| This Is Your Life | |
|---|---|
 Title card from 1954 | |
| Genre | Reality Documentary |
| Presented by | Ralph Edwards |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| Production | |
| Producer | Ralph Edwards |
| Running time | 45–48 minutes |
| Original release | |
| Network | NBC |
| Release | October 1, 1952 (1952-10-01) – 1961 (1961) |
| Related | |
| British version Australian version New Zealand version | |
This Is Your Life is an Americanrealitydocumentary series broadcast onNBC television from 1952 to 1961. It was originally hosted by its creator and producerRalph Edwards as aradio program from 1948 to 1950. In the program, the host surprised guests and then took them through a retrospective of their lives in front of an audience, including appearances by colleagues, friends, and family. Edwards revived the show in 1971–1972, andJoseph Campanella hosted a version in 1983. Edwards returned for various specials in the late 1980s.
The idea forThis Is Your Life arose while Ralph Edwards was hosting and producing the game showTruth or Consequences. He had been asked by theUnited States Army to "do something" for paraplegic soldiers atBirmingham General Army Hospital, a California Army rehabilitation hospital inVan Nuys, Los Angeles (a site laterconverted into a high school). Edwards chose a "particularly despondent young soldier and hit on the idea of presenting his life on the air, in order to integrate the wreckage of the present with his happier past and the promise of a hopeful future."[1] Edwards received such positive public feedback from the "capsule narrative" of the soldier he gave onTruth or Consequences that he developedThis Is Your Life as a radio show.[2] In the show, Edwards surprised each guest by narrating a biography of the subject. The show "alternated in presenting the life stories of entertainment personalities and 'ordinary' people who had contributed in some way to their communities."[2] The host, consulting his "red book", narrated while presenting the subject with family members, friends, and others who had affected his or her life.
One of the show's subjects was ReverendKiyoshi Tanimoto, a survivor of theatomic bombing of Hiroshima. Believing he was there for a news interview, Tanimoto was instead met with a highly dramatized depiction of the events including sound effects, dramatic music, and actual footage of the city being destroyed in the bombing, and asked to walk viewers through what happened. During the episode Edwards introduced Tanimoto toRobert A. Lewis, the co-pilot of theEnola Gay, the plane that dropped the bomb onHiroshima.[3][4][5] The episode would later be described as "[exemplifying] a number of the ways in which America comes to terms with...its responsibility for Hiroshima. The first of these ways is Disneyfication, the tendency to view Hiroshima as a dramatic spectacle, an exercise in special effects: the ticking clock, the rolling kettledrums, and the image of the mushroom cloud produce an emotional frisson, and little more than that."[6]
In February 1953,Lillian Roth, a "topflighttorch singer of theProhibition era" was the subject of the show, who "cheerfully admits that she had been a hopeless drunk for 16 years before being rescued byAlcoholics Anonymous."[1][4] Edwards described Roth's condition as "impending blindness, an inflamed sinus, and a form of alcoholic insanity" and brought on a psychiatrist who had treated her, a brother-in-law "who had paid her bills", and several "glamorous foul-weather friends" such asLita Grey Chaplin andRuby Keeler.[1] Roth's story became the basis of her1954 autobiography and 1955 film adaption,I'll Cry Tomorrow, with Edwards appearing as himself.
Hanna Bloch Kohner, aHolocaust survivor, was the subject on May 27, 1953.[7]
Kate Newcomb, a doctor who practiced in a "70-mile circle" aroundWoodruff, Wisconsin, was the subject of a 1954 episode, bringing attention to her "million pennies" drive to raise funds for a small community hospital; viewers of the episode donated more than $112,000 in pennies.[8]
On December 1, 1954,This Is Your Life experimented with recountingtwo lives in the same half-hour program.Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were enjoying new popularity as their old movies were sweeping the country on television, but the men themselves had just retired from show business. The tribute began badly when the guests of honor didn't arrive on schedule (owing to a taxi breaking down) and host Ralph Edwards, on the air live, uncomfortably improvised alone as valuable minutes went by. Edwards managed to rush through the abbreviated tribute, butThis Is Your Life never attempted a dual biography again; later episodes withAbbott and Costello andOlsen and Johnson focused on only one of the partners, with the other appearing near the end as a guest.[9]
The New York Times reported on September 1, 1955, that theSixth United States Army requested akinescope of the April 27 episode which honored World War II and Korean WarGeneral Mark Clark. The request stated, "We believe that showing of such a program would contribute materially toward the objectives of troop information, since it would create appreciation of the career of an outstanding military leader and further better understanding of certain highlights in the recent history of the Army."[10]
According toThe Complete Directory to Prime Time Network TV Shows, 1946–Present, one celebrity that was definitely forbidden was Edwards himself. He supposedly threatened to fire every member of his staff if they ever tried to turn the tables on him and publicly present Edwards' own life.[11]
In a 1973 episode,Vincent Price was the surprised guest. The show had been planned with his wife Mary while Price was in the UK filming the movieTheatre of Blood. By the time he returned to his US home, he had split with his wife and begun a relationship with his co-star from the movie,Coral Browne. Price's daughter later revealed that his estranged wife had told him about the show in an attempt to manage any potential fallout and, unbeknownst to the producers, he agreed to act surprised when the show was recorded.[12]
This Is Your Life was nominated three times for as "Best Audience Participation, Quiz, or Panel Program" at theEmmy Awards, losing in 1953 at the5th Emmy Awards toWhat's My Line? and sharing the category's award withWhat's My Line? at theEmmys in 1954 and1955. It also fared well in the ratings during the 1950s, finishing at #11 in 1953–1954, #12 in 1954–1955, #26 in 1955–1956, #19 in 1957–1958 and #29 in 1958–1959.[13]
By October 1960,Time magazine was callingThis Is Your Life "the most sickeningly sentimental show on the air"; it cited a May 1960 episode on "Queens housewife and mother" Elizabeth Hahn as evidence that the show had "run through every faded actress still able to cry on cue" and had instead "turned to ordinary people as subjects for its weekly,treacly 'true-to-life' biographies."[14] The episode on Hahn was also cited as an example of the limited research that the show was doing on its guests. The show had presented Hahn as "devoted to her husband and so dedicated to her children that she had worked as a chambermaid, waitress, and cook to further their education and keep them off the streets", ignoring details such as that Hahn, on the advice of her rabbi, had brought her daughter into a magistrate's court as a delinquent, and that before the episode was broadcast, Hahn's husband had sued her for divorce.[14]Virginia Graham, in herautobiography, noted that the show had been characterized as a maudlininvasion of privacy.
In the late 1980s, Edwards taped new introductions for vintageThis Is Your Life episodes featuring celebrities.American Movie Classics aired these updated versions for several years, accompanying them with "screenings of movies fromstudio-era Hollywood."[2]
Edwards revived the series twice in syndication, the first in 1971 with Edwards again as host, and in 1983 withJoseph Campanella as host. Both failed to capture the magic of the original series, mostly due to the series being pre-recorded on film or tape and, in the case of the 1971–72 version, some stations that aired it gave away the surprise elements in ads and promos for the show. During the late 1980s, Edwards hosted a few single primetime network airings ofThis Is Your Life, most memorably an episode featuringBetty White andDick Van Dyke.
Pat Sajak hosted an episode in November 1993 on NBC whereRoy Scheider andKathie Lee Gifford were the honorees, and Edwards made a cameo at the beginning, then appeared again when Kathie's work as a singer on the '70s version ofName that Tune, which Edwards produced, was mentioned. ActressAngie Dickinson was supposed to have been one of the two celebrities honored in the special, and was lured under the pretext of being interviewed for a special about directorBrian de Palma, but when host Sajak surprised her with the typical "This is your life!" greeting to kick off the show she refused to participate and walked out.[15][16] She later said that she had previously been approached about being a guest on the show and had declined, and that the main reason she refused to participate was that she didn't look good crying.[15]
In November 2005,ABC announced that it was developing a new version of the show, to be hosted byRegis Philbin. Coincidentally, creator Ralph Edwards, died not long after the announcement was made. In August 2006, Philbin decided not to renew his contract with the show (he was committed to hostingAmerica's Got Talent onNBC). ABC announced it was considering moving forward with another host in 2006, but this never came to fruition.[17][18]
In October 2008,Survivor producerMark Burnett signed a deal with Ralph Edwards Productions to produce an updated version.[19] This also did not come to fruition.
International adaptations of the show:
In the Taiwanese variety showSuper Sunday, the second half of each episode has aThis Is Your Life-style segment where a celebrity or a local discussed their past followed by a cinematic re-enactment (usually exaggerated or serious) then a remote segment to search for the individual. However, the final result for each segment may or may not be successful.
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Photo: Rev. Kiyoshi Tanimoto appearing on a 1955 episode of the TV show 'This Is Your Life.' Host Ralph Edwards is at right.
Reverend Tanimoto turns up at the [NBC] station [in Los Angeles], and it turns out he's not doing a news interview; he has been booked unwittingly on an episode of This Is Your Life.... In this case, they were bringing out people from reverend Tanimoto's life... including one of the bombers from the Enola Gay. And so poor reverend Tanimoto, he's sitting there on the set and trying to maintain his composure, and the set is full of bells and whistles. They have the sound of the bomb whirring. They have the sound of the clock ticking. It's just this highly produced dramatic production, and this poor reverend is sitting there totally bewildered but trying so hard to stay composed. And the moment where they bring out the bomber to shake hands, I mean, you can't even imagine what's going through Tanimoto's mind. And Hersey would report on this later on, and he said that the bomber (Captain Robert A. Lewis) appeared to be crying, to many millions of viewers who were watching this, but in reality Hersey reported it turned out that he had been out bar-hopping beforehand.
