The HIDDEN MOVIE AD...it's on my lips

The next several posts are going to be hidden movie ads. Movie stars as hucksters for products in order to sell movies. It's done everyday, but back in 1949 the studios did not have the immediate inundating access they have now. These days actors are trotted out to talk shows to hawk their films. It's in their contracts. Choose not to do it? Good luck with your reputation in the industry. And actors willingly do commercials just to keep their face in the public eye and make extra cash. I'm not holding it against any of them. If I could do a commercial and get checks in the mail I'd be a happy camper. Trust me, you don't want to see me on your screen.

Click on image to see it larger. (SOURCE: April 1949 Photoplay)

For your viewing pleasure I give you Meg Randall. Who? Meg Randall:

Meg Randall (born 1 August 1926 in Clinton, Oklahoma) was a film actress. A graduate of the University of Oklahoma, Randall signed a movie contract with Universal Pictures in 1949 and, that same year, appeared in the film noir classic Criss Cross and played Babs Riley in the comedy film The Life of Riley. Randall was credited as Gene Roberts before 1949. Meg also starred as Kim Kettle in several of the "Ma and Pa Kettle" movies. She continued to act in films until the late 1950s. (SOURCE: Wikipedia)

What you see above is the entire post at Wikipedia. I didn't cut it down. Apparently Ms. Randall found other things to do with her life than act in movies. Click here to see a list of her work posted at IMDB. And click here to see an interesting movie poster for a noir film she starred in called Without Warning.

The other star is Richard Long. Long I remember from episodic television. Remember The Big Valley? Then you remember Richard Long. How about Nanny and the Professor? Oh come on, own up to it. You watched it, at least once.

Richard Long (December 17, 1927 – December 21, 1974) was an American actor better known for his leading roles in several ABC television series, including The Big Valley and Nanny and the Professor.

Long was the fifth of six children born in Chicago, Illinois, to Sherman D. Long, a commercial artist who operated his own studio, and Dale McCord Long. The family lived in several locations in Illinois before settling in Evanston, Illinois. Long attended grammar school in Evanston, Waller High School in Chicago, and then the Evanston Township High School. In 1944, the family relocated to Hollywood, California, and Long attended Hollywood High School for his senior year. Long said that as a teenager he had "no intention of becoming an actor. I took senior drama class because it was a snap course, and I needed the credit for my English requirement".

At Hollywood High School, Long caught the eye of a talent scout from Universal-International by accident. Casting director Jack Murton gave a ride to a couple of students and asked them if a school play was scheduled. The boys told Murton about the excellent male lead actor, Richard Long. In 1946, Long was hence cast in his first film, Tomorrow Is Forever as Drew, the son of Claudette Colbert. The role had been unfilled for months, and producers selected Long who most closely matched the credentials required.

Early in his career, Long appeared in several films as a juvenile lead, including four of the nine Ma and Pa Kettle pictures. He was cast as Tom Kettle, the eldest son of the characters played by Percy Kilbride and Marjorie Main. His second film was the Orson Welles's The Stranger as Noah, the brother of Loretta Young's character. He also played "Jeff Taylor" in The Life of Riley and played "Frank James" in the 1950 movie Kansas Raiders. He moved into leading man status in horror movies such as Cult of the Cobra (1954), and House on Haunted Hill (1959) before he achieved considerable success on television, including the series Bourbon Street Beat (1959–60). He also appeared on episodes of The Twilight Zone and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.

In 1963, Long was cast in the MGM romantic musical Follow the Boys, along with costars Connie Francis, Paula Prentiss, and Roger Perry.

In 1965, at the age of thirty-eight, Long began his role as attorney Jarrod Barkley, oldest son to rancher Victoria Barkley (Barbara Stanwyck), in 112 episodes of The Big Valley, the last of the major Four Star Television series, a Western which ran on ABC from 1965–1969. The series was set in the 1870s. Long also directed several episodes of The Big Valley. In 1953, Long had costarred with Stanwyck in the film All I Desire.

In 1970–71, he and Juliet Mills starred in the ABC sitcom Nanny and the Professor. Long played widowed college professor Harold Everett, and Mills was Phoebe Figalilly, the English housekeeper and nanny for Long's three children. In 1973 he stared alongside Julie Harris in the short-lived series Thicker than Water. In 1974, Long appeared on the television game show, Match Game. He also finished a television movie called Death Cruise, which was his last work.

Long had cardiac problems throughout his adult life and had suffered a heart attack in the latter 1950s. As a boy, he had suffered pneumonia, which apparently weakened his heart. He was also a heavy smoker and drinker. He died in 1974, aged 47, after suffering multiple heart attacks at Tarzana Treatment Centers in Los Angeles. He was cremated, and his ashes were scattered at sea.[citation needed]

Personal life

Long served in the United States Army during the Korean War. He was twice married. His first wife of fourteen months, actress Suzan Ball (a cousin of Lucille Ball) died of cancer in 1955 at the age of twenty-one. In 1957, Long married actress and model Mara Corday (birth name Marilyn Watts), with whom he had three children, Carey (born 1957), Valerie (born 1958), and Gregory (born 1960).

A few years after her husband's passing in 1974, Corday's friend Clint Eastwood offered her a chance to return to filmmaking with a role in his 1977 film The Gauntlet. (SOURCE: Wikipedia)

You can click here to see Long's IMDB page.

The Life of Riley? I don't remember the movie. I DO remember the tv show starring William Bendix and watched it for years.

The Life of Riley, with William Bendix in the title role, is a popular American radio situation comedy series of the 1940s that was adapted into a 1949 feature film, a long-run 1950s television series (originally with Jackie Gleason as Reilly) and a 1958 Dell comic book.

The show began as a proposed Groucho Marx radio series, The Flotsam Family, but the sponsor balked at what would have been essentially a straight head-of-household role for the comedian. (Groucho went on to host Blue Ribbon Town from 1943 to 1944 and then You Bet Your Life from 1947 to 1961.) Then producer Irving Brecher saw Bendix as taxicab company owner Tim McGuerin in Hal Roach's The McGuerins from Brooklyn (1942). The Flotsam Family was reworked with Bendix cast as blundering Chester A. Riley, a wing riveter at the fictional Cunningham Aircraft plant in California. His frequent exclamation of indignation became one of the most famous catch phrases of the 1940s: "What a revoltin' development this is!" The radio series benefited from the immense popularity of a supporting character, Digby "Digger" O'Dell (John Brown), "the friendly undertaker." (SOURCE: Wikipedia)

And did you think Tangee was a product from the past not available today? Wrong. The Vermont Country Store has been selling it for years. Never tried it. Haven't used lipstick since high school and then it was Yardley of London and ONLY Yardley of London.

Next up...Joan Crawford.