Memories of 1950's Television ~ "Life of Riley" ~ Starring William Bendix

I know that my age is showing when I do these articles, but I grew up with television. We were both toddlers and grew into our teens together. When I was little we had fun and carefree programs about the difficult situations we could all get into and the consequences. None of these were critical, but the innocence of youth is something that today's television has taken away. Hope I can bring you back to the good old days.

The "The Life of Riley" starred William Bendix as Chester A. Riley a family man who got into predicaments all the time and whenever he found himself in deep doodoo he would look into the camera and say; "what a revoltin' development this is!" To this day, I still find myself saying that very phrase when things go wrong. This particular series of "Life of Riley" ran for six seasons from 1953 through 1958 and was adapted from the radio version in which Bendix also starred. In 1949 another version of the "Life of Riley" show was on television for only one season and starred Jackie Gleason as the same character. (I do not recall this one at all.)

The cast of this show featured Bendix, his wife Peg starring Marjorie Reynolds, their two children; Babs starring Lugene Sanders and Junior starring Wesley Morgan. Chester and Peg's two best friends were a married couple; Honeybee (Gloria Blondell) and Jim Gillis (Tom D'Andrea) both Riley and Gillis worked at Cunningham Aircraft. Gillis was a schemer but best friend to Riley who was a gullible sap who got in lots of predicaments because of his gullibility but he was a good husband and father and most certainly a good friend to his troublemaker of a friend.
William Bendix was born in 1906 and died in 1964 at only 58 years of age of a stomach ailment that caused malnutrition and subsequently he died from pneumonia. He was a star on radio, stage, screen and television. He was married for 37 years and had a son and daughter. He will always be remembered for playing Babe Ruth in "The Babe Ruth Story" but I will always remember him in a 1950 comedy movie called "Kill the Umpire" filled with gags throughout that will surely have you laughing out loud.

Sources:

Both Embedded and

http://www.crazyabouttv.com/lifeofriley49.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_of_Riley

http://en.wikiped http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042641/ ia.org/wiki/William_Bendix