Donald O’Connor returns to Suspense just a month after his appearance in Smiley. This is the second performance of The Visitor, originally broadcast in May 1944 with Eddie Bracken. The story is about a young man who returns to his home town after he had been presumed dead. Most townspeople are delighted at his return, while others believe he is an impostor who is up to no good. The story was written by Carl Randau and Leane Zugsmith and adapted by Robert L. Richards.
Details about that 1944 broadcast and the story’s history, including its brief run on Broadway, are at
https://suspenseproject.blogspot.com/2023/04/1944-05-11-visitor.html
https://archive.org/details/440511 which is also where the 1944 recordings can be found
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP470918
THE CAST
DONALD O’CONNOR (Bud Owen), Cathy Lewis (Ellen Woods), Wally Maher (David Cunningham), Joe Kearns (Signature Voice / Mac Berle), Jack Edwards, Jr. (Joe), Verna Felton (Judith Cunningham), Myra Marsh (Mrs. Callahan), Frank Albertson (Dr. Sterling), Jerry Hausner (Al), Peggy Rea (Mary-Louise)
Much is happening in the Suspense backstory. This was Peggy Rea’s final appearance in Suspense. She was William Spier’s secretarial assistant for four years, and was often in the show in uncredited supporting roles. She left the show to work with Kay Thompson. Kaywas in Las Vegas to establish residency so the divorce with William Spier could be accomplished; she was not sitting idly by. The MGM singer, dancer, musical coach, and choreographer was developing the prototype Las Vegas show at The Flamingo Hotel. Rea left to work with Kay in hopes of furthering a stalled acting career. Rea had many little parts in television and movies through the 1950s and 1960s, but her acting career eventually became “unstalled,” decades later, especially with The Waltons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peggy_Rea
The Thompson-Spier divorce became official on 1947-09-23. Their “kitchen table collaboration” on many aspects of Suspense included script recommendations, casting, episode titles, singing and much more. It came to an end, but they remained friendly over the years and did some work in early television. The success story of Suspense in its formative years cannot be told without acknowledging Kay Thompson’s influence and counsel.
Spier had started his relationship with June Havoc months earlier, and they would marry in February, 1948.
(Hat tip and thanks to Keith Scott for many of these details; his episode cast information appears in each blogpost, and many of his disc recordings are included in this project).
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