Carolyn Jones was the Bette Davis of television, (and Nehemiah Persoff was the Edward G. Robinson, Roxanne Berard the Audrey Hepburn, etc. - there were numerous Clark Gables, Marlon Brandos and Cary Grants- including Burke's Law's Gene Barry). She looked like, (a slightly prettier), Davis- with the same big, expressive eyes. She was nearly as good an actress- TV never gave her enough of a chance to prove she might have been an equal. She came off as a little softer, more romantic.
Here we see her ultimate vehicle for exploiting the resemblance, (probably created for her by her husband, the show's producer, Aaron Spelling). It's inspired by not one but two Davis classics. The most obvious one is "A Stolen Life", where Davis plays twins- one good and one evil- in love with the same man. But the more hidden reference is to "Now Voyager", because the various sisters played by Carolyn Jones are all dominated by their elderly aunt, played, in a nice touch, by Gladys Cooper, who had played Davis's possessive aunt in the original.
Of course, Davis could hardly complain as she was filming her own rip-off of "A Stolen Life"- called "Dead Ringer", at the time this episode was filmed. And I'll bet Aaron Spelling knew that.
Here we see her ultimate vehicle for exploiting the resemblance, (probably created for her by her husband, the show's producer, Aaron Spelling). It's inspired by not one but two Davis classics. The most obvious one is "A Stolen Life", where Davis plays twins- one good and one evil- in love with the same man. But the more hidden reference is to "Now Voyager", because the various sisters played by Carolyn Jones are all dominated by their elderly aunt, played, in a nice touch, by Gladys Cooper, who had played Davis's possessive aunt in the original.
Of course, Davis could hardly complain as she was filming her own rip-off of "A Stolen Life"- called "Dead Ringer", at the time this episode was filmed. And I'll bet Aaron Spelling knew that.
