Alcoa Theatre
Anthology series sponsored by Alcoa, featuring rotating stars.
Alcoa Corporation sponsored this half-hour NBC anthology series, which aired Monday nights at 9:30 pm from September 1957 through May 1960. For its first four months, the show was grouped with Goodyear Theatre under the umbrella title Turn of Fate. It began as The Alcoa Hour, a one-hour Sunday program in 1955, but was cut to thirty minutes, renamed Alcoa Theatre, and shifted to Mondays in 1957.
Quick Facts
- Genre
- Anthology
- Starring
- David Niven
- Robert Ryan
- Jane Powell
- Jack Lemmon
- Charles Boyer
- Theme music
- George Duning; Johnny Williams
- Composer
- George Duning (2.4)
- Harry Sukman (3.17)
- John Williams (1.4, 2.1)
- Country
- United States
- Language
- English
- Seasons
- 3
- Episodes
- 114
Facts from the source article.
Did You Know?
- The show employed an alternating rotating company of actors during its initial season: David Niven, Robert Ryan, Jane Powell, Jack Lemmon and Charles Boyer.
- Alcoa Theatre was produced on film by Four Star Films Incorporated at RKO-Pathe Studio in Culver City, California.
Overview
The series featured the talents of veteran and emerging actors over the ensuing years, including Cliff Robertson, John Cassavetes, Brandon deWilde, Cornel Wilde, Agnes Moorehead, Jack Carson, Walter Slezak and Gary Merrill. Child actor Flip Mark made his television debut as Robbie Adams in the 1959 episode "Another Day Another Dollar." The episode "333 Montgomery" (June 13, 1960) starred DeForest Kelley in the pilot episode of an unsold series written by Gene Roddenberry. It was based on the book Never Plead Guilty by San Francisco criminal lawyer Jake Ehrlich. Kelley acted in three separate pilots for Columbia, and the studio decided to try him in a lead and sent him to meet Roddenberry. Kelley and Roddenberry went to San Francisco to meet Ehrlich, who chose him for the lead. Jack Lemmon, William Talman and Joan Blackman starred in "The Victim," a suspense episode involving a disappearing woman.
More in Television Series by Four Star Television
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