| This Is Your Life | |
|---|---|
Title card from 1954 |
|
| Genre | Reality Documentary |
| Presented by | Ralph Edwards |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Language(s) | English |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | Ralph Edwards |
| Running time | 45–48 minutes |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | NBC |
| Picture format | Black-and-white |
| Audio format | Monaural |
| Original run | October 1, 1952 – 1961 |
| Chronology | |
| Related shows | British version Australian version New Zealand version |
This Is Your Life is an American television documentary series broadcast on NBC, originally hosted by its producer, Ralph Edwards from 1952 to 1961. In the show, the host surprises a guest, and proceeds to take them through their life in front of an audience including friends and family.
Edwards revived the show in 1971-72, while Joseph Campanella hosted a version in 1983. Edwards returned for some specials in the late 1980s, before his death in 2005. The show originated as a radio show on NBC Radio airing from 1948 to 1952.
Other versions of the television show have also been made in Britain from 1955, as well as in Australia, in New Zealand and in Sweden.[1] The This Is Your Life format is distributed internationally by DRG.
Contents |
The idea for This Is Your Life arose while Edwards was working on Truth or Consequences. He had been asked by the U.S. Army to "do something" for paraplegic soldiers at Birmingham General Hospital, a Van Nuys, Los Angeles, California Army rehabilitation hospital (a site later converted into a high school). Edwards chose a "particularly despondent young soldier and hit on the idea of presenting his life on the air, in order to integrate the wreckage of the present with his happier past and the promise of a hopeful future."[2] Edwards received such positive public feedback from the "capsule narrative" of the soldier he gave on Truth or Consequences that he developed This Is Your Life as a new radio show.[3] In the show, Edwards would surprise each guest by narrating a biography of the subject. The show "alternated in presenting the life stories of entertainment personalities and 'ordinary' people who had contributed in some way to their communities."[3] The host, consulting his "red book", would narrate while presenting the subject with family members, friends, and others who had had an impact on his or her life.
By the 1950s, the show was aired live before a theater audience. The guests were surprised by Ralph Edwards and confronted by the microphone and cameras. They made their way to the studio during the first commercial break. Most of the honorees quickly got over their initial shock and enjoyed meeting bygone friends again, as with Don DeFore on May 6, 1953.[4] Movie producer Mack Sennett's response was typical: he hated being caught off-guard, but as the tribute progressed he relaxed, and by the end of the show he was quite pleased with the experience.
Planning for the broadcast meant that some would know in advance about the surprise. Carl Reiner later admitted that he knew beforehand about his appearance. In some cases the episode was not a surprise: Eddie Cantor had a heart condition, so the show's producers made sure that he wasn't surprised.[3]
Some celebrities were unpleasantly surprised. Stan Laurel of Laurel and Hardy was angered by being "tricked" into what would be the team's only American television appearance, on December 1, 1954. Laurel later said, "[Oliver Hardy] and I were always planning to do something on TV. But we never dreamed that we would make our television debut on an unrehearsed network program...I was damned if I was going to put on a free show for them." Lowell Thomas "displayed obvious anger and embarrassment";[3] when host Ralph Edwards tried to assure him that he would enjoy what was to come, Thomas replied, "I doubt that very much." In 1993, Angie Dickinson refused to appear on a retrospective show.[5]
One of the show's subjects was Rev. Kiyoshi Tanimoto, a survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. During the episode Edwards introduced Tanimoto to Robert A. Lewis, the co-pilot of the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima.[6] Hanna Bloch Kohner, a Holocaust survivor, was a subject on May 27, 1953.[7]
In February 1953, Lillian Roth, a "topflight torch singer of the Prohibition era" was the subject of the show, "cheerfully admitt[ing] that she had been a hopeless drunk for 16 years before being rescued by Alcoholics Anonymous."[2][6] Edwards described Roth's condition as "impending blindness, an inflamed sinus and a form of alcoholic insanity" and brought on a psychiatrist who had treated her, a brother-in-law "who had paid her bills" and several "glamorous foul-weather friends" such as Lita Grey Chaplin and Ruby Keeler.[2] Roth's story became the basis of her autobiography and the film, I'll Cry Tomorrow, with Edwards appearing as himself.
Kate Newcomb, a doctor who practiced in a "70-mile circle" around Woodruff, Wisconsin and was later honored as the namesake of that town's Dr. Kate Newcomb Museum, was the subject of a 1954 episode, bringing attention to her "million pennies" drive to raise funds for a small community hospital; viewers of the episode donated over $112,000 in pennies.[8]
According to The Complete Directory of Prime-Time Network TV Shows, one celebrity that was definitely off-limits was Edwards himself, who supposedly threatened to fire every member of his staff if they ever tried to turn the tables on him and publicly present Edwards' own life.
This Is Your Life was nominated three times for as " Best Audience Participation, Quiz or Panel Program" at the Emmy Awards, losing in 1953 at the 5th Emmy Awards to What's My Line? and sharing the category's award with What's My Line? at the Emmys in 1954 and 1955.
By October 1960, Time magazine was calling This Is Your Life "the most sickeningly sentimental show on the air"; it cited a May 1960 episode on "Queens housewife and mother" Elizabeth Hahn as evidence that the show had "run through every faded actress still able to cry on cue" and had instead "turned to ordinary people as subjects for its weekly, treacly 'true-to-life' biographies."[9] The episode on Hahn was also cited as an example of the limited research that the show was doing on its guests. The show had presented Hahn as "devoted to her husband and so dedicated to her children that she had worked as a chambermaid, waitress and cook to further their education and keep them off the streets", ignoring details such as that Hahn, on the advice of her rabbi, had brought her daughter into a magistrate's court as a delinquent, and that before the episode was broadcast, Hahn's husband had sued Hahn for divorce.[9]
In the late 1980s, Edwards made many episodes that featured celebrities available for re-broadcasting: American Movie Classics aired them for several years, accompanying them with "screenings of movies from studio-era Hollywood."[3]
Edwards revived the series twice in syndication, the first with Edwards again as host and in 1983 with Joseph Campanella. Both failed to capture the magic of the original series, mostly due to the series being filmed or taped and, in the case of the 1971-72 version, some stations that aired it gave away the surprise elements in ads and promos for the show. During the late-1980s, Ralph Edwards hosted a few single prime time network airings of This Is Your Life, most memorably an episode featuring Betty White and Dick Van Dyke.
In November 2005, ABC announced that it was developing a new version of the show, to be hosted by Regis Philbin. Coincidentally, the show's creator, Ralph Edwards, died not long after the announcement was made. In August 2006, Philbin decided not to renew his contract with the show (he was committed to hosting America's Got Talent on NBC). ABC announced it was considering moving forward with another host in 2006.[10][11]
In October 2008, Survivor producer Mark Burnett signed a deal with Ralph Edwards Productions to produce an updated version,[12] though no further developments have been announced.