The Hollywood Palace 

Various guest hosts present a musical variety show.

Stars:

Bing Crosby, Milton Berle, Jimmy Durante

Won 1 Primetime Emmy. Another 9 nominations.

Cast

Complete series cast summary:
Bing Crosby	...	Himself - Host 32 episodes, 1964-1970
Milton Berle	...	Himself - Host / ... 17 episodes, 1965-1970
Jimmy Durante	...	Himself - Host / ... 15 episodes, 1964-1970

Storyline

Popular, long-running Saturday night variety show of the mid-to-late 1960's, originating from the Hollywood Palace Theater (formerly the El Capitan) on Hollywood Boulevard. There was a revolving guest host, usually a singer or comedian, each week. Bing Crosby was the most frequent guest host (including, of course, the Christmas Week show), but other frequent guest hosts included Sammy Davis, Jr., Jimmy Durante, Don Adams, Fred Astaire, and Judy Garland. The Rolling Stones made their first U.S. TV appearence on the show in 1964. The waning popularity of weekly variety shows contributed to "Hollywood Palace" being cancelled in early 1970, but it's still well-remembered by its many fans.

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Plot Keywords:

variety show | 

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Taglines:

From Hollywood, The Entertainment Capital of the world. ABC-TV presents "The Hollywood Palace!"

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Genres:

Comedy | Family | Music

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Certificate:

TV-G

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

4 January 1964 (USA)

Filming Locations:

Hollywood Palace Theater - 1735 N. Vine Street, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

American Broadcasting Company (ABC),United Artists Television,Zodiac Enterprises

Technical Specs

Runtime:

60 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White (1964-1965) Color (1965-1970)

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Beginning in the late 1950's, the ABC Television's B&W consecutive series of prime-time network specials starring Bing Crosby, "The Bing Crosby Show" was produced and directed (in 1959) by a 29 year old Nick Vanoff (b: 10/25/1929) for Bing Crosby Production's which was broadcast by the New York/Hollywood ABC Television broadcasting network. Nick Vanoff had a long professional friendship and association with director/producer William "Bill" O. Harbach (b: 10/12/1919) on the Bing Crosby ABC TV show-series of yearly programming. Bill Harbach and Nick Vanoff had joined into a partner-ship venture when they were both working together on Steve Allen's original NBC TV's "The Tonight Show." They had established their production company "Zodiac Enterprises" to produce broadcast television specials and series network media product. In June, 1963, a major career and life path change occurred for Nick Vanoff (at age 33), his wife Felisa Vanoff (at age 38) and Bill Harbach (at age 43), his wife Fay Harbach, when Vanoff-Harbach's Zodiac Productions team brought their New York City key production staff members including Associate Producer Rita Scott, to Los Angeles to develop a new Bing Crosby television event color special program for the CBS Television network. Bing Crosby, and his co-producers Nick Vanoff and Bill Harbach with Crosby's "Crosby Productions" initially met to develop their CBS TV color special. Bing Crosby's own production offices were located in Hollywood at the Paramount Pictures film studio located at Melrose & Van Ness Avenue. CBS' color "The Bing Crosby Show" was scheduled to broadcast/air on the CBS network on February 15, 1964. The Fairfax & Beverly Boulevard CBS Television City studio facility was primarily a "black and white" video-tape broadcast television facility, having moth-balled all of their "problematic color" camera and engineering equipment. CBS would not pull out their network's color television cameras from storage. Color cameras all located in storage between the adjacent stage alley and the Scenic Art and Drapery Department's Construction Mill area, in a hall-way where the stock scenic studio-catalog library-bank of rolled painted drops were hung. Nor would CBS provide the technical facility's color electronic video engineering equipment nor provide a stage, which forced Vanoff, Harbach and Crosby (at age 60, b: 05/02/1903) to move their CBS TV color special to Burbank's NBC RCA Color Television Studio's Telesales Division; establishing offices and to stage their special's video-taping for the CBS TV network "Color Special," utilizing the NBC RCA Color technical engineering operation's facility; color video-taped on the Burbank's NBC Studio #2 stage. The Crosby Show special's guest talent included the following: Rosemary Clooney, Kathryn Grant (Crosby), Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Peter Leeds, and brought from New York City, dance-performer and choreographer Peter Gennaro. Nick's Hollywood production team included West Coast independent Production Designer James "Jim" Trittipo, assisted by NBC Production Services' free-lance assistant art director, Hub Braden, as an art department team designing the CBS TV special's stage sets. The TV production was performed with an on-stage live orchestra but without an audience present during each video-taped "banked segment" - which was edited together in post production. Besides producing with Bill Harbach, Nick Vanoff directed the Crosby TV special, which rehearsed in the NBC studio and was taped during a full seven (7) day mid-week time-period. Both Nick's wife Felisa and Bill's wife Fay had joined their husbands during this venture. After delivering the production to CBS Television City in mid-September, 1963, Nick and Bill, their spouses, and their NYC production staff-team returned to their East Coast offices to develop future projects. Previously in early May, 1963, the ABC's Television Network Program division contracted Las Vegas entertainer, a feature film and television comedian, Jerry Lewis to host a two hour Saturday night "live talk" show with variety and musical acts like Steve Allen's original relaxed "Tonight Show" format. The program was scheduled to lead in the September-fall prime-time Saturday night time-slot at 9:30 p.m., to broadcast "live with an audience" following the network's popular prime-time, (8:30 p.m. one hour duration) Lawrence Welk Music Variety Show. During the summer of 1963 Jerry Lewis and ABC spent millions completely renovating the ABC network's Hollywood-Vine Street satellite theater-TV-studio, in preparation for his new "The Jerry Lewis Show" with a new street theater marquee renaming the theater "The Jerry Lewis Theater." Included in the preparation, all new electronic B&W cameras, sound system, the physical addition to the fore-stage and center camera aisle, orchestra and audience areas. Lewis had a bronze plaque of his profile "J L" show logo installed in the front of the theater lobby's cement floor. Seats in the orchestra seating area were removed replaced with couches. A scissor lift host interview desk and guest seating platform was positioned in front of the stage proscenium's left side, which elevated six feet above the stage floor, enabling the balcony audience to view the Lewis host guest interviews. A new two-floor (located on left stage) star dressing room piano-bar-lounge downstairs, upstairs a spiral staircase leading to a private dressing-make-up room with a wall-phone beside the private bathroom toilet, brass fittings, and mirrored walls. The star dressing room's door had a miniature Jerry Lewis duplicate cartoon-graphic "J L" logo of the bronze lobby forecourt floor plaque. The #01.01 show was broadcast "live" on September 21, 1963. The last Episode # 01.13 was broadcast (video-tape) December 21, 1963. The first show was a two-hour debacle with microphone feedback and missed cues. Leonard Goldenson and ABC network's program directors had not anticipated a TV Neilsen-viewer-audience performance rating's failure that their Jerry Lewis show proved to be. ABC's Network Programming Executive Leonard Goldenson called Vanoff and Harbach to come out to Los Angeles, to develop a glamorous variety show for the network's mid-season substitute slip-in show. Vanoff & Harbach proposed a different movie star host for each Saturday night's show. ABC's Goldenson wanted a guaranteed semi-permanent "star" host. Vanoff and Harbach's CBS' special "Bing Crosby Show" became the pilot "host" format proposal. In November, because of his flopped new ABC network series, Goldenson fired Lewis and had to pay him off for his TV deal contract, a sum well over two million dollars. Vanoff, with Bing Crosby, because of Crosby's long association with the ABC Television network, and Bill Harback discussed and presented ABC their replacement concept "The Hollywood Palace." Jerry Lewis' replacement would feature Bing Crosby as the permanent TV show host, with select movie star celebrity guest host filling in as an alternate Saturday night guest host during the broadcast series season schedule. Each Saturday night special show's hour featured unusual vaudeville style musical, stand-up comedy performers, comedy sketches, specialty and magic performers, trapeze acts. circus aerial tight-rope entertainers, animal acts (dogs, cats: lions, tigers, panthers, trained elephants), drawn from the Las Vegas marquee strip hotel lounge and show-room performances. "The Hollywood Palace" was created and inaugurated as ABC's network answer to rival CBS' "Ed Sullivan's Sunday Night" variety show. Jerry Lewis' live Saturday night dud was canceled off the broadcast schedule to end in late December. The CBS's "Bing Crosby Show" production team were immediately re-assembled in Hollywood. "The Bing Crosby Show" - Trittipo and Braden design team supervised the turn-around of the "Jerry Lewis Theater" studio-stage facility. The theater's Vine Street marquee converted to "The Hollywood Palace" after the Lewis Show moved out of the studio the 7th of December. The first "Hollywood Palace" Bing Crosby hosted 'premiere' episode: #01.01 was "broadcast in a live B&W feed" to New York (time zone 9:30 pm), occurring on Saturday night, January 4, 1964, at 6:30 pm (West Coast time zone). The Hollywood video-taped New York broadcast was a video-taped re-broadcast on the West Coast from ABC TV's Prospect & Talmadge Broadcast Center-headquarters at 9:30 pm (West Coast time zone). The West Coast video-taped broadcast of the variety show was always a video-taped broadcast from the ABC Hollywood-West Coast Prospect & Talmadge network facility for quality delivery broadcast-control, especially when the video-taped program was converted to color transmission in 1966. ABC's Saturday night "The Hollywood Palace" music and variety series was canceled due to the low viewing audience performance during the fall - 1969-1970 ABC seventh mid-season series schedule, broadcasting the last episode: #07.17 Bing Crosby host, with the show's series highlights of previous video-taped segments, on Saturday night, February 7, 1970. Ironically, CBS' "The Ed Sullivan Show" (1948-1971) ended their 24 broadcast years on CBS' Sunday night prime-time production schedule the following year in 1971; episode: #24.25, March 28, 1971 and the final episode #24.26, Special Memorial Day Edition, May 30, 1971.

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Connections

Edited into California Dreamin': The Songs of 'The Mamas & the Papas' (2005)

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Soundtracks

Put On A Happy Face
Written by Gower and Margie Champion
Performed by the Les Brown Orchestra and then the Mitchell Ayres Orchestra and the Mort Lindsey Orchestra

User Reviews

Magnificent Television

This is one of television's finest variety shows and something that was a weekly viewing event. The performers and hosts were stellar and everything about the production was first rate. The biggest stars of a fast fading glamorous Hollywood appeared as well as some of the most acclaimed entertainers on the face of planet Earth. It was a remarkable extravaganza but retained much of the simple aspects of a stage show. This was not only Hollywood but all showbiz on display and it provided some of the truly wonderful moments in television history. A shining light in the sometimes dismal landscape of television, even in 1964, The Hollywood Palace was a big hunk of nostalgia. There has never been anything quite like it and it isn't likely to be duplicated.