1962 Emmys flashback: Winning streaks for ‘The Defenders,’ Shirley Booth and Don Knotts
Television drama matured in the early 1960s with gritty often controversial series shot on location including “The Naked City” and most notably “The Defenders,” which aired on CBS from 1961-65, winning 13 Emmys during its run including three consecutive Best Drama Series awards.
The legal drama starring E.G. Marshall and Robert Reed as father-and-son attorneys picked up its first four prizes at the 14th Primetime Emmy Awards on May 22, 1962. It also won for Marshall; helmer Franklin J. Schaffner (who went to pick up an Oscar for directing 1970 Best Picture Oscar champ “Patton); and Reginald Rose for writing.
Rose of “12 Angry Men” fame based the series on his two-part 1957 “Studio One” drama “The Defender” with Ralph Bellamy and William Shatner as the father-son attorneys and Steve McQueen as the defendant. For Rose, “The law is the subject of our programs, not crime, not mystery, not the courtroom for its own sake. We were never interested in producing a ‘who-done-it’ which simply happened to be resolved each week in a flashy courtroom battle of wits. And unlike ‘Perry Mason,’ which also ran on CBS, victory was ‘far from certain on ‘The Defenders’-as were morality and justice.”’
The series explored such hot-button topics as abortion, neo-Nazis, demonstrators of the Civil Rights Movement and even a physician who is charged in a “mercy killing”; he murdered a newborn baby with Down syndrome. The series ran into difficulties with advertisers especially with the 1962 abortion episode “The Benefactor.” Three of its main sponsors decided not to sponsor the episode; the show went on only after Speidel watches came in, albeit for a discounted rated. The Canadian Broadcasting Company didn’t air the episode. In 2008, “Mad Men” used the controversy as the basis for a storyline in a second season episode.
NBCs “The Bob Newhart Show” won the top Emmy for comedy; it also earned a Peabody. Ironically, the show only lasted one season. Newhart told me there were several reasons why the show was cancelled after its premiere season, admitting it was a strain “trying to do a good monologue every week for 36 weeks.”
Carl Reiner won for writing the comedy “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and Nat Hiken took home the comedy directing Emmy for “Car 54, Where Are You?” CBS’ “The Garry Moore Show” won the variety award.
Shirley Booth won the Emmy for continuing lead actress as “Hazel” (NBC). And Don Knotts was the recipient of his second consecutive supporting actor Emmy as Barney Fife on CBS’ “The Andy Griffith Show.” Peter Falk won the first of his five Emmys for his single leading role in “The Price of Tomatoes” on NBC’s “The Dick Powell Theatre.”
Program of the year went to NBC’s “Hallmark Hall of Fame” episode “Victoria Regina.” The period piece also won Emmys for lead Julie Harris and supporting player Pamela Brown.
It was a good evening for New York Philharmonic conductor Leonard Bernstein. CBS’ “Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic in Japan” won the variety music prize while the network’s “New York Philharmonic Young People’s Concerts with Leonard Bernstein” prevailed in children’s programming.
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