Cara Williams has died

[Neil]

Cara Williams died on the 9th at the age of 96.  Most of you are too young to know who she was.  Her big "hit" TV series was "Pete & Gladys" that ran from 1960 to 1962.  72 episodes that CBS ran in the morning from 1962 to at least 1964.  The shortest-run sitcom CBS ever gave the 5-day/week morning airing.  Cara was nominated for Best Comedy Actress Emmy.  

Over the years of the 60s, many newcomers were touted as being "the next Lucille Ball".  I don't say this lightly: Cara came within a (red)hair of Lucy.  She was the only one who came close.  P&G did well enough to be renewed for a second season on Monday night but when Lucy decided to return, I guess CBS figured the one redhead was enough and canceled P&G despite respectable ratings.   Schiller & Weiskopf wrote a number of P&G's.  Gale Gordon appeared as Pete's Uncle Paul in several episodes.  It was one of those single-camera laugh track sitcoms that didn't have the class & spontaneity of Lucy's shows.  But Cara was wonderful.   CBS gave her her own series "The Cara Williams Show" in 1964.  Despite getting a plum time slot after The Beverly Hillbillies & Dick Van Dyke, it only lasted one season.  And that was pretty much the end of Cara's career that I know of.  She was just 40.  Strangely she showed up on Rhoda 10 years later playing a thankless part: the secretary at Joe's office.  

I had the fortunate experience of spending an afternoon with Cara, sitting next to her at one of those Hollywood Autograph shows just a few years ago.  She had stories to tell and I was all ears!  Almost everybody who worked with her described her as "difficult".  

P&G had scant syndication and no official DVD release.  I keep hoping it will show up on MeTV or one of the other old-TV channels.  There are a few eps on youtube but not any of those that stick in my memory as being LOL-funny.

Here's a P&G compilation I put together a while back.  I used clips from the few episodes available.