LuAnn Haslam

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LuAnn Haslam
New Adv of Huck Finn LuAnn Haslam 1968 No 3.jpg
LuAnn Haslam as Becky Thatcher, 1968.
Born (1953-03-28) March 28, 1953 (age 71)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Other namesPatty the Prom Pro
Occupation(s)Actress, blogger
Years active1964–1969 (actress)
1996–present (blogger)

LuAnn Haslam (born March 28, 1953) is an American blogger and former child actress. Beginning a career as a professional child model and actress at the age of eleven, Haslam is best known for her role as "Becky Thatcher" on the Hanna-Barbera children's television series, The New Adventures of Huckleberry Finn which originally aired on NBC from 1968 to 1969. After leaving acting and becoming a high school teacher, Haslam assumed the identity of prom expert "Patty the Prom Pro", offering advice and services to high school students on the website Prom-Night.com

Contents

Early life

Haslam was born on March 28, 1953, in Los Angeles, California. [1] She began working as a child model at the age of four, appearing in local fashion shows at Chaffey College and J.C.Penney's. [2] Haslam's parents believed it was important to expose the Haslam children to the performing arts at a young age and she was soon cultivating her acting, singing and dancing abilities, performing in community theatre after school and on the weekends. [2] [3]

Career

Acting

When Haslam was 11 years old, talent agent Pat Domigan discovered her in her father's store where she overheard Haslam telling a friend about a local play she was appearing in. [2] Domigan approached Haslam's mother offering to represent her and she was soon going on professional auditions. [2] In the subsequent years, Haslam worked as a child actress and model, appearing in print advertorials and television commercials for Diet-Rite Cola, Mattel Toys, and Downy Fabric Softener among others, before landing the role that would make her a star. [2] [4]

After several years as a working actress in commercials, Haslam landed the role of Becky Thatcher on the Hanna-Barbera television series The New Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , loosely based on the characters from the Mark Twain novel. [3] [5] [6] [7] 14 years old when she landed the role, Haslam co-starred alongside Michael Shea as Huck Finn and Kevin Schultz as Tom Sawyer, navigating weekly adventures within an animated world as they attempted to outrun a vengeful "Injun Joe", played by Ted Cassidy. [5] [7] [8] [9]

Premiering on NBC on September 16, 1968, Huckleberry Finn was the first weekly television series to combine live-action performers with animation. [6] [7] [8] [10] In its review of the series, The Newburgh Evening News praised the show for its innovative concept writing, "(T)he combined animation–live action techniques are excellent" and singled-out Haslam as "a charming scene stealer." [11] All less than a year apart in age, the show's three teenage stars were tutored together for three hours a day on the set between scenes, with each episode reportedly taking approximately four hours to film and six months to animate. [5]

In a departure from the network's usual Saturday morning cartoon schedule, Huckleberry Finn aired Sunday nights and made its three young stars popular teen idols of the era. [2] [9] [12] [13] The series aired in over 15 countries and its three young leads were routinely in demand to make celebrity appearances to meet with fans across the United States during the show's original run. [5] [7] [13] Although the series lasted only one season, it continued to air in reruns as part of The Banana Splits syndication package, becoming well known to subsequent generations for the next four decades. [2] [14]

After acting

After Huck Finn ended, Haslam continued to appear in commercials, as well as some local theatrical productions, but eventually became less interested in pursuing a professional acting career. [2] After graduating high school, Haslam attended Brigham Young University, eventually graduating with a teaching degree. [4] [15] As of 2004, Haslam was reportedly married and working as a teacher at San Gabriel High School where she taught math as well as film appreciation and film production classes. [4] [16]

As a high school teacher, one of Haslam's roles was serving as adviser of the Junior Class Council which organized the annual Junior and Senior proms at the school where she taught. [4] This experience as high school "prom consultant" led to her alter-ego "Patty the Prom Pro". [4] As Patty, Haslam's duties include answering questions on her blog at Prom-Night.com where she offers advice and services to high school age students preparing for their proms, as well as serving as the go-to prom "expert" to various news outlets such as E! Online and The Washington Times . [4] [17] [18]

In addition to teaching high school and blogging as "Patty", Haslam also co-produces the annual "Xanadu Film Festival", which is held in the spring and honors student films with its "Snow Globe Trophy", a replica of the snow globe used in the film Citizen Kane . [4] As of 2005, Haslam was reportedly still a dues-paying member of the Screen Actors Guild and was occasionally involved in behind-the-scenes work on feature films. [2]

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Tom Sawyer was a one-hour musical by Frank Luther, originally created for the television series The U.S. Steel Hour. It was broadcast live on CBS November 21, 1956, and marked the first time the anthology series had presented a musical. Luther said the show evolved from his re-reading of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer a few years earlier: "(W)henever an incident or character gave me an idea for a song, I'd write the music and words," Luther told an interviewer in 1957. "By the time I'd reached the end of the book, I found I had written 32 songs. The cast included John Sharpe as Tom Sawyer, Jimmy Boyd as Huckleberry Finn, Bennye Gatteys as Becky Thatcher, Rose Bampton as Aunt Polly, Matt Mattox as Injun Joe and Clarence Cooper as Jim the Narrator. A cast album was released on Decca Records shortly after the broadcast, featuring several songs omitted from the original show. The show's sets and backgrounds were designed by Thomas Hart Benton. At the time of the broadcast, Sharpe was performing in the Broadway cast of The Most Happy Fella. Luther was commissioned to follow up the show with a musical adaptation of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, also starring Boyd, which was broadcast on The U.S. Steel Hour November 22, 1957. There does not appear to be any existing film or kinescope of either broadcast. There is a recording of the original broadcast audio in the New York Public Library's Toscanini Legacy Collection of Sound Recordings.

References

  1. ↑ "California Births, 1905–1995". Family Tree Legends. Retrieved April 16, 2012.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 "Beyond Becky Thatcher". KiddieMatinee.com. May 30, 2005. Archived from the original on July 7, 2012.
  3. 1 2 "Right Out of Pages of Mark Twain Book". The Deseret News. September 18, 1968.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Patty's Prom Blog". Prom-Night.com. Retrieved April 16, 2012.
  5. 1 2 3 4 "'Huck Finn' Star At Six-Gun Territory". Oscala Star-Banner. December 29, 1968.
  6. 1 2 "TV Sunday". The Milwaukee Sentinel. September 14, 1968.
  7. 1 2 3 4 "New Huck Finn Freshly Bathed". The Calgary Herald. November 22, 1968.
  8. 1 2 "TV Previews - Sunday". The Free Lance-Star. September 13, 1968.
  9. 1 2 "TV Mailbag - Michael Shea?". The Hartford Courant. March 16, 1969. Archived from the original on January 5, 2013.
  10. ↑ "Huck Finn Featured in Series". Saskatoon Star-Phoenix. September 10, 1968.
  11. ↑ "Weekend Television Highlights – Sunday 7–7:30". The Evening News. September 21, 1968.
  12. ↑ "Scene Action - Michael Shea and Kevin Schultz?". The Evening Independent. January 2, 1969.
  13. 1 2 "Former Actor Gets New Role for Hollywood Parade". Los Angeles Times. November 27, 1993. Archived from the original on January 4, 2013.
  14. ↑ "The Bedford Files". Centre Daily Times. April 5, 2002.
  15. ↑ "Glider Flier Prays and Hangs On". The Deseret News. June 18, 1975.
  16. ↑ "Getting the Greenlight". Pasadena Star-News. April 14, 2004.
  17. ↑ "Chris Brown: Still King of the Prom?". E! Online. March 2, 2009.
  18. ↑ "Prom night filled with lots of pomp". The Washington Times. May 22, 2004.
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