The Ghost & Mrs. Muir | |
---|---|
Genre | Situation comedy |
Starring | Hope Lange Edward Mulhare Reta Shaw Charles Nelson Reilly |
Theme music composer | Dave Grusin |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language | English |
No. of seasons | 2 |
No. of episodes | 50 (list of episodes) |
Production | |
Executive producer | David Gerber |
Producers | Howard Leeds Gene Reynolds Stanley Rubin |
Camera setup | Single-camera |
Running time | 30 min. |
Production company | 20th Century-Fox Television |
Original release | |
Network | NBC (1st season) ABC (2nd season) |
Release | September 21, 1968 – March 13, 1970 |
Related | |
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947 film) |
The Ghost & Mrs. Muir is an American sitcom based on the 1947 film of the same name, which was based on the 1945 novel by R. A. Dick. It premiered in September 1968 on NBC. After NBC cancelled the series at the end of its first season, it was picked up by ABC for its second season before being cancelled a final time.
The series stars Hope Lange as Carolyn Muir, a young widow and writer who rents Gull Cottage, near the fictional fishing village of Schooner Bay, Maine, and moves into the rental with her two children, a housekeeper (played by Reta Shaw), and their dog. The cottage is haunted by the ghost of its former owner Daniel Gregg, a 19th-century sea captain, who died in 1869, played by Edward Mulhare. Charles Nelson Reilly plays Claymore Gregg, the great-nephew of the captain, who rents the cottage to Mrs. Muir without telling her it is haunted by his ancestor. [1]
The book of the same name, by R.A. Dick, was published in 1945. It was brought to the silver screen in 1947 with Gene Tierney playing Mrs. Muir and Rex Harrison as Captain Gregg. While the movie had been a romantic fantasy combining comic and dramatic elements, the series focused much more on laughs.
Central to the series is the romantic tension between the captain and Carolyn. While they have significant differences, the captain being a 19th-century chauvinist and Carolyn a modern career woman, their mutual attraction enables them to compromise to overcome their differences.
The story was developed as a TV series by Jean Holloway and filmed at the Hollywood Studios. Hope Lange won two Emmy Awards for Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for 1968–1969 [2] and 1969–1970. [3] Despite Lange's consecutive Emmy wins, the show struggled in the ratings and only ran for two seasons. During its first year on NBC, it followed Get Smart ; its Big Three competition was My Three Sons on CBS and the first half of The Lawrence Welk Show on ABC.
In spring 1969, NBC cancelled the series. ABC picked it up and scheduled it to be shown on Thursday nights at 7:30 pm in September 1969, [1] followed by That Girl and Bewitched . The series was again unsuccessful in beating out another hit CBS series, Family Affair . It was later moved to Friday nights at 8:30 pm in January 1970, but ratings did not improve. As a result, ABC cancelled The Ghost & Mrs. Muir in spring 1970. The following year, Family Affair was cancelled by CBS after a five-year run because it was in the same time slot as the NBC hit variety series The Flip Wilson Show .
On April 16, 2014, Madman Entertainment released both seasons on DVD in Region 4 (Australia) for the first time. In July 2014, amazon.com started selling both seasons of The Ghost & Mrs. Muir in the United States. [5] [6] On 1 November 2018, Madman Entertainment released the "Complete Collection" [7] box set. This box set contains the same individual Season 1 and 2 sets.
The year 1972 involved some significant events in television. Below is a list of notable television-related events.
Amy Sherman-Palladino is an American television writer, director, and producer. She is the creator of the comedy-drama series Gilmore Girls (2000-2007), Bunheads (2012-2013), and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (2017-2023).
Edward Mulhare was an Irish actor whose career spanned five decades. He is best known for his starring roles in two television series, The Ghost & Mrs. Muir and Knight Rider.
Hope Elise Ross Lange was an American film, stage, and television actress. She was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Selena Cross in the 1957 film Peyton Place. In 1969 and 1970, she twice won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for her role as Carolyn Muir in the sitcom The Ghost & Mrs. Muir.
Charles Nelson Reilly was an American actor, comedian, director, and drama teacher known for his comedic roles on stage, film, and television. Reilly performed in the original Broadway casts of Bye Bye Birdie, Hello, Dolly!, and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, for which he won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. His television credits include The Ghost & Mrs. Muir and Match Game. A recording of his autobiographical one-man play Save It for the Stage: The Life of Reilly was adapted into a 2006 independent film.
Law & Order: Trial by Jury is an American legal drama television series about criminal trials set in New York City. It was the fourth series in Dick Wolf's Law & Order franchise. The show's almost exclusive focus was on the criminal trial of the accused, showing both the prosecution's and defense's preparation for trial, as well as the trial itself. The series was first announced on September 28, 2004. The series premiered on Thursday, March 3, 2005, and ended on January 21, 2006. Its regular time slot was Fridays 10/9 p.m. ET on NBC. The last episode aired on Court TV months after the series' cancellation.
Jane Waddington Wyatt was an American actress. She starred in a number of Hollywood films, such as Frank Capra's Lost Horizon, but is likely best known for her role as homemaker and mother Margaret Anderson on the CBS and NBC television comedy series Father Knows Best, and as Amanda Grayson, the human mother of Spock on the science-fiction television series Star Trek. Wyatt was a three-time Emmy Award–winner.
Monica Gregg Potter is an American actress. She is known for her starring roles in the films Con Air (1997), Patch Adams (1998), and Along Came a Spider (2001). She also appeared in the horror film, Saw (2004) and The Last House on the Left, a 2009 remake film.
A Pup Named Scooby-Doo is an American animated mystery comedy series produced by Hanna-Barbera. It is the eighth incarnation of the studio's Scooby-Doo franchise and depicts younger versions of the title character and his human companions as they solve mysteries, similar to the original television series. The series was developed by Tom Ruegger and premiered on September 10, 1988, airing for three seasons on ABC as well as during the syndicated block The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera until August 17, 1991.
Alice Margaret Ghostley was an American actress and singer on stage, film and television.
Sarah Catharine Paulson is an American actress. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award. In 2017, Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Joanna Cassidy is an American actress and former model. She began working as a model in the 1960s and made her professional acting debut in 1973, appearing in the thriller films The Laughing Policeman and The Outfit. She later starred in films Bank Shot (1974), The Late Show (1977) and went to star in the short-lived television series The Roller Girls (1978) and 240-Robert (1979). In 1982, she played replicant Zhora Salome in science fiction film Blade Runner.
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir is a 1947 American supernatural romantic fantasy film starring Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison. It was directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and is based on a 1945 novel written by Josephine Leslie under the pseudonym of R.A. Dick. In 1945, 20th Century Fox bought the film rights to the novel, published only in the United Kingdom at that time. It was shot entirely in California.
Ann Jillian is a retired American actress and singer whose career began as a child actress in 1960. She is best known for her role as the sultry Cassie Cranston on the 1980s sitcom It's a Living.
Abigail Leigh Spencer is an American actress. She began her career playing Rebecca Tyree on the ABC daytime television soap opera All My Children (1999–2001) before going on to star in the Lifetime crime drama series, Angela's Eyes (2006). From 2013 to 2016, Spencer starred as Amantha Holden in the SundanceTV drama series Rectify, for which she received a nomination for a Critics' Choice Television Award; she then starred as history professor Lucy Preston in the NBC science-fiction series Timeless.
The 58th Primetime Emmy Awards were held on Sunday, August 27, 2006, at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California on NBC at 8:00 p.m. ET with Conan O'Brien hosting the show. The ceremony attracted 16.2 million viewers, 2.5 million fewer than the previous year's ceremony, but still the ratings winner for the week. The Discovery Channel received its first major nomination this year.
Reta Shaw was an American character actress known for playing strong, hard-edged, working women in film and on many of the most popular television programs of the 1960s and 1970s in the United States. She may be best remembered as the housekeeper, Martha Grant, on the television series The Ghost & Mrs. Muir and as the cook, Mrs. Brill, in the 1964 film Mary Poppins.
The Life of Reilly is a 2006 American film adaptation of actor Charles Nelson Reilly's one-man play Save It For the Stage: The Life of Reilly. Written by Reilly and Paul Linke, and directed by Frank L. Anderson and Barry Poltermann, the film is an edited version of Reilly's stage show, filmed live before audiences at the El Portal Theater in North Hollywood, California in October 2004. The final film is compiled from Reilly's final two performances, interspersed with clips, images and music.
Stanley Creamer Rubin was an American screenwriter and film and television producer born in New York City. He was the recipient of the Television Academy's first Emmy in 1949 for writing and producing an adaptation of Guy de Maupassant's "The Necklace" for the NBC TV series Your Show Time.