Letter to Loretta

Letter to Loretta (also known as The Loretta Young Show) is a 30-minute dramatic television anthology series telecast on NBC from 1953 to 1961 {Sundays, 10-10:30pm(et)} for a total of 165 episodes. The filmed show, originally sponsored by Procter & Gamble from 1953 through 1960 [the final season's sponsor was Warner-Lambert's "Listerine"], was hosted by Loretta Young, who played the lead in various episodes.

The program, which earned her three Emmys, began with the premise that each drama was an answer to a question asked in her fan mail; the program's original title was Letter to Loretta. The title was changed to The Loretta Young Show during the first season (as of February 14, 1954), and the "letter" concept was dropped altogether at the end of the second season. At this time, Young's health, which had deteriorated due to a heavy production schedule during the second season, required that there be a number of guest hosts and guest stars; her first appearance in the 1955-56 season was for the Christmas show. From this point on, Young appeared in only about half of each season's shows as an actress and merely functioned as the program hostess for the remainder. This program, minus Young's introductions and summarized conclusions (Loretta insisted on their deletion due to her concern that the dresses she wore in those segments would "date" the program), was rerun in daytime by NBC as The Loretta Young Theater from October 1960 to December 1964, and then appeared, again without the introductions and conclusions, in syndication through the 1970s. In 1992, selected episodes of the original series (with Loretta's opening and closing segments intact), authorized by Loretta herself and chosen from her personal collection of 16mm film prints, were released on home video, and eventually shown on cable television.

After the series ended, Young attempted a comeback on CBS in the 1962-1963 season in The New Loretta Young Show, in which she played a free-lance writer and the widowed mother of seven children. James Philbrook, who appeared in five Letter to Loretta episodes, was cast as her magazine publisher and romantic interest in the second series. Beverly Washburn appeared four times on Letter to Loretta and was subsequently cast as Vickie Massey in The New Loretta Young Show.

Guest stars

• Walter Coy, three times
• Kim Spalding, three times
• Michael Winkelman, twice

External links

• Letter to Loretta at the Internet Movie Database