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Hy Averback

 
Director: Hy Averback
Home > Library > Entertainment & Arts > Actors
  • Born: 1921 in Minneapolis, Minnesota
  • Died: Oct 14, 1997 in Los Angeles, California
  • Occupation: Director, Actor
  • Active: '50s-'80s
  • Major Genres: Comedy, Comedy Drama
  • Career Highlights: I Love You, Alice B. Toklas, The Great Bank Robbery, Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?
  • First Major Screen Credit: I Love Lucy: Baby Pictures (1953)

Biography

A busy radio, TV and film actor of the 1940s and 1950s, Hy Averback began writing comedy material in his radio days. He acted in two films (The Benny Goodman Story and Four Girls in Town) and narrated a third (How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying), but the majority of his film work was as a director. After an uncharacteristic movie directorial debut with Chamber of Horrors (1966), Averback settled into the genre he knew best, directing such comedies as Where Were You When the Lights Went Out? (1966) and I Love You, Alice B. Toklas (1969). Hy Averback's credits as a TV director are far too numerous to go into detail here; he was most closely associated with sitcomery, notably the syndicated 1954 series Meet Corliss Archer and the long-running (1957-63) Walter Brennan vehicle The Real McCoys. Averback passed away at the age of 76 following open heart surgery. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
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Wikipedia: Hy Averback
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Hy Averback

Hy Averback (October 21, 1920, Minneapolis, Minnesota – October 14, 1997, Los Angeles, California) was a radio, TV and film actor who eventually became a producer and director.

Contents

Radio

Averback was an announcer in Hollywood before World War II. During the War, as part of the Armed Forces Radio Service, he entertained troops in the Pacific with his program of comedy and music, where he created the character of Tokyo Mose, a lampoon of Japan's Tokyo Rose. In the post-War years he became the announcer for Bob Hope and Jack Paar on NBC, also announcing for other NBC radio shows, The Sealtest Village Store and Let's Talk Hollywood.

Television

Doing comedy on early television, he appeared on The Saturday Night Revue (1953-54), Tonight (1955) and NBC Comedy Hour (1956). He was a series regular as Mr. Romero on Our Miss Brooks and was seen in I Love Lucy and other comedies of the 1950s, moving into directing at the end of that decade. He directed The Real McCoys (1957-63), The Dick Powell Show (1961-63), The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964-68), The Flying Nun (1967- 70), Columbo (1971), McCloud (1971), M*A*S*H (1972), Quark (1978), Matt Houston (1982-83), The Four Seasons (1984) and the miniseries Pearl (1978). For CBS, he produced Mrs. G. Goes to College (aka The Gertrude Berg Show) in the 1961-62 season.

He co-produced the popular 1960s sitcom F Troop and supplied the voice over the loudspeaker heard on the television series M*A*S*H.

An often quoted live radio blooper in the early days was that a tongue-tied announcer tried to introduce him on a show sponsored by Eversharp razor blades. What came out was, "And here's Hy Aversharp for Everback! -- er, I mean, here's Hy Averback for Eversharp!" [Possibly urban legend, but often taken as a true event.]

Films

Film credits include directing Chamber of Horrors (1966), Where Were You When the Lights Went Out? (1968), The Great Bank Robbery (1969), and Suppose They Gave A War and Nobody Came (1969) as well as the reunion TV-movie The New Maverick (1978) with James Garner and Jack Kelly.

Averback died October 14, 1997 in Los Angeles, California after cardiac surgery.

External links


This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 

 

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Director. Copyright © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.  Read more
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