| The Classic Hollywood Squares Site News From the Grid The Latest as of December 20, 2009 Connie Hines 1930-2009 Connie Hines, best known for her role as the lady of the house on Mr. Ed, died Friday, December 18th in Beverly Hills. She was 79, and had been suffering from unspecified health problems. Hines was born in 1930 and had hoped to land a major movie career in Hollywood in the mid 1950s. Her only major movie role was in a B-movie, 1960's "Thunder in Carolina" with Rory Calhoun, about stock car racing. Her big break, however was on a rigged game show, NBC's Dotto, where she appeared for two weeks in 1958. She later told investigators into the game show scandals everything she knew about being coached before air time and other similar matters. Guest appearances on shows like The Millionaire, The Untouchables and Sea Hunt led her to the role she always considered "just a steady paycheck"--Carol Post, Wilbur's husband on Mr. Ed. She only had a relatively minor role on the CBS sitcom, but stayed on for its entire six season run. After more guest appearances on shows like Bonanza and Love, American Style, Hines retired from acting. However, when Mr. Ed appeared in reruns on Nick at Nite in the 1980s, a whole new generation discovered the show and she graciously made numerous personal appearances alongside the show's human star, Alan Young. Hines appeared on The Hollywood Squares four times from 1967 to 1970. Other game shows included Stump the Stars and Celebrity Sweepstakes. Gene Barry 1919-2009 Gene Barry, the man who brought TV icons Bat Masterson and Amos Burke to life, has died. He lived to be 91, before his death December 9 in a Woodland Hills, California assisted living facility. Born and raised in New York, Barry won a scholarship to a music school and began his career singing over radio station WHN. He acted in several Broadway shows, one of which ("Catherine Was Great") gave him the chance to meed his future wife Betty. In 1951 Barry signed a Hollywood Contract that led to roles in such classic films as "Thunder Road," "Soldier of Fortune" and 1953's "War of the Worlds." (He had a walk-on appearance in the later Steven Spielberg/Tom Cruise remake.) It led to his first classic TV role, the title role of Bat Masterson. At first Barry admitted being "repulsed" by the idea of acting in a TV western. That changed when he found out his character was a gentleman lawman whose wardrobe included the "cane and derby hat" mentioned in the series' unforgettable theme song. After that ABC series ended, he played a similar character on the CBS series Burke's Law, in which he was an independently wealthy crime fighter arriving at crime scenes in a Rolls Royce. A Perry Mason-type series with loads of current guest stars and future celebrities on their way up, it lived beyond its 1963-66 run as another incarnation in 1994-95. Later series included NBC's The Name of the Game. His rugged TV persona made him the unlikely choice to play one half of a gay couple in Broadway's 1984 version of "La Cage Aux Folles," a role that earned him a Tony nomination. In fact, he probably devoted more time and passion to his singing than he did to his straight acting. Barry's game show appearances date all the way back to Hollywood Screen Test in 1949, and include About Faces, People Will Talk, Stump the Stars, The Celebrity Game, The Movie Game and Tattletales. Barry appeared on The Hollywood Squares several times between 1968 and 1974. As Much Squares Music as You Could Ever Want The very well done website, the Television Production Music Museum, now has an entire page devoted to music cues from all version of The Hollywood Squares. It includes a full version of the "Merrill and Bob's Theme" from the 1970s, complete with the piccolo and keyboard solo. Check it out. It also includes cues from all the other versions, including the very-Eighties saxophone heavy version from the Davidson years. Dennis Cole 1940-2009 Dennis Cole, a prime time actor who may be best remembered for his marriage to Charlie's Angel Jaclyn Smith, has died at age 69. Cole died November 15 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Born and raised in Detroit, Cole first worked as a male model in muscle-building magazine ads, then as a stuntman. Eventually he began acting, first coming to prominence in the short-lived 1960s soap Paradise Bay, then for three seasons as one of the co-stars of the prime time series Felony Squad. He went on to co-star in two other shortlived series, Bracken's World and Bearcats!, and made guest appearances on shows like Love American Style, Barnaby Jones, The Love Boat and Charlie's Angels. It was that last appearance where he met his second of three wives, series co-star Jaclyn Smith, and they were married from 1978 until their 1981 divorce. Cole later appeared on The Young and the Restless and a number of b-movies. He toured in a production of "Victor/Victoria," playing the role originated in the 1982 movie by James Garner, but injuries from that tour sidelined him for three years and put his life in a different direction. He spent his last few years working as a real estate agent. Cole appeared three times on the Marshall Squares, including twice (1967 and '68) during his run on Felony Squad. Al Martino 1927-2009 Al Martino, a singer who played the Sinatra-esque singer in "The Godfather," has died at age 82. He died October 13 in Springfield, Pennsylvania, the same state as his birthplace of Philadelphia. In his own right, Martino was best remember for songs "Spanish Eyes" and "Here in My Heart." As a crooner he made numerous talk and variety show appearances over the years, including the shows of Mike Douglas, the Lennon Sisters, Jackie Gleason, Ed Sullivan and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. His dabbling in acting is best remembered by his role as Johnny Fontane, the singer in the first "Godfather" movie in 1972. He reprised the role in 1990's "Godfather Part III." Other acting appearances on TV included Adam-12 and The City. Martino appeared on The Hollywood Squares in 1972. Soupy Sales 1926-2009 Soupy Sales, comedian, pie-thrower, pie-recipient and game show panelist, died October 22 at age 83. Sales died in a Bronx hospice one week after checking in, having suffered a variety of health problems. Born Milton Supman in South Carolina, Sales returned from a World War II stint in the Navy to work as a radio reporter. In 1951, he took his first pie as host of a children's TV show in Cleveland. In 1964, The Soupy Sales Show premiered on New York local TV; its bad puns and self aware gags made the show a hit with all ages. Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr. and Shirley Maclaine were among those who gave Soupy a pie in the face, and received one back. His pranks both given and received became the stuff of legend. Once his crew played a joke on him by having a naked lady show up at the door to his set during a live broadcast (she wasn't seen on TV but was caught on tape by an off-air camera). On another occasion, he asked children to look in their fathers' wallets and mothers' purses and send him "green pictures of old men." That one got him suspended for a week but actually made his popularity skyrocket. Over the years Sales also presided over a 1970s syndicated comeback and was a regular panelist on What's My Line? during its five day a week syndicated run in 1968-75. In fact, his WML? tenure is how your webmaster first knew him. He also guested on shows like Route 66, The Love Boat, Boy Meets World and Black Scorpion, not to mention numerous--numerous--other game shows. Sales appeared on the Marshall Hollywood Squares a number of times from 1967 to 1978 and also appeared on the Match Game/Hollywood Squares Hour and The Storybook Squares. The game shows of Soupy Sales 3rd Degree All-Star Secrets Amateur's Guide To Love Baffle Blackout Blankety Blanks Body Language Break The Bank ('70s daytime) Can You Top This Chain Reaction Cross-Wits ('70s) Everybody's Talking The Face Is Familiar Funny You Should Ask Hollywood Squares (Marshall daytime) Liars Club ('70s) Love Experts Match Game ('60s, '76, PM, '90) Match Game/Hollywood Squares Hour Name Droppers Password ('60s daytime, '70s daytime) Personality Pictionary Pyramid (all Bob Stewart incarnations) Shoot For The Stars Snap Judgment Storybook Squares To Say The Least To Tell The Truth ('60s syndie, '80s syndie, '90s daytime) What's My Line? (prime time and syndie) Win, Lose Or Draw (daytime) Win With The Stars Wordplay Yahtzee You're Putting Me On Henry Gibson 1935-2009 Henry Gibson, the Laugh-In poet also known for rather memorable roles in everything from The Beverly Hillbillies to "The Blues Brothers," died September 14 in Malibu, California. He was 73. Born in Germantown, Pennsylvania in 1935, Gibson was actually a child actor on stage before working briefly in Air Force intelligence in the late 1950s. He and another unlikely struggling actor--future Oscar winner Jon Voight--at one point worked together as a comedy team playing Southern hillbillies. Sales began appearing in movies, including 1963's Jerry Lewis classic "The Nutty Professor" and the Three Stooges film "The Outlaws is Coming." He guested on shows like Bewitched, My Favorite Martian, F Troop and as western actor Quirt Manly in The Beverly Hillbillies. Then he got his break on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, playing a Southern poet similar to the character he developed in nightclubs. He left the show in 1971 to continue career as a character actor; he's especially well remembered as a neo-Nazi in 1980's "The Blues Brothers." In later years he did cartoon voices on shows like The Smurfs and The Wild Thornberrys, and memorably played a judge in several episodes of The Practice. Gibson appeared on the Marshall Hollywood Squares several times between 1968 and 1970. Army Archerd 1919-2009 Army Archerd, the man who was a big part of Hollywood, the city he covered so closely, died September 8 at the Ronald Reagan Medical Center in Los Angeles. He was 90. Archerd's death was described as rare form of mesothelioma, possibly from World War II asbestos exposure. Archerd began writing his "Just for Variety" column in Variety magazine in 1953, often reporting from film sets and breaking major news stories. Perhaps his biggest was that Rock Hudson was dying from AIDS in 1985. Although he retired from his column in 2005. he began blogging online for the magazine later that year. He covered numerous premieres over the years, often from Grauman's Chinese Theater, and his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is located right in front of that theater. He was a fixture at the People's Choice Awards for years, and often guest starred on TV shows like 77 Sunset Strip, Here's Lucy and Mannix--all as himself--and on other shows like Batman and That Girl, as characters. Archerd was a Hollywood Squares panelist a few times between 1972 and 1974.mm Square Shows Downloadable Now When GSN dropped its reruns of the Marshall Hollywood Squares in 2003, and made it emphatically clear it was through with it forever, my next hope was to see a "Best of" DVD release. While there has been one supposedly in the works, the market for game show DVDS apparently has taken a hit: the company that produced DVDS of such Goodson Todman shows as What's My Line? and Password abruptly yanked them from the market when the economy went south. My next great hope after that, has now happened. MGM, which owns the rights to the Marshall years, has released several of those shows online now at Sling.com. They include NBC prime time shows from 1968 and syndicated shows that appear to date from 1971-76. They have 15 shows and 17 clips listed, but someone who navigated the site reports some may be duplicates. They also appear to be among the package that ran on GSN. Show MGM and Sling.com your support by watching these and getting some "thank you" messages to them. Maybe they'll post more. This, of course, is in addition to the unauthorized clips that pop up on Youtube, including such rarities as the syndicated show in which hard rocker Alice Cooper appeared. Fred Travalena 1942-2009 Fred Travalena, the standup comedian and impressionist once called "Mr. Everybody," died June 28th in Los Angeles. He was 66. Travalena had been suffering from an aggressive form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, having first been diagnosed in 2002. Born in the Bronx and raised on Long Island, Travalena first came to prominence on late night shows like The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, The ABC Comedy Hour and The Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts. He lent his many impressions to cartoons (like the 1980s version of The Jetsons) and commercials and guest starred on The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, Murphy Brown, Beverly Hills 90210 and (as Ross Perot) on Walker, Texas Ranger. More standup appearances followed on Late Show With David Letterman. It wasn't unusual to find Travalena on a game show, either, as he hosted Anything for Money in the 1980s. He did a week of the NBC daytime Hollywood Squares in 1977. The Game Shows of Fred Travalena All-Star Secrets Anything For Money (hosted) Blackout Body Language Celebrity Sweepstakes (syndicated) Cross-Wits ('70s and '80s) Hollywood Squares (Marshall, Davidson) Just Men Match Game (all '70s versions) Match Game '90 Match Game/Hollywood Squares Hour Mindreaders Scattergories Password Plus/Super Password Rhyme and Reason Tattletales ('80s) Triple Threat Win, Lose or Draw (daytime and nighttime) Wordplay Ed McMahon 1923-2009 His 30 years alongside the king of late night, when he coined what TV Land calls the greatest TV catch phrase of all time, was only part of his story. Tonight Show icon and veteran broadcaster Ed McMahon died June 23 at age 86. McMahon had been suffering from ill health, including pneumonia and a broken neck two years earlier, and died at Ronald Reagan Medical Center surrounded by family. Born in Detroit, McMahon travelled the carnival circuit in between wars (he was a Marine fighter pilot in World War II and Korea) and college. He first went on radio to host a late night interview program before appearing as the clown on the early TV children's show, Big Top. He also announced the game show Two For the Money (appearing on camera in that role, in at least one kinescope even rerun on GSN) and the original Philadelphia version of American Bandstand, starting a long personal and business relationship with another television legend, Dick Clark. But that's not his most famous pairing, not even his second most famous: he's best remembered for being "second banana" to television titan Johnny Carson. That started when McMahon went to work as announcer on Who Do You Trust, when Carson took over hosting that ABC game show from Edgar Bergen. They worked on that show for five years until 1962, when Carson was tapped to replace Jack Paar as host of NBC's Tonight Show and chose to take McMahon with him as his announcer. For 30 years, McMahon introduced Carson with the iconic "And now ladies and gentlemen....heeeeeerrreeeeeee's Johnny!" then chuckled through Johnny's jokes, and played straight man when Johnny played such characters as Carnac the Magnificent and Aunt Blabby. McMahon also did many of the commercials, most famously for Alpo dog food. In one classic moment, a spot when awry when a dog refused to eat the food and ran out of the studio...then Johnny showed up pretending to be a dog. Along the way, McMahon even hosted other game shows, including the original game show classic Concentration; hosted events like the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade and the Orange Bowl Parade; famously, helped Jerry Lewis host his annual Labor Day telethon; and made numerous appearances on TV shows like Here's Lucy, The Flip Wilson Show, The Dean Martin Show, CHiPs, Hee Haw and The Cosby Show. In the 1980s he and longtime friend Dick Clark began co-hosting specials about bloopers and classic commercials, one clip being the aforementioned Alpo spot from The Tonight Show. McMahon also hosted Star Search, the syndicated talent show that discovered, among others, Britney Spears, the country group Sawyer Brown, and even the man who later hosted the same show when it was revived, Arsenio Hall. McMahon also did lost of non-Tonight commercials, most notably for Budweiser Beer and handing out giant checks for the American Family Sweepstakes. Even as Johnny retired in 1992 and went into self-imposed exposure exile, McMahon kept working, guesting on shows like Scrubs and Full House and even contributing vocal contributions to The Simpsons, Family Guy and Pinky & the Brain. McMahon fell on hard times during his later years, fighting bone cancer and--like so many Americans--home foreclosure. His last TV appearance was during the 2009 Super Bowl, this time not handing out giant checks but telling people where to sell their unwanted gold jewelry. But even without his time with Johnny, Ed McMahon had a rewarding career in his own right that even far outlasted Carson's. Still, when TV Land chose its 100 Greatest TV Catchphrases of All Time, its choice for #1 was McMahon's "Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere's Johnny!" McMahon appeared on both the NBC daytime and syndicated versions of the Marshall Squares, and at least one of those shows even turned up on GSN. The Game/Competition Shows of Ed McMahon Announcer: Two For the Money Who Do You Trust? Host: Missing Links Snap Judgment Concentration Whodunnit? Star Search Panelist or Guest: What's My Line? Match Game (1960s) Hollywood Squares (Marshall, Davidson, Bergeron) The Future of This Site I am certainly hoping to keep this site going as long as possible and if I ever decide I can't or don't want to do it anymore, I'll hand it over to someone else. I won't just arbitrarily shut it down and be done with it if I can help it. Having said that, there are some things going on you may or may not know about that will affect the future of this website. When I started it nine years ago next month (July 2000), I chose Geocities, a highly recommended name that was especially popular as a source of fansites in those days. Yahoo! eventually took over Geocities, and now, later this year, plans to shut it down. I am presently looking for a new host and a way to update and change my pages using something similar to Geocities Pagebuilder, an easy but now probably obsolete way of building web pages and websites. But obviously I have a lot of pages in this site and scores of files that need to be transferred, and may even have to devote vacation time in July for that. So if this site suddenly disappears one day, that's why, though I am hoping to keep the domain name, classicsquares.com, which I chose at the time to distinguish this site from the one operated by the then-still-in-production Tom Bergeron Hollywood Squares. Kenny Rankin 1940-2009 Kenny Rankin, singer, songwriter and one time backup musician for Bob Dylan, died June 7th of lung cancer, three weeks after being diagnosed. He was 69. He died at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles and is survived by three children. Raised in New York, Rankin's 1967 debut album had liner notes written by one of his biggest fans, Johnny Carson, who had him on The Tonight Show multiple times. Rankin's days as a singer-songwriter yielded three top 100 albums in the 1970s. He successfully remade Beatles' hits like "Penny Lane" and "Blackbird" in the 1970s, and wrote successful tunes for Mel Torme and Carmen McRae. Perhaps the best known song he ever wrote to be recorded by someone else was "On and On," which Stephen Bishop took to #11 on the Billboard Charts. In later years, Rankin backed away from the pop influence he once felt was necessary for success and made albums closer to his interests in jazz and Brazilian music. He was reportedly still making new music shortly before his death. Rankin appeared on two rock and roll-themed shows on the nighttime version of The Hollywood Squares in 1979. Dom Deluise 1933-2009 Peter Marshall: Will a lightning rod work if it's bent? Dom Deluise: My lightning rod wouldn't work...I'm going to have my doctor check my bent rod! Dom Deluise, a comedian known for his work with Mel Brooks, Burt Reynolds and as a cartoon voice, died May 4th at a Santa Monica hospital. He was 75. Deluise had been battling cancer for a year and some claim to see him in a wheelchair when he taped an appearance on the Bergeron Hollywood Squares. Born in Brooklyn, Deluise originally hosted a local TV show in New York, Tinker's Workshop, in 1958, and played a bumbling private eye on Shari Lewis' Saturday morning show. One obituary says Deluise got his big break on the 1964 TV series The Entertainers. He later became a regular on a summer replacement show for Dean Martin's variety show. During the 1960s he had appeared in movies as varied as the Doris Day spy comedy "The Glass Bottom Boat" and the serious nuclear thriller, "Fail Safe," and guest starred on TV shows like The Munsters, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir and Please Don't Eat the Daisies. He hosted his own variety show on CBS in 1968 and starred in the 1970s NBC working class comedy, Lotsa Luck. In the 1970s his career especially took off, working with the likes of Mel Brooks and Burt Reynolds when both were box office sensations. His work with and without the two included "Blazing Saddles," "Silent Movie," Smokey and the Bandit II," "Cannonball Run," "The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother," "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" and "The Muppet Movie." He supplied voices in "Oliver and Company," "An American Tale" and sequels to both movies, and "Toonstruck." His later TV appearances are too numerous to list here, but all three of his sons became actors too and two of them, Peter and Michael, were regulars on the sci-fi series SeaQuestDSV. Dom once appeared with the whole family on that show and did the same on 3rd Rock from the Sun and did the same thing in two movies. Dom Deluise appeared on the Marshall Hollywood Squares more than a dozen times between 1969 and 1976, and at least one of those was rerun on GSN. He also appeared on the Davidson and Bergeron versions, and his game show resume even includes a 1967 appearance on the original NBC version of Match Game. Your webmaster has fond memories of seeing Deluise in the movies during the 1970s and will miss his humor and quick wit very much. Dan Seals 1948-2009 Dan Seals, once half of England Dan and John Ford Coley and later a successful country singer in his own right, died at his home in Nashville March 25th. He was 61. Seals had been battling mantle cell lymphoma and reportedly had undergone an experimental stem cell implant. Born in Texas, Seals was related to a lot of well known music industry personalities, most notably his brother, Jim Seals of the 1970s duo Seals and Crofts. Dan Seals himself became part of a well known '70s duo, England Dan and John Ford Coley. They recorded the hit "I'd Really Love to See You Tonight," which went to #2 on the Billboard charts, and recorded such other hits as "Nights are Forever Without You" and a cover of the Todd Rudgren classic "Love is the Answer." His career shifted toward country music, however, especially when he signed with Liberty/Capitol Records in Nashville in 1984. His string of country hits included a duet with fellow Hollywood Square Marie Osmond, "Meet Me in Montana," which went to #1 on the country charts. Other hits included "God Must Be a Cowboy," Addicted," You Still Move Me," and the hit "Bop." The latter was the CMA's Single of the Year for 1986, and your webmaster played it as a new single during his short, ill-advised tenure as an AM country music DJ. Seals is survived by his wife, three sons and a daughter. It was during his days as England Dan when he shared a square with his partner, John Ford Coley, on the NBC daytime Hollywood Squares in early 1978. Ricardo Montalban 1920-2009 An iconic man with a mysterious gaze and an unforgettable accent, actor Ricardo Montalban died at his Los Angeles home January 14th. He was 88. Cause of death wasn't given, but Montalban had an injury from a movie that resulted in an unsuccessful nine hour surgery in 1993, that left him in a wheelchair. Born in Mexico City in 1920, Montalban broke into movies with 1942's "Five Were Chosen," and then in America in "Fiesta" (1946) with Esther Williams. He made several films with the swimming star. Other movies included "The Kissing Bandit," "Neptune's Daughter" and "Across the Wide Missouri" (the latter giving him his permanent, and perhaps fatal, injury) and in later years, the first "Naked Gun " movie and the "Spy Kids" films. He married Georgianna Young, younger sister of Loretta Young, in 1944 and they had four children before her death in 2007. Montalban guest starred on scores of U.S. television shows, including Bonanza, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Gunsmoke, Ironside, Hawaii Five-O and Here's Lucy. His appearance on the ABC miniseries How the West Was Won earned him an Emmy. And another guest appearance, on the February 16, 1967 Star Trek episode "Space Seed," made him nothing short of an icon. Montalban played Khan, a memorable villain who was found aboard an abandoned spaceship full of people in suspended animation. Khan was the product of genetic engineering and turned out to be especially aggressive. He reprised his role in the hit 1982 film "Star Trek: the Wrath of Khan," the only Star Trek villain to cross universes from TV to the movies. Montalban appeared in many TV movies; one of them, ABC's "Fantasy Island" in 1976 and its 1977 follow up "Return to Fantasy Island," made him an icon again: he was Mr. Roarke, the host and owner of Fantasy Island when it became a series. Montalban did one other iconic thing: when doing a series of TV commercials for the Chrysler Cordoba in the 1970s, he ad-libbed a description of the car's interior as having "rich, corinthian leather" (even though there was no such thing as "corinthian leather"). Montalban also plugged Instant Maxwell House coffee, Taco Bell and Dunkin Donuts. In his later years, Montalban provided vocal talent on animated shows like Kim Possible and Family Guy. Ricardo Montalban appeared on the Marshall Hollywood Squares in 1970 and again two more times in 1973. Eartha Kitt 1927-2008 She was a classic up-from-poor story, a woman who seduced everyone from Orson Welles to Santa Claus to Batman. And she was far and away the most controversial Hollywood Square ever. Eartha Kitt, singer, dancer and actress, died of colon cancer...ironically, on Christmas Day, which is how so many people actually know her. Kitt was born amid the cotton fields of South Carolina, reportedly through the rape of a black/Native American woman by a white landowner. Her mother gave her up, and by age 15 she was living in New York subways and with friends, working in a factory. But her work as a torch singer elevated her out of poverty and into life as an international superstar. Her first album in 1954 included songs like "I Want to Be Evil" and "Santa Baby." The latter song became a Christmas staple upon its re-release in 1986, and eventually was covered by Madonna. The original even became a gold record just days before Kitt's death. Orson Welles called Kitt the most exciting star in the world, and is reputed to have even had an affair with her. She toured internationally and began acting, appearing in movies like "St. Louis Blues" and guesting on shows like Playhouse 90, Ben Casey, I Spy, Mission: Impossible, and perhaps most famously as the second actress to play Catwoman on Batman. Her appearance on the Marshall Hollywood Squares in July 1968 was mired in some serious hot button controversy. After she taped her week of shows, but before the shows aired, Kitt appeared at a White House banquet at the invitation of First Lady Lady Bird Johnson. She used that very occasion to blast the war in Vietnam and President Lyndon Johnson's military policies. When her Squares shows aired, many viewers thought NBC capitalized on the controversy by putting her on the show, not knowing the actual taping schedule, and wrote blistering letters to the network. Many of those letters contained threats, one specifically directed at host Peter Marshall. The resulting controversy left Kitt banned from the Marshall version permanently, and she never occupied a square again until the Tom Bergeron version in the late 1990s. By then the controversy was forgotten and NBC had forfeited any power to do anything about it anyway. But the Squares dustup was only the beginning of her difficulties, which also saw her lose work in the US and even become a target of FBI and CIA investigations. But ultimately she made a comeback, being nominated for two Tony awards for her Broadway work and winning two Emmys for The Emperor's New School, a TV spinoff of the movie "The Emperor's New Groove" which she also voiced. She also racked up more TV appearances on shows like Miami Vice and Living Single, and in movies like Eddie Murphy's "Boomerang." Thanks to a contestant who had access to an audio tape recorder, sound portions of Kitt's Square appearance from July 1968 still exist and a few clips can even be found on this site. Classic Squares Home |