Had she stayed on the Broadway stage, Bethel Leslie might have been more well known, as she was a truly gifted actor that Hollywood just didn't know what to do with. She appeared in some movies at the beginning and end of her career, but it was the early days of television where she really was able to flex her acting muscles.
Without ever having a signature role, this wonderful talent appeared and thrived regularly on many of the live television anthology dramas of the 1950's like The Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse, The Prudential Family Playhouse, Kraft Theatre, Broadway Television Theatre, Pepsi Cola Playhouse, Philip Morris Playhouse, Studio One and Playhouse 90, just to name a few.
As television experimented with different formats, the anthology programs would eventually fade away as audiences found more interest in weekly characters than they did with completely different dramas each week. This turned Bethel Leslie into a television guest star where she appeared the next three decades in such shows as Perry Mason, Have Gun Will Travel, Gunsmoke, Mannix, Kung Fu and The White Shadow.
Bethel Leslie was extremely talented and had she been born thirty years later she just might have had the career that Meryl Streep now owns. Fortunately, the record books will never forget her as she did win an Emmy for her work on The Richard Boone Show, which was a critical hit, but failed with audiences in its attempt to bring back the anthology format.
Sadly, this wonderful talent is largely forgotten today, but should one ever stumble across some of the old shows from the Golden Age of Television, it will become very clear that Bethel Leslie is Not Very Famous...but should be.
Without ever having a signature role, this wonderful talent appeared and thrived regularly on many of the live television anthology dramas of the 1950's like The Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse, The Prudential Family Playhouse, Kraft Theatre, Broadway Television Theatre, Pepsi Cola Playhouse, Philip Morris Playhouse, Studio One and Playhouse 90, just to name a few.
As television experimented with different formats, the anthology programs would eventually fade away as audiences found more interest in weekly characters than they did with completely different dramas each week. This turned Bethel Leslie into a television guest star where she appeared the next three decades in such shows as Perry Mason, Have Gun Will Travel, Gunsmoke, Mannix, Kung Fu and The White Shadow.
Bethel Leslie was extremely talented and had she been born thirty years later she just might have had the career that Meryl Streep now owns. Fortunately, the record books will never forget her as she did win an Emmy for her work on The Richard Boone Show, which was a critical hit, but failed with audiences in its attempt to bring back the anthology format.
Sadly, this wonderful talent is largely forgotten today, but should one ever stumble across some of the old shows from the Golden Age of Television, it will become very clear that Bethel Leslie is Not Very Famous...but should be.