One day, after paying out all but five of his fifty-dollar-a-week paycheck, Riley has to sneak into his house to avoid his landlady, Miss Martha Bogle, to whom he owes money. I think they used to call that "social death"; that actual death happens like that. Scars On My Heart / Her (7", Single) Ranger. I figure once a year, every married man should get away from his wife for a few days. FRONTLINE series home|wgbh|pbs, FRONTLINE is a registered trademark of wgbh educational foundation. It's the people who, in many ways, try to put on the smiley face, that brittle grin you see so often that says, "We're going to be happy." Peg Riley: Oh? "The Life of Riley Quotes." So I'm interested in it. Though other friends may fail you, I shall be the last to let you down.". But at some point it becomes more than a job, and I can see this happening to the young people who have come here to work as high school students on work-study programs. It's not that you don't want to see them dressed up or laid out or with glasses on, or too much makeup or their hair done in a clumsy way. So we learn to live with it. Unreliable advice on how to handle these situations came from Riley's pal Digger O'Dell, the friendly undertaker, who would sneak in a string of dark-humored jokes before he had to be "shoveling off". Riley's penchant for turning mere trouble into near-disaster through his well-intentioned bumbling was often aided or instigated by his arch best friend/next-door neighbor, Gillis. All rights reserved. Thomas Lynch reads to camera his essay Tract, in which he broaches the topic of his own funeral. Digby 'Digger' O'Dell: Why, I was just taking a stroll around the pond. I like the connection, the sound of the word "process"; it suggests movement, a pilgrimage. Her testimony is like all testimony -- it is a combination of gratitude and grief, and that the gratitude does not trump the grief, nor does the grief undo the gratitude. It earned $1.6 million in the U.S. and Canada,[4] preventing him from starring in the TV series that began in the same year. Well, read it closely, and what I've written is that as long as they deal with it, I don't care what they do. So I took The Flotsam Family script, revised it, made it a Brooklyn Family, took out the flippancies and made it more meat-and-potatoes, and thought of a new title, The Life of Riley. And particularly when you see the transaction which involves this rather impressive life-or-death event with the rather mundane mercantility of it all. Riley's catch phrase in the series and the film was "what a revolting development this turned out to be." The only place your son will get his picture is in the post office. t.r., memphis. In many ways we represent the place where whatever conversation people want to have about death and dying and grief and bereavement. Junior will be glad to pitch in. She means other kinds of trouble. You had your tonsils out. I mean, that is the terrible, terrible part. Mail: Vance Lauderdale, Memphis magazine, We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly. And yet someone's weeping because of the changed life that we're seeing before us. Will that matter? But I have graves at Oak Grove; I have graves in West Clare [County, Ireland]. Brief Synopsis A factory worker tries to cope when his daughter dates the boss's son. Chester A. Riley: Hello, Digger. He made the news by being buried alive. Riley's usual reply to the messes he would get in to became a catch phrase that swept the nation: What a revoltin' development this is! Gillis: I tried to help you, Riley, but I'm through. The boss' son (Long), who is in love with Babs, suggests that they get married in order to save Riley's job. I've always been touched by the fact that there seems to be as much laughter as weeping at the big life events. The CBS program starred Lionel Stander as J. Riley Farnsworth and had no real connection with the more famous series that followed a few years later. Radio historian Gerald Nachman quotes Brecher as stating, "He was a Brooklyn guy and there was something about him. We are now without a mother or without a father. According to the obituary, Digger was born in Georgia in 1915. We do have a charge for our caskets. With William Bendix the protagonist, as Riley and among others John Brown, who portrayed the friendly undertaker "Digger" O'Dell. Unknown. After all, the people whose names are on these markers dont have that luxury. At weddings people are forever weeping at what is supposed to be a joyous event. The custom of eulogy, what is its meaning? The question is not meant to mock; the question is to say: "What is it you don't want to see? I remember it hitting me there in the house: She actually died; we actually buried her today; she's actually not coming back here; she's actually gone. Digby 'Digger' O'Dell: It is I, Digby O'Dell, the friendly undertaker.Chester A. Riley: Hello, Digger. So I like the word "funeral" for what we're doing here, because it doesn't require me to feel this way or that. Whether youre growing hot or sweet varieties, there are some important tips for success. As Bluff City Buick customers watched, Digger ODell (left) prepared to enter the worlds smallest apartment, where he planned to stay at least 57 days. He's where he's buried for good. I guess you might quibble that the Memory Grove itself the stand of trees that shaded it has been left behind, but the plaque is in better company here, near the famous Doughboy Statue (also a tribute to those lost in the First World War), along with memorials to the men and women who sacrificed their lives in World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and Operation Desert Storm. The Milford location is one of six Lynch funeral homes in the state. Last updated Jun 12 2013. : Commissioned in 1932 by Memphis Chapter 1 of the American War Mothers, this large bronze plaque carried the names of 27 Memphians who had lost their lives in World War I. The Life of Riley was an American radio situation comedy series of the 1940s that was adapted into a 1949 feature film, a 1950s television series, and a 1958 comic book. I never felt better. I enjoy listening to the frogs croak. [1], Irving Brecher pitched the radio series for friend Groucho Marx under the title The Flotsam Family, but the sponsor balked at what would have been essentially a straight head-of-household role for Marx. I cant even blame my wife too much. Chester A. Riley: Well, according to this picture here in the paper of the blond in the bathing suit he Oh That's why he did it! Every time I have a birthday, I realize that Mom's getting a year older. It's something handled by "them" offsite, elsewhere, and I think that's problematical. He had a very good sense of that. And it works; it does work. Not a day went by that I wasn't kept in after school. Let's see! For the second run, Bendix returned as Riley, while Marjorie Reynolds appeared as Peg. It was produced by Tom McKnight for NBC and featured William Bendix. His dramatic life story is so well-known that schoolchildren are taught to recite it for extra credit. Both [are part of] this effort to say something about something unspeakable -- great love, great loss, great hope, great fear, great doubt, the fist we shake in God's face, asking him, "What did you have in mind here?". I prefer the dead languages. Alan Lipscott and Reuben Ship wrote many of the radio series' early episodes, and Don Bernard was the show's initial director. I'm calling it off now! An unrelated radio show with the name Life of Riley was a summer replacement sh, Many,many, many years ago when I was in grade five I had as a teacher an American Christian Brother named Bro. That is a wheel we can only invent at the time it happens. You can read in history books about the way a funeral procession was laid out -- which civic group, which ecclesiastical group, which fraternal group, which family group -- how everybody was lined up, so that as people walked in, there was this rise and fall of relationship and grief, and people know this, that good, orderly direction that was assumed by this process, this ritual. Well, we wear black for funerals -- people have to know who the directors are, who to ask -- and white shirts and gray ties. My, you're looking fine today; very natural" and leave stage with ""Cheerio, I'd better be shoveling off", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_of_Riley. William Bendix is heard as Riley, along with co-stars Paula Winslowe, John Brown, Tommy Cook, and Barbara Eiler - plus series creator Irving Brecher . Barbara 'Babs' Riley: There's still Christmas. I'm not the type of friends who buts in. It is a sadness and a shame that cremation, the fire in this context, is seen as an industrial process instead of an elemental one, in the way that earth is elemental. Not all of the radio cast made the transition to film; Paula Winslowe and Barbara Eiler were replaced with DeCamp and Meg Randall as Riley's . It was during this period that Gleason played Riley on one episode of the radio series. In the early 1970s, he had apparently retired and had opened World-Famous Digger ODells Farmers Market somewhere in that state, but had returned to his old stunts after the death of his wife from a heart attack. When Burt finally tells Babs about his financial predicament and suggests that they marry quickly so that Riley can keep his job and he can save his life, Babs reluctantly agrees. We're celebrating love, huh? I think mine will know what to do, too, not because I've said, "Do this or that," but because they have seen life as I have seen it, and they sort of know me and I know them. "I play every chance I get music, that is!" Mounted on one of his five Harleys and racing most everywhere across the nation will be National Number 57; that's "Digger O'Dell," the friendly undertaker. John Brown, Radio and TV Actor, Dies; Played Digger O'Dell in 'Life of Riley' Give this article May 18, 1957 The New York Times Archives See the article in its original context from May 18, 1957,. And we come away from these memorial events, these celebrations of life, with the increasing sense that something is missing. Irving Brecher's onscreen credit reads: "Written and directed by Irving Brecher." Crowther concluded, "[W]e suppose there are millions who will like this sort of truck. It's a culture that doesn't like to be reminded of mortality. That 's problematical `` Written and directed by irving Brecher. the terrible, terrible part transaction which this... Series and the film was `` what is supposed to be a joyous event Digger was born Georgia... 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