Kukla
''Kukla, Fran and Ollie'' is an early American television show using puppets. It was created for children, but soon watched by more adults than children. It did not have a script and was entirely ad-libbed. It was broadcast from Chicago between October 13, 1947 and August 30, 1957. Comedienne Fran Allison starred, interacting with puppets, Kukla and Ollie (and sometimes other puppets) whose puppeteer was the show's creator, Burr Tillstrom. After the original run, the team appeared in other productions over several decades. Original series Burr Tillstrom was the creator and only puppeteer on the show, which premiered as the hour-long ''Junior Jamboree'' locally on WBKB in Chicago, Illinois, on October 13, 1947. The program was renamed ''Kukla, Fran and Ollie'' (''KFO'') and transferred to WNBQ (the predecessor of Chicago's WMAQ-TV) on November 29, 1948. The first NBC network broadcast of the show took place on January 12, 1949. It aired from 6:00–6:30 p.m. Central Tim ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Burr Tillstrom
Franklin Burr Tillstrom (October 13, 1917 – December 6, 1985) was a puppeteer and the creator of '' Kukla, Fran and Ollie''. Early life Tillstrom was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Bert and Alice Burr Tillstrom. He attended Senn High School in Chicago and later the University of Chicago. While still a freshman, he accepted a job offer from the WPA-Chicago Parks District Theatre to set up a marionette theater. Career Tillstrom turned his attention to puppetry in the early 1930s and created Kukla in 1936. Kukla remained nameless until the Russian ballerina Tamara Toumanova referred to him as ''kukla'', the Russian word for "doll". Other famous puppets from Tillstrom's group included Ollie (Oliver J. Dragon), Beulah Witch, Goultar, Cecil Bill, and Fletcher Rabbit. In 1939, Tillstrom was invited to present his Kuklapolitan Players at the New York World's Fair. The following year, RCA sent him to Bermuda to perform on the first ship-to-shore broadcast. From 1947 to 1957, Ti ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Fran Allison
Frances Helen Allison (November 20, 1907June 13, 1989) was an American television and radio comedienne, personality, and singer. She is best known for her starring role on the weekday NBC-TV puppet show ''Kukla, Fran and Ollie'', which ran from 1947 to 1957, occasionally returning to the air until the mid-1980s. The trio also hosted ''The CBS Children's Film Festival'', introducing international children's films, from 1967 to 1977. Biography Early years Frances Helen Allison was born to Jesse Louis Allison and Anna M. "Nan" (née Halpin) Allison in La Porte City, Iowa, where her father worked as a clerk in a grocery store until his stroke in 1913. They then moved in with her paternal grandparents, David Allison, a Civil War veteran, and Susan (née Booth) Allison. Their house still stands on Sycamore Street in LaPorte City. She was a 1927 graduate of Coe College, where she was a member of Alpha Gamma Delta. She was a fourth-grade teacher for four years in Schleswig and Pocaho ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tamara Toumanova
Tamara Toumanova ( ka, თამარა თუმანოვა; 2 March 1919 – 29 May 1996) was a Georgian-American prima ballerina and actress. A child of exiles in Paris after the Russian Revolution of 1917, she made her debut at the age of 10 at the children's ballet of the Paris Opera. She became known internationally as one of the Baby Ballerinas of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo after being discovered by her fellow émigré, balletmaster and choreographer George Balanchine. She was featured in numerous ballets in Europe. Balanchine featured her in his productions at Ballet Theatre, New York, making her the star of his performances in the United States. While most of Toumanova's career was dedicated to ballet, she appeared as a ballet dancer in several films, beginning in 1944. She became a naturalized United States citizen in 1943 in Los Angeles, California. Career Toumanova was the daughter of Yevgenia [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Beulah Zachary
Beulah Zachary (August 13, 1911 – February 3, 1959) was an American television director and producer. Early life and career Beulah May Zachary was born in Brevard, North Carolina on August 13, 1911, to parents William and Beulah Zachary. She attended Salem College, and intended to become a teacher. She began working in television in 1944, when she was hired by the Chicago-based station WKBK. She is most noted for being the executive producer of the television series ''Kukla, Fran and Ollie'', a puppet show which ran between 1947 and 1957. Death Beulah Zachary died in the East River in New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ... on February 3, 1959, as one of the 65 casualties of the 1959 American Airlines Flight 320 plane crash. Having never married, she was ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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WMAQ-TV
WMAQ-TV (channel 5) is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, airing programming from the NBC network. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Telemundo outlet WSNS-TV (channel 44); it is also sister to regional sports network NBC Sports Chicago. WMAQ-TV and WSNS-TV share studios at the NBC Tower on North Columbus Drive in the city's Streeterville neighborhood and share transmitter facilities atop the Willis Tower in the Chicago Loop. History Early years (1948–1964) The station first signed on the air on October 8, 1948, as WNBQ; it was the fourth television station to sign on in Chicago. It was also the third of NBC's five original owned-and-operated television stations to begin operations, after WNBC-TV in New York City and WRC-TV in Washington, D.C., and before WKYC in Cleveland and KNBC in Los Angeles. WNBQ initially broadcast a minimum of two hours of programming per day. The station originally prop ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Television Show
A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed between shows. Television shows are most often scheduled for broadcast well ahead of time and appear on electronic guides or other TV listings, but streaming services often make them available for viewing anytime. The content in a television show can be produced with different methodologies such as taped variety shows emanating from a television studio stage, animation or a variety of film productions ranging from movies to series. Shows not produced on a television studio stage are usually contracted or licensed to be made by appropriate production companies. Television shows can be viewed live (real time), be recorded on home video, a digital video recorder for later viewing, be viewed on demand via a set-top box, or streamed ove ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Trade Union
A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits (such as holiday, health care, and retirement), improving working conditions, improving safety standards, establishing complaint procedures, developing rules governing status of employees (rules governing promotions, just-cause conditions for termination) and protecting the integrity of their trade through the increased bargaining power wielded by solidarity among workers. Trade unions typically fund their head office and legal team functions through regularly imposed fees called ''union dues''. The delegate staff of the trade union representation in the workforce are usually made up of workplace volunteers who are often appointed by members in democratic elections. The trade union, through an elected leadership and bargaining committee ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Milton Caniff
Milton Arthur Paul Caniff (; February 28, 1907 – April 3, 1988) was an People of the United States, American cartoonist famous for the ''Terry and the Pirates (comic strip), Terry and the Pirates'' and ''Steve Canyon'' comic strips. Biography Caniff was born in Hillsboro, Ohio. He was an Eagle Scout (Boy Scouts of America), Eagle Scout and a recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America. Caniff did cartoons for local newspapers while studying at Stivers High School (now Stivers School for the Arts) in Dayton Ohio. At Ohio State University, Caniff joined the Sigma Chi fraternity and later illustrated for ''The Magazine of Sigma Chi'' and ''The Norman Shield'' (the fraternity's pledgeship/reference manual). Graduating in 1930, Caniff began at the ''Columbus Dispatch'' where he worked with the noted cartoonists Billy Ireland and Dudley Fisher, but Caniff's position was eliminated during the Great Depression. Caniff related later that he had been un ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ben Grauer
Benjamin Franklin Grauer (June 2, 1908 – May 31, 1977) was a US radio and TV personality, following a career during the 1920s as a child actor in films and on Broadway. He began his career as a child in David Warfield's production of ''The Return of Peter Grimm''. Among his early credits were roles in films directed by D.W. Griffith. Grauer was born in Staten Island, New York. After graduating from Townsend Harris High School, he received his B.A. from the City College of New York in 1930. Grauer started in radio as an actor but soon became part of the broadcasting staff at the National Broadcasting Company. He was one of the four narrators, along with Burgess Meredith, of NBC's public affairs series '' The Big Story'', which focused on courageous journalists. In 1954, he married interior designer Melanie Kahane. Radio Grauer's greatest fame lies in his legendary 40-year career in radio. In 1930, the 22-year-old Benjamin Franklin Grauer joined the staff at NBC. He quickly rose ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tallulah Bankhead
Tallulah Brockman Bankhead (January 31, 1902 – December 12, 1968) was an American actress. Primarily an actress of the stage, Bankhead also appeared in several prominent films including an award-winning performance in Alfred Hitchcock's ''Lifeboat (1944 film), Lifeboat'' (1944). She also had a brief but successful career on radio and made appearances on television. In all, Bankhead amassed nearly 300 film, stage, television and radio roles during her career. She was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1972 and the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame in 1981. Bankhead was a member of the List of United States political families (B)#Bankheads and Brockmans, Bankhead and Brockman family, a prominent Alabama political family. Her grandfather and her uncle were U.S. senators, and her father was Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Speaker of the House of Representatives. Bankhead's support of liberalism in the United States, liberal causes, including the b ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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John Steinbeck
John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. (; February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968) was an American writer and the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature winner "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social perception." He has been called "a giant of American letters." During his writing career, he authored 33 books, with one book coauthored alongside Edward Ricketts, including 16 novels, six non-fiction books, and two collections of short stories. He is widely known for the comic novels '' Tortilla Flat'' (1935) and '' Cannery Row'' (1945), the multi-generation epic '' East of Eden'' (1952), and the novellas '' The Red Pony'' (1933) and '' Of Mice and Men'' (1937). The Pulitzer Prize–winning '' The Grapes of Wrath'' (1939) is considered Steinbeck's masterpiece and part of the American literary canon. In the first 75 years after it was published, it sold 14 million copies. Most of Steinbeck's work is set in central California, particu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |