Bob Steele | A Connecticut Yankee in Mark Twain's House | WTIC-TV 1970 / WFSB 1985 | Ch. 3, Hartford скачать в хорошем качестве

Bob Steele | A Connecticut Yankee in Mark Twain's House | WTIC-TV 1970 / WFSB 1985 | Ch. 3, Hartford

On November 30, 1985, the 150th anniversary of Samuel Clemens' (1835-1910) birthdate, WFSB, Channel 3 in Hartford, rebroadcasts "A Connecticut Yankee in Mark Twain's House," a program the television station first aired on May 13, 1970 when it operated with its original WTIC-TV call letters. (At that time, both WTIC Radio and Channel 3 were owned and operated by Broadcast-Plaza, Inc., a division of the Travelers Insurance Company. When the Travelers sold the stations in 1974, Channel 3, which was bought by Post-Newsweek, became WFSB.) Bob Steele (1911-2002), who has worked on WTIC (AM) Radio since 1936 and has hosted the daily morning show there since 1943 (and will continue to do so until 1991), plays the Connecticut Yankee. (Ironically Steele, like Twain himself, was born and raised in Missouri.) Mark Twain's voice is provided by actor Ed Begley, a Hartford native who started his acting career on WTIC Radio as a "Guy Hedland's Players" cast member from 1931 to 1942. (Begley won an Oscar for best supporting actor in the 1962 film "Sweet Bird of Youth" which also starred Paul Newman and Geraldine Page.) Born in 1901, Begley died from a heart attack on April 28, 1970, just two weeks before this program was first broadcast. The Mark Twain House and Museum is located at 351 Farmington Avenue in Hartford. Built in the Victorian Gothic Revival style in 1874, the "gingerbread Gothic" house was described by Twain biographer Justin Kaplan as "part steamboat, part medieval stronghold, and part cuckoo clock." Twain and his family moved there from Buffalo, New York in 1874 and lived in the house until they relocated to Europe in 1891. Among the works Twain authored in the house are "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," "The Prince and the Pauper," "Life on the Mississippi," "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," "A Tramp Abroad," and "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court." The house was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1962. Here is a program description taken from the April 1970 edition of "TIC TOC," the internal WTIC newsletter: MARK TWAIN DESCRIBES HOME IN BEGLEY-STEELE SPECIAL Mark Twain describes his Hartford home in his own words --spoken by Academy Award winner Ed Begley-- when WTIC-TV presents “A Connecticut Yankee in Mark Twain’s House” on Wednesday, May 13, at 8:30 p.m. Part of WTIC-TV's “Places and People” series, the program features Begley as the unseen voice of Mark Twain and Bob Steele as himself. Begley and Steele often appeared on radio together when both were beginning their careers on WTIC in the 1930s. The only person seen on the program is Steele whose visit to the Mark Twain Museum becomes a tour of the handsome old house conducted by Mark Twain himself. As Steele goes through the house, there are occasional glimpses of Twain’s hand as he lights a cigar for his visitor or his back as he steers Steele from one room to another. All of the words spoken by Twain to describe the house, the Samuel L. Clemens family, and their Hartford friends of a century ago are taken from the writings of Mark Twain. Not a word was added to those originally written by Twain in his autobiography. As Steele goes from room to room, he hears from Twain about life in the house and in nineteenth century Hartford when the author was one of Hartford’s most prominent --if unpredictable-- citizens. Twain describes his wife Livy and his children. He tells the poignant story of the death of his daughter Susy in the Hartford house when she was only 24. He tells why he smoked only cheap cigars and how he cleared the house of his guests one night when he had only personal cigars to offer them. In the bedroom he recalls the time he threw three shirts from the bathroom window when he discovered the buttons were missing and how to his horror he discovered how his wife was listening to the language he was using as he hurled each shirt from the window onto the shrubbery below. Over a game of billiards in the third floor billiard room, Twain tells why he was neither a Republican nor a Democrat although in the community they considered him a Republican. As Twain talks and Steele listens --and asks an occasional question-- the cameras roam through the rooms of the historic mansion which is now a national landmark. Viewers will see just about everything visitors see and have the added pleasure of hearing the words of Mark Twain as they go from room to room. The program was produced by George Bowe and directed by Jim Aseltine. The script was taken from the works of Mark Twain by Dick Ahles. Allen Allshouse was the film editor; Randy Scalise did the sound; Bruce Murray and John Dwyer, the lighting; and Bob Butterworth and Lynn Boucher, the photography. An excerpt from Susy Clemens’ biography of her father was spoken by Sheila Bowe. Serie Larson of the Mark Twain Museum was the program consultant.