''Shower of Stars'' (also known as ''Chrysler Shower of Stars'') is an American

variety television series Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

broadcast live in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

from 1954 to 1958 by

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

. The series was broadcast in color which was a departure from the usual CBS programming practices of the 1950s.

Overview

''Shower of Stars'' is typically composed of musical comedy revues with an occasional straight play. It was shown on approximately a monthly basis during its run (1954-1958), and was designed to contrast with the heavy

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has b ...

tic content of the program with which it shared its timeslot, ''

Climax! ''Climax!'' (later known as ''Climax Mystery Theater'') is an American television anthology series that aired on CBS from 1954 to 1958. The series was hosted by William Lundigan and later co-hosted by Mary Costa. It was one of the few CBS progra ...

'' Both programs were sponsored by Chrysler Corporation, and both were hosted by

William Lundigan William Paul Lundigan (June 12, 1914 – December 20, 1975) was an American film actor. His more than 125 films include '' Dodge City'' (1939), ''The Fighting 69th'' (1940), ''The Sea Hawk'' (1940), ''Santa Fe Trail'' (1940), '' Dishonored Lady ...

. Famous entertainers of the era who appeared multiple times on ''Shower of Stars'' included

Jack Benny Jack Benny (born Benjamin Kubelsky, February 14, 1894 – December 26, 1974) was an American entertainer who evolved from a modest success playing violin on the vaudeville circuit to one of the leading entertainers of the twentieth century wit ...

Bob Crosby George Robert Crosby (August 23, 1913 – March 9, 1993) was an American jazz singer and bandleader, best known for his group the Bob-Cats, which formed around 1935. The Bob-Cats were a New Orleans Dixieland-style jazz octet. He was the young ...

Betty Grable Elizabeth Ruth Grable (December 18, 1916 – July 2, 1973) was an American actress, pin-up girl, dancer, model, and singer. Her 42 films during the 1930s and 1940s grossed more than $100 million; for 10 consecutive years (1942–1951) she reign ...

Van Johnson Charles Van Dell Johnson (August 25, 1916 – December 12, 2008) was an American film, television, theatre and radio actor. He was a major star at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer during and after World War II. Johnson was described as the embodiment o ...

, Shirley MacLaine,

Fredric March Fredric March (born Ernest Frederick McIntyre Bickel; August 31, 1897 – April 14, 1975) was an American actor, regarded as one of Hollywood's most celebrated, versatile stars of the 1930s and 1940s.Obituary '' Variety'', April 16, 1975, ...

, Frankie Laine,

Ethel Merman Ethel Merman (born Ethel Agnes Zimmermann, January 16, 1908 – February 15, 1984) was an American actress and singer, known for her distinctive, powerful voice, and for leading roles in musical theatre.Obituary '' Variety'', February 22, 1984. ...

, Basil Rathbone,

Red Skelton Richard Red Skelton (July 18, 1913September 17, 1997) was an American entertainer best known for his national radio and television shows between 1937 and 1971, especially as host of the television program '' The Red Skelton Show''. He has stars ...

Mario Lanza Mario Lanza (, ; born Alfredo Arnold Cocozza ; January 31, 1921 – October 7, 1959) was an American tenor and actor. He was a Hollywood film star popular in the late 1940s and the 1950s. Lanza began studying to be a professional singer at ...

and

Ed Wynn Isaiah Edwin Leopold (November 9, 1886 – June 19, 1966), better known as Ed Wynn, was an American actor and comedian. He was noted for his ''Perfect Fool'' comedy character, his pioneering radio show of the 1930s, and his later career as a d ...

Liberace Władziu Valentino Liberace (May 16, 1919 – February 4, 1987) was an American pianist, singer, and actor. A child prodigy born in Wisconsin to parents of Italian and Polish origin, he enjoyed a career spanning four decades of concerts, recordi ...

. March and Rathbone starred as Ebenezer Scrooge and

Jacob Marley Jacob Marley is a fictional character in Charles Dickens's 1843 novella ''A Christmas Carol'', a former business partner of the miser Ebenezer Scrooge, who has been dead for seven years.Hawes, Donal''Who's Who in Dickens'' Routledge (1998), Goog ...

, respectively, in a 1954

music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...

al adaptation of

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...

's '' A Christmas Carol'', with songs by

Bernard Herrmann Bernard Herrmann (born Maximillian Herman; June 29, 1911December 24, 1975) was an American composer and conductor best known for his work in composing for films. As a conductor, he championed the music of lesser-known composers. He is widely r ...

and

Maxwell Anderson James Maxwell Anderson (December 15, 1888 – February 28, 1959) was an American playwright, author, poet, journalist, and lyricist. Background Anderson was born on December 15, 1888, in Atlantic, Pennsylvania, the second of eight children to ...

. This was the first musical version of the story to be televised, and the first in color. Rathbone would go on to play Scrooge himself, in another TV musical adaptation of the story, the 1956 version of ''The Stingiest Man in Town''. (Rathbone would again play Scrooge in a 1958 non-musical British half-hour television version of the story, with Fredric March as narrator.) The most frequently-appearing artist, however, was

, who appeared in one role or another in a majority of the program's broadcasts.

Awards and nominations

Episode status

The extant episodes of ''Shower of Stars'' have survived only in black-and-white

kinescope Kinescope , shortened to kine , also known as telerecording in Britain, is a recording of a television program on motion picture film, directly through a lens focused on the screen of a video monitor. The process was pioneered during the 194 ...

s of the original color broadcasts, which have been lost. The episodes carry no copyright notice and are thus in the

public domain in the United States Works are in the public domain if they are not covered by intellectual property rights (such as copyright) at all, or if the intellectual property rights to the works have expired. All works first published or released in the United States b ...

. The

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

holds seven episodes in its collection.All video entries of "Shower of Stars" in the Internet Archive
retrieved December 2, 2019

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Shower Of Stars 1954 American television series debuts 1958 American television series endings 1950s American variety television series CBS original programming English-language television shows American live television series Television series by CBS Studios Television series by Desilu Productions