What's My Line? - Marilyn Maxwell (May 10, 1953) 

I hope you also try out 'I've Got a Secret' and 'To Tell the Truth'. They are also very informative as well as a lot of fun.

Likewise!

I think John's no hinged on, well, the word "on." You could sit IN, as in inside, a phone booth, but you're not likely to sit ON, as in on top of, it.

Glad you enjoy the shows-- and thanks for the comment!

I watched this show when I was a kid way back.It was a good show.

HOOAH!

I loved the vocal disguise she used. It was clearly heard, funny and she was very consistent with it. It also disguised her voice completely.

I often go into one when I use my cell phone. I still don't like to talk in public.

Johan Bengtsson But Johan, the public sphere leaves you open to the world. They can see and hear you all the time. EXCEPT in phone booths where Superman dresses.

I guess that Underdog finally DID destroy them all.

Chris Barat - You just made me laugh out loud! :D

Me too!

My husband was born the same year as you. He isn't old...he is seasoned.

I hope you get through your tough times. It’s nice to have channels like this to put us in a nice place. It certainly does for me.

Wrong. The old original desk last appeared Mar 8, 1953 with Jackie Gleason. This desk debuted the following week, Mar 15, 1953 with Fred MacMurray, which you pointed out on that episode: @VahanNisanian 9 years ago John Daly receives a shiny new desk, beginning with this episode.

It has been alleged that Rock Hudson paid for her funeral

Yes, they are a fabulous team! Wish there were a similar program available today.

Arlene is beautiful, Dorothy's jewelry is perfect 👌

There's one in my neighborhood. It serves as a public free library. Take a book and/or leave a book(s).

As kids, they served part in our treasure hunts too, as we'd check a # of booths to see if an adult left any change in the coin return. *It was far more profitable to collect bottles for spending money, but sometimes we'd check the phone booths, because a nickel could get you a candy bar or a single scoop ice cream cone.

Arthur Marx, to be fair, always wrote with a tad of bitterness.

Mary Todd Lincoln, always wrote with the bitterness of Tad.

Other than that +Joe Postove, how did you like the play?

Lois Simmons Too soon!

@@MrJoeybabe25 Great word play 👍

Agreed, but I don't think he meant that in any sort of insulting way. He did phrase it poorly, but I think he just meant that ARLENE "had" (guessed) the wrong Marilyn, as she had guessed Marilyn Monroe during the mystery guest round.

One of the few occupations that I did not understand

@@jaysmith1408A woman would walk by and a burst of air would blow her skirt up in the air. Those were sexist times!

soulierinvestments I agree! I would add she’s considerably more attractive than chubby, false expressioned, Monroe!

@@oksills stop.

Bonnie Stop what? Having and expressing an opinion that is different than yours?

I saw the blonde hair and "Marilyn M..." being written on the chalkboard and for a second I thought it might be her. This is in spite of knowing she never appeared on the show, and the roar from the audience would have been deafening. To be fair, Bennett said "YOU had the wrong Marilyn tonight," referring to Arlene's guess.

Maxwell had about a 20 year affair with Bob Hope

Saying she was a favorite of Bob's is an understatement. Not only did she have an affair with him, she had an affair with Frank Sinatra, as well.

Marilyn Monroe deserved an Oscar nomination for her role in Bus Stop. She had the Southern accent down. I know as I am a Southerner. She never, while she was alive, got credit for her acting skills as far as the Oscars are concerned.

They intrigue me too, @Kattie Q.! :-) I guess you must be 15 by now (YT says you left the above comment 2 years ago). Do you still enjoy watching "What's My Line?"

The guy with the glasses and the strong accent? I remember him as being pretty funny.

The second skirt-blower, Peter Lomagistro, not this gentleman, ranks with the funniest contestant of the fifties. You can find him in the June 1, 1958 episode. He was indeed a treat, and rightly an audience favorite.

@sandwichman100 I agree, it's an injustice to the other contestants!!😢

5:43 ARLENE: Would this, in any way, have moving parts? MR. YORK: Yes. ARLENE: is John dubious? JOHN: Nooooo! I'm John Daly!!

ToddSF 94109 I remember using a pay phone in 1996 and paid... ...ten cents. I marveled that it was one thing that was impervious to inflation.

@@lottalady73 I know that the price eventually went up from a dime to a quarter, but I don't remember what year that happened.

Keep in mind that that's $1.11 in today's money

Wow; women and I guess men, too, looked much older back in the day. Marilyn Maxwell looked well over 40.

Thankfully, they finally realized that not only the celebrities should be shaking the panelists’ hands, but also the other contestants.

Guess you can never have enough skirt blowing machine operators 😂😂😂

Huh, I'm watching these in order, and it's the first one I've seen. Until I saw this episode, in fact, I had no idea such a thing existed outside of the infamous scene with Marilyn Monroe in _Seven-Year Itch_ over a subway grate. From the sound of discussion, it must have been a popular attraction, though I can't see what was in it for the women.

I think one reason they look older to us is that they are wearing hairstyles and fashions that older people still wore even when fashions changed for younger people. For example, my grandmother’s hairstyle looked just like Marilyn Maxwell’s in this show, and it never changed from when I first remember her in the 1960s until her death in 1991 (at the age of 90).

Is that why Dorothy mentioned him?

Oh, that's so sad! And it must have been traumatizing for her son! :'(

Her son called Rock Hudson a close friend of his mother. Rock arriving at the scene picked up the grief stricken boy and took him to his home.Her son stayed with Rock until his father,who was out of town,could come and get him.Rock was a sweet man.

Referencing Wikipedia, crowd sourced opinions moderated by a small group of far left activists, is the quickest way to lose all credibility.

Martha Reynolds - The thing with actors is that there is often not a budget for wigs and so when you are in a play or film you will need to alter your hair to fit the role and hope that you can find a suitable street-wear hairdo for yourself to leave the theater each night out of whatever they've left you of your own style or color. However, Arlene is age 46 here and a mother only since age 40 and wife of the right man for her since age 39. If her family were prone to greying young, she might be considerable lighter under that hair coloring if the Kazanjians were white or light grey when aging. However, Arlene knew about style and that the rule of thumb would be to go lighter and straighter as you age. So, she may well have been trying out colors for herself that were not garish to see what worked. Even the Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher, said as you age to go lighter and straighter. I suppose darker makes too much contrast to skin that is not as young and vibrant in tone anymore and curly hair can look too overdone and a bit silly.

@z I would not in any way have pretended to know the late great Arlene Francis, a woman I admire and would never malign. As a theater professional my whole life, I was pointing out to Martha Reynolds that there are often with actors odd hairdos or versions of their usual hairdos that directly relate to their current role, as opposed to a purposeful hair style chosen that season for their real life, as opposed to reel life. I am not British: did not care for Thatcher and certainly do not agree with BoJo at all. What she said once about hair as women age does tend to hold true for huge numbers of women. I was NOT suggesting this was the case with Arlene. I believe most of her hairdos were her current hairstyle for herself and only occasionally did she have a color or style change that seemed to have been promoted by her current role. She worked a lot. I was speaking of women in general and actors more specifically and thought that was clear from the start. I think so much of Arlene Francis that I feel compelled to respond to you so that others reading your vitriolic response to me will not misread what I wrote as actually being about Arlene Francis. It was intended as a comment in reply to someone who perhaps thought the hairdos of the actors on the panel were necessarily those they had chosen for themselves that season. I am unaware of anyone on the show with a wig. I was not speaking of individuals on the show. I was speaking in general about actors because I am in theater. You got personal and nasty and maligned me in an ugly fashion that I would never have applied to you or Ms. Francis or Martin Gabel. My clear English indicates I am speaking about actors in general, that Arlene could have been making the best of what her current role required her hair to look like for the performance, and I made it clear that some standards women follow do not work for all as they age. She was gorgeously coiffed and made-up and attired every time I ever saw her on this show, both then and now. So you misread the reply utterly. You read poorly, comprehend poorly, and embarrass yourself.

The great great Mr. Kenneth, Hairdresser to Marilyn Monroe and Jackie Kennedy amongst many many others, was a friend who said that as women get older, their hair should get shorter to bring their faces up and lighter so the gray wasn’t so noticeable. Another story, off subject, that I heard directly from Coral Brown, the Australian actress and wife of Vincent price, was about her role as Vera Charles in Mame. She wore a turban throughout the movie. Reason for the turban was she had been doing a movie or a play in England (I don’t remember which) and she had dark hair. She had to be blonde for Mame, so was bleached and bleached and her hair all fell out. That’s why she wore a turban! I know this has nothing to do with what’s my line but I always liked the story.

Arlene was such an attractive woman, and I think the lighter hair made her have more so

That makes her look younger, and more beautiful.

dizzyology -- I've been binge watching these so I can't tell you which episode, but "wheenie" is how it was described previously at least once.

@@juanettebutts9782 You're right. I recall at least twice that "weenie" was used on earlier episodes of this show. I posted a comment on the first time I heard it used, but can't recall which episode that was, and I'm too lazy to search through all the comments of past episodes to find it.

This is the 7th time the term was used. Dorothy said it twice (she used it first), Hal said it twice, and now John has said it 3 times.

Indeed. And don't forget Mr. Allen saying things like, "What are you doing after the show?" There are certainly things to enjoy about the show, but these folks certainly had flaws.

Thanks Kenneth.

It even lasted into the late 50's. I agree unflattering to most women.

Chris N Yes I think the tight short styles made everyone look older.

soulierinvestments I did find a magazine piece from the early years of WML that included it in a list of "objectionable" programs.

David Von Pein"S" is on the front half of "BS", David? Horsie style, ok, but in English I'd say it was on the backside, huh? I don't want to get sticky about all that, or is that slippery?

David Von Pein I have trouble telling my left from my left.

+soulierinvestments I found Miss Maxwell's answer sufficiently ambiguous that the interpretation would be in the mind of the beholder. For example, a person could check their drivers license or birth certificate. Of course when it comes to stuffed shirts at Standards & Practices and/or the Legal Dept., who knows what they will object to, especially at a time that they couldn't show Lucy and Ricky sleeping together or use "pregnant" in the script. Considering how much live television was being aired, monitoring the shows for objectionable content must have been harrowing.

I wondered if the telephone booth maker in this episode was the inspiration for Dorothy's oft-asked question: "is it smaller/bigger than a telephone booth?" Her question to the ammunition inspector at 22:05 seems to confirm this theory -- unless she had already begun using it before this episode and just happened not to use it when it was most appropriate. I seem to remember a later episode with a contestant who had something to do with telephone booths, and I think in that one Dorothy actually *did* ask the question, and of course got a "no" answer -- and a lot of laughs. But my memory's been playing tricks on me lately, so maybe that's just what I imagined might happen in that episode.

😳

It's a small query .

@Karyn Greco There has been quite a bit of discussion about that on these RU-vid comments and also in the WML Facebook group. I'm not sure anyone has found what I consider a satisfactory answer as to _why_ Dorothy uses the word, "weenie," or whether there's any history of it being used the way she used it any time prior to WML, but it's pretty clear that she uses it to mean an idea about the contestant's line. Sometimes she exclaims it in a way that seems to mean, "I just got an idea!" In this case, I think John correctly interpreted Dorothy's wordless exclamation with regard to the skirt-blowing machine as Dorothy getting "a weenie." :-)

SaveThe TPC, Thank you, kindly, for your interpretation of this word. Be well, stay kind and blessings to all ~

@@savethetpc6406 I'm sure it is a weird coincidence, but the Oxford English Dictionary defines "weening" as "The action of thinking, supposing, expecting, etc. In ME. often = mere opinion, surmise, or suspicion (as opposed to certain knowledge)." The most recent citation is from 1761.

Bless you and your tomatoes.

Steven Chappell It could have wooden parts. The last time I checked trees are living ( though not animate, for the most part).

@@billbryant7194 @Steven Chappell Yes, I was also thinking that the contestant might have had wooden parts in mind when he answered that it "ever had been" alive, not realizing that the WML "terms of reference" consistently determined that plant life/vegetation does not count as being or ever having been alive. This always irks me, but at least they were consistent about it, and there is even one later episode when Tony Randall, as guest panelist, specifically asks about that term of reference, and John explains it.

I worked in a stationary store early 50s it had 2 phone booths made out of wood!😊

***** It was just part of the overall format until 1956. You're far from alone in not liking the "Walk of Shame"-- no one does!

It would have been interesting except for the fact that Marilyn's iconic scene above the subway grate occurred in "The Seven Year Itch" which was filmed between 9/1/54 and 11/4/54 and not released until June 1955. There was a more risque stage version that ran on Broadway from November 1952 to August 1955. Marilyn was not in the stage production. Vanessa Brown played the role of "The Girl".

I was wondering what was so funny! That could be it. I've never heard of an A-man, but I was thinking G-man, which isn't very funny.

+Reluctant Dragon I'm not sure what to think now after googling the phrase abbreviated as "T and A" (though I'll probably google it again to look at the pictures more closely. JK). I found two citations as to its origin: one said Lenny Bruce coined it in 1971, the other said it originated between 1970-1975. I can't think of anything else though to explain Steve Allen's behavior.

​@@robertmelson2130Neither applied, this show 1953😅

orgonko the wildly untamed No, it's not just you. Have you encountered comments yet talking about the "gambits"?

+just4mygrl She was born in 1946, and Sonny and Cher started becoming famous, probably around 1966. With the show's cancellation in 1967, there wasn't much overlap.

Cher was born May 20, 1946 she would have been eight years old

Yes and he got fired for it. Why can Steve Allen ask "innuendo" questions of the ladies but Hal lost his job?

Bruce Alvarez It’s called ‘finesse’. Hal was such a relentless wolf that he made the women he was addressing (and everyone else, for that matter) uncomfortable-if not downright disgusted! Steve knew how to ‘win over’ a woman (and an audience) in a way that made his “innuendo” bearable and witty instead of creepy and tiresome. Watch the way John and MM laugh mirthfully 18:15 at Steve’s comment vs. how people reacted to Hal. Also notice that after Steve asked “are you married”, he let it go at that. Comedians make their jokes work by playing off the persona they consistently maintain. Steve’s persona was far more attractive than Hal’s. Interestingly, though, Steve does slip and descend to Hal’s level later on in the show. He makes an unfunny comment at 21:25 and gets the kind of reaction by the female contestant that Hal typically did. Good thing that Steve’s ‘slips’ were few and far between - or he would have followed Hal out the door!

He was utterly clueless.

Extraordinary comment

@@peternagy-im4be LOL. To be sure. I'm afraid I am greatly drawn to fine or interesting bone structure in faces, possibly because I have a mushy mud face with no special features (except they all work as they were intended). So, I will spend a lot of time looking at a face across a room that is much like Abe Lincoln's or Sitting Bull or Barbra Streisand or Anjelica Huston. I cannot help but believe that Steve Perry's physiognomy aided his voice due to fabulous cheekbones and nose creating a cathedral inside his mouth. LOL. I find carved, craggy bone structure compelling as nature's artwork. Were I a plastic surgeon, we might all look like Cochise or Geronimo. LOL.

SaveThe TPC Was he thinking of explosives which is not flammable, (of which there's a lot) or of e.g. black powder, whis is indeed flammable? Ammunition is usually flammable, as opposed to many eplosives which are not. I'm a little confused by this now.

SuperWinterborn I would have thought explosives were flammable too. Are you saying that when something explodes, as opposed to burns, it is not considered flammable? If that's true, then John's answer would make sense. Knowledge of science is not my strong point, but I would have thought that something which explodes or ignites would be considered flammable/inflammable. (Strange as it may seem, "flammable" and "inflammable" are synonyms in English.)

SaveThe TPC Now you have cleared up something I didn't understand; namely the difference in between "flammable" and "inflammable". I tell you, this gave me quite a headache, first when I heard it, then when I read your comment! No, not all explosives are flammable. They can explode if exposed to heavy pressure, by being shaken, or dropped down from a certain height. But not if you just stick a lighted match to it. But all of this can be discussed from different angles, and except for my lack of arguments in English, these explanations would take far too much space on a single page! ;)

SuperWinterborn I'll just have to do some more research on the flammability of ammunition, I guess... :) As for the confusion between flammable and inflammable, here are two good sources that I found. The first one is clearer and more concise, but the second gives a bit more background. 1)grammarist.com/usage/flammable-inflammable/ 2) www.differencebetween.net/science/difference-between-flammable-and-inflammable/

SaveThe TPC Tell me if you find something of interest regarding flammable/not flammable ammunition/explosives! My own search in English, (necessary, since I else wouldn't know how to translate it) didn't show much. This was something I've heard of long time ago. Thank you very muh for the links, of which the first one cleared it up very well, although the second was more thorough in it's explanation.:)

Not at all.

SaveThe TPC People who know better make grammatical errors in speech all the time, though. You don't have the benefit of proofreading your remarks.

***** Well, no, not really. :) Savethe TPC is one of the most active and valued members of the community of people commenting on these videos. The comments sections on these videos benefit tremendously from her participation.

What's My Line? Thanks for your support and your kind words, Gary!☺ In *****'s defense, I suppose that particular comment *was* rather pedantic, which was why I added the apology at the end. Also, if he or she has happened upon any of my "n.b." messages to SuperWinterborn and doesn't realize that SW has asked for such corrections from me, I could see that they may come across as picky or even rude.

What's My Line? I heartedly agree with that. And it is interesting to see a correction of a person's grammar even if she is dead, TPC. Please, for my sake, don't apologize. I live in Israel and have already agreed to take the weight of the world upon my shoulders (after I take off some of this weight). I have worked in radio and written some and know that good grammar is often not practiced by those who you would think know best. My best friend is a retired English lit. professor and believe me, though she is the sweetest, most loving person I know, I still straddle the English highway, not wanting to embarrass her when she refuses to overturn my mistakes. I can see her turn red, but she will not, usually, correct me. So I know an old Arab lady who bakes hams in the local crematorium and ask her.

***** Yes, SaveThe TPC is "pedantic", and ought to be so. ;) This fact has in particular been a great benefit to me. If you're a regular viewer on this channel, you might also have seen, or will see, some of her personal comments to me, which usually begin with *NB!* or *Obs!*. They are meant as heads up to me and my poor English grammar. I asked for it myself, and do really appreciate these corrections, also her remark about Dorothy's use of adverb where it should have been an adjective.:) Not all of us have English as our first language, and I don't think I'm very wrong, in assuming I'm not the only one who finds this useful. :) PS. It wouldn't surprise me if this comment of mine would need a correction too, even after I've edited it myself more than once! ;D

Not I. In fact the exact opposite: charmed

I wouldn’t say that around men from Scotland.