The year 1968 in television involved some significant events. Below is a list of television-related events in 1968.
Harvey Herschel Korman was an American actor and comedian who performed in television and film productions. His big break was being a featured performer on CBS' The Danny Kaye Show, but he is best remembered for his performances on the sketch comedy series The Carol Burnett Show, for which he won four Emmy Awards, as well as his partnership with Tim Conway. Korman also appeared in several comedy films by Mel Brooks.
E. G. Marshall was an American actor, best known for his television roles as the lawyer Lawrence Preston on The Defenders in the 1960s and as neurosurgeon David Craig on The Bold Ones: The New Doctors in the 1970s. One of the first group selected for the new Actors Studio, by 1948 he had performed in major plays on Broadway.
Joan Ann Hackett was an American actress of film, stage, and television. She starred in the 1967 western Will Penny. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress for the 1981 film Only When I Laugh. She also starred as Christine Mannon in the 1978 PBS miniseries version of Mourning Becomes Electra.
Reginald Rose was an American film and television writer, most widely known for his work in the early years of television drama. He wrote about controversial social and political issues. His realistic approach was particularly influential in the anthology programs of the 1950s.
Route 66 is an American adventure crime drama television series that premiered on CBS on October 7, 1960, and ran until March 20, 1964, for a total of 116 episodes. The series was created by Herbert B. Leonard and Stirling Silliphant, who were also responsible for the ABC drama Naked City, from which Route 66 was an indirect spin-off. Both series employed a format with elements of both traditional drama and anthology drama, but the difference was where the shows were set: Naked City was set in New York City, while Route 66 had its setting change from week to week, with each episode being shot on location.
Philip Abbott was an American character actor. He appeared in several films and numerous television series, including a lead role as Arthur Ward in the crime series The F.B.I. Abbott was also the founder of Theatre West in Los Angeles.
Carl Lawrence Betz was an American stage, film, and television actor. He appeared in a variety of television series, including the CBS soap opera Love of Life; he is best remembered for playing Donna Reed's television husband, Dr. Alex Stone, from 1958 to 1966 in the ABC sitcom The Donna Reed Show. Then between 1967 and 1969, Betz played defense attorney Clinton Judd in ABC's courtroom drama Judd, for the Defense, winning an Emmy Award in 1969 for his work on that series.
East Side/West Side is an American drama series starring George C. Scott, Elizabeth Wilson, Cicely Tyson, and later on, Linden Chiles. The series aired for one season (1963–64) and was shown Monday nights on CBS.
Lawrence Dobkin was an American television director, character actor and screenwriter whose career spanned seven decades.
Naked City is a police procedural series from Screen Gems which was broadcast from 1958 to 1959 and from 1960 to 1963 on the ABC television network. It was inspired by the 1948 motion picture The Naked City and mimics its dramatic "semi-documentary" format. As in the film, each episode concluded with a narrator intoning the iconic line: "There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them."
Andrew Duggan was an American character actor. His work includes 185 screen credits between 1949 and 1987 for roles in both film and television, as well a number more on stage.
Robert Reed was an American actor. He played Kenneth Preston on the legal drama The Defenders from 1961 to 1965 alongside E. G. Marshall, and is best known for his role as the father Mike Brady, opposite Florence Henderson's role as Carol Brady, on the ABC sitcom The Brady Bunch, which aired from 1969 to 1974. He later reprised his role of Mike Brady on several of the reunion programs. In 1976, he earned two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for his guest-starring role in a two-part episode of Medical Center and for his work on the miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man. The following year, Reed earned a third Emmy nomination for his role in the miniseries Roots.
Studio One is an American anthology drama television series that was adapted from a radio series. It was created in 1947 by Canadian director Fletcher Markle, who came to CBS from the CBC. It premiered on November 7, 1948 and ended on September 29, 1958, with a total of 467 episodes over the course of 10 seasons.
Perry Mason is an American legal drama series originally broadcast on CBS television from September 21, 1957, to May 22, 1966. The title character, portrayed by Raymond Burr, is a Los Angeles criminal defense lawyer who originally appeared in detective fiction by Erle Stanley Gardner. Many episodes are based on stories written by Gardner.
Charles Leonard Aidman was an American actor of stage, film, and television.
Addison Whittaker Richards, Jr. was an American actor of film and television. Richards appeared in more than three hundred films between 1933 and his death.
Patricia Rose Breslin was an American actress and philanthropist. She had a prominent career in television, which included recurring roles as Amanda Miller on The People's Choice (1955–58), and as Laura Harrington Brooks on Peyton Place (1964–65). She also appeared in Go, Man, Go! (1954), and the William Castle horror films Homicidal (1961) and I Saw What You Did (1965).
"The Defender" was an American television play broadcast live in two parts on February 25, 1957, and March 4, 1957, as part of the CBS television series, Studio One. A courtroom drama, it was written by Reginald Rose and directed by Robert Mulligan. The cast included Ralph Bellamy and William Shatner as a father-son defense team, Steve McQueen as the defendant, and Martin Balsam as the prosecutor.
