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Fireside Theatre/Jane Wyman Presents/The Jane Wyman Show (dramatic
anthology)
Broadcast Summary:
(NBC Primetime, 1949 - 1952 with no regular host;
Syndicated, 1949 - with various hosts;
NBC Primetime, 1952 - 1953 with host/producer Frank Wisbar;
NBC Primetime, 1953 - 1955 with host/actor Gene Raymond;
NBC Summer Reruns, from 1954;
NBC Primetime, 1955 - 1958, with hostess Jane Wyman;
Syndicated, 1958 - with hostess Jane Wyman;
ABC Daytime and Primetime Reruns, 1962 - 1963, with Jane Wyman)
("Fireside Theater" episodes Syndicated title: "Your - TV Theater";
"Jane Wyman..." episodes recycled on CBS "Spotlight Playhouse" (1959);
"Jane Wyman..." episodes Syndicated title: "The Jane Wyman Show")
[The series which began as "Fireside Theatre" had a long evolution
from its beginning as a live 15-minute show on NBC in 1949; its
history parallels the maturing of network television in its
earliest years...
In 1949 NBC-TV was a loose affiliation of East Coast TV stations
which had developed out of NBC radio network affiliates (the
nationwide TV coaxial cable which made a true live TV network
possible was not finished until 1952) so a kinescope recording
or filmed episodes were used to send network shows past the
East coast to other TV stations whose radio stations were also
affiliated with NBC;
Six months after the live series began, production switched to
filming at Hal Roach Studios in Hollywood; Roach produced 52
episodes during the first season, and also began syndicating
these shows after they aired on NBC-TV (no doubt the deal was a
way of compensating for the low price paid by NBC for filming
the episodes); Roach was a pioneering low-budget producer of
theatrical short subjects which he repackaged and syndicated
for the new medium of television, including "Little Rascals"
and "Laurel and Hardy"; His studio was also a rental facility
where many low-budget production companies later created series
like "My Little Margie" and others; It was a business model for
Revue Studios and other TV studios founded years later;
For the second season in 1950, the series expanded to a half-hour.
After episodes aired on NBC-TV, episodes of "Fireside Theatre" were
syndicated by Hal Roach under the title "Your - TV Theater" to
many TV stations all across the U.S. -- including independents
and stations affiliated with networks other than NBC;
The show had several hosts between 1949 - 1955 when it at last
found a permanent host, who was also its co-producer;
Asa Kolinsky wrote to explain that in 1955, the series was taken
over by a partership between MCA chairman Lew Wasserman and
veteran screen actress Jane Wyman (Ronald Reagan's first wife)
who formed a company called "Lewman Productions"; the series began
filming at Wasserman's Revue Studios facility (which was later to
be absorbed into MCA/Universal Studios); that same year the title
of the series was changed to reflect its new star producer/host...
and the title had several adjustments over the next three years:
"Jane Wyman Presents The Fireside Theatre" (1955 - 1956);
aka: "Jane Wyman Presents...";
"The Jane Wyman Theatre" (1956 - 1957); and
"The Jane Wyman Show" (1957 - 1958);
In 1958, the Revue Studios episodes went into syndication under
the title "The Jane Wyman Show";
As with many Dramatic Anthology series of the time, episodes were
not only re-run and syndicated, but were re-cycled under several
other anthology titles; Revue Studio episodes with Jane Wyman
showed up on the 1959 season of a CBS series with the umbrella
title "Spotlight Playhouse" (1955 - 1959); this was a catch-all
program to re-cycle dramatic anthology and unsold pilot episodes;
In 1962 the Jane Wyman/Revue episodes were again rerun on the
ABC-TV network first on Daytime, and the following year on Primetime]
Theme 1: "Pastorale"
[Theme credit in a TV Guide article on themes, 2/19/54]
Composer: Jack Virgil (ASCAP)
Original Publisher: Movietone Music Corp. (ASCAP)
2000 Publisher: Movietone Music Corporation (ASCAP)
c/o Sam Fox Pub. Company, Inc.
of Scottsdale, AZ.
Copyright Date: 1937, on photocopy of sheet music
Recordings:
Theme 2: "Fireside Fantasy", based upon
"Pastorale" (1937)
[Theme verified on sheet music]
Adapter/arranger: [of Fireside Fantasy]: Victor Lamont (ASCAP),
[pseudonym of Victor E. Maiorana]; and
Original Composer: [of Pastorale]: Jack Virgil (ASCAP)
1978 Publishers: Sam Fox Pub. Co., Inc. (ASCAP), and
Movietone Music Corp. (ASCAP)
2000 Publishers: Sam Fox Pub. Co., Inc. (ASCAP)
of Scottsdale, AZ; and
Movietone Music Corporation (ASCAP)
c/o Sam Fox Pub. Company, Inc.
of Scottsdale, AZ.
Creation Dates: 1937 (as "Pastorale"); 1953 (as "Fireside Fantasy")
Copyright Date: Dec. 31, 1953; EP 77 698.
Renewal Date: Oct. 19, 1981; RE-103-817.
Recordings:
Theme 3: "Nude Descending [the] Stairs"
from the suite "Passion in Paint"
[Jane Wyman theme, verified by collector Ray Clark]
Composer: Henre Rene (ASCAP)
Original Publisher: Mills Music, Inc. [Old Acct.] (ASCAP)
2000 Publisher: EMI-Mills Music, Inc./Old Acct. (ASCAP)
c/o EMI Music Publishing
of New York, NY
Copyright Date:
Recordings:
LP: "Passion In Paint" (1955)
RCA-Victor LPM-1033
Henri Rene and His Orchestra
Theme 4: "Jane Wyman (Sig) (M & E)"
[aka: "Wyman Love Theme (Sig)"]
[Music credit in Craig Pattillo's Book "TV Theme Soundtrack
Recordings" (1990) listed the "performer" as Melvyn Lenard, a
pseudonum of David M. Gordon, of Gordon Music, often a
publisher of Stanley Wilson and other ghost writers]
Credited Composers: Melvyn Lenard [Gordon](ASCAP) [in ASCAP 1999]
Stanley J. Wilson (ASCAP) [in ASCAP 2000]
1978 Publisher: Gordon Music Co., Inc. (ASCAP)
2000 Publisher: Gordon Music Co., Inc. (ASCAP)
of Canoga Park, CA
Copyright Date:
Recordings:
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