Beulah (series)

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Beulah (or The Beulah Show) is a comedy series that originated on radio in 1939. The role of black housekeeper Beulah Brown was originally voiced by white male actor Marlin Hunt. The character appeared on a few different shows before finally being spun-off into her own radio series called The Marlin Hunt and Beulah Show, which still had Hunt voicing the character. When Hunt died in 1946, he was replaced with another white actor named Bob Corley and the show was renamed The Beulah Show.

Black actress Hattie McDaniel, a one-time Oscar winner, started playing Beulah on November 24, 1947. She was originally paid $1,000-a-week and her starring on the radio show caused the ratings to nearly double. The NAACP was pleased and honored that McDaniel had became the first black woman to have her own radio series. McDaniel continued in the role regularly until 1952, before falling ill. Lillian Randolph briefly replaced her, before the role was filled by Lillian's sister, Amanda Randolph. For the majority of the show's radio run, it ran as a fifteen-minute daily comedy.

The Beulah Show was brought to television in 1950, making it the first network television series to star a black actress and also the first comedy television series to not use a live audience or laugh track. Most of the comedy was derived from how Beulah, who was praised as "the queen of the kitchen", could easily solve problems here employers could not. Other regular black characters included Beulah's boyfriend Bill Jackson, and her close friend Oriole, a light-headed housekeeper for a neighboring family.

Ethel Waters was the original Beulah Brown for the first season of the television series, before quitting in 1951. When the production was moved to Hollywood, Hattie McDaniel, star of the radio series, was brought in to replace Waters. McDaniel only got to film six episodes before falling ill, which resulted in the casting of Louise Beavers in her place. Butterfly McQueen (who had co-starred with McDaniel in Gone with the Wind) was Oriole in the television show's first season, before she was replaced with Ruby Dandridge thereafter.

A total of eight-seven episodes of The Beulah Show aired on ABC between 1950 and 1953. All these episodes were included in syndication packages in the late 1950s for stations all over the United States. Only seven of these episodes are known to exist in a 16mm format and they circulate among collectors. All eighty-seven episodes are archived in their original 35mm format.

Are there any fans of this show here? Anyone got the DVDs?


The below pictures of the television show's opening title screen and a screenshot of Louise Beavers as Beulah.

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