Although it hasn't held up well, Jim Backus is what makes "I Married Joan" watchable. He was a fine actor and a great c
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Jim Backus
caribeno — 16 years ago(July 09, 2009 09:34 PM)
Although it hasn't held up well, Jim Backus is what makes "I Married Joan" watchable. He was a fine actor and a great comic actor. I wrote this because, whoever wrote his biography, completely omitted his major tv break. Without the success of his role as Judge Bradley Stevens on "I Married Joan", it's doubtful his tv career would've included such meaty comedy roles for him. It's worth noting that Sherwood Schwartz, who created "Gilligan's Island" was the head writer for "I Married Joan". As much as the series doesn't hold up, it is fascinating for Backus' work and for the major talent that was the grossly neglected and unknown-today Joan Davis, who was a huge star of the 1940's and '50s. All the people today who idolize Jim Carrey and the "American Pie" movies, I hope, won't meet the same "Who's that?" reaction in 50 years as mentions of Joan Davis, every bit as big as they were 50 years ago, gets in here.
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paultbaker — 16 years ago(November 01, 2009 03:39 PM)
During the run of the show Joan was briefly the most highly paid female entertainer in the world. And today only a few people remember her name.
Thanks for this post, you're right about how the Bio left out such a huge part of his early career. At the time he autographed pictures of himself as 'Judge Bradley Stevens'.
If you want a fun read of Jim Backus' life, including his take on working with Joan Davis, I recommend tracking down a copy of "Forgive Us Our Digressions" written by Jim and Henny (his wife of 40+ years). It was published one year before his death, and is full of wonderful anecdotes about 'the biz'.
"Film is a mosaic of
Time
."
-A. Tarkovsky