Beacon Hill is a prime time period drama series which aired on CBS in 1975. Set after World War I in Boston's Beacon Hill area, the show was conceived as an Americanized version of the popular British series Upstairs, Downstairs (1971–1975) and focused on the wealthy Irish-American Lassiter family and their Irish immigrant servants, who reside together on Louisburg Square.[1][2]
| Beacon Hill | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Drama |
| Composer | Marvin Hamlisch |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 11 (+2 unaired) |
| Production | |
| Executive producer | Beryl Vertue |
| Producer | Jacqueline Babbin |
| Running time | 60 minutes |
| Production company | Robert Stigwood Organization |
| Original release | |
| Network | CBS |
| Release | August 25 – November 4, 1975 |
The show was produced by Jacqueline Babbin[1] and Beryl Vertue, the former literary agent of Upstairs, Downstairs co-creator Jean Marsh.[3][4]
Production
editThe first episode cost $900,000 to produce, and the music was composed by Marvin Hamlisch.[1] Christopher Schemering of The Soap Opera Encyclopedia called Beacon Hill "the most touted prime-time soap since the Lana Turner-George Hamilton debacle The Survivors".[1]
The series premiered on August 25, 1975, with an "impressive audience" of "43% of people watching TV" that evening, but it could not sustain those ratings.[1] Schemering wrote that "the overly large cast and fragmented stories did not allow the audience to get its bearings."[1] The show was cancelled after 11 weeks (two further episodes remained unaired) with its last episode airing on November 4, 1975.[1]
Cast and characters
editThe show starred Stephen Elliott as patriarch Benjamin Lassiter, a self-made businessman and éminence grise at Boston City Hall, and Nancy Marchand as his wife Mary, an elegant society woman from a wealthy family. They have five children; eldest daughter Maude (Maeve McGuire), who is married to yachting enthusiast Richard Palmer (Edward Herrmann); middle daughter Emily (DeAnn Mears), who is married to stockbroker Trevor Bullock (Roy Cooper) and is the mother of the spoilt Betsy (Linda Purl); "plain jane" Rosamond (Kitty Winn), who helps out the family business; bohemian Fawn (Kathryn Walker), who is having an affair with her Italian piano teacher Giorgio Bellonci (Michael Nouri); and Robert, the Lassiters’ only son, who has returned from France after losing an arm in World War I.
The servants consist of Arthur Hacker (George Rose), the family butler; his wife Emmeline (Beatrice Straight), the head housekeeper; his niece Maureen Mahaffey (Susan Blanchard), who works as a maid; his nephew Brian Mallory (Paul Ryan Rudd), the chauffeur who is having an affair with Rosamond; former chauffeur Harry Emmet (Barry Snider); footman Terence O'Hara (David Rounds); cook William Piper (Richard Ward) and his son Grant (Don Blakely); Marilyn Gardiner (Holland Taylor), Mary's personal assistant and secretary; and maids Eleanor (Sydney Swire) and Kate (Lisa Pelican).
Episodes
edit| No. | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original air date | US viewers (millions) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Pilot" | Fielder Cook | Sidney Carroll | August 25, 1975 | 23.1[5] |
| 2 | "The Colonel and the Fawn" | Burt Brinckerhoff | Irving Gaynor Neiman | September 2, 1975 | 17.6 |
| 3 | "The Marblehead Club" | Peter Levin | David Wiltse | September 9, 1975 | 14.6 |
| 4 | "The Poor Little Thing" | Peter Levin | Story by : Sidney Carroll Teleplay by : David Wiltse | September 16, 1975 | 15.2 |
| 5 | "The Soldiers" | Peter Levin | David Wiltse | September 23, 1975 | 12.2 |
| 6 | "The Shining Example" | Peter Levin | Sidney Carroll | September 30, 1975 | 14.3 |
| 7 | "The Speakeasy" | Peter Levin | David Wiltse | October 7, 1975 | 12.7 |
| 8 | "The Million Dollar Gate" | Peter Levin | Allan Sloane | October 14, 1975 | 9.7 |
| 9 | "The Suitors" | Paul Lammers | David Wiltse | October 21, 1975 | 8.2 |
| 10 | "The Test" | Peter Levin | Story by : Sidney Carroll Teleplay by : George Baxt | October 28, 1975 | 10.8 |
| 11 | "The Pretenders" | Mel Ferber | Story by : Anne Howard Bailey Teleplay by : Irving Gaynor Neiman | November 4, 1975 | 10.5 |
| 12 | "The Debut" | unknown | unknown | unaired | unaired |
| 13 | "The Visit" | unknown | unknown | unaired | unaired |
References
edit- ^ a b c d e f g Schemering, Christopher (September 1985). The Soap Opera Encyclopedia (1st ed.). Ballantine Books. pp. 38–39. ISBN 0-345-32459-5.
- ^ Andrews, Bart; Dunning, Brad (1980). The Worst TV Shows Ever. New York: E. P. Dutton. pp. 7–14. ISBN 0525475923.
- ^ "Beryl Vertue OBE: Producer and Chairman". Hartswood Films. 2012. Archived from the original on 21 April 2013. Retrieved 25 September 2015.
- ^ "Beryl Vertue". BBC. 16 June 2004. Retrieved 25 September 2015.
- ^ Bruce B. Morris, Prime Time Network Serials: Episode Guides, Casts and Credits for 37 Continuing Television Dramas, 1964-1993, McFarland and Company, 1997.
External links
edit- Beacon Hill at IMDb