MYSTERY GUEST: Peter Gabel; Sue Lyon PANEL: Dorothy Kilgallen, Rudy Vallee, Arlene Francis, Bennett Cerf ---------------------------------------- New Facebook group for WML! / 728471287199862
Peter just passed away from a blood disorder in SF, age 75. Writer, law teacher, creative community organizer, keeper of his parents' legacy and a real mensch❤❤❤
I just recently learned of his passing, which of course saddened me. I was though glad to learn he and Bennett's son remained good friends through the years.
It must be of the highest pleasure for Peter Gabel to look back on this videotape. Arlene was so lovely and greatly admired in every aspect of her life.
@gcjerryusc I thought his mouth looked a lot like his father's but his face shape and probably hair like his mother's. If you look at pictures of him in his older years, he looks a lot like her.
Sue Lyon was an incredibly beautiful actress of immense raw talent. It's a true shame that she never became a Hollywood legend, she very much deserved all the glory the industry had to offer her. Rest in peace Ma'am. 7/10/46-12/26/2019
Anyone who thinks Sue Lyons was a 'lightweight' must contend with the fact that two giants of cinema, Stanley Kubrick and John Huston thought she was JUST what they wanted to play key roles in their films. She was a natural and was much wasted later on.
I don't keep an official list, but the segment with Peter Gabel challenging the panel has to be among my favorites so far. (and a little over 3 years worth of shows left to watch). Even with the blindfolds on, you can see the puzzled looks on the faces of the panelists as they get one "no" answer after another and Dorothy keeps getting stuck on the idea that their guest is a businessman. It's delightful that Arlene trusted her son so much from him telling her that he had to work late at the World's Fair that night that she never smelled a rat. And she never caught on to the voice he used. Rudy Vallee gets a pass (and he was the one who finally came up with the idea that Peter was connected to the Fair, but very late in the questioning). But Peter was 3 years old when WML started. Bennett was a close friend and neighbor of Arlene and not only did they socialize often, Bennett's son was one of Peter's closest friends. I'm sure Peter was a guest in the Cerf household many times. Yet Bennett, who often guesses an MG (or even detects that there is more than one) based on the vocal quality of the MG, doesn't pick up any clues. And I'm sure Dorothy would have also seen and talked to Peter many times over the 14½ year run of WML up to this point. The reaction to the reveal is also priceless and delightful. And when Arlene is commenting on how good Peter was at deception, did anyone else catch that she started to say "you're in trouble" and then quickly changed it to "she's in trouble" (meaning Mom's in trouble, not the son),
In 1970 I was in 3rd grade in Ontario Ca. one day school had just started and my mother show up and pulled me and my sister out of school. She would not tell us where she was taken us. We ended up at the Ontario Motor Speedway she told us we were going to be in a Movie. The movie was called Evel Knievel it Stared George Hamilton and Sue Lyon. They needed a few kids as extras. The one thing I remember the most was how nice Sue Lyon was to my sister and me It was a very long day for us from 9am to 10pm. It was a hot day and I think she saw how tired we were. She invited us to her air conditioner trailer and sat and talk to us. She gave us her autograph and was a very nice person. After we were done for the day she came over gave us a hug and said we did a great job. I even got paid for the day a whole $15 for the day
@@su-rv2uq Don't be an 'a' hole. Mom probably had no idea it would take so long, and it's not like she did it once a week. Be thrilled if my mother had pulled me outta school to be an extra - at a nursing home.
@@su-rv2uq that is entirely up to the mother. Not you. Because she was . . .their mother. Wouldn't be the first time a child's been awake long hours for various reasons. Who the hell said the mother went for Sue's benefit? Wtf. She gave her children an experience. One they still remember. Any child remembering you? I wish I'd been in a movie as a child to show my children, just for the cost if staying up late!,
I have nothing but admiration for Peter Gabel. He deserves an immense "Thank You" for keeping his Mother's legacy alive. Most younger people from the 80's and 90's don't know who she was.
I'm old enough to remember her-especially her WOR radio talk show (which aired at 1:15 pm on weekdays) broadcast from Sardi's (later the program was broadcast from the WOR studio). She was a household name in those days-everywhere on television, radio, and acting in films ("One, Two, Three", directed by Billy Wilder, is one of her best-known), and many times on the stage. Immensely attractive, with a sparkling personality, probably the most popular of all WML panelists. She had a long life, living into her 90s (not sure of the year she died). An unforgettable and irreplaceable lady. RIP, dear Arlene.
James Vaughan Because you remember the detail about Arlene's radio show starting at 1:15 p.m., I'm wondering if you have any idea if audio recordings of the show survive. It lasted all the way to 1985. That means it was on the air for several years when boom box cassette decks were widespread. But the management of the WOR station has changed since 1985, so the existence of a tape archive there is unlikely. Probably nobody can answer this question and 99 percent of the broadcasts are gone. I remain curious about phone calls from WOR listeners. Did Arlene and her producer Jean Bach put them on the air as Larry King did?
I don't get your comment. First you say he kept his mother's legacy alive to then say younger people don't know who she was. So which one is it, is Arlene's legacy kept alive, or do people not know her?
Sue Lyons was not some blond bimbo but the clear choice of two of the greatest directors, John Huston and Stanley Kubrick for key roles in two serious and demanding films. Lolita and Night of the Iguana. I do not think she was given her due.
The smile on Sue Lyon’s face when they guessed her was wonderful. To have famous people know who you are without even seeing you yet must feel great. I only wish they would have asked her as many questions as they did Joyce(although she was wonderful too).
Rudy Valley seemed almost clueless during the entire show, yet managed to best the other three experienced members of the panel, narrowly missing Arlene's son's profession, and guessing Sue's movie, allowing Dorothy to name her. Love the segment with Arlene's son, he totally bamboozled his mom! He seems like a sweet kid and I believe did his mom very proud with his career in life! Bravo Mr. Gabel!
Joyce Ivey mentions that she graduated from Tift College. It was a small private liberal arts college for women that was founded in 1849 and became affiliated with the Georgia Baptist Convention in 1898. It was located in Forsyth, Georgia. The college closed its doors in 1987, about a year after merging with nearby Mercer University in Macon. The legacy of Tift lives on as Mercer renamed its School of Education to "Tift College of Education". The former campus of Tift is now used as a headquarters by the Georgia State Department of Corrections. The road where it is located is still signed "Tift College Drive".
Very familiar with what you are saying about Tift College; I graduated from Brewton-Parker College which also was affiliated with GBC. I live in sweet onion city of Vidalia, GA.
Sue Lyon. What a beautiful girl she was. Keep in mind that she was ONLY 14-years-old when she starred in her film debut in Stanley Kubrick's "Lolita". She is 17-years-old here.
+Vahan Nisanian Much as Dominique Swain was only 15 years old when she played Dolores Haze in the 1990s film version of "Lolita," directed by Adrian Lyne (and co-starring Jeremy Irons, Melanie Griffith, and Frank Langella). In a lengthy essay on the making of "Lolita" in the 1990s (which can be found in the published book edition of the screenplay), screenwriter Stephen Schiff, who wrote almost all of the screenplay used by Lyne, said that, in casting the film, the producers and director wanted to hire someone who would look and act plausibly like a 15-year-old, rather than a 14-year-old who acted more like a 19-year-old tart, as Sue Lyon had in the 1962 Kubrick film. (Having never seen the Kubrick film, I don't know myself whether that's an accurate description of Miss Lyon's performance.)
I'd say that's a very accurate description of the intent behind the Lolita character in the Kubrick version, yes. Which is not in any way a slam on her performance, which was great. It's simply an accurate description of the changes made to the character from the book. Lyons looked in the film looked like an 18 year old, whatever her real age was at the time, whatever age her character was supposed to have been (which was already inflated from Lolita's age in the book), and she played the part (as directed) largely as a intentional seductress. It's a very different sort of emphasis than the book, or the later adaptation by Lyne, and I think the change was less artistically motivated than largely dictated by the totally unavoidable need to compromise the material for it to be filmable in the early 1960s.
@@jamesfox2579 wow, that's a lot of coin and it's not like you can get financial aid for Harvard (at least I don't think so - due to the Ivy arbitration act)
Dabney: Arlene Francis and Martin Gabel were both successful actors. Bennett Cerf was one of the co-founders of Random House. Suffice to say, both families could easily afford whatever tuition was back then.
Love it when young ones were guests on WML. I just watched this episode tonight and had to research Peter Gabel, even with the audience reveal. Apparently he had a full and successful life in his own right. Sadly he passed just 7 days ago 10/25/22.
I wonder if Sue Lyon got any flack for being honest and saying she preferred making Lolita to her current film of the time. That would be quite a Hollywood faux pas today, as I imagine it was for her there too. But I like that she was honest. Good for her. Takes guts to be that honest (and most likely ignorance as well)
You can hear in Sue Lyon's hesitant answer to John Daly's question about whether she finds the movie business exciting that she was always a reluctant celebrity. After the novelty of a first movie and the special pampering she received on the set of "Lolita", she soured on the realities of the movie business: endless travel to promote films, answering the same questions in hundreds of interviews, and working with some unpleasant people. She would later say that she could never be a movie star because she is a private person who doesn't like strangers looking at her or asking her questions.
+Bigwave2003 She was also later diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and, in interviews, revealed that she had been battling manic-depression since she was 16.
Bigwave2003 She said later that Hollywood destroyed her life and when I looked up some info on her about 7 or 8 years ago I felt sad because it look like she was not doing well and did not have much of a life but I hope I am wrong
Peter Gabel & Jonathan Cerf were editors of The Harvard Lampoon. They remain close friends, and I believe they perform in a band in the San Francisco Bay Area (feel free to correct me if I am wrong).
I read an interview with her daughter Nora, Sue’s only child. Nora said Sue had never wanted to be a mother.and after the age of 12 Nora was essentially abandoned by mother emotionally, withdrawing love, support and guidance. Being biracial in that day and time made life even harder and Dad was never in the picture. I felt bad for her.
freeze at 13:03 -- and here is where one of Dorothy's most priceless expressions came from. "It DOES hurt." Dorothy is pretty funny in the second game.
She was lovely and quite wonderful in Lolita and Night of the Iguana. It's a shame her personal issues kept her from a long and acclaimed career. She had everything it takes for one.
I like to think that she quit on her own terms. She once said in an interview how she hated the lifestyle of a film star, constantly traveling and answering the same questions over and over again.
That first segment was so much fun! I loved the interaction between Mother & Son after he was revealed. Arlene's face was perfect...I loved the whole sandwich board thing! This show warmed my heart!!! ❤️❤️❤️
Rudy was fabulous. He asked the two smartest questions (World’s Fair and Iguana). Too bad he didn’t get many chances to be on the panel. He might have been one of the all time WML greats!!
Almost 4 years ago, someone posted a clip of his taped 1/3/1974/aired originally 5/7/1974 Mystery Guest appearance on syndicated WML? on RU-vid. And it's still up on RU-vid..... ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-RZW8BDgOzNk.html
I can't believe nobody either on the show or here has said this yet, so I can't resist.... Bennett and John should both have to eat crow for that dead end joke! (slinks off to hide, shielding face.... ;) )
Peter Gabel also began to resemble his father more and more as he got older, if you can envision Martin Gabel with long grey hair. He is an ardent activist in many social causes, a writer and editor of the Jewish journal Tikkun, and a long-time law pofessor at several universities. He is also a bassist in a band at the Central Park Zoo!
Peter turned 75 this past Jan. 28 (2022), if you can believe it, 58 years later! His dad, Martin died in May 1986, at 74, and Arlene died on May 31, 2001. at 93.
christianefbowiefan Yeah, if you can see any part of his face around that world class honking big nose (not visible when he's looking straight ahead). When he sneezes, It's goodbye New York!.
Chris---- a very handsome young man and his mother Arlene was so proud of her baby . She and Martin thought very highly of their son and how smart and caring he turned out...
Peter Gabel was 17 when he bamboozling the panel - including his usually-bright Mother. Arlene bobs about on a sandwich board at sea. WML’s production staff were geniuses. The staff tried this gimmick in 1954 with two of Dorothy’s children, but without Dorothy who was recovering from childbirth. Her kids really got into the spirit of the fun, and the spot was a smash. Here the sequence unfolded into something way more funny than the producers probably expected. It was a good enough concept that Sunday night WML tried it two more times to great results. Stay tuned.
Mine too. There is, incidentally, some evidence in the Gil Fates book and on RU-vid to indicate that Peter Gabel was on WML four times 1964 1967 1969 1972..
soulierinvestments That's entirely possible. I tried to confirm against the only log of syndicated WML that's available, but there's nothing in it about a Peter Gabel appearance in 1972. But it has lots of missing information, so this doesn't really indicate anything. If there was a listing for the appearance it would have provided corroboration.
Bennett's faces when he lets the pun set-in cracks me up. It's like he knows he's insufferable at times...it's equally funny to me how the crowd either thinks nothing about something he says is funny or just doesn't get it. I think it's a little of both. I like Bennett on this show, very much, though.
+Vahan Nisanian She appeared as a panelist on the week's worth of shows which were taped on 24 June 1971 and which aired on the week of 22-26 November 1971 (the week of Thanksgiving that year). Soupy Sales, Henry Morgan, and Arlene Francis were the other members of the panel that week. Ten days after taping those episodes of syndicated WML?, Sue Lyon married her second husband, football player Roland Harrison. The couple would eventually move to Spain, because of the hue and cry in certain quarters in the U.S. over the interracial marriage.
Sue Lyon must be one of the very few actresses who enjoyed working with Kubrick 😊 though at that point the filming didn't take forever like in later films of Kubrick..
In Vladimir Nabokov's novel the character of Lolita is 12 years old. In the movie with Sue Lyon and James Mason, Lolita seems to be at least 16. It I interesting that in a more innocent time, the 50's, that a provocative book such as this was widely praised. One reason, may be, is that, even though Humbert Humbert is obsessed with a young child, it is not a lewd book (I won't spoil it for those of you who would like to read it). It truly is one of the great triumphs of modern literature.
+Joe Postove In the movie, she's supposed to be 15 when she first meets Humbert. The movie is very different from the novel, as Lolita is not a tragic figure; Humbert is. She's 17 or so when she runs away with Quilty and 19 in the final scene where she appears with her husband. In the novel, Lolita is the tragic figure -- she's younger and a blurry fantasy object to Humbert, who is psychopathic and criminal. Sometimes, the real nature of Humbert, his extreme narcissism and treatment of Lolita as a fantasy in his head, takes a couple readings of the novel to fully get. In 1962, a close film version of the novel was impossible, period. So Nabokov wrote a new story as the script, loosely related to the novel, where Quilty (Peter Sellers in the movie) plays a much smaller part. In the movie, Quilty is the real "perv" -- he actually does (at least partly) what Humbert only wants to do but never does. Even so, Kubrick used only part of Nabokov's screenplay and altered the story further. The 1997 version was supposed to be a close adaptation, but it flopped. Not only would major studios and theaters not touch it, it's difficult to translate to screen a modernist novel like Lolita that relies so heavily on stream-of-consciousness and reader awareness of the gap between what Humbert claims and what's actually happening (the "unreliable narrator"). That's part of the complexity of the novel -- Humbert's rationalizations. It has to be actively read and re-read, being such a rich book -- not to mention the puns (sometimes lewd), double and triple entendres, and allusions to butterflies. And Humbert is not a sympathetic figure; what's fascinating is how he hides his criminality in a complex smokescreen.
+bostonseeker There was an annotated version published that I highly recommend. It reveals the genius of Nabokov. Every name of a character has meaning, every street, and town, drawn from his profession as a Lepidopterist (butterfly expert). Names are anagrams, or related in some way in the landscape of Nabokov's mind. Everything is loaded with symbolism. His critique of suburban middle class American culture, values, and society are dealt with in depth in the annotations. His outsider's view as a post-WWII European immigrant is given voice in Humbert. It is simply a work of genius, and the annotations will give you an even deeper appreciation of it's complexity. To learn that Sue Lyon's life took so many sad turns, as did Lolita's, makes the movie even more tragic for me now. However, she gave an unforgettable physical presence to the nymphette, thankfully a bit older than Nabokov intended originally, and in doing so she has become a part of our culture.
Nabokov is certainly one of the great English-language writers of the last century. The big three novels (Pnin, Lolita, Pale Fire) plus Speak, Memory, put him in a class (almost) by himself.
Gotta hand it to Rude Vallee. for a start he's the only panelist who gets close to the Peter Gabel sequence. And he was still working after a career that started sometime in the 1920s with the megaphone. In two years, he would do his "Batman" appearance and star in the David Swift "How to Succeed in Business" film version,. I still laugh when I think of his rendition of the Groundhog fight sound.
Expo of Tomorrow 1964-65 repaid its investors less than 20 cents on the dollar. Arlene Francis was on the board of directors. I don't think its failure can be placed on either Arlene or Peter.
Two observations: How times have changed - when the second guest came in, a lovely young woman, the audience actually whistled in cat called! I can’t imagine that happening today. Also, when the panel asked the young woman a question at the very end about her profession, John Daly gave a long answer for her, rather than letting her talk. Very interesting how attitudes and behavior towards young women have changed.
I was at the 1964 World's Fair in Queens NY as a mid-teen and I was at the tail end of the mumps as the rest of the country and was feeling bad and had to leave after a short time. Who knows if I ran into Peter Gabel?
@@kentetalman9008: Who knows if I crossed path with you?! Remember DuPont's chemistry show, Disneyland’s animatronics-it's a small world after all-Ford's world of future cars?
Remember when James Mason was a Mystery Guest two years ago, and Bennett Cerf asked him about Sue Lyon? Mason said that he predicted Sue Lyon would be a big star. Sadly, he was wrong.
It was the only polite thing to say about one's young costar. He was promoting the movie as well. What would you expect him to say? Sue Lyon is awful and in two years she will be living in total obscurity? That would have been totally unprofessional. Any star (except Sue here given her age) would promote any film he or she appeared in and all those who worked on it.
It should also be pointed out that, the next time that Peter Gabel appeared as a contestant on WML?, on 12 March 1967, that episode featured one of the all-time worst performances by a guest panelist ever in the show's 17-year run on CBS: namely, Pamela Tiffin.
Stanley Kubrick's "Lolita", and before that, Elia Kazan's "Baby Doll", showed just how much Hollywood was changing. Both films dealt with a much older man, having desire for an underage teenage girl. This trend of an older man with a desire for an underage teenage girl and vice versa, has since become a recurring plot element in future Hollywood films, but mostly during the 1970's and 1980's.
Thats who that stunning girl is! Girl in lolita with James Mason. She was a drop down classic beauty. I always wondered why she was never a huge star. First I've seen of her since Lolita. She looked better in lolita with hair colour
Sue Lyon was so cute and while I realize the movie Lolita may not be as well received today it was a great movie (the plot notwithstanding). James Mason was one of my very favorite actors but let's face it, Peter Sellers stole the show, as usual.
On a personal note: I remember 5 July 1964 very well. All that weekend, I went through a series of religious rite-of-passage rituals, age 8. I remember the weekend clearly, but not this WML. The first time I remembering seeing the 1964 Peter Gabel clip was when it surfaced in YouTubia ten years ago.
Very interesting remembrance. I was getting ready to graduate from high school, and we had a grad party the night before this episode. I remember watching it because Peter Gabel's appearance was so memorable. He's my age and had just graduated from high school.
Peter Gabel did NOT look like this for much longer. Shortly after this, he grew his hair long, became protester, and continued to live that way for the rest of his life. Not saying there's anything wrong with doing that... just pointing out he wasn't always at he clean cut type young man that was welcome on "What's My Line?".
To say that Peter Gabel "grew his hair long and became a protester" simply ignores his life's work. Peter graduated from Harvard law school and went on to become a professor of law at three universities. He's also an editor at a magazine of Jewish politics and culture. Peter occasionally still plays with Bennett Cerf's son in their band Central Park Zoo.
RE: Sue Lyon. One of the youngest mystery guests ever. Older than Eddie Hodges. Younger than Rick Nelson. In the 60s she was directed by Stanley Kubrick, John Huston, and John Ford in his last feature film. She did some good films in 1964-69, but the early promise turned out to be the career.. If any of you love her films after 1969, jump right in with praise. RE: Sue Lyon’s mention of her first film- Stanley Kubrick’s “Lolita.” In book form, you can sort of overlook the age thing in “Lolita.” However, I cannot get passed the age issue in Kubrick’s film “Lolita.”
Sue Lyon and Peter Gabel were about the same age. I doubt they met backstage though, as Mystery Guests did not mingle with the other contestants. Arlene was funny in her speculation about her son's meeting with Miss Ivy (the mosquito sorter), who was also young, but as a recent college graduate, still an "older woman" compared to Peter. .
+SaveThe TPC +soulierinvestments While it would be pert near impossible to verify, this episode probably has the lowest average age of the challengers, hands down. Sue Lyon was still 17, albeit less than a week from her 18th birthday. Arlene mentions that she has control over Peter Gabel's money until he turns 18 so he is still 17 (the youngest of the three, he would not turn 18 until 1/28/65) and according to someone who posted her obituary, Joyce Ivey was still only 21 years old and would not turn 22 until October 20 of 1964. The average age of the challengers is ~19.
According to an obituary in Tikkun, the journal Gabel helped create and run, Peter Gabel died of a heart attack. The obit referred to his death as shocking and untimely, so it seems unlikely he’d been ill. It must have been unexpected because Jonathan Cerf, in a eulogy for Gabel, mentions that their band had been booked for a gig in the summer of 2023. In contrast, Wikipedia lists his cause of death as a blood disorder, which does not seem as reliable as the Tikkun obituary. Unexpected deaths through sudden heart attack have been on the rise since the 2021 rollout of the mRNA vaccine. How sad to think that Gabel might have been a victim of this vaccine?
![What's My Line? - Peter Gabel; Sue Lyon; Rudy Vallee [panel] (Jul 5, 1964)](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
