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THE DVD SHELF: "Hazel," "The Loved One" and "Beyond the Fringe"
By Steven Suskin
16 Jul 2006
This month’s column discusses Shirley Booth’s sitcom "Hazel," a group of so-called cult comedies from the 1960s (including Bobby Morse in Tony Richardson’s "The Loved One") and — from Alan Bennett and friends -- "Beyond the Fringe."
Anne Bancroft, Audrey Hepburn, Jessica Tandy, Maureen Stapleton, Rita Moreno, Maggie Smith and John Gielgud all won at least one Tony, one Oscar and one Emmy. But before them all came Shirley Booth, winner of two Tonys, one Oscar and two Emmys. For the record, 18 performers have won all three awards, with only nine winning in the leading role (rather than featured) categories. Booth was the third to join that more celestial group, following Helen Hayes and Ingrid Bergman; she was also a star on radio, spending the early forties as the wisecracking cashier on "Duffy’s Tavern." (Booth left the series following her divorce in 1943 from Ed Gardner, creator — with Abe Burrows — and star of "Duffy’s.")
In the everlasting fame department, though, Booth easily ranks last on the group of nine, and sixteenth or seventeenth on the list of eighteen. Every once in a while somebody sees the 1952 film version of Come Back, Little Sheba and thinks, what a remarkable actress Shirley Booth is. (Booth was the first person to win a Best Actress Oscar in her film debut.) But she is most remembered nowadays, if at all, for the sitcom "Hazel." This sitcom, spun off from the cartoon character Ted Key drew for the Saturday Evening Post, had a five-year run, from 1961-1966. Sony Home Entertainment has now released Hazel: The Complete First Season, on four DVDs. (In those days, one season meant 35 episodes!) Booth plays a sassy housekeeper, controlling her "family" and anyone else who comes within range. Shirley’s letter-perfect comic sensibility and precision timing makes her Hazel a delight, although the success of the series served to minimalize her career thereafter. She returned to Broadway twice in 1970, in the Jule Styne musical Look to the Lilies and a revival of Noel Coward’s Hay Fever. In each case, audiences rejected Shirley because she wasn’t Hazel. After a failed 1973 sitcom, Booth retired to Massachusetts. She died in 1992, at the age of 94. Continued...
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