What's My Line? - The McGuire Sisters (May 29, 1955)

[@icturner23]

I love how Mr. Fritz went from being deadly serious to grinning broadly during his segment.

[@sandygort]

May 29, 1955, the day my brother was born. I know this makes no difference to anyone else but, for me, it does make this a little more interesting.

[@icturner23]

I enjoy comments like this, and especially appreciate this one for drawing my attention to the date - it was my grandfather’s fiftieth birthday.

[@sandygort]

@@icturner23 Sometime that year was my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary.

[@tod3msn]

I was born two years later in 1957. The McGuire Sisters were very talented. Those vocals were the real deal. In 2021 we don’t quite understand the power of an appearance on a national television in 1955. Everybody saw you when there were only 3 networks.

[@anselm4360]

I love these little gems of personal information. Always very touching, I find. 💎📆💟

[@ladybear1103ify]

My father's 27th birthday! Miss him so much!

[@allenjones3130]

The McGuire Sisters were one of the greatest singing groups of all time.

[@ToddSF]

Bennett was no idiot. Once he figured out that the first contest was a U.S. customs inspector, he also figured he might have checked Dorothy Kilgallen's luggage and stamped her passport when she recently returned from Europe and chose the latter line of questioning to establish not just his profession, but the very connection to Miss Kilgallen disclosed to the audience. Very good, Bennett!

[@loissimmons6558]

There was definitely a cat and mouse game between the WML staff and the panelists. The regulars eventually were likely to recall the kind of tricks that were played on them in the past and which might be in the process of being repeated.

[@siggylloyd3566]

Lmao, I love how instead of simply saying Bennett IS clever, you tell us what he IS NOT.

[@jmccracken1963]

That much said, this was a fascinating set of contestants this evening. Too bad that Jack Conway wasn't able to get much more air time. And Fred Allen is very witty and funny this evening! Thank you very much for sharing these gems of yesteryear with us!!!!!

[@patriciapersinger8710]

jmccracken1963

[@DexterHaven]

19:26 what a sound, the harmony. Now wonder The Bee Gees had all three brothers try it.

[@oswaldomilano3848]

a delightful episode, thanks for sharing these jewels

[@BlueShoeLover]

The McGuire sisters sound almost identical! The panel doesn't pick up that there's more than one person for quite a long time!

[@Galantski]

They do, but the one on top was slightly louder than her sisters.

[@salvatorecollura2692]

And later in life they started to look almost frighteningly similar. Like three china dolls.

[@pianoman551000]

The US customs inspector could, indeed, be a leading man in Hollywood!

[@JLionelWaller]

Just finished the Wikipedia entry on Jack Conroy. He was something else! At this point, other than the jet flight, he had not started on the projects that would make him famous, and earn the accolades of Wernher Von Braun. He invented Pregnant Guppy aircraft, and the subsequent models. According to Von Braun, "The Guppy was the single most important piece of equipment to put a man on the moon in the decade of the 1960s." Fascinating bio. See: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_M._Conroy

[@lauracollins4195]

John Daly is extra fun in this episode, more relaxed. :)

[@AaronHahnStudios]

About time hey! ;-)

[@Beson-SE]

A perfect three-part harmony song by the McGuire Sisters. 19:25

[@lauracollins4195]

Johan Bengtsson - Lovely :)

[@AllenMQuinn]

19:26 Wow. Most (not all) of today's singers could NEVER

[@nandofigueira2005]

99,7 %

[@ponugups]

Good night sweetheart. It's time to go... My laptop was vibrating.

[@arbonneladyTN]

Look up John Michael Conroy! He was an amazing man! WWII POW in Germany too! Purple Heart & other medals, 4 wives , 7 kids, and sadly died a few days before his 59th birthday due to cancer. This WML is one of my favorite!

[@juanettebutts9782]

The second contestant bowed to Arlene (her hair seems lighter than the previous week) and Dorothy. What a gentleman! Certainly don't see that behavior these days.

[@murphash29]

Interesting fact: 2 out of the 3 McGuire sisters are still alive as of Sept 2018. Phyllis and Christine

[@MikeyJMJ]

Christine sadly died (one on bottom left) just a few months after your comment

[@nothing2seehere34]

Phyllis Passed away on 1/2 2021. Now they are all together again and can sing to all those lost in 2020.

[@icturner23]

@@nothing2seehere34 No, it was 29th December 2020, three years and a day after Christine, when she had been born two years and a day after Dorothy.

[@icturner23]

I’ve always loved how “uh-huh” and “uh-uh” have opposite meanings.

[@FlockOfHawks]

uh-huh

[@laurahoward5426]

Intonation, and inflection

[@josephlacerra8433]

The final contestant looks like a young Van Heflin.

[@pianoman551000]

Yes, he does!!

[@Eddie_Schantz]

The first guest who was the customs inspector was asked if he had anything to do with the tax dept. He said he did not. Then John talked him into changing it to a yes answer. What would a custom inspector have to do with the tax dept? Sometimes John changes answers for contestants when he should leave well enough alone.

[@robertjean5782]

If someone purchased alcohol etc out of the country,it would be taxed when returning to USA😊

[@Eddie_Schantz]

@@robertjean5782 I will go along with that, but that still doesn't concern the custom's inspector, does it?

[@robertjean5782]

@@Eddie_Schantz 70 years ago it was part of the customs officer job

[@kitcat9447]

Fred has been on a roll lately

[@nancypine9952]

John Conroy, the last contestant, was a very remarkable man, whose total accomplishments vastly outweighed swimming pools. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_M._Conroy

[@GingerHey]

Mr. Conroy looks so much like actor Van Heflin...

[@AIWboojum]

Why did they always do that to Dorothy? "Here's the grocer who sold Miss Kilgallen a turnip three years ago" etc. I feel like they do it so frequently, and always to her, that it's a sly dig to imply that she's too haughty to pay attention to servicepeople. She always seems to be embarrassed when she doesn't recognize them.

[@sbalman]

I doubt anyone would remember their customs inspector from an international flight. I sure don't.

[@hot88s23]

Builds swimming pools??? Now that's exciting. I used to build swimming pools. Hard work.

[@dianawardrip5171]

At that time and where he lived he probably built them for movie stars of the time.

[@AaronHahnStudios]

During the latter half of 1965, Dorothy wearing 'one' of 'those' wouldn't have been such a bad idea. :-(

[@ltrain4479]

She wasn't shot, so I'm not sure how that would of helped her.

[@igkoigko9950]

@@ltrain4479 But the fear of being shot MAY, repeat may, have coerced her into involuntarily consuming toxic drugs. We don’t know with certainty the manner of Dorothy’s death, but whether natural causes or homicide the District Attorney’s report isn’t dispositive.

[@gbrumburgh]

Sure could be Van Heflin's brother!

[@calvinjackson8110]

Look like they could have got another chair so all could be seated!

[@robertjean5782]

I agree 👍 totally outrageous 😢

[@sdgakatbk]

When I first saw Fred Allen on an earlier episode of What's My Line I didn't like him. After seeing him in a number of these, that has changed. He comes up with some VERY funny lines, like on this show.

[@rmelin13231]

I think I can relate. I read somewhere that Fred Allen didn't transition well from radio to television, as he wasn't considered 'camera friendly'. But, like you, the more I see him, the more I like him. Certainly a quick wit.

[@lemorab1]

Fred Allen was a little before my time. And he died way too soon, only 9 months or so after this program was broadcast in May, 1955. I watched WML as a kid growing up in the 1950's and '60's, but I don't remember seeing him back then. I have only come to appreciate him in the past 5-6 years, watching these videos. He had a delightful sense of humor. I think he was excellent on WML. This panelist lineup is my favorite of all the combinations. Bennett described this time with Fred Allen as a lovefest.

[@stevec6455]

Some show. They couldn't come up with three seats for the three sisters?

[@robertjean5782]

They didn't provide extra chairs for any guests! 😢

[@bluecamus5162]

John's hair sure grew a lot in the last week.

[@robertjean5782]

He had his toupee redesigned😊

[@jmccracken1963]

Just think: within a few years Phyllis McGuire would be singing "Goodnight, sweetheart" to Sam Giancana.....

[@loissimmons6558]

Pretty ironic with Dorothy Kilgallen on the panel.

[@lauracollins4195]

jmccracken1963 - Having no idea what you and Lois are referring to sent me to Wikipedia to find out... Yow!

[@ToddSF]

Should I say "Phooey!" or "Pfui!"? "On my left" is perfectly valid. Everyone I know when giving directions will say, "It's the fourth house on the left, the white one with blue trim." No one says, "the fourth house to the left" or "the fourth house at the left". By the way, prepositions are used in an entirely idiomatic way and it's very difficult for people trying to acquire English as an additional language to figure out the prepositions, because there are no general rules governing their use.

[@barrykendrick3146]

The definition of parasite: A parasite is something that lives in or on you that lives off of you.

[@laurahoward5426]

The house on the left is not human, the person to your left is human

[@leemclaury6251]

As of March 2020 only one is alive, Phyllis, 89.

[@MrJoeybabe25]

The first contestant reminds me of Robert Taylor a little.

[@accomplice55]

He reminded me of Jack Cassidy. :)

[@claudiak4627]

As I recall, I've read that these some of these sisters were involved with mobsters. The Customs Inspectors here has Dr. Zhivago eyes.

[@Sylvander1911]

That was Phyllis, who met and fell in love with the infamous Sam Giancana, before, as she told Barbara Walters, she knew who he was

[@gatewayski1]

Can anyone name each of the McGuire Sisters from left to right?

[@tonymcgee1146]

Dorothy, Phyllis, and Christine

[@lauracollins4195]

Tony McGee - Nice work! :)

[@petemarshall8094]

Patty, Maxine and Laverne. Oops!

[@icturner23]

16:04 I wonder how he imagined a straight line could have clockwise direction.

[@ChrisHansonCanada]

U.S. CUSTOMS INSPECTOR (CHECKED DOROTHY'S LUGGAGE) MAKES AND TESTS BULLETPROOF VESTS BUILDS SWIMMING POOLS

[@peternagy-im4be]

Please remove this complete and utter troll from the comments section. Unfortunately today's awful society is full of pathetic losers intent on ruining other people's enjoyment of social media. Thank you.

[@scottpardee6303]

We are all friends.

[@laurahoward5426]

John Daly, no scandals, no skeletons in the closet...🥰

[@robertjean5782]

John at 60 divorced his wife and married someone much younger😮

[@RichardHannay]

That customs guy sound so unfriendly the way he sounds and speaks so I guess they’re always like that ever since and not just a current thing.

[@peternagy-im4be]

Don't be so silly

[@lymangreen5020]

In 1930’s they would use triplets instead of multitracking a vocal line!!

[@loissimmons6558]

When Bennett Cerf was given the first question to the Mystery Guest, he refers to "burial services" that day at the Polo Grounds. He was referring to the Giants loss to the Dodgers that day, in fact having lost two out of three to the Dodgers over the weekend and 6 out of 7 during the week of May 23. They lost all the momentum that they had built up the previous week. On May 15 they were 9 games back, on May 22 6 games back and on the evening of May 29 9 games back again. I'm not sure if Bennett thought the WML staff was sneaking Laraine Day back on the program as the Mystery Guest after having been on the panel so recently or if he thought that a member of the Dodgers was being brought on the show. Maybe he saw something or someone in the audience or around the studio when he arrived that made him suspicious that the MG was connected somehow with the Dodgers or Giants. It was literally a blind stab and it proves that they were made at times when they were not correct. As to the game itself, the Dodgers won 8-5. The offensive stars of the game were Jim Gilliam and Duke Snider, both of whom homered and had three RBI's. Gilliam also tripled. The Dodgers ended the week the way the started it: with a 6 game lead. But the team that was in second place during Memorial Day weekend was the Cubs. The Cubbies had finished in 7th place in 1954. 33 games out of first with a record of 64-90. The week ended far better than it started for the Dodgers. The began the week with a short road trip to Pittsburgh and their first game on Tuesday saw the Pirates as the rudest of hosts, giving the Dodgers their worst defeat of the season, a 15-1 shellacking. The Dodgers actually scored first blood in the second inning on a lead off double by Sandy Amoros and a pair of outs before the roof began to cave in against Johnny Podres in the third when the Bucs score three runs, two of them unearned after an error by Gilliam. After Podres was taken out, two relief pitchers in particularly poured gasoline on the flames when the Pirates scored 7 runs in the 5th inning (6 off of Russ Meyer) and 4 runs in the 7th (all surrendered by Tommy Lasorda who also gave up a run in the 6th). Former Dodger first baseman, Preston Ward batting in the #8 spot, was the hitting star with a perfect day at the plate: a home run, triple, single and two walks plus 3 RBI's. Gene Freese and Roberto Clemente also notched 3 RBI's. The only good thing about Tuesday's game is that a 15-1 loss looks no different in the standings than a 2-1 loss. After Wednesday's game was washed out, the Dodgers managed to earn a split of the series on Thursday when Don Newcombe raised his record to a perfect 7-0 with a 6-2 win. The game was tied 2-2 in the late innings on a duel between Newk and Ronnie Kline, with sloppy fielding by both teams leading to three of the four runs. The Dodgers thought they had broken the tie in the 7th inning when Jackie Robinson's single brought home Gil Hodges. Bur home plate umpire Larry Goetz ruled that Hodges was out and in the resulting argument, Manager Walt Alston was tossed out of the game by Goetz. One of Robinson's complaints about Alston in 1954 was that he never argued with umpires. He was thrown out of only one game in his first year as Dodgers skipper. But already in the first two months of the season, he had been ejected twice, both on calls at home plate that the Dodgers felt had cost Robinson an RBI. Things would never be great between Robinson and Alston, but at least they showed signs of thawing. The Dodgers finally broke the tie in the 9th inning. Once again Amoros got things started with a lead off double. After Hodges bunted him to third, Carl Furillo singled to right and Amoros trotted home with the go ahead run. When Robinson followed with a single, Manager Fred Haney sent Kline to the showers and brought in little Elroy Face. The fork ball specialist promptly surrendered a triple by Newcombe to make the score 5-2. With switch-hitting Gilliam at the plate, batting left-handed against the righty slants of Face, the PIrates correctly guessed that the Dodgers were going to try a suicide squeeze bunt and called for a pitch out. But the strategy went awry when the pitch got away from catcher Jack Shepard. Newcombe was credited with a steal of home. It was part of the best offensive season for the hard-hitting pitcher. While he only had one other stolen base in his career, he was in the midst of a season in which he batted .359 with 7 home runs (a Dodger record later tied twice by Don Drysdale). This was why Newk was used as a pinch hitter 106 times in his major league career. Newcombe kept the Pirates in check in the bottom of the 9th and the Dodgers headed back to NY for a three game series at the Polo Grounds. And Friday's game would be the only one the Giants would win all week. The first three Dodger batters in the game combined to put the Dodgers in front. Gilliam led off with a walk, Pee Wee Reese's single moved him to third and Snider's fly ball brought him home. But that was all Sal Maglie allowed. The Giants broke Carl Erskine's shutout on Bobby Hofman's game-tying pinch home run and won the game the following inning when Hank Thompson singled and Willie Mays homered. The Dodgers evened the series on Saturday and they put the game out of reach early when they jumped on Jim Hearn for 4 runs in the first, capped by Hodges' 3-run homer. The Giants eventually pulled within one run, but Sandy Amoros's lead off home run off Hoyt Wilhelm in the 9th was the final blow in the 5-3 victory. Ed Roebuck retired the Giants in order in the bottom of the ninth for his fourth inning of shutout relief to earn the save. That set the stage for the Dodgers deadly (to the Giants in Bennett's POV) win on Sunday. That put the Dodgers at 30-10 for the season, a gaudy .750 winning percentage. They would finish Memorial Day weekend (still always celebrated on May 30 at that time, which happened to be a Monday) at home hosting the Pirates in a doubleheader.

[@keymaninmusic]

Who cares about this baseball nonsense? That's not why I'm here!

[@keymaninmusic]

Your husband must wear earmuffs.

[@WhatsMyLine]

Join our Facebook group for WML-- great discussions, photos, etc, and great people! facebook.com/groups/728471287199862/ Please click here to subscribe to the WML channel if you haven't already-- you'll find the complete CBS series already posted, and you'll be able to follow along the discussions on the weekday "rerun" videos: kzbin.info/door/hPE75Fvvl1HmdAsO7Nzb8w

[@stevec6455]

Makes bullet proof vests does he? Like we're supposed to know that?

[@sorceress1986]

Do we know much about the cash prizes for the show? Once in a while, John will flip are few more cards, or all the cards at what appears to be his own discretion, if he felt bad the round didn't go on longer or whatever, and there hasn't been mention of the celebrity challengers' prizes going to charity. I'd just be interested in the evolution and business of the show, I suppose.

[@Pudentame]

Most regular contestants got $50 or less ($5 per "no" answer). The dollar amounts were deliberately kept small to avoid any possible taint that might have spilled over from the TV Quiz Show scandal. Semi-celebrity contestants like Jack Conroy usually donated their "winnings" to some charity - March of Dimes & American Red Cross were popular. The celebrity mystery guests were sometimes paid an appearance fee. Seems like the third contestant usually got all the cards flipped over because they were running out of time.

[@WhatsMyLine]

The mystery guests were always paid an appearance fee, not just sometimes. Some donated their fees to charity, some didn't. We have no way of knowing how often the guest celebrities donated their fees, but we do know they all got fees. By 1959 at the latest, all the regular contestants were given the full $50 prize money regardless of the outcome of the game. The cards were just a score keeping device. WML wasn't the kind of game show that was about money.

[@MilkmanNorm]

WML and this episode in particular predates the quiz show scandal. The infamous 21 where Herb Stempel took a dive aired in December of 1956. I think the dollar amounts were small because the appeal was in the panel's interplay and the mystery guests. The program did not need the gimmick of a large cash give away.

[@VickyRBenson]

The buying power of $50 in 1955 would have been more than $500 today (2022). So the prize, those modest, was nothing to sneeze at for an ordinary person. The value of the publicity of being on the show (with limited number of channels) could have been substantial in one’s home town at a time when newspapers were widely read.

[@dianawardrip5171]

Many celebrities donated their winnings to charity, even a few non celebrities!!!

[@Baskerville22]

Phyllis McGuire was at one time the mistress of the homicidal Chicago Mafia boss, Sam Giancana

[@RobertJonesWightpaint]

Bow-ties seem to have been rather fashionable in 1955.

[@mrpuniverse2]

I wonder what the first contestant found in Dorothy's luggage knowing her history

[@Beson-SE]

Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum? :)

[@ToddSF]

Bushmill's and barbs?

[@patperry6290]

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[@laurahoward5426]

FYI at the racetrack: you are only taxed if you win 600 to 1, or more...you have to fill in a form on the spot...in New Mexico,, if there are any Native Americans hanging around, they can cash the ticket and are not taxed....😁

[@elisabethlinz4256]

Mr Fritz is as uncharming as can be.... (and I admit this despite of his German extraction... :--))

[@bneale]

They had to be tipping the panelists off. There's no way they should have picked up that there were three McGuire Sisters there.

[@boognish999]

Why would that help the program?

[@VickyRBenson]

They didn’t tip the panelists off. But they were aware that it wasn’t uncommon to have more than one celebrity. It actually took longer than usual to pick up on it this time. The panelists were sharp and experienced. So it enhanced the fun for viewers to keep them in the dark!

[@zeldasmith6154]

They are so thrilled to be on the show. Cute.

[@cbranalli]

all brunettes

[@igkoigko9950]

Absurd to complain about a 60 year old show but my gripe is the panel should not be misled in the belief that “THE” Mystery Guest is an individual when it is more than one person. Use of singular nouns and pronouns is disingenuous and detracts from the logical progression of questioning.

[@kitcat9447]

Fred has been on a roll lately

[@patperry6290]

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