the American television series Adventures of Superman.
Lawrence Dobkin was an American television director, character actor and screenwriter whose career spanned seven decades.
John Arthur Doucette was an American character actor who performed in more than 280 film and television productions between 1941 and 1987. A man of stocky build who possessed a deep, rich voice, he proved equally adept at portraying characters in Shakespearean plays, Westerns, and modern crime dramas. He is perhaps best remembered, however, for his villainous roles as a movie and television "tough guy".
An anthology series is a written series, radio, television, film, or video game series that presents a different story and a different set of characters in each different episode, season, segment, or short. These usually have a different cast in each episode, but several series in the past, such as Four Star Playhouse, employed a permanent troupe of character actors who would appear in a different drama each week. Some anthology series, such as Studio One, began on radio and then expanded to television.
William Cohen was an American actor born in Philadelphia, to an opera actor and singer. As Bill Britten, he is best known for his portrayal of Bozo the Clown in the New York City market.
Lionel Wilson was an American voice actor, reader of audiobooks, stage actor, and author of children's books. He was known for his roles from Tom Terrific through to his last role, voicing Eustace Bagge on the Cartoon Network's Courage the Cowardly Dog.
Thomas Wakefield Blackburn was an American author, screenwriter and lyricist. His work included various Western novels and television screenplays, as well as the lyrics to "The Ballad of Davy Crockett" and other songs.
In the mid 1950s Blackburn worked in the story department at Walt Disney's studio and it was there, in addition to working on the Davy Crockett films and teleplays, that he also began composing lyrics. Among his most successful efforts are "The Ballad of Davy Crockett" and "Farewell" for that series and "Johnny Tremain" and "The Liberty Tree" for Johnny Tremain.
Judy Ann Nugent was an American actress.
Donald Chaffey was a British film director, writer, producer, and art director.
The Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection: Volume 2 is a three-disc DVD collection of theatrical cartoons starring Woody Woodpecker and the other Lantz characters, produced by Walter Lantz Productions for Universal Pictures between 1932 and 1965. The set was released by Universal Studios Home Entertainment on April 15, 2008. Included in the set are seventy-five cartoon shorts, including the next forty-five Woody Woodpecker cartoons, continuing the production order from Volume 1. The other thirty cartoons include five Andy Panda shorts, five Chilly Willy shorts, five Oswald the Lucky Rabbit shorts, five Musical Favorites, and ten Cartune Classics.
Sandra Dorne was a British actress.
This is a list of British television related events from 1955.
William Fawcett Thompson was an American character actor who appeared in hundreds of films and television episodes. Because there were other actors named William Thompson he used his first and middle name when seeking acting roles. He was best known for playing Pete Wilkey in the television series Fury which ran from 1955 to 1960.
