The Happy Search for Soupy Sales'
Naked Gals
by
Victor Edward Swanson,
Publisher
The Hologlobe Press
www.hologlobepress.com
Version Five
(Draft version)
(February 2, 2024)
Now it is time for a little bit of fun from a television-history guy. Since June 1972, I have been doing research about television history, and I now have some 170,000 index cards with information about television, and about 13,000 cards are related to Detroit television history. I am certainly the best Detroit television historian in the country. By the way, television is not my only field of study; for example, I have great knowledge about 40 Mile Point Lighthouse (of the Rogers City area of Michigan) and The Mackinaw WAGB-83 (which is a former icebreaker of the Great Lakes that is now a museum at Mackinaw City, Michigan). While doing research on television, I have discovered people--like me--yet know not who the two gals were who appeared naked on television shows host by Soupy Sales, though the naked ladies were not seen on camera by television viewers, but the second gal can be seen today, because a recording of her exists. This document exists to inspire people to maybe come forward with information about who the two gals were, and much of the document is really just a big portion of a document called Television History and Trivia #222, which exists at the website for The Hologlobe Press and which was put on the Internet on October 10, 2022. In addition, the document exists to inspire at least a few people to act like Sherlock Holmes and take up work that might lead to discovering the names of the two gals--for fun. What the document called Television History and Trivia #222, which can be reached through this T.H.A.T. #222 link, does not present is a photograph of at least the second gal, so I now present an image of the second gal:
I think the gal is a cutie who should be identified, but it seems I will not find out her name myself or the name of the other gal, lacking the ability to get the answers, such as by not being based in the Los Angeles area of California and not having any associates in the Los Angeles area of California. Whoever comes up with the name of either gal, I will report in an update of this document (and probably in other places). I do have to note that I will be happy to have been able to lead to the conclusions. It will probably be a tough search, like others that I have done, such as my finding (it seems) the first fourth-order Frensel lens to be used at 40 Mile Point Lighthouse and my identifying facts about a wonderful color photograph of The Mackinaw WAGB-83 and an HO3S-1G located on the fantail of the ship, which are two search events that probably no one else could have done, lacking good tracking skills. Now, I present a story about my search for the two gals (which was originally published as a part of T.H.A.T. #222):
I want to talk about cute gals or women or dolls, which are hard to find in this day and age, since many women like to look like guys. On August 3, 2022, I happened to be in the Detroit area, and in the morning on that day, I happened to tune into Retro TV at about 9:00 a.m. (Detroit time). An episode of an old television series was being broadcast, and the series was My Little Margie (of the 1950s), and the episode is that referred to as "The Costume Party". The episode was first broadcast to Americans on July 14, 1952. The main performer in the episode was Gale Storm, who was playing --Margie. In the episode, Gale Storm was dressed as a showgirl. Boy, oh, boy, did Gale Storm look cute! And that is that about Gale Storm. Watch for Gale Storm dressed as a showgirl on My Little Margie, such as on Retro TV.
Now, let me move on. Around the same date, I began to do research on a very cute gal who once sort of appeared on The Soupy Sales Show, the weekday series broadcast on only KABC-TV, Los Angeles, California, at some time between Monday, March 13, 1961 (the debut date for the series) and Friday, December 28, 1962 (the end day for the series). That series ran for a half hour each weekday, starting at 5:00 p.m. (at first) and later in the run at 5:30 p.m.. Before I get to the gal, I have to give a bunch of background information. In November 1960, Soupy Sales was done as a Detroit-area personality; Soupy Sales moved to California. When he left Detroit, his Saturday series (Lunch with Soupy Sales), which was broadcast the ABC-TV network, went from being produced at WXYZ-TV (Detroit, Michigan) to being produced at KABC-TV. Lunch with Soupy Sales ended on March 25, 1961. From Friday, January 26, 1962, to Friday, April 13, 1962, Soupy Sales hosted a weekly prime-time series on ABC-TV called The Soupy Sales Show; when the show left the air, the time slot was taken up by a series called Margie (not My Little Margie), which featured an actress known as Cynthia Pepper. Let me go back in time. Between roughly March 1953 and October 1958, Soupy Sales hosted a weekday television series, airing at noon or 11:45 a.m., and it was called 12 O'Clock Comics and Noon Time Comics (which I could call 12 O'Clock Comics-Noon Time Comics). At some time during the run of 12 O'Clock Comics-Noon Time Comics, the production crew played a joke on Soupy Sales. The set had a back door, as would have the set for the daytime show called The Soupy Sales Show (of KABC-TV), and it was commonplace for Soupy to go to the back door and open it and meet someone (though only a portion of the person might be seen by the television audience) [Note: The format is like that which Svengoolie uses on Svengoolie on Saturday evenings on MeTV.]. On the day that the crew played the joke on Soupy Sales to which I refer, Soupy Sales opened up the door and saw a naked woman, who, it seems, was a stripper working in the Detroit area. The stripper was not seen by the television audience, since she was not shown on the television screen. No one seems to know who the woman was, and I find that disappointing, since I would like to report who the gal was. A same type of joke was played on Soupy Sales during the run of the weekday version of The Soupy Sales Show of KABC-TV (some time between Monday, March 13, 1961 (the debut date) and Friday, December 28, 1962, and, really, between March 13, 1961, and about February 1962, as I shall show in this document). Today, clips of the naked-gal event on KABC-TV can be found on the Internet, and, for example, one clip shows the naked gal (from the waist up), and one clip does not show the gal (it is the actual scene that the television audience saw on the day). I enjoy watching the clip that shows the gal, since she is a real cutie. It is reported in the 2001-released book called Soupy Sez! My Zany Life and Times (which was written by Soupy Sales and Charles Salzberg) that Soupy Sales at one time knew the name of the gal, and it is reported that the gal at the time that the event took place was dating a stage manager at KABC-TV known as Jimmie Baker (whom some people called or call Jimmy Baker), and it seems that gal went on to marry a banker [Note: More on the subject of "dating a stage manager" and "marry a banker" shows up later in this document, and it shows problems with what was in the book.]. I did research in, for example, newspaper databases and at websites, and no article mentioned the name of the gal. I was disappointed. I then did other work to see if I could find out the name of the gal. I discovered one of the people who was at the naked-gal event at KABC-TV was a man named Steve Binder, and when I discovered the name, I was familiar with the man, since over the years, I had come across his name on the credits of nationally distributed television specials or shows. Steve Binder was a television director at KABC-TV in around 1961 and very early 1962, and he was at the station till about February 1962, when he and the station management parted ways; in early 1962, he directed the first three episodes of the network version (for Fridays) of The Soupy Sales Show. Through the Directors Guild of America, I found an email address for Steve Binder, so I sent an email to Steve Binder, and my thought was that maybe I could trigger a memory in Steve Binder and come up with the name of the gal. I got a response. Look at what Steve Binder wrote to me on August 8, 2022--"When I left KABC-TV, Jimmy opened the door for me to direct 'Jazz Scene, U.S.A.' and the Steve Allen Westinghouse series. If you're referring to the girl behind the door when Soupy opened the door thinking it was going to be a Clyde Adler salesman bit, but when he opened the door and saw her instead well and freaked out! She wasn't, I assure you since we were all in on it and I had the camera positioned so only Soupy could see her! I don't remember her name or the name of who she married since by that time I had left the show. The bit was pre-planned, recorded and circulated to a few other tv stations who exchanged these type of comedy bits with their friends. To my knowledge, I do remember that she did the bit as a favor and was an aspiring actress at the time and not a 'stripper'. If I remember correctly, at the time she was balancing two champaign glasses on her breasts.". If you look at the uncensored clip, you will see that the gal does not have any champaign glasses. While trying to find the name of the gal, I viewed a video clip called "Steve Binder--Chapter 2" (that is associated with the Directors Guild of America), which is part of a series of interview clips with Steve Binder, and in that clip, Steve Binder reported that the naked-gal event was not videotaped but was kinescoped, since there was no videotape then. I do have to report that videotape began to be used commercially in the country in 1956 (by CBS-TV), and the use of videotape spread out to other production places, such as television stations, after that. Given that information about kinescope, I have to report that the naked-gal event at KABC-TV was probably not originally videotaped. Maybe the station did not have enough videotape machines available or not being used to record the naked-gal event on tape, so a kinescope machine (sort of a passé machine) was used. That is that about the recording for now [*]. I wrote Steve Binder again, and Steve Binder wrote back, and here is what Steve Binder said--"I did direct three of the first network Soupy Sales. The first one was with Frank Sinatra, the second with Tony Curtis and the third with Mickey Rooney. Bob Henry replaced me and that's the last time that I worked or communicated with Soupy. I did stay friends with his manager, who ended up as the entertainment director at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas until he unfortunately had a stroke and was forced to retire.". By the way, at the time that I was writing Steve Binder, I was not in the Detroit area, and I was away from my fabulous television files and other materials. At the time of the second contact with Steve Binder, I wondered if the gal tied to KABC-TV could be found by searching editions of Academy Players Directory, which, since the 1930s, have been used by casting agents to cast movies and television shows, and I have sets for 1962, 1965, 1969, and 1974, which I had gotten some time in the late 1970s [Note: Some of the early editions of Academy Players Directory can be found on the Internet in digital form. And in the late 1970s, I learned no earlier editions of the directory could be bought, the company having sold out of editions published before 1962.].
[ * = The next edition of Television History and Trivia will be give some history information about videotape at television stations. Here, I report that, in 1958, KABC-TV had at least two videotape machines, and one was at the station and one was used on location shoots, such as for recording a show called Stars of Jazz. I think it is very likely that, in about 1961, the station had more than two videotape machines, but there may not have been enough available at the station for use right when the naked-gal event took place at KABC-TV, so a kinescope was made at the station. Remember--Two recording units had to be used to get the two different versions of the event, though the version seen over the air could have been recorded at another station--while the broadcast was on the air. Steve Binder did note that the nude-gal version showing the nude gal was recorded with a kinescope machine. I do note that KABC-TV, when known as KECA-TV, began to get two newly acquired kinescope units into operation in November 1949, and it is a subject that gets more coverage, such as about the cost of the machines, in the next edition of Television History of Trivia.]
So for a number of weeks, my writing the story about the naked-gal event of KABC-TV was stalled in relation to the Academy Players Directory, since I could not see at least the 1962 edition of the Academy Players Directory. While I waited to see the directories, I wondered if the gal had grown up in the general Los Angeles area and had attended a high school in the general Los Angeles area in around the late 1950s. Editions of high-school yearbooks for Los Angeles exist in digital form on the Internet, and people can see them if they wish to pay a fee.
Hey, did you catch the hint that Steve Binder did not direct the naked-girl event for the prime-time series and that he did the directing of the naked-gal event at some time between March 1961 and about February 1962.
Since stories in books and articles and on Internet webpages are vague about the naked-gal events, I continued to do tracking work (while thinking about what might be in the editions of the Academy Players Directory and while thinking I would probably find nothing useful in any edition), and since there were two naked-gal events that people were providing little information about, I went on to do more work about what could be found about the first event. A man named Gordon Castelnero has a book in publication called TV Land Detroit, and it has some information about the first event, provided by a cameraman taking part that day--Jim Burgan. Basically, the information presented by Gordon Castelnero in TV Land Detroit indicates that the gal was pretty and had dark hair, and she came to the set only dressed in a robe and heels, and the robe was removed for the event proper. The article hints that a man named Bill Carruthers was the director. I found quickly that Jim Burgan had died June 7, 2010, when then a resident of Cheboygan, Michigan, and I found that Bill Carruthers had died on March 2, 2003 (in California). I was well familiar with the name Bill Carruthers since the man had done a lot of directing for nationally distributed television shows starting in the 1960s, especially game shows. The obituaries (such as in Variety) that I found for Bill Carruthers pushed out the information that, when Soupy Sales's took his show to California in 1959, Bill Carruthers went with him and that, from 1959 to 1962, Bill Carruthers directed a series called Take a Good Look (a prime-time series for ABC-TV). Well, I knew that that was defective information. I have shown in other documents that Soupy Sales left Detroit in around November 1960, so "1959" had to be wrong. I then went looking for information about Take a Good Look. Unfortunately for everyone, a television review in Variety in digital form about the debut of the series cannot be seen, since the digital version of the issue that might have the review is not available on the Internet, but I did not and do not need it really. I found that Barry Shear was the director of such episodes of the series as the episode for October 22, 1959 (episode two) and for the episode for December 31, 1959, and Joe Behar was the director for the episode of July 21, 1960, based on my seeing those episodes on YouTube [Note: Other episodes exist today.]. So Bill Carruthers did not direct all the episodes of Take a Good Look (as hinted at in obituaries), and Bill Carruthers was still in Detroit in 1959. Obituaries about Bill Carruthers hint that Bill Carruthers started out as a junior stage manager at Channel 7, and then, one day when the main director could not direct the Soupy Sales daytime show, Bill Carruthers was made the substitute director, and then Bill Carruthers became the main director of Soupy's series some time soon after that. I know Bill Carruthers was born on September 27, 1930, and that means he could not have joined Channel 7 till about 1948 (in any capacity), being 18 years of age. So it is possible Bill Carruthers was at Channel 7 from 1948 to November 1960.
I did more tracking work. I looked for information about Bill Carruthers in media trade magazines (digital databases), and I found little that was useful covering Bill Carruthers from 1948 to 1960s; such magazines in the 1950s and 1960s, such as Broadcasting, were known for presenting information about people getting jobs or changing jobs at television stations. I saw almost nothing useful in old newspapers. I did come across a webpage tied to Wheel of Fortune history and trivia, and the entity was called "Wheel of Fortune History Wiki", and the page was called "Bill Carruthers", and the short story said that Bill Carruthers started out as a junior stage manager at Channel 7 and that Bill Carruthers became a director at the station in 1956 or 1957. If the information about 1956 or 1957 is somewhat reliable, I could say that Bill Carruthers was a director at Channel 7 from January 1, 1956, to November 1960. And I leave the Bill Carruthers story here. [Note: I could not contact his wife, since she is not living.].
On August 20, 2022, I wrote some people--through email--who might be relatives to Jim Burgan to see if they had any knowledge about when Jim Burgan was an employee of Channel 7, and I have yet to get any answers.
Oh, it seems I should finally report a limit on the back side (a pun intended) of the naked-gal event of WXYZ. The series that I am calling sort of 12 O'Clock Comics-Noon Time Comics ended on Friday, October 10, 1958, or the midday show of weekdays for Soupy Sales ended, and on Monday, October 12, 1958, Soupy Sales was now seen on a weekday series in the early morning, having start times for roughly the next two years of 7:00 a.m. or 7:30 a.m., and the morning show was designed for little children, and it seems very unlikely to me that the naked-gal event took place on that morning series. So at this point in my story, the naked-girl event on Channel 7 took place at some time between March 16, 1953 (when 12 O'Clock Comics-Noon Time Comics showed up on Channel 7) and October 10, 1958. Since Soupy Sales was new to Detroit in 1953, it seems very unlikely the naked-girl event took place in 1953; it had to be at a time when Soupy Sales had already gained great clout at the station, and the crew could have a ball (and, anyway, nothing bad was shown on the television screens for viewers). If the information about Bill Carruthers is useful, then the naked-gal event at Channel 7 happened at some point between January 1, 1956, and October 10, 1958.
Hey, guys and gals, I did something on August 20, 2022 (when I was yet not in the Detroit area) to kill time. I looked up some of the places that existed to show "exotic dancers" in 1956, 1957, and 1958 in the Detroit area, and some of the places that I found were Mickey's Show Club, the Willis Show Bar, the Gayety Theatre, and Paige's Lounge, and the places offered up burlesque shows. By the way, in a newspaper digital database, I found "exotic dancer" was used regularly and "nude dancer" was almost non-existent, but it does not mean there were not "nude bars" or nudie places in Detroit in the period. Here are some of the names of gals that I came across, and it looks as if many of the gals traveled the country from city to city. In 1956, I found Justine, Shannon Knight (a protégé of the famous Lili St. Cyr), Toni Vargas, Windy Carson, Rita Renee, Ellen Woods, Bonnie Boyia (a Detroit -based gal), Betty De Que (a Detroit-based gal), Dawn Arden (a Detroit-based gal), Clarissa Angel, and Gay Leslie. For 1957, I came across Vivian Lafayette [which might relate to "Lafayette Avenue" of the Detroit area], Kandy Kane, Donna Rae, Lynn Storm, Jane Avril, Sheri Champagne, Dolores La Marr, Lady Godiva, Jane Harris ("Miss Water Wonderland"), Tracy O'Neill, Tina Ramariz (or Tina Romeriz), and Gia Mo. And in 1958, I found June Powers, Nina Sansome, Toni Dee, Vicki Renee, Aidia Landi, Valentina, Stormy Winters, Laura La Rue, Joslyn Landis, Lana Chan, Ming Lee, Marilyn Forest, Dorian Dennis, Patti Lewis, Katy Lodge, Jezebel, Bobbette, Patti Kaye, and Reddi Sloane. Not one of the gals was probably the gal who showed up on the set of 12 O'Clock Comics-Noon Time Comics in 1956 or 1957 or 1958, but I thought I should name some probably forgotten gals (lacking the ability to list the name of the gal who showed up at WXYZ-TV at least at this point). And although they were exotic dancers or even nude dancers, it is history that I am willing to report, since their jobs were jobs and they were not necessarily dishonorable (as long as the gals were not thieves or the like). And so goes mating in the world, as it has for centuries! [Of course, today, things seem to be screwed up in the United States of America, given what a number of gals think they are, such as non-binaries.]
If the naked gal who showed up at WXYZ-TV was officially a "stripper," where did she come from and where did she strip or do strip-tease work?
It is time for me to do a bit of speculating about where the gal at WXYZ-TV could have come from, and while a researcher is doing research, the researcher may come up with possible things, and since I have talked about Mickey's Show Club, the Willis Show Bar, the Gayety Theatre, and Paige's Lounge, I am going to do some speculating tied to those places. I must first report that in the middle of the 1950s, Soupy Sales did his television shows of midday at a building called the Maccabees Building, which was located at 5057 Woodward, as it is today, or it was located at the southwest corner of Woodward Avenue and Putnam Street, and it was in what I will call the Wayne State University area, though for a while in the 1950s, the university was only called Wayne University (and, today, the university owns the building). The Gayety Theatre was located in downtown Detroit at Cadillac Square (which morphed into, in essence, Campus Marius Park of today), and Mickey's Show Club was located at 623 East Seven Mile Road, and Paige's Lounge or (Paige's Lounge Bar) was located at Grand River and Meyers, and I report that the three places were a number of miles away from the Maccabees Building. In contrast, the Willis Show Bar was was located at 4156 Third Avenue (or at Third and Willis), and that means the Willis Show Bar was only a about six main intersections or blocks away from Maccabees Building. It seems very likely to me that some of the guys who worked at WXYZ-TV in the 1950s spent time at the Willis Show Bar, such as while entertaining clients (such as sponsors or potential sponsors), since the bar was very close in distance to the television-station studios. If I were going to get a "stripper" or an "exotic dancer" for a prank in the 1950s, I would go to the Willis Show Bar first for help (if there were not another place around that was about the same distance away or closer). By the way, from August 1958 to July 1960 (at least), the managers of the Willis Show Bar were advertising, such as in the Detroit Free Press, that their place had "Strip-O-Rama" nightly (with continuous entertainment) [Note: On August 30, 2022, I found that someone was selling on eBay a T-shirt with an old "Strip-A-Rama" advertisement on the front, so I went looking, and I found "Strip-O-Rama" was used in advertisements in the Detroit Free Press from August 1958 to 1962 and "Strip-A-Rama" was used in advertisements in the Detroit Free Press from 1962 to at least November 1971, and I found a postal card (in color) for sale on eBay showing the inside of the Willis Show Bar in around 1958.]. So, I speculate that the gal for the WXYZ-TV nude-gal event could have very likely come from the Willis Show Bar. I have extra information--I found advertisements for the Willis Bar & Grill (at 4156 Willis) in editions of the Detroit Free Press from April 1953 to April 1957, and then I began to see Willis Show Bar listed starting in June 1957. [Note: In the first half of the 1970s, I was a student at Wayne State University, and I walked around in the general Wayne State University area, so I can attest that the Willis Show Bar, which existed till October 1979 (as the original version), would have been easy to get to--even on foot--from the Maccabees Building by staffers of WXYZ-TV, and a staffer of WXYZ-TV would not have had to drive the gal for miles to get her to the station or to get her back to her workplace. I do have to report that I was never in the Willis Show Bar, being, for one, too involved with being a member of WAYN-AM of the university. Anyway, the place may have been a crummy place in the early 1970s, and, in October 1979, the place was shut down through court order, being a hub for prostitution.]
While I was yet out of the Detroit area, I was wondering why the names of the two gals were never reported in publications and why people forgot their names or did not pass along their names to press people, and I wondered why the gals over the years did not find it fun to let people know they were the gals who got to surprise Soupy Sales, and it seemed to me that the gals should have been proud of having made television history in relation to Soupy Sales, and that is especially true given Soupy Sales was nationally famous in the 1950s and 1960s. Also, I did a little research, and I reminded myself that the Soupy Sales event of KABC-TV got national publicity in TV's Censored Bloopers #4 (hosted by Dick Clark) on NBC-TV on Friday, November 5, 1982, and through that television special, viewers got to see Soupy Sales talking about the event at KABC-TV, see the scene as it was actually broadcast (having no nudity), and see the naked-gal version (though censored using black bars). I report that Ed Golick does have a cut down version of the non-censored version of the clip of Soupy Sales and the naked lady related to KABC-TV at the website known as detroitkidshow.com, and the clip is a little muddy (not well-focused), and the video can be reached by using "detroitkidshow.com/naked_soupy.htm", and I found that a website called "biguz.net" has the longer uncensored version called "Soupy sales naked woman uncensored", which is a crisp version. Every time I see the clip related to KABC-TV, the gal reminds me of a gal that I liked a lot--a lot--when I was at WAYN-AM in the middle of the 1970s; the two gals could have been twins [Note: I report that the gal's brother's family became well known in the Detroit area in the 1980s and 1990s because the brother was a hemophiliac and died of AIDS (having gotten a blood transfusion with tainted blood), and the family was involved with AIDS activism, and, by the way, the gal to whom I refer was a carrier of hemophilia--women carry what causes hemophilia but do not get it and men get it--and she died in the San Francisco area of California in December 2021.]. And while I was waiting to get to the Detroit area again, I was wondering if the gals tied to the two nude events were yet alive.
When I got to the Detroit area, I quickly went looking for the editions of the Academy Players Directory that I had, which were stored away in a box (Box 73), as they had been for at least fifteen years (having been put there in a move from one residence to another); I had expected to find nothing, since actresses are a dime a dozen in California, as they have been for decades, and she probably had not been able to get in any Academy Players Directory. By the way, the version of the Academy Players Directory for 1962 focusing on men had an entry for Joe Glover (a young Joe Glover), who went on to be a main television news anchor for WJBK-TV, Channel 2, in Detroit in, for instance, the 1970s. I did not find the gal in the 1962 edition that I had, and I am not surprised because it is usually working performers who get in an Academy Players Directory or performers who have done a least a little that would deem them eligible. I did not find the gal in the 1965 edition, and that hinted to me that she really did not take up acting in movies and television, and I came to believe she probably had not been really looking to be an actress in movies and television, having sights set on other things, such as getting married and having children, which is honorable. I can argue well that her being so cutie would have stopped her from doing much in television and movies, though she did have the face and the body that could have made her a good candidate for being an extra in a bikini on a music-based show for teenagers, such as Where the Action Is (from January 1965 to March 1967), Hullabaloo (from January 1965 to April 1966), and Shindig (from September 1964 to January 1966). The Academy Players Directory issues that I have did not offer up a possible name.
For fun, I went looking to see if I could find an actress who married a banker at some time between 1962 and 2000 by using newspapers databases, and I mostly focused on California, and I found that actress Lynn Fontanne married a banker, and actress Marie McDonald married a banker, and actress (or showgirl) Juli Reding married a banker, and that search ended up leaving me with nothing useful about the naked-gal event at KABC-TV, and that is not surprising since the hoped-to-be actress who appeared on The Soupy Sales Show was not famous and never became famous in relation to the acting profession.
I have to expand on the idea that the second gal went on to marry a judge. It is not commonplace for a judge to marry a stripper, and it if happens, the event should get reported on in newspapers all over the country, unless the marriage takes place some twenty or thirty years after the gal was finished being a stripper. For this document, I went looking for news stories--distributed all over the country--and I basically found nothing (though I did see stuff about Fanne Foxe and I did see a story of 1972 in which a judge divorced a couple and then married the gal 18 days later). I do not think the gal of the second nude-gal event married a judge, but she could have. Oh, the second gal could have married a lawyer, who became a judge later in life. Because Soupy Sez! My Zany Life and Times hints that the second gal could be tied to a judge, I thought that maybe the gal was a relative of a judge, such as a daughter. I found a young woman named Ellen Kathryn Weisman (who married a man named Walter M. Uhrman) was living in California in around 1961, and her father was a famous judge in the Los Angeles area, and he was Steven S. Weisman (who would die in 1993). Boy, it was fun looking for information to see whether Ellen Kathryn Weisman or not could have been the second gal, but things got wiped out when I was able to deduce Ellen Kathryn Weisman was about 15 years of age in 1961. [Note: You must see Television History and Trivia #215, because it talks about Soupy Sales and the book called Soupy Sez! My Zany Life and Times, which seems to have a lot of information that can not be trusted because it came from Soupy Sales when he was ill.].
I now take on the idea of the second gal's dating a guy who was called Jimmie Baker, who was a stage manager at KABC-TV. On February 3, 2003, Jimmie Baker died, and, at the time of death, he was married to Sue Carlton (a.k.a. Sue Carlton Baker), and they had been married for about 54 years, and they had a son--James C. Baker Jr.--who had been around in about 1961 already when the nude-gal event at KABC-TV took place. So I show a problem. Jimmie Baker was married to Sue Carlton Baker in 1961 and 1962, so it is very unlikely he was so-called dating the gal. It does not seem very likely. Now, Jimmie Baker may have been involved in finding a gal to show up on set.
So keep this in mind. Another staffer of the show at KABC-TV could have gotten the gal to show up, or another member of the crew could have been dating her, or some staffer at the station, such as person involve with casting, could have gotten the gal. Some people say that the gal for the KABC-TV event was a stripper, and that is possible, but the gal could have been a hope-to-be actress, and she could have been an "extra"-type actress, and she could have even been a staffer at KABC-TV, though that seems unlikely because people like Steven Binder would have passed that idea along over the years.
In late August 2022, I did a little bit more research to find nude-dance places of Detroit in the last half of the 1950s. I found a place called Club 509, which may not have had any nudes, but it did have "exotics," and that was a place located at 509 Woodward--right in downtown Detroit--so I ruled that place out. The Stone Theatre had "Burlesk" in the late 1950s, and one gal who appeared at the place was Terry Temple (in around 1958), and the Stone Theatre was located in downtown Detroit at 2511 Woodward (at Henry), so I put that place off the list of possibles.
I have some general thoughts to pass along. For example, some history-related people whom I have talked about in editions of Television History and Trivia over the years knew Soupy Sales, Clyde Adler, and others associated with the two naked-girl events for years, if not decades, and yet no one really seemed to do work to find ways to discover when the nude-gal incidents took place and who the gals were. They did not probably work to get in tight with persons beyond the stars and high-level technical people, who were at the events. When a researcher has the names of others, the researcher can then track them down or track down family members. It seems many of the so-called historians did laughable work, maybe because they were more interested in being able to hob-nob with the stars than with finishing the stories. I wonder if the others thought about tracking the gal of the KABC-TV event by seeing editions of the Academy Players Directory and high-school year books, and I bet they probably have never seen yet a real Academy Players Directory from the 1960s. It surprises me that someone who saw the 1982 TV's Censored Bloopers show did not make it known the person had hints about who the gal in the KABC-TV event was. In the TV's Censored Bloopers program of 1982, Soupy Sales said that a bunch of crew members ended up behind the set and took photographs of the gal. If the information is true (and I think it is not good information), then we have a possible clue somewhere in the world that could give a hint when the event at KABC-TV took place, such as the month and the year. It must be remembered that, back in the 1960s, when a person got a set of undeveloped images (a roll of exposed film) turned into a set of real photographs, the developer often was very likely to put on a rough date on each image, that which noted when the photographs were developed. If a photograph of the incident at KABC-TV could be found, everyone in the world might end up with a good idea when the photograph was taken, since it seems very likely the person who shot the photograph wanted the developed image as soon as possible, and it is possible the photograph would be dated with a day that was very near the time that the photograph had been taken. [Note: Given how much of a cutie she was and is to me, I would have gotten any undeveloped photograph developed the same day.]. Although I have found information that the naked-gal event of KABC-TV involved a gal who was an aspiring actress, I say again that I wonder whether or not she really was an aspiring actress. Based on seeing people in movies and television shows for about sixty years so far, I think she would have not done well as an actress because of her looks. Yes, she would have made a good stripper or nude dancer or exotic dancer. The gal was short and her looks would certainly put her in a cutie category that would have made it hard for her to do much on the silver screen or in movies or even in stage productions. That is one reason I believe she grew up and was based in the Los Angeles area, since I will give her credit for a bit of smarts, her knowing what she was and what she probably would have ended up doing as an actress, which would have been not much.
Well, at least, you know a little more about the naked-gal event for the 12 O'Clock Comics-Noon Time Comics) at WXYZ-TV and the naked-gal event for The Soupy Sales Show (the daytime version) at KABC-TV, and you have a bit more information about what Soupy Sales did at KABC-TV, after having left WXYZ-TV and Detroit. It is cool that two men who went on to be famous television directors--Bill Carruthers and Steve Binder--are tied together in history, being directors of Soupy Sales shows having the same type of prank [Note: When both were alive, they probably had no idea about that fun little trivia.]. Consider an idea about dates. Soupy Sales was born on January 8, 1926, and the 12 O'Clock Comics-Noon Time Comics show debuted on March 26, 1953. In relation to 12 O'Clock Comics-Noon Time Comics, I could see the crew doing their prank as a celebration, such as on March 26, 1956, or January 8, 1957, or March 26, 1957, or January 8, 1958, or March 26, 1958, and it could not have been on January 8, 1956, which was a Sunday. In relation to The Soupy Sales Show (the daytime series on KABC-TV), I could see the crew playing their practical joke on January 8, 1962. But I shall note again that the date range for the WXYZ-TV event is probably between January 1, 1956, and October 10, 1958, and the KABC-TV event fits in probably between March 1961 and February 1962 [Note: Many other people say that the KABC-TV event was in "1962", but they provide no proof, and I wonder where the information came from, and I think the odds are better for 1961.].
On September 15, 2022, I sent an email with attachments to the Burlesque Hall of Fame and Museum in Las Vegas, Nevada. The attachments were a copy of this document (as it was at the time) in cut-down form and two jpeg images of the gal who took part in the second nude-gal event. I wrote the museum, specifically Dustin M. Wax (the executive director), to see if the museum could pass along the idea that I am looking to find who the gals were who took part in the two nude-gal events. I have yet to received any response from any staffer at the Burlesque Hall of Fame and Museum (which I would guess is not so much a "museum" with useful history).
I have to report some problems that I have with an interview of Soupy Sales by Bob Costas on the television series called Later with Bob Costas (which existed from roughly 1988 to 1993 on NBC-TV). Early in the morning of March 30, 1990, the interview took place, and during the interview Soupy Sales talked about the naked-gal event of KABC-TV (and, by the way, Soupy Sales sort of gave the impression that there was only one nude-gal event). The interview exists in several clip forms on the Internet, such as "1990 - Soupy Sales Reflects on His Career" (which was posted on YouTube on March 7, 2020, and lasts about twenty-one minutes). For one, Soupy Sales talked about his seeing the gal and then turning away to look back toward the cameras--"...There were no cameramen or engineers 'cause they were all around the back with photo flash cameras. They were, you know, taking pictures....". I report that at least two cameramen were still at their work stations, based on my examining the various clips of the event (and how the cameras moved to catch Soupy Sales and the nude gal). In addition, I report that some people were probably in the back (back stage) or behind the scenes taking photographs, but it is clear a bunch of people were in the area behind the cameras and were laughing. Plus, when I see the clips of the event, I can detect no "flashes" from photography cameras going off, but that does not mean guys were not behind the gal taking photographs or behind the back facade somewhere. [Note: Soupy Sales seemed to be loose with passing along history through his stories, even as far back as the 1980s.]
So where can the investigation go in relation to either nake-gal event? In the case, of KABC-TV, I have an idea. It seems very likely to me that the gal could have grown up in the Los Angeles area or Los Angeles County or Orange County. With that in mind, a person could go through yearbooks for high schools of the Los Angeles area that were published between 1955 and 1962. Maybe she could be seen. It is known what she looks like, based on the video material that exits. Although I have shown Jimmie Baker was not dating the second gal at the time of the second nude-gal event (unless he was cheating on his wife), it is possible that Jimmie Baker met the gal in Los Angeles County or in some place near the television station, but, then again, any of the staffers at KABC-TV could have come across her, such as at a nude bar or strip club or nudie bar. If the second gal was a stripper, she was probably new to the field and was probably raised in the general Los Angeles area--she certainly did not become nationally famous as an exotic dancer or stripper. It seems to me that the style of gals at strip clubs has changed since the 1950s, and, to me, the second gal does look as if she could have been chosen to be a nude dancer based on the styles of gals at clubs in the 1950s, when flat-chested gals and thin gals would have had a hard time being hired (and, really, the true strip club was only beginning to show up in earnest in the country or the strip club only was in the early stages to history of strip clubs (as they are set up today), making true burlesque clubs passe, so there were not a lot of places in the country to be a simple stripper, and, by the way, a Playboy Club did not open in Los Angeles till 1964). In 1961 and 1962, KABC-TV was located at 4151 Prospect Avenue, Los Angeles, 27, California, and it would be interesting to see what strip clubs were near the station at that time [Note: Today, some of the strip clubs that are close to address that I have given are Cheetahs, Jumbo's Clown Room (or Jumbo's), and Hollywood Men's Male Strip Club, and a person who looks at what strip clubs are open near the address that I have given will see a bunch of places feature guys, and I wonder how many are designed to attract gays.]. In October 1973, WXYZ-TV, Channel 7, had an advertisement in the Detroit Free Press ("Thanks. To the guys who've been with us as long as we've been." Detroit Free Press, 9 October 1973, p. 23.), and it is possible it could lead to answer related to the naked-gal event at WXYZ-TV, since it lists the names of guys who have been involved in production at the station for years or decades, and the "guys" listed are Vic Adams, Ray Aiken, Dan Angelich, Porter Bourne, Jim Brinn, John Doran, Lou Dumon, Hal Dushane, Don Farmer, Jack Flechsig, Wes Govier, John Gulevich, Len Hogg, Paul Jantke Jr., Charlie Kocher, Zack Lee, Harry Lenk, Chet Mitchell, John McGraw, Dick McNutt, Dave Orell, Elza Runkle, Kurt Schmeisser, Kenny Weagel, Mason Weaver Jr., Jack Weir, Leo Welter, George Williams, Hal Winter, and Bruno Yank, and a person's tracking down their relatives might lead to answers to the questions about the WXYZ-TV event. Maybe some new publicity about the nude-gal events might get family members of the two gals' to finally speak up. Also, it has to be found out if there was another strip club close to the Maccabees Building in the middle of the 1950s, from which a stripper might have come. I have yet to check editions of Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, since editions published between 1955 and 1965 (or later) are not available in digital form on the Internet. I looked at the digital-based "indexes" related to The Detroit News, so someone else need not do that. Some big libraries, such as the Mardigian Library of the University of Michigan (Dearborn campus) have the periodical guides related to business and even indexes for The Wall Street Journal, but it seems very unlikely any evidence will be found by using those such research tools. And it has yet to be determined when the Willis Show Bar really got going with showing off regular nude dancers, but it could have been in around June 1957, or it has yet to be determined when nude-dancer clubs really got going in the Maccabees Building area.
[Note: I have one more piece of speculation. If the Willis Show Bar became in June 1957 what is commonly called a nudie bar today and if the gal for the nude-gal event at WXYZ-TV came from the Willis Show Bar, then it is possible the event at WXYZ-TV took place between June 1957 and October 10, 1958. In that time period, more Detroit-area based gals could have gotten involved with doing stripping.]
In August 2023, I was inspired to take up a little more research about the naked-gal event tied to WXYZ-TV, and I got the inspiration by coming across--stumbling upon--a video on called "Imagine being a kid on the set of Soupy Sales. Wow.", which was one part of a set of videos that had been put on the Internet recently, such as in February 2023 (in the case of the video that will be discussed in this section of this document) by Mr. Pat Holiday, who, for one, had been a disc jockey at CKLW-AM, of Windsor, Ontario, Canada, in the 1970s. In the particular video, Pat Holiday interviewed Mr. Bill Hennes, who has a big track record in the radio business from the early 1960s to at least 2023. The focus of this paragraph is on Bill Hennes and not Pat Holiday, so you will find no information about Pat Holiday forthcoming here. Before I get to the naked-gal event of WXYZ-TV, I have background information about Bill Hennes (which comes from sources and not Bill Hennes). Bill Hennes (according to an article called "Another American Joins CKLW" by Ron Base in The Windsor Star for June 2, 1973, on page 6) was born in 1943; the article hinted he was 30 years of age in 1973. I found that Bill Hennes started out his radio career in 1961, so he probably started out his professional radio career at age 18. I know that on Tuesday, July 17, 1962, Bill Hennes was called a "disc jockey" for a sock hop (a dance) at Notre Dame High School (which had been opened up in 1954 and which would exist till 2005), so it seems Bill Hennes started out in the Detroit area. In the early 1960s, he did disc-jockey work at such places out of the Detroit area but in Michigan as WJEF-AM, WIBM-AM (in around 1963), WTRX-AM (in around 1964), and WTAC-AM, and, for example, his career over the years put him into program-director jobs (such as at CKLW-AM in the middle of the 1970s) and radio-station ownership positions and more. It was on August 4, 2023, when I actually saw the video with Pat Holiday and Bill Hennes, and on that day, I sent an email to Pat Holiday, which included a copy of Television History and Trivia #222, which has information about the two naked-gal events involving Soupy Sales (which this document was derived from), and I sent the email to report on how information about the naked-gal event at WXYZ-TV talked about by Bill Hennes in the video was wrong (such as the information that said that the incident is offered up on a video on YouTube). On August 5, 2023, I sent an email directly to Bill Hennes, and I ask for some questions to be answered. Later on in the day on August 5, 2023, I received an email from Bill Hennes, and he noted--"I have no idea what the girls name is.". By the way, the video does provide a viewer with information that Bill Hennes was at the event at Channel 7. It was not till Wednesday, August 9, 2023, that I received an email from Pat Holiday, which had a statement from Pat Holiday and a statement from Bill Hennes. Actually, Pat Holiday was passing along to me (with a statement from him) an email from Bill Hennes. Pat Holiday's message was--"Sorry Victor, looks like no new info.". Bill Hennes portion (which had been written before Pat Holiday's material was) was--"I was there but I was about 16 years oild [old] and I never knew or ever learned the name of the stripper in question.". If Bill Hennes was born in 1943 and if he was at the event at about 16 years of age, then the event took place in 1958, 1959, or 1960; he could have actually been about 15 years of age. Remember--Soupy Sales hosted a midday show on weekdays called Noon Time Comics (which had taken over for 12 O'Clock Comics, when the starting time was changed from noon to 11:45 a.m.) from October 28, 1957, to October 10, 1958, and he hosted Breakfast Time with Soupy Sales (early in the morning on weekdays) from October 13, 1958, to November 25, 1960 (when, in essence, Soupy Sales left Detroit). If Bill Hennes was about 16 years of age when he was at the event, the event could not have taken place on an episode of Breakfast Time with Soupy Sales, since Bill Hennes had to be in school at age 16 and age 17--at least most weekdays from October 1958 and June 1959. In 1958, Bill Hennes was yet in school, except in the summer of 1958. To me, it is very likely that the event took place on an episode of Noon Time Comics in the summer of 1958. In the video, Bill Hennes hinted that he did cue-card work for Soupy Sales, and since much of the Soupy Sales stuff was off-the-cuff, a cue-card person did not have to do a lot, and the cue-card person for Soupy Sales in 1958 could have been--I guess--15 years of age. On August 9, 2023, I sent another email to Pat Holiday and Bill Hennes, and I was hoping through the email to get, for one, a more specific date for the birth of Bill Hennes. I found no information about the birth of a Bill Hennes in the 1940 Census of the United States of America, but my search of the 1940 Census did lead me into finding a Ruth Hennes (age 33 years) and a William Hennes (age 36) of 5544 Maple in Dearborn, Michigan.Here is a special addition (installed on August 14, 2023). On August 13, 2023, I decided to write to Mr. Steve Binder again, working to maybe shock Steve Binder into remembering something more about the KABC-TV event, by using my revised document about the two events, which now contained the stuff related to Bill Hennes. Within hours, I received a response from Steve Binder. By the way, I also decided to write Steve Binder since I had recently seen the article in TV Guide about Steve Binder and Elvis and the 1968 Elvis television special and a new special for Paramount+ [Rudolph, Ileane. "ELVIS FOREVER." TV Guide, August 14-September 3, 2023, pp. 8 and 8.]. Even though much of the material from Steve Binder was passed along to me before and exists earlier in this document, I now present everything that was sent to me on August 13, 2023--"I'm sorry but my memory of Soupy and the behind the door incident is very vague, I do remember that the nude lady did it as a favor to my stage manager, Jimmy Baker, and she was definitely a sweet and struggling actress at the time. When I was told my [by] the network executive at ABC, Sandy Cummings, that I was being taken off the network show because I was a local director and not a network director, I quit both ABC and KABC and decided to finish my college education. But before I even did that, I got a call from Jimmy Baker asking if I wanted to direct 'Jazz Scene, U.S.A.' starring Oscar Brown Jr. and eventually the Westinghouse 'Steve Allen Show' that opened all the doors that opened for me as a director/producer up to the present. We did record the nude segment at the time, but I'm not sure that video tape was even introduced to television in general at the time and we probably used kinescope instead. I did recently spend a pleasant afternoon with Bill Carruthers son and I found him to be a really nice young man. When his dad did come to work in Los Angeles, I do remember speaking to him on the phone several times. I found him warm and friendly through I don't think we ever met in person.". [By the way, my research shows that it was in 1958 when the big push for video-tape machines got started in the big broadcast markets--at big television stations--in the country.] You should see that Steve Binder did pass along a bit of new useful information. On August 14, 2023, I sent Steve Binder another email, and I urged him to send the copy of my document (as it then existed) to Bill Carruthers' son, and I asked for a contact address for the son.
At the moment, it looks as if the naked-gal event at WXYZ-TV could have taken place in the summer of 1958 (on Noon Time Comics) and the naked-gal event at KABC-TV could have taken place in 1961 or very, very early 1962 (on The Soupy Sales Show).
[Special note: I have this thought. On August 20, 2022, I went to eBay, and I put in "detroit nude dancer 1960s" as a search thing (I had already done "detroit nude dancer 1950s" on that day), and I was offered a small bunch of photographs of pin-up gals--gals in the nude. Cool! Then I thought about Los Angeles and the gal on The Soupy Sales Show. So I used "los angeles nude dancer 1960s", and what I got mostly were mostly naked guys in photographs. Such crap that was!]
[Note: I may not provide the names of the two gals in this document or give exact dates to when the two gals appeared, but I showed up some bad information, and I have a bit more bad information to show up. On September 3, 2022, I got pieces of bad text from a couple places on the Internet about shows tied to Soupy Sales. An entity called "tvparty.com" had a page that had this information--"...'Lunch with Soupy' moved to Hollywood broadcast from the studios of KABC in Los Angeles. The network series ended on March 25, 1961 but continued locally in LA until January of 1962...." Wikipeda had this material (related to Soupy Sales)--"...In 1960, Sales moved to the ABC-TV studios in Los Angeles. ABC cancelled his show in March 1961, but it continued as a local program on KABC-TV until January 1962....". One of the big problems is both entities present the same deceptive history information and wrong information. The prime-time show of Fridays did not get "continued" on as a local show. The Friday series on ABC-TV existed from January 26, 1962, to April 13, 1962, and the daytime series for weekdays on KABC-TV (the only place for it) was from March 13, 1961, to December 28, 1962. And I add that the Saturday show on ABC-TV was Lunch with Soupy Sales. All the sources that I found on the Internet said that the naked-gal event of KABC-TV took place in 1962, but there was no information to show why it was believed it was 1962, and it seems to me it was a follow-the-leader thing, where someone put out a date and everyone followed. I think 1961 is a better date, given Steve Binder was out of the station by early March 1962 or late Feburary 1962, and there were only a few weeks in which the event could have taken place in 1962 at KABC-TV, and that is why the event should be listed as "circa 1961". Also Wikipedia has this line related to the "Soupy Sales" webpage--"...Beginning no later than July 4, 1955, a Saturday version of Sales's lunch show was broadcast nationally on the ABC television network....". That is crap information. I have already talked about the Saturday series. On Monday, July 4, 1955, a weekday series called Soupy Sales (and only that) began to be produced at WXYZ-TV for the Detroit and the remainder of the country (airing at 6:00 p.m. Detroit time), and the series lasted till Friday, August 26, 1955, and there was no Saturday series with Soupy Sales on network television in 1955.]
[Note: I have this for-the-record text, which will save a person some time in looking for information about directors at WXYZ-TV, Channel 7, in the 1950s. I went looking for the names of directors at WXYZ-TV in the 1950s, such as in Broadcasting. Basically, I found stuff in the first half of the 1950s and found almost nothing in the second half of the 1950s. In the first half of the 1950s, some of the studio directors at Channel 7 were Vern Diamond (who left in early 1951 to go to WCBS-TV, New York, where, years later, he would be a director for 60 Minutes), Pete Strand or Peter Strand (who would yet be at the station in the late 1950s as a director and producer), Donald Hallman (who was a director for remotes), Rube Weiss (who gave up directing in around 1955 and would become mostly known as a performer for decades in the Detroit area), Wayne Marston (who ended up in the Army in 1952), Morton Walton, Mort Zieve (who would become a famous "ad man" in the Detroit area), Len Jaslove, and George Manno (who left in late 1954 to be a producer and director at WJNO-TV, West Palm Beach, Florida). It would have been great to find information about directors in the late 1950s.]
[Note: I have thispiece of speculation, too. It seems to me that Soupy Sales and Clyde Adler were the only two persons to take part in both nude-gal events, since both worked on both television series. And it seems very likely that Clyde Adler was the inspiration for setting up both events, especially the second event.]Hey, let me throw a wrench into the soup of time. Maybe both nude-gal events involved the same gal. She could have been a stripper who traveled the country from city to city, such as on the stripper circuit. The two events were only about five years apart, so her looks would be about the same--cute. Hold it! Let's not go that way!
EXTRA! EXTRA! HOT OFF THE PRESS!
THE NAME OF THE GAL OF THE KABC-TV EVENT IS DISCOVEREDOn the evening of January 29, 2024, I once again went on the Internet and looked for photographs of pinup gals from the 1960s, and I made a great discovery, and the great discovery should actually be called a wonderful, wonderful discovery. After working for less than a half hour, I found a photograph on the Internet, and it showed a young gal wearing a hat that is exactly like the hat that is shown in the photograph that you have already seen in this document, and the photograph shows a young gal resting in a chair. I look carefully at the photograph and I compared the gal in the photograph with the gal in the photograph that is already shown in this document. I immediately knew I found the gal. The photograph that I found on January 29, 2024, noted that the young gal was "Sandy Benson" (a pinup gal). Using the name "Sandy Benson" in an Internet search, I looked for more photographs of Sandy Benson (the pinup gal). I found several, and within minutes, I now had six photographs of Sandy Benson, none of which was related to the KABC-TV event. Yes, Sandy Benson is the gal who took part in the KABC-TV event, and she is the gal that is shown in the two photographs that exist within this document. And now I present Sandy Benson--
Incidentally, I have other photographs that prove the case that Sandy Benson--the person shown above--is the gal in the first photograph in this document, and if you wish to try to prove me wrong, contact me, and I shall send more proof images to you. [Note: I wonder if the second photograph was taken outside at KABC-TV on the day that the KABC-TV event took place.] I have to pass along a thought about the looks of Sandy Benson. When I take all the photographs that I have of Sandy Benson in mind, I can say that, at times, she looks like Clara Bow (who was a famous movie star in the 1920s and very early 1930s), and, at other times, she looks like Eydie Gorme (who was a singer in her heyday in the 1950s and 1960s and who was married to a singer known as Steve Lawrence). In the 1960s, Sandy Benson was like a melding of or a combination of Eydie Gorme and Clara Bow to me.
Now, I have a special section that takes on the idea that there could have been three naked-gal events involving Soupy Sales and television.
It is no doubt that Sandy Benson is the gal in the video with Soupy Sales that is available to the public today, but some people doubt the Sandy Benson was in the event that Steve Binder directed. Steve Binder is yet alive, and on January 31, 2024, I sent a two-page PDF-type document to Steve Binder by email, and it showed that--without a doubt--Sandy Benson book place in a naked-gal event with Soupy Sales. Later in the day on January 31, 2023, I received this email message from Steve Binder--"Although it's been over 60 some years ago, I do not recognize the name Sandy Benson. I do remember that the girl we used was a well endowed Swedish or Norwegian blond who was studying serious acting at the time. Sorry, that I can't be more helpful in your quest.". The message was similar with material that I had gotten from Steve Binder in the past. I am not surprised that Steve Binder does not remember the name--Sandy Benson. Sandy Benson did not become famous (in a way). Sandy Benson appeared in few movies or television shows. For example, on January 21, 1964, she was seen by people all over the country through an episode of The Jack Benny Program on CBS-TV (at about 9:30 p.m.) in which she played an autograph fan; at the beginning of the episode, she was the female fan on the far right of the group, and she had curly hair. By the way, some sources on the Internet report that she was in an episode of The Jack Benny Program in 1950, and that is wrong. The appearance on The Jack Benny Program is the only credited listing associated with television that I have found for Sandy Benson so far. Also, by the way, the scene with the fans showed "The Jack Benny Show" on a sign in the background, and that is not the official title of the television series. I have to pass along the idea that, today, Steve Binder might remember "Swedish" or "Norwegian" because of how Sandy Benson was dressed for her naked-gal scene. Her hair was mostly covered with a fuzzy hat. In relation to "well endowed." I have to say that she was not necessarily "well endowed," having maybe "DD"s and having a bust size of "44" inches or something. I say that Sandy Benson had a truly wonderful pair of breasts, and if I would have seen her in 1960 or so, I would have remembered her as having a great set of breasts (though other guys might prefer a different style).
On Friday, November, 5, 1982, Dick Clark hosted a television special on NBC-TV called TV Censored Bloopers #4, and in the show, Soppy Sales was featured in a segment in which censored video of the naked-gal event that is available today was shown, and in the segment, Soupy Sales talked about the event. Here is basically what Soupy Sales said about the event before the video material was shown--"It happened in about 1960, 1961. And I was doin' the kids show, and, dah, I was supposed to be working up front with White Fang--[Soupy moves about and makes noises before the camera]--and I was supposed to be talking with him, and I would hear a, a scream--ah, the sound effect of a woman screaming. And, then, I was supposed to go to the door, and there was going to be a pair of women's shoes being pulled by cat gut followed by a pair of men's shoes, and it would be a take from me into the camera, and they would go into commercial. So, anyway, so, I get through. I hear the woman scream, and I went--'Great' [Note: That was a thought in his head and not an actual word said back in about 1960.]. And I go to the door, and I notice that the number two camera is swinging over to the right, and I said--'That's great; it's going to get a close up of the shoes being pulled by, and going to the door [Note: That was not really said words back in 1960s or so.]. And I opened the door--and everyone was in on it but me--there is what you're going to see now. There's a naked girl, and I mean I went--[Soupy does some stage action here].--'cause I was going to have a heart attack. I thought it was the end of my career. It was just...'cause everything was live in those days. But they were taping this. And here's what happened.". Then, the video material was shown to people watching the 1982 television show.
What can be made of the Soupy Sales segment on TV Censored Bloopers #4? Was Soupy Sales telling a lie--working to sell the idea that his story actually fits the video event shown? Did Soupy Sales deceive Dick Clark?
I do note that the Soupy Sales talk presentation on NBC-TV could actually have been a somewhat collage of the WXYZ-TV event and the KABC-TV event, since there were at least two events. [In 1982, Sales Sales seemed to have an okay memory, which would be in contrast to a little before he died.]
Could a third such event have taken place? It is fact that a naked-gal event took place in Detroit on WXYZ-TV, and the event was not recorded because WXYZ-TV had no equipment available to record the live event. Soupy Sales left Detroit in about November 1960, and he went to Los Angeles and KABC-TV. On Monday, March 13, 1961, The Soupy Sales Show showed up on weekdays on KABC-TV, and the last show for that weekday series was on Friday, December 28, 1962, and that half-hour series had two different start times in the period--5:00 p.m. and 5:30 p.m.. So, it is known that between March 1961 and February 1962, Steve Binder directed a naked-gal event; he left the station in about February 1962. In that period, it is unlikely that a naked-gal event could have been done twice, and if it would have been done twice, Steve Binder would have known at the time he did his event that it had already been done before at the station, since the two events would have been talk around the station. For people to play such a joke twice in about a year is unlikely. Between February 1962 and December 1962, a naked-gal could have been done again. The problem with the twice-done idea is that when the event was done a second time, I do not think Soupy Sales would had had such a reaction as that shown in the video clip that features Sandy Benson, and, really, if the event was done between February 1962 and December 1962, it would have been a third time, and Soupy Sales would have had to fake his reaction to a naked gal at least a bit--a joke gets old. In addition, to do a second event at KABC-TV, a production crew would have to do work--which they would have probably liked to avoid, being a bit lazy (maybe)--to set up a recording event again (a second time at KABC-TV), especially if a recording of such an event was already being circulated around; there would be no gain in having yet another filmed or videotaped naked-gal event in circulation from KABC-TV with Soupy Sales in it. In addition, at 6:00 p.m. on a broadcast day--after The Soupy Sales Show was done--it seems very likely the crew was done for the day, and most of the crew members wanted to go home, and they did not want to do another--though not difficult--tear down of equipment that had been set up to expressly record a naked-gal event again. By the way, Soupy Sales did a Saturday show for the ABC-TV network in the early 1960s (doing it at WXYZ-TV at first and then at KABC-TV), and it seems very unlikely anyone--then--would ever have thought about being involved in running a naked-gal event for an ABC-TV distributed show. From 1964 to 1966, Soupy Sales did The Soupy Sales Show in New York City, New York, and it was a weekday series that lasted for two seasons, and the second season stuff was syndicated around the country, such as to WKBD-TV in Detroit. The naked gal event with Sandy Benson did not take place in New York City. On piece of proof is the "Do Not Touch" sign (on the wall in the back near the door on the set)--and the sign is different in structure than the one in the set for shows made in New York City. Generally speaking, the set design for the New York City stuff and the set design for the Sandy Benson video were similar but were not exactly the same. If there were a third event, it had to have taken place at KABC-TV. It does not make sense to me that a naked-gal event would be done twice in about two years at KABC-TV. Incidentally, it looks as if Sandy Benson was not based in New York City or Detroit, and it looks as if she was based in the Los Angeles area (roughly), since, for one, I have images of her making an appearance at a place called The Hot Dog House in roughly the Los Angeles area in the 1960s or so. Hey, would Soupy Sales and the crew at KABC-TV work to put together a fake live naked-gal event? Could the Sandy Benson thing be fake? It seems unlikely. To make such a fake, people would have had to spend time doing it, and, in the case of television-station people from sound people to camera people--they would have wanted to get paid. It would have cost money to make another naked-gal event--a fake live thing--so that it could be distributed around, such as to other television stations for behind-the-scenes viewing or for parties.
Frank Nastasi took on the job related to, for one, performing as White Fang and Black Tooth in New York City in the 1960s, the type of job that had been done by Clyde Adler at (WXYZ-TV) and KABC-TV) already and would be done by Clyde Adler in the 1970s for a while (for The New Soupy Sales Show). On September 17, 2021, the Archive of American Television put a video on YouTube with Frank Nastasi called "Frank Nastasi on the naked girl prank on The Soupy Sales Show - TelevisionAcademy.com/interviews" [and it runs about two minutes], and Frank Nastasi addressed the naked-gal theme. Frank Nastasi reported that a naked-gal event was not done in New York City in the 1960s.
I have conclusions based on the information in this section. It seems the history about the naked-gal event at KABC-TV has become blurred in minds, which is not surprising to me. Steve Binder was probably so busy concentrating on directing duties for the naked-gal event in which he took part that the image of the gal never ended up as a rock-hard memory in his mind that could be relied on over the years. Since the Sandy Benson video had been seen by people before November 1982 when TV Censored Bloopers #4 was aired, at least a few people should have shouted later--after November 1982--that they had seen two such events KABC-TV or that the Sandy Benson thing seemed to be wrong (maybe fake) or that they had taken part in a different event or another event at KABC-TV.
And it is surprising to me that, between about 1958 and January 29, 2024, three gals or two gals did not report publicly that they had been involved in a naked-gal event with Soupy Sales, especially around the time that TV Censored Bloopers #4 was shown in 1982, and it is surprising that relatives of a gal involved in a naked-gal event or others with personal knowledge of a gal have not come forth to make information known, working to get publicity.That tells the story of my search, and that gives my suggestions to maybe finding out who the gal involved with the event at WXYZ-TV was, and I hope you take part in the fun
P.S.: While I have you here, I pass along some other fun for you to see.
Take a look at the model of 40 Mile Point Lighthouse that I finished in 2020 by hitting this Travel #198 link.
Look at that the nude little gals that I made for my Forty Mile Point Lighthouse by hitting this Travel #206 link.
To see more recent history about Soupy Sales, see Television History and Trivia #215, which can be reached through this T.H.A.T. #215 link.
To see a document that shows good history about Ms. Anna May Wong and dispels a lot of crap about Ms. Anna May Wong, especially her television series called The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong, use this T.H.A.T. #217 link.