The crematory we use is impeccably run by ethical people, people we inspect, unannounced, a couple times every year. One of my favorite old time radio characters (other than Jack Benny) was Digger O'Dell "The Friendly Undertaker". I found an old newspaper article that said he was born in 1915 and called him a professional endurance man. Among other things, back in the flagpole-sitting days, he stayed aloft 109 days. All these things are part of the ongoing conversation that we here have. It gives us a way to get some little mastery over these uncontrollable things by giving it a narrative thread. Chester A. Riley: Gee, Gillis, you're brave - making out you're happy when all the time, inside, you've got a broken heart. The custom of eulogy, what is its meaning? Babs Riley: But Mother, this is the opportunity of my entire life! Chester A. Riley: [on the phone] What is it, a boy or a girl? Do you hear that, Peg? But you have to do that first, because people will sense if you're not willing to do that, if you're just sort of going through the motions. But you've seen people come in that are agnostics or --. So everything is weakened; weakened and tightened at the same time. As far as I can tell, he performed it in Memphis only twice, but one of those events made the news because the police were summoned to dig up Digger. It's ridiculous, it's mundane, it's stupid, but at the end of the day what we are trying to do is assemble all our metaphoric weapons to do battle with this hurt, this still thing. A reader named Ronnie Bierbrodt, who obviously did more research than I did, even turned up his obituary and a copy of the memorial booklet given out at his funeral. STANDS4 LLC, 2023. When he heard the sad news about his wife, said a newspaper, Diggers own heart broke like a clod of dirt. I know his nickname was Digger, but thats just mean. Although Hollywood Reporter announced in January and February 1949 that the film would have its premiere in March 1949 in Cincinnati, no definite information about the premiere was found. He always knew that the real traffic was between the living and the dead, and it is in managing that and emboldening the living to deal with their dead that you do them the most service. According to the obituary, Digger was born in Georgia in 1915. Portrayed Chester A. Riley's neighbor Gillis on "The Life of Riley" for ABC Radio (1944-1945) and NBC Radio (1945-1951). "You have to have helpers 24 hours a day.". Peg Riley: Theatre, huh? Here in Milford we're around 40 percent, and there are places where it's 60 percent and places where it's 16 percent. I think we act out things that are hard to put in words. I'll treat her just like she wasn't my wife. The show was canceled after its first season, but was revived in 1953, then ran on the NBC network until August 1958. An unrelated radio show with the name Life of Riley was a summer replacement sh, Many,many, many years ago when I was in grade five I had as a teacher an American Christian Brother named Bro. Brief Synopsis A factory worker tries to cope when his daughter dates the boss's son. Though other friends may fail you, I shall be the last to let you down.". Nevertheless, this Life of Riley series with Bendix was a ratings hit, ranking at No. But when some widowed person comes out and takes you by the shoulders and said, "Thank you, I couldn't have done this without you," and all you did was be there, or answer the call, or show up, there's this deep sense of having been of use to people at a time of need. Another time, firefighters rescued him after he apparently suffered a heart attack underground. Riley could easily be described as the Archie Bunker of the 1940s. (CONTINUES HUMMING IN BG) ANNOUNCER: But even people who do not believe or claim no religiosity or no particular faith, they are not without some text, some book they regard as, if not holy, it is the handle they're trying to hold onto to get through this. None of us knew what reference was being made here.In grade five very few people here NL (Canada) were familiar with American radio.When the "Life Of Reilly" came to TV my appreciation of "Digger" was finally launched. After 13 days in his coffin, Memphis police showed up with shovels to unearth Digger. Crowther concluded, "[W]e suppose there are millions who will like this sort of truck. Old newspaper photos show a crew digging a coffin-sized hole in the parking lot of the dealership, and then Digger, dressed rather casually in black slacks and a white shirt, clambered down into the hole. So what you've seen is what I've seen: that people who deal with their dead deal with death better. A comic book adaptation of the show was produced by Dell Comics in 1958 as part of their Four Color series of one-shots. Babs Riley: Guess what? Are social changes the reasons that we are more fearful and reluctant to deal with death in our everyday lives? The CBS program starred Lionel Stander as J. Riley Farnsworth and had no real connection with the more famous series that followed a few years later. Searching for Herbert ODell Smith took me nowhere, and youd be surprised how many people in America are named Digger ODell. Why, theres Edwin Digger Odell of Abilene, Texas; Allen Digger ODell of Malvern, Iowa; Charles Wayne Digger ODell of Lebanon, Tennessee; Loren Digger ODell of Brookfield, Missouri you get the picture. By what name was The Life of Riley (1949) officially released in Canada in English? And particularly when you see the transaction . In October 1949, the NBC network began broadcasting a television series inspired by the radio program, also titled The Life of Riley. What is your sense of what's driven and shaped that conversation, and what, if anything, has been missing from that public view of it all? So I took The Flotsam Family script, revised it, made it a Brooklyn Family, took out the flippancies and made it more meat-and-potatoes, and thought of a new title, The Life of Riley. But I find that if you just show up, if you just walk in the door, people think you're a hero. On any given day, it's up for grabs. The Life of Riley, 1944 to 1951. Question #48486. To Riley's amazement, Stevenson reveals that he had already planned to promote him to foreman, beginning in January. Chester A. Riley: Yeah, but that ain't right. So yes, the hurt is there, but the hurt does not overwhelm. And oftentimes I'm impressed by how people will wrap their existential concerns about a dying parent in the prearrangement conference. Gillis: I tried to help you, Riley, but I'm through. Months after my father died, I can remember this wave of feelings that would come over me, catching me at the most unpredictable times, this wallop of him being dead, him being gone. Then, his wife Peg receives a phone call from Sidney Monahan, a former flame from Brooklyn, their home town, and Riley impulsively invites him to dinner. web site copyright 1995-2014 Years later I had audio tapes to which I listened to repeatidly and learned to really admire Digger's council to Reilly via puns related to the profession of undertaking. And I'm, along with the next guy, as interested in those cartoons as everyone else is. I'm certain the same thing holds for people who put their dead in the sea or the fire or a tomb -- that we need time to disengage. John Brown, Radio and TV Actor, Dies; Played Digger O'Dell in 'Life of Riley' Give this article May 18, 1957 The New York Times Archives See the article in its original context from May 18, 1957,. Dr. Beamish: Not now, I'm afraid. I know it won't matter, it will be others, but do you see yourself as the fire or the earth, or --? But more and more, when we say to them, "You may, and maybe you ought " or, "Maybe someone in your family should be designated, just to go in as your proxy, to say, 'Everything was done as it should be done,'" they do it. Id like to think that the cemetery installed a periscope so visitors could see him, or at least a tube where they could drop coins and see if they could ring the bell but I doubt it. Its 32 inches across, 32 inches high, and six feet long. That is a wheel we can only invent at the time it happens. Chester A. Riley : Hello, Digger. He played "Al" on the radio series "My Friend Irma". I'll hug her and I'll kiss her. Chester A. Riley: I know what you did! And there's somebody else arranging the flowers. When families have gone to the crematory, has it made a difference? He jumps across the line just as a girl, who is covered by a blanket, is being shot by an arrow and plunges off a cliff. Once he had to be pulled from his apartment after the dirt sides turned to mud and caved in after a thunderstorm. We'd be wise, as a culture, to examine some of these things. Banners asked customers and anyone driving past the Buick showroom on Union Avenue, "HOW LONG CAN HE STAY BURIED ALIVE?" Digby 'Digger' O'Dell: It is I, Digby O'Dell, the friendly undertaker. Ferguson: That's the type of citizen we're sworn to protect. But people will go home, and they will look at pictures of the dead; they'll look at movies of the dead; they'll quote the dead to one another; and they will weep and laugh and carry on. I cant say what finally happened to Digger. He was supported by Marjorie Reynolds, replacing both Paula Winslowe and Rosemary DeCamp, as wife Peg; Tom D'Andrea as schemer buddy Jim Gillis; Gloria Blondell (sister of Joan Blondell) as Gillis' wife, Honeybee, and Gregory Marshall as their son Egbert; Lugene Sanders was Babs and Wesley Morgan was Junior. We're celebrating love, huh? I enjoy listening to the frogs croak. Still, as every grieving person knows, we have to reinvent the wheel in which we are now orphaned. Whether or not my family is involved with the care of my body, that's their business. Peg Riley: Every day this week, he's been kept in after school. And why do the rituals of a funeral matter? Burial was the norm in the Western world probably until the mid-60s. Western movie question: Movie likely from the 70s, has the climax where a man/boy is racing through the desert to beat a shadow across a certain line to save a girl captured by Indians. Maybe bigger. Well, I'll kiss you twice tonight. Jim Gillis: Are you kiddin'? Whether we consign our dead to scavenger birds, as they do in Tibet, or to the sea, as they do when the sea is around them, or the tree, as our Native Americans did, it doesn't make any difference. He calculated that he had been "buried alive" 94 times, and some of these almost ended his life. Procter and Gamble's new Radiant Creme Shampoo in the handy tube! "Lux Radio Theater" broadcast a 60-minute radio adaptation of the movie on May 8, 1950 with William Bendix, Rosemary DeCamp, Meg Randall . The Life of Riley was an American radio situation comedy series of the 1940s that was adapted into a 1949 feature film, a 1950s television series, and a 1958 comic book. Alan Lipscott and Reuben Ship wrote many of the radio series' early episodes, and Don Bernard was the show's initial director. And my father did have a sense of formality and tradition when it came to funerals. And is that the purposefulness in the ebb and flow of a wake and a funeral? This is got to be one of the largest collection of a single classic show I have stumbled across. At the beginning of the November 11, 1949 radio episode the announcer explained that William Bendix had strained his voice while performing the role of an umpire for an upcoming film (Kill the Umpire) and Gleason substituted for him that one night. It has to do with the gift of language. I do find this recent push for every funeral to be a celebration of life as, in a way, a kind of a cruel joke on people who are in acute grief. : Commissioned in 1932 by Memphis Chapter 1 of the American War Mothers, this large bronze plaque carried the names of 27 Memphians who had lost their lives in World War I. Jim Gillis: So by her leavin', I'm getting away without goin' out of the house. After roaming around the park a bit, I found the plaque has been carefully preserved and moved to a better (and more visible) location, bolted to a wall towards the rear of the new Veterans Plaza area of Overton Park. Peppers take longer than tomatoes to get going, so start them first. Chester A. Riley: Nah what would a rich man want with money? My, you're looking fine today; very natural" and leave stage with ""Cheerio, I'd better be shoveling off", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_of_Riley. Gillis often gave Riley bad information that got him into trouble, whereas Digger gave him good information that "helped him out of a hole," as he might have put it. I've seen it happen to Sean [his son], where you're swinging the door at night, helping people with their coats, directing them one place or another, carrying flowers, doing all the innocuous little things that add up to taking care of a family during visitation. I admire entrepreneurs and performers as much as the next guy, but it was surely a miserable way to make a living. I needed to read that piece because I'm disinclined -- when someone's sick, when someone's out of sorts, when someone's dead -- I'm disinclined to be around that. Oh, yeah. There are days I can get behind that theory and have. Gillis then forgives Riley, and Riley is satisfied that his family is happy once more. 2 Mar. The character of Digger O'Dell was not resurrected as a result of actor John Brown having been placed on . Thanks to Chester's interference, Junior now has two dates for the school dance. 1949. According to the 1999 obituary, Digger was survived by his wife, Julie Ann "Maggie" Smith of Dawsonville, Georgia; a son, Bobby Smith, of Lakewell, Florida; and a stepson, Timothy Eugene Fowler, of Gainesville, Georgia. I always knew I'd bring up my daughter to be somebody someday. "Life goes on!" Digger O'Dell, the friendly undertaker ANNCR: It's new! 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