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About Leo G. Carroll Leo G. Carroll was born October 25, 1892 and died
of heart ailment October 16, 1972. Carroll was a British character actor in many films from the 1930s to the 1960s. He also appeared in the 1950s television series Topper and the 1960s series The Man from U.N.C.L.E and its spin-off, The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. Among the many films he appeared in were six Alfred Hitchcock films, including North By Northwest, Strangers on a Train and Spellbound.
Chosen to play Cosmo Topper on the CBS American sitcom "Topper," the show lasted for two and one half seasons
from 1953 to 1955, ratings were moderate but sold the sponsor's cigarettes with the help of sexy co-star
Anne Jeffreys and commercial appearances by John Wayne
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About Anne Jeffreys Born in 1923, Anne Jeffreys
trained for a career in opera, blonde leading lady Anne Jeffreys supported herself as a singer and model before going to Hollywood in 1941. Among her first film assignments was a modest Columbia 2-reeler, Olaf_Laughs_Last, starring El Brendel; she then worked briefly at MGM before signing at RKO. Jeffreys now insists that she was rushed through so many "B" pictures during her first few years at the latter studio that she's forgotten most of them. When reminded by a fan that she played Tess Trueheart in the first two Dick Tracy films, she refused to believe it until she saw the pictures herself on TV. Her roles, and the quality of her films, improved towards the end of her RKO stay, but by 1948 Jeffreys briefly abandoned Hollywood for Broadway. Appearing in several productions throughout the 1950s, Jeffreys was at one time the highest-paid actress on the New York musical stage. In 1951, Jeffreys married her second husband, actor Robert_Sterling, with whom she co-starred in the very popular TV sitcom Topper (1953-55), as well as the very unpopular 13-week wonder Love That Jill (1958). Except for a few isolated films like Clifford (1992), Anne Jeffreys has limited her acting to television and the stage in the last few decades; she was a regular on the daytime drama General Hospital, and briefly hosted a fashion-and-health series on cable TV.
About Robert Sterling Robert Sterling was born William Sterling Hart. He is the son of a professional ballplayer. Robert Sterling's father was William (Bill)Hart. Bill was a professional baseball player who debut on July 26, 1886. His last game was before Robert's birth July 30, 1901. Bill Hart played for the Chicago Cubs and his position was catcher. Bill died when Robert was 19 years old and never got to see Robert's success and fame in the movies or television.
He graduated from the University of Pittsburgh. He had a brief career as a clothing salesman before deciding to become an actor.
It was decided to change his name to Robert Sterling as not to confuse him with the silent screen legend William S. Hart. He signed a contract with Columbia in 1939. He did some minor short features but his career was anything but notable.
In 1941 MGM needed a replacement for Robert Taylor who was about to join the Navy. They signed Robert Sterling to a contract. He meet and feel in love with Ann Sothern. They were married in 1941. Together they had a daughter, Tisha Sterling, who later came into her own as an actress.
Robert Sterling like many men of his time wanted to service his country in WWII. Following the war, Robert's film career had lost major momentum. He could only land roles in minor action drama films: Bunco Squad (1950), Column South (1953).
Sterling was experiencing marital problems and his marriage ended in a divorced in 1949. He landed a role "Kiss Me Kate". This Broadway show had an an extended run of 887 performances. There he meet the love the woman that would change is life, actress Anne Jeffreys.
His relationship changed both his personal life and his professional life. Anne Jeffreys and Robert Sterling were wed in 1951. They produced three sons. Once their Broadway show ended they started a successful night club act. This act lead to them being cast into their roles as George and Marion Kerby in the classic televison serier "Topper" (1953). They quickly became household names.
Robert and Anne continued to perform together on stage. They attempted another sitcom that quickly failed called "Love That Jill" in 1958. Robert was cast sols in another failed series "Ichabod and Me" in 1961.
Robert has had some successful roles in movies: Return to Peyton Place in 1961, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea in 1961, A Global Affair in 1964.
Robert retired from acting in the 1970's. He worked as vice president and spokesman for a company that implemented the software for one of the first supermarket barcoding and computer inventory systems. He later launched his own business, Sterling & Sons, a Santa Monica-based company that manufactured custom golf clubs.
Robert Sterling died May 30, 2006 of natural causes following a decade-long battle with shingles. In his Brentwood by his bedside at the time of his death were his son, and wife of 55 years. The man that was once deemed the "the ghost with the most" died at the age of 88. It can be said that he lived a long happy life with Anne Jeffreys.
About Lee Patrick Born in New York City, Patrick began acting on Broadway in 1924. For more than a decade, she was constantly employed and established herself as a popular actress. She appeared in the original 1929 production of June Moon by George S. Kaufman and Ring Lardner.
Her success in Stage Door (1937) led her to Hollywood to reprise her role in the film version. Eventually the part was rewritten and split from a single character into two characters which were played by Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers. Patrick had made her film debut in 1929, but since that time, had not appeared in a single film, and RKO was reluctant to cast an unknown actress for a film which they were beginning to realize had great potential. Her disappointments continued when she was considered and then rejected for the lead role in Stella Dallas (1937) in favor of Barbara Stanwyck.
Lee Patrick appeared on television in the CBS situation comedy Topper (1953-1955) with Leo G. Carroll, Anne Jeffreys, and Robert Sterling. She made several appearances as the mother of Ida Lupino in the CBS sitcom Mr. Adams and Eve (1957-1958), also starring Howard Duff, Lupino's third husband.
Her final film role was a reprise of her Effie Perine character in a reworking of the Sam Spade story The Black Bird. Starring George Segal as Sam Spade, Jr., forced to continue his father's work, and to keep his increasingly sarcastic secretary, the film attempted to turn its revered predecessor into a comedy.
Patrick died suddenly from a heart seizure on the day before her 81st birthday, at Laguna Beach, California.
After her death it was discovered that she was ten years older than she had ever revealed. Shaving a decade off her age was a decision she made early in her career, and at the time of her death, many of her friends believed that she was in her early seventies
About Kathleen Freeman Born February 17 1919,
the inimitable American actress Kathleen Freeman has been making film audiences laugh out loud with portrayals of dowdy, sharp-tongued matrons since she was in her 20s. After stage work, Freeman began taking bit roles in major-studio features in 1948, seldom getting screen credit but always making a positive impression. The best of her earliest roles was in Singin' in the Rain (1952); Freeman played long-suffering vocal coach Phoebe Dinsmore, whose Herculean efforts to get dumb movie star Jean Hagen to grasp the proper enunciation of the phrase "I can't staaaand him" proved uproariously futile. Often cast as domestics, Freeman had a year's run in 1953 as the "spooked" maid on the ghostly TV sitcom Topper. Freeman was a particular favorite of comedian Jerry Lewis, who cast the actress in showy (and billed!) roles in such farces as The Errand Boy (1961), The Nutty Professor (1963) and Who's Got the Action?. As Nurse Higgins in Lewis' Disorderly_Orderly (1964), Freeman weeps quietly as Jerry meekly scrapes oatmeal off her face and babbles "Oh, Nurse Higgins...you're all full of...stuff." Lewis so trusted Freeman's acting instincts that he sent her to the set of director William Wyler's The Collector (1965) in order to help build up the confidence of Wyler's nervous young leading lady Samantha Eggar.
In the early 70's, Freeman co-starred with Dom De Luise in the ill fated Carl Reiner sitcom, Lotsa Luck. Throughout the '70s and '80s, Freeman took occasional "sabbaticals" from her movie and TV assignments to do stage work, enjoying a lengthy run in a Chicago production of Ira Levin's Deathtrap. Like many character actors of the '50s, Kathleen Freeman is frequently called upon to buoy the projects of baby-boomer directors: she was recently seen as an hysterical Julia Child clone in Joe Dante's Gremlins 2(1990)
Kathleen Freeman died August 23, 2001
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