Peyton Place

[Chris B]

That final cast photo is beautiful. I think it's such a shame we didn't get just one more season. I would've loved to have seen how the show would've been without Rodney and Betty and the new cast was excellent. It's rare that a reboot is as seamless as it was here. Especially a fairly successful introduction of a Black family in the 60s. Judy Pace was amazing on this show and deserved more time to shine.

[Paul Raven]

In the early days, the network was pushing for a murder/trial story to keep viewers glued to the set. The first proposal, quickly rejected, was that Eliot Carson would return and be murdered. Connie's prints would be found on the murder weapon and she would mutely stand trial for murder(not wanting to reveal that Allison was illegitimate)

 

[Paul Raven]

 According to a 1968 TV Guide article Diana Hyland got the biggest deal anyone ever got from Peyton Place. She got a solid year’s guarantee and the same pay check as Dorothy Malone got after several years. And if her second-year option is picked up, she’ll be the highest paid actress in the show’s history. 

[Paul Raven]

Barbara Rush TV Guide article Nov 68.

NO TEARS FOR MISS RUSH

The ebullient, strong-willed actress cheerfully refuses to knuckle under to her ‘long-suffering’ role in ‘Peyton Place’

By Dick Hobson

What happens when a resolutely cheerful actress is cast in the part of a sobracked mother-figure? Something’s got to give. Will it be the cheerful actress? Or will it be the sob-racked part? Tune in to your local ABC outlet every Monday and Wednesday evening for the continuing drama of ebullient Barbara Rush vs. long-suffering ‘Marsha Russell” of Peyton Place.

As of this date Miss Rush thinks she’s ahead: “They wanted to make me long-suffering, but I’ve never suffered long about anything. I’m too practical to go around suffering my life away. | wouldn’t meet problems in my own life with tears and moaning, so why should | do it on the show?”

At lunch recently at the 20th Century-Fox commissary, Tippy Walker, 21, the wispy little blonde who plays Marsha’s teen-age daughter, Carolyn, approached Barbara’s table and whispered something in her ear. Barbara replied: “Don't worry about it. We'll work it out. We'll fix it.” When the girl left, Barbara explained: ‘| mother her, you see. Tippy’s worried about the scene we're shooting this afternoon. She feels that our dialogue is too ‘alienating,’ that the girl wouldn’t reject her mother so openly. We’ll take care of it.”

When the scene is being blocked out by director Ted Post on Stage 9 after lunch, Marsha enters Carolyn’s bedroom and sits on her bed for a little bedtime chat. Tippy delivers the line she found so “alienating”: “‘I’d better not kiss you good night, Mother. I might give you my cold.” Barbara interrupts. “Teddy, that line seems awfully strong to me.” Tippy adds, “A silence is just as alienating.” Barbara pleads, “Couldn’t she just say, ‘I’m sorry, Mother, have to go to sleep now’?” Post shrugs, ‘‘So, OK, it’s better. It's got more flow.”

This sort of thing is not uncommon with Barbara. She refashions the dialogue up to the moment of shooting. Her first crack at it had come when she received the week’s script on the preceding Friday. She always reads scripts promptly and phones associate producer Nina Laemmle with her reactions. ‘I've found one thing about Peyton Place. You are very much in control of what you do,” Barbara says. “l'm proud of my work and they welcome my contribution. I’m not just being pushy. There is a lot more of me in the Marsha Russell character than I ever thought there would be. My character is finally getting ‘up’ because I am an ‘up person.’ ”

Miss Laemmle seems not unreceptive. “If actors have troubles with the characterizations, they’re probably right. Barbara wants to project an appealing image. She wants to be portrayed as an intelligent, modern woman, whereas Marsha is, well . . . Marsha.” Sometimes producer Everett Chambers has to get into the act: “We have to sit down with her for an hour and explain, ‘You want it all to be you, Barbara, but Marsha is not you. You say your children don’t talk to you this way, but this child is not your child.’”

One of the first of Barbara’s objections was over the fact that the daughter doesn’t know that her mother’s divorce could have been obtained on the grounds of adultery, and the mother tries to keep her from learning the truth. ‘We had a long talk about that,” Barbara says. “I don’t believe in lying to solve problems. People are very cruel to each other on the daytime soaps because of the lying. I cannot compromise, in that I have to stand by what I do. I want to help make Peyton Place into a document of human behavior.”

Barbara Rush Hunter Cowan, 40, formerly married to actor Jeff Hunter,currently the wife of one of the most publicized of Hollywood press agents, Warren Cowan, mother of two (one by each husband), stepmother of Cowan's two, charity worker, political activist, and one of the most energetic hostesses in Beverly Hills, is nothing if not the intelligent, modern woman. Sobracked she’s not. There’s too much going on in her life.

Yet back when she was a glamorous movie star, Barbara Rush was known for her ability to cry on cue. “A lot of actresses really have to suffer a great deal before they can cry. It's terribly difficult and upsetting for them, but all I have to do is think to myself ‘cry’ and I cry. I never cry in life. I got cried out at Paramount and Warners.”

Earlier in her career, if it can be believed, this svelte creature of 118 pounds “used to be quite plump, the wholesome chubby type,’ as remembered by Louella Parsons. When she _ slimmed herself down she won romantic leads opposite only the topmost stars: Hudson, Newman, Brando, Sinatra, Martin, Burton, Curtis,Kirk Douglas. Today she _ plays opposite Very Big Stars only at the dinner table as part of her role of the public relations wife—along with the cocktail parties, the screenings, the premieres, and all the social services that PR entails. 

“You can't imagine what it’s like for an actress to be married to someone in the service business,” she confides, referring to the deference expected in the presence of Big Names. ‘It was hardest with Warren’s women clients. lf I had to defer to them,I used to get up-tight. I’ve been known to get in a taxi and go home.”

“Marriage is a difficult thing at best,” admits Cowan. “We've had many problems, but we both try. If anything is wrong with Barbara, it’s her low boiling point.” Barbara readily agrees: ‘We both have fierce tempers. I am a very strong person. I don't think in terms of husband and wife. I'm not a wife. I’m a person. I’m me. I don’t know if we have the best marriage in the world. It can be maddening; but it’s never boring. Sometimes I think there’s no future to my life, let alone my life with Warren. Then he does something totally surprising and redeems himself. Our whole marriage is due to his creative genius at keeping me entertained.”

This is how an enterprising press agent woos, wins and keeps a glamorous movie star for his own: he takes her to dinner at Trader Vic’s, where her fortune cookie reads: “You might as well face it, there’s a press agent in your future.” He sees her off on a plane and 45 minutes later she spots him reading a magazine in a near-by seat. Their wedding reception features, in Cowan’s phraseology, ‘‘an above thetitles turnout.” On their anniversary he lures Barbara to the Presidential Suite of the Beverly Hills Hotel on the pretext of conferring with a client. Surprise!—her personal cosmetics case lies open on the dressing table. Her shocking-red chiffon negligee is laid out across the bed. Waiters wheel in supper on a cart. Live violinists play softly. At the birth of Claudia, now 5, La Scala caters a dinner in Barbara’s hospital room with captain, two waiters, and a violinist playing ‘‘Fascination.”

Where young people are concerned, Barbara Rush is all warmth. “I’m a toucher, you know. Tippy isn't. (’m always touching her hair, putting my arms around her, hugging her. Now my son Chris, who's 16, is not to be touched in any way, shape or form. To him, running your fingers through his hair is like fingernails on a blackboard. But all my children are very dear, very affectionate. 

“The young ones here on Peyton Place come to me in a Dear Abby way: because they think | have a sense of logic, a sense of purpose.

“I have. Acting for me has been a passport to all strata of society. I’ve done a lot of things I’ve always wanted to do. I've found my solutions.”

 

Barbara is still with us aged 96! The marriage to Warren Cowan ended in 1969. Guess all his showy 'romancing' was not enough.

20

 

[danfling]

I hated Ms. Rush on Peyton Place and thought that her acting was terrible!

However, later, I thought she did a GREAT job when she was appearing on All My Children!

[Paul Raven]

TV Guide published this farewell in May 69

Farewell to Peyton Place

By Leslie Raddatz

Farewell to Constance Mackenzie, bookstore owner and ostensible widow,

Who eventually wed Elliot Carson, father of her illegitimate kiddo— Allison, whose blonde hair was so long at first.

She disappeared from Peyton Place in a burst

Of publicity, but was talked about all the years the show was on the air.

(She was supposed to be in New York, where she reportedly gave birth to an heir.)

Good-by, Elliot Carson, jailed for a murder he didn’t commit.

(Catherine Peyton really did it,

But she was dead when the story began.)

Elliot bought the Clarion, which he edited and ran,

Replacing Uncle Matt Swain,

Who left town on an early train.

Elliot and Constance argued a lot

And took in strays like Rachel (whose possession of the vanished Allison’s bracelet was never explained in the plot) ;

And Jill’s baby,

Which she hinted might be Allison’s —maybe.

(She later acknowledged Joe, Dr. Rossi’s brother, the pater—

We will get to the doctor later.)

Oh, yes, the Carsons had their own little tot, 

Who, unlike Allison, was legitimately begot.

A triple farewell to the Harringtons—

Leslie, the father; and Rodney and Norman, his sons.

Leslie married the late Catherine Peyton for her money

And went on to do all sorts of unfunny

Deeds, like having an affair with his secretary, Julie Anderson, mother of Betty Anderson (who not only married Rodney twice, but also his illegitimate half-brother, Steven Cord), and planning to murder his father-in-law, Martin Peyton—of whom more anon, you may be sure.

Rodney loved Allison, and they had one nationally telecast nautical affaire d’amour—

A cheery event in the career of Rod, who was tried for the murder of

Joe Chernak, A roughneck, And later was paralyzed in a motorcycle accident. Norman's life took a brighter bent. He married Rita Jacks— Once involved with the Chernaks—

And, except for an auto accident and —

loss of an unborn baby in an emergency cardiac case,

They had a happy time—at least for Peyton Place.

Good-by to Ada Jacks, mother of Rita and owner of the local taphouse,

Whose husband Eddie, a louse,

Conspired with Leslie Harrington to murder Martin Peyton.

But old Martin had fate on

His side, plus the story chart,

In which he played an important part.

A parting with patriarchal Martin seems de trop,

Since he has already passed on— leaving no dough

To Betty or Steven,

Apparently to get even,

For the failure of all manner of machinations

Involving his will, plus sundry situations

With a friend of men

Named Adrienne

And with his housekeeper, Hannah Cord

(Who posed as Steven's mother—her Damocles' sword,

Since Steven was really Martin's grandson, born out of wedlock,

A regular occurrence in the Peyton flock).

Good-by to Dr. Michael Rossi, to whom we said hello in the very first show—

A friend of Constance, and, concerning Allison, in the know.

Rossi was one of those Latin romantics

Getting involved in antics

With Dr. Claire Morton, Ann Howard and Marsha Russell,

Whose ex-husband died after a tussle

With Dr. Rossi—on trial for his life as the series ends,

And no clue given to what the future portends.

Finally, farewell to the others in the endless, ending anecdote—

Eli Carson, Lee Webber and Sandy, Jack Chandler, John Fowler, Tom and Susan Winter, the Miles family, Carolyn Russell, Dr. Vincent Markham, Nurse Choate,

The Schusters and their deaf daughter, Kim,

Judge Chester. Remember him?

There were almost a hundred of them —quite a mob.

Television won’t be the same. Sob.

Edited August 16, 2023 by Paul Raven