The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show, was a comedy radio program which ran on NBC from 1948 to 1954 starring Alice Faye and Phil Harris. Harris had previously become known to radio audiences as the band-leader-turned-cast-member of the same name on The Jack Benny Program while Faye had been a frequent guest on programs such as Rudy Vallee’s variety shows. After becoming the breakout stars of the music and comedy variety program The Fitch Bandwagon, the show was retooled into a full situation comedy, with Harris and Faye playing fictionalized versions of themselves as a working show business couple raising two daughters in a madcap home. But what few do not know is that the comic adventures were – in some aspect – based on their real-life family adventures. The season opener of 1952-1953 had the narrator open with an explanation that Phil Harris had just returned from England with his new automobile and was working on the engine in the drive-way. Turns out Harris really was in England that summer and he did buy a roadster.
A few years ago over 2,000 photographs were scanned from an archive containing Phil Harris and Alice Faye’s family and publicity photos, including awards and achievements. We have been digitally restoring the images for a future book project. Below, for your amusement, are a few of those photos chosen at random. (Almost random. I did select the one with the roadster so you can see what it looked like.) The photos, by the way, were the initial scan and not the digitally restored renditions.
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| I am trying to identify the man on the far right. Help! |
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