The Millionaire
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The Millionaire, a television drama anthology series (CBS, 19 January 1955-28 September 1960), explored the ways unexpected wealth changed life for better or for worse. The show became a five-season hit thanks in large part to a twist that also made it a bit of a cult classic in the years that followed its life in the so-called "Golden Era" of U.S. television. The show centered around the stories of unknown people who were given, seemingly out of nowhere, one million dollars from a benefactor who insisted they never know him – with one memorable exception.
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[edit] The Benefactor
He was John Beresford Tipton, sketched as a semi-retired industrialist and shown obscured by one of his high-backed leather chairs, viewers seeing only his right arm as he reached for a cashier's check for one million dollars, each week, and handed it to his executive secretary, a mild-mannered, good-humoured, but no-nonsense man named Michael Anthony. It was Anthony's job to travel and deliver that check to its intended recipient, staying only long enough to present the gift and then, customarily, leaving the recipient's life forever.
Supposedly, The Millionaire's creator and producer, Don Fedderson, created the philanthropist's name from his personal attorney, his wife's hometown, and his own hometown. However, John Beresford Tipton was also the name of an early-nineteenth-century American politician. The show's closing credits showed not the actor who actually portrayed him – or lent him a raspy but sonorous voice, anyway – but the character's name itself. Indeed, the show was presented so soberly in every way that there were probably many fans who believed John Beresford Tipton was a real person.
[edit] The Cast
Invariably, The Millionaire (also known as If You Only Had a Million) began with a very brief opening theme fanfare behind the ascending title frame, followed by the camera training directly upon Michael Anthony, played by veteran character actor and radio/television announcer Marvin Miller. (His credits to that point included small roles in numerous films, announcing for radio legend The Bickersons, filling in for Bill Foreman as the voice of the radio mystery hit, The Whistler, and playing Mr. Proteus/Captain Quick for thirteen episodes of the early TV hit, Space Patrol.) The unseen John Beresford Tipton was played by another veteran character actor and voice artist, Paul Frees. The irony: Tipton was portrayed as a sixty- or seventy-something man, and Anthony as a mid-forty-something man, but Marvin Miller was actually seven years older than Paul Frees.
Miller was the only regular seen in full every episode. The most regular recurring supporting cast were Roy Gordon, as banker Andrew V. McMahon, on whose Gotham Trust Bank the anonymous Tipton cashier's checks were drawn; and, Ed Herlihy, a veteran announcer (Kraft Music Theater, and later The Jack Paar Show), as the announcer for The Millionaire.
[edit] "My name is Michael Anthony . . . "
The Millionaire used the flashback premise as its very fulcrum, telling the story of John Beresford Tipton's beneficiaries as if from the case files of Michael Anthony. Each episode, to repeat, began with the camera training directly upon Miller as Anthony, behind his desk, looking directly at the viewer and speaking one or another variation on this theme:
My name is Michael Anthony. And until his death just a few years ago, I was the executive secretary to the late John Beresford Tipton. John Beresford Tipton, a fabulously wealthy and fascinating man, whose many hobbies included his habit of giving away one million dollars, tax free, each week ...to a total stranger." Or, "...one million dollars ...tax free ...to a person who had never met him; indeed, had never even heard of him.
(Precisely because so many viewers believed John Beresford Tipton to be an actual person, the Anthony introductions invariably referred to Tipton's death – perhaps inserted to minimize the likelihood of viewers sending begging letters to the fictitious industrialist in care of CBS.)
From there, the camera faded to what seemed a brief, edited tour of the grounds on which Tipton's bucolic home stood, presumably seen from Michael Anthony's car. Anthony continued speaking over this tour along this line: This is Silverstone, John Beresford Tipton's 60,000 acre estate. From here, he spent the later years of his life pursuing many hobbies, often tied to his fascination with human nature and behaviour. Mr. Tipton was a man of so many wide interests that one never knew just what to expect, when called into his presence.
The camera then faded to show Anthony entering Tipton's presence, invariably greeting him with, "You sent for me, sir?" Tipton spoke to Anthony with something between a parable and a homily, usually tied to what prompted Tipton to choose "our ...next millionaire," always with that Murrowesque pause, before handing Anthony the fateful envelope.
[edit] What Did He Know, How Did He Know?
Following the commercial break, Anthony back in the present, from behind his desk, would introduce "our ...next millionaire," by way of background that implied John Beresford Tipton made it his business to know more about his intended beneficiary than he would ever let the beneficiary know about him, perhaps as a mutual benefit: the beneficiary became an instant millionaire and Tipton had a new subject in his ongoing study of human behaviour, his beneficiaries probably having no idea they had been so thoroughly studied from afar.
Exactly how Tipton chose whom to make an instant millionaire was never necessarily disclosed, although Tipton made it plain enough in the show's first episode what his game was, if you could call it a game. Saying he wanted to set up a new kind of chess game, "with human beings," Tipton told Anthony, "I'm going to choose a number of people for my chessmen and give them each a million dollars. No one is ever to know that I am the donor." The series ran for 188 episodes and Tipton made 188 millionaires. However, the amount Tipton invested in his hobby was much more than $188 million since, as Anthony told recipients each week, "The taxes have already been paid." (This claim requires some suspension of disbelief since a benefactor can't completely relieve a beneficiary of the tax liability incurred by a gift; the payment of those taxes would itself be a gift, also subject to tax.)
But he spoke in the tone not of a manipulator but a sincere philanthropist. And perhaps that sincerity, in spite of the implied manipulativeness, helped make The Millionaire a hit for nearly six full years – and, occasionally, made John Beresford Tipton's weekly beneficence as easy a humour device as any television running gag. Even in the 21st Century the fictitious Tipton is a reference identifiable almost at once. "If I were John Beresford Tipton, Taylor would get a million from me so that he could again have live music," wrote critic Leigh Witchel, in a Dance View Times review of the Paul Taylor Dance Company – in 2005.
And, speaking of gags, Tipton was not above puckish humour – Anthony once arrived to see him fiddling with an electric train, as a way of advising Anthony how he would travel to make "our...next millionaire," even placing the fateful envelope into a gondola car before sending the train to Anthony's side of the table.
[edit] Flashback
Within five minutes of the viewer's catching up to the beneficiary in his or her daily life, Michael Anthony would make the inevitable and fateful visit – without exception, the beneficiary signed a legal statement binding him or her never to reveal the source of this million-dollar gift except to a spouse, under penalty of forfeit. Once the document was signed, and the thanks were given – accompanied by anything from a warm handshake to a gaping jaw of disbelief – Michael Anthony disappeared from their lives forever.
The beneficiaries were not strictly among the poor, but neither were they necessarily well off in their own right, though Tipton was as likely to have blessed a humble construction worker as a professional such as a doctor or an attorney. Nor were they always likely to find their lives changed strictly for the better because of their million dollar gifts. Written with intelligent sensitivity, given its era, The Millionaire strained never to go over the top, with either the reactions to the gifts nor the final consequences the gifts brought these beneficiaries, even if the money altered their lives only modestly, or even sadly.
But at least once The Millionaire entered into absurdist comedy. That was because it was derived for a hilarious 1958 episode of another CBS hit, The Jack Benny Program, in which the comedian's eternal boy singer, Dennis Day, became a Tipton beneficiary – complete with Marvin Miller as soberly bemused Michael Anthony delivering the unexpected gift.
[edit] The One He Actually Met
So entrenched was the premise of the show that even longtime fans of The Millionaire sometimes forget that once – and only once – a Tipton beneficiary actually did meet his heretofore obscure benefactor, and it was one of the show's most memorable episodes: the gift went this time to a man condemned to be executed for a crime he never committed. He ended up using a portion of his million-dollar gift to prove his innocence, with direct help from Michael Anthony himself, the only time Anthony stayed on even the periphery of a beneficiary's life, instead of saying "Good day" or "Good night" after presenting the check and receiving the signed disclaimer. Tipton himself visited the man as he was about to leave prison, though the old man was shown in his customary position: from behind, only his right hand or arm and a brief glimpse of the top of his head in view.
The only other time Tipton was seen in any episode beyond presenting Anthony with the next check to deliver was one in which Anthony himself was arrested and needed his boss to bail him out to finish the mission.
On still another occasion, as Anthony wryly said after that first commercial break, a beneficiary "got the money, all right ...but not from me" – Anthony was on his way to deliver the cashier's check when he was run down in a street accident, the check jarred loose from his possession, making its way around a few stunned townspeople before it finally reached its rightful owner, offering as much a short study of those people's reactions to an instant million as it did of the intended recipient.
[edit] End and Aftermath
The Millionaire ceased regular series production in 1960, its final regular episode, "Millionaire Patricia Collins," airing 7 June 1960, and its final reruns in its regular production time slot appearing that September. The show became a familiar presence in syndicated reruns through the 1960s and 1980s, both on its original network, CBS, and on numerous regional independents. At this writing, it is unknown whether any cable television network with classic television among its programming has any plans to air The Millionaire once again.
Creator and producer Don Fedderson continued doing both, with Johnny Carson's vintage game show, Who Do You Trust?, and with situation comedies like Date with The Angels (starring future Golden Girls co-star Betty White), My Three Sons and Family Affair.
Marvin Miller and Paul Frees continued their long and distinguished careers as character actors and voice artists. Miller appeared in numerous guest roles on various comedies and dramas, and also provided the voice of Robby the Robot in the mid-1950s science fiction film hit Forbidden Planet at about the same time The Millionaire went into production. (The robot also appeared in several television series after The Millionaire was finished, with Miller again providing the voice.) Frees especially remained a familiar cartoon voice, including his memorable performance as Crusty, the hermit crab who first recoils from but then befriends and aids Don Knotts' subterranean title character in The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964). The two men died within a year of each other, both of heart attacks: Miller in 1985, at age 73; and, Frees in 1986, at age 66.
Numerous then- and future-familiar faces appeared as guest performers during The Millionaire's production, including Charles Bronson, Joe Besser (once one of the Three Stooges), future My Three Sons co-star Beverly Garland, Carl Betz (The Donna Reed Show, Judd For The Defense), Carolyn Jones (the future co-star of The Addams Family), Ellen Corby (The Waltons), Richard Deacon (Leave It To Beaver, The Dick Van Dyke Show), Hugh O'Brian (Wyatt Earp), Phyllis Coates (Adventures of Superman), Edna Skinner (Mister Ed), Denver Pyle (The Dukes of Hazzard), Sherry Jackson (Make Room for Daddy), Angie Dickinson (Police Woman), Robert Vaughn (The Man from U.N.C.L.E.), Mary Tyler Moore, Agnes Moorehead, and even Wayne Rogers (M*A*S*H) and future television production emperor Aaron Spelling. At least one famous professional athlete appeared on the show: Hall of Fame baseball pitcher Don Drysdale, a familiar television presence during his playing career, appeared as Eddie Cano in "Millionaire Larry Maxwell" during the show's final season.
[edit] Parody
In 1978, the sketch comedy program SCTV produced a parody of the show called The $Millionaire. In it, Tipton (played by Joe Flaherty) has given away so much money over the years that he's practically broke. He continues his experiment, but now can only afford to give away $50 at a time. Michael Anthony (played by John Candy) still complies with the ridiculous scheme out of loyalty. However, he is humiliated by one of his beneficiaries, the Adamlies, who laugh at the notion that their lives could be changed with such a pittance. Anthony angrily confronts the delusional Tipton and retaliates by deliberately revealing his face to the camera. (In this version, he's shown to be an emaciated, white-bearded figure reminiscent of the latter-day Howard Hughes.)
