Our Gal Sunday
Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2005 12:26 pm
On the Air: March 29, 1937-Jan. 2, 1959, CBS, 12:45 p.m. ET
Sunday Brinthrope: Dorothy Lowell (1937-46), Vivian Smolen (1946-59) ... Lord Henry Brinthrope: Karl Swenson, Alistair Duncan ... Irene Galway: Fran Carlon ... Peter Galway: Joseph Curtin
Announcers: Ed Fleming, John Reed King, Art Millett, Bert Parks, Charles Stark, Warren Sweeney, John A. Wolfe
Theme Song: "Red River Valley"
Epigraph: "Once again, we present Our Gal Sunday, the story of an orphan girl named Sunday from the little mining town of Silver Creek, Colorado, who in young womanhood married England's richest, most handsome lord, Lord Henry Brinthrope. The story that asks the question: Can this girl from the little mining town in the West find happiness as the wife of a wealthy and titled Englishman?"
Premise: At the risk of sounding like a broken record, Our Gal Sunday pursued one of the great themes of soap opera -- marrying a young female castaway into a male-ordered society of prominence and wealth. Despite its timeworn hypothesis, the show may have done this better than any other. Orphaned, raised by two old prospectors in a western mining encampment, a lass couldn't be expected to go far in life without the advantages that most others were exposed to. But out of such modest roots came Lady Brinthrope, the wife of one of the most dignified, prosperous, aristocratic Englishmen to settle on the East Coast. Lord Henry and Sunday's story wasn't largely one of marital discord, though there was an element of that. Instead, it popularized another of soap opera's celebrated precepts: introducing fiendish hussies who were determined to destroy the tanquillity of the heroine's life by vying for her mate's affections. (On rare occasions, the situation worked in reverse, with the wife becoming the object of an obsessive admirer's infatuation. More often than not, however, it was the husband who was the prize.) Some of these temptresses were rich snobs; others were your basic common vamp, the kind that could be imported from several other serials. Despite such shenanigans, Sunday and Henry genuinely loved each other, and their union stood as a bulwark against evil's forces. Listeners were comforted in knowing that no matter what was hurled against the couple, their marriage would last. Surviving more than two decades in a favored time period, the durable serial picked up listeners by the millions, many of them remaining with the rags-to-riches tale until the end.
Now it's your turn to reminisce...
Sunday Brinthrope: Dorothy Lowell (1937-46), Vivian Smolen (1946-59) ... Lord Henry Brinthrope: Karl Swenson, Alistair Duncan ... Irene Galway: Fran Carlon ... Peter Galway: Joseph Curtin
Announcers: Ed Fleming, John Reed King, Art Millett, Bert Parks, Charles Stark, Warren Sweeney, John A. Wolfe
Theme Song: "Red River Valley"
Epigraph: "Once again, we present Our Gal Sunday, the story of an orphan girl named Sunday from the little mining town of Silver Creek, Colorado, who in young womanhood married England's richest, most handsome lord, Lord Henry Brinthrope. The story that asks the question: Can this girl from the little mining town in the West find happiness as the wife of a wealthy and titled Englishman?"
Premise: At the risk of sounding like a broken record, Our Gal Sunday pursued one of the great themes of soap opera -- marrying a young female castaway into a male-ordered society of prominence and wealth. Despite its timeworn hypothesis, the show may have done this better than any other. Orphaned, raised by two old prospectors in a western mining encampment, a lass couldn't be expected to go far in life without the advantages that most others were exposed to. But out of such modest roots came Lady Brinthrope, the wife of one of the most dignified, prosperous, aristocratic Englishmen to settle on the East Coast. Lord Henry and Sunday's story wasn't largely one of marital discord, though there was an element of that. Instead, it popularized another of soap opera's celebrated precepts: introducing fiendish hussies who were determined to destroy the tanquillity of the heroine's life by vying for her mate's affections. (On rare occasions, the situation worked in reverse, with the wife becoming the object of an obsessive admirer's infatuation. More often than not, however, it was the husband who was the prize.) Some of these temptresses were rich snobs; others were your basic common vamp, the kind that could be imported from several other serials. Despite such shenanigans, Sunday and Henry genuinely loved each other, and their union stood as a bulwark against evil's forces. Listeners were comforted in knowing that no matter what was hurled against the couple, their marriage would last. Surviving more than two decades in a favored time period, the durable serial picked up listeners by the millions, many of them remaining with the rags-to-riches tale until the end.
Now it's your turn to reminisce...