Faye Emerson's Wonderful Town

Faye Emerson's Wonderful Town, also known as Wonderful Town, USA, is a 42-episode live half-hour variety television series which aired on CBS from June 16, 1951, to April 12, 1952 in which Faye Emerson visits various cities, mostly in the United States, to focus on the different kinds of music associated with each location.^[1]

Premise

Wonderful Town is one of several 1950s series in which Emerson, called the "first lady of television," had a starring role. Emerson's third husband, bandleader Skitch Henderson, appeared with her on the series. Because the series was broadcast on location, it was particularly expensive to produce.^[2]

In the premiere episode, Emerson visits Boston, Massachusetts. On July 7, 1951, she hosted Barry Bingham, Sr., publisher of the Louisville Courier-Journal, when the program visited Louisville, Kentucky. In the fifth episode based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which aired on July 14, former mayor and then U.S. Senator Hubert H. Humphrey and actor Richard Carlson were among the guests. On October 27, 1951, humorist and author Abe Burrows was the guest star in his native The Bronx borough of New York City.^[1]

On December 1, 1951, Emerson focuses on four college towns, Los Angeles: UCLA, Dallas: Southern Methodist University, and in New England: Smith College and Dartmouth College. On December 8, 1951, Emerson visited the city where she was reared, San Diego, California, with Mayor John D. Butler and Florence Chadwick, a swimmer of the English Channel, as the guests. On January 19, 1952, Emerson hosted columnist Earl Wilson in Columbus, Ohio. On February 2, the host city is Washington, D.C., featuring U.S. Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine. On March 1, 1952, the editor Virginius Dabney was the guest as the series visited Richmond, Virginia. Other segments focus on Paris, Mexico City, and Brooklyn. The last episode is set in Times Square.^[1]

The Don Large Chorus performed on Wonderful Town, which aired on Saturdays at 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.^[1]

Other guest stars

• Pearl Bailey
• Sally Benson
• Dane Clark
• Rosemary Clooney
• Wally Cox
• Jane Darwell
• Dizzy Dean
• Johnny Desmond
• Dave Garroway
• Lillian Gish
• Benny Goodman
• W.C. Handy
• The Honey Dreamers
• The Ink Spots
• Buster Keaton
• Patrick H. O'Malley, Jr.
• Garry Moore
• Hazel Scott
• Cornelia Otis Skinner
• Gladys Swarthout
• Mel Torme
• Ernest Truex
• Nancy Walker
• Margaret Whiting^[1]

Emerson: Overview

A native of Allen Parish in southwestern Louisiana, Emerson hosted one Wonderful Town program from New Orleans. Prior to her marriage to Henderson, Emerson had been wed to William Crawford, Jr., by whom she had a son, William, III, and then Elliott Roosevelt, a brigadier general and a son of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Later Emerson was a panelist on Garry Moore's CBS' quiz program, I've Got a Secret until Betsy Palmer replaced her in 1958, the same year that she was divorced from Henderson. She spent her last years in seclusion and died of stomach cancer at the age of sixty-five on the island of Majorca.^[2]

References