THEORY OF RELATEEVEETY - QUIGLEY DONE OVER

'THE GEORGE BURNS AND GRACIE ALLEN SHOW'

"GEORGE AND GRACIE GOING TO THE OPERA 'CARMEN'"

Gracie Allen: 

Mr. Vanderlip said you were a music critic. Now just what do you do?

Mrs. Quigley: 

Well, the newspaper usually gets me two seats for all the musical events 

and I go and cover them.

Gracie Allen: 

Oh? Oh, you're just being sensitive. 

You may be a little larger than most women, 

but you couldn't cover more than one seat.

Mrs. Quigley wrote a newspaper column about opera for one of the Los Angeles publications.  I'd like to think it was either the L.A. Tribune, the L.A. Sun, or the L.A. Chronicle.

At the end of this episode, everybody returned to the Burns' home after the for coffee and sandwiches.  In this screencap, we have Harry Morton, Mr. Vanderlip and his wife Lucille behind the couch with George Burns off to the side.  Seated on the couch are Gracie Allen and Mrs. Quigley.  (Blanche Morton is just off-screen to the left.)

But Mr. Quigley wasn't there and there was no indication that he even went to the opera.  

We can't splain this away by saying that Mr. Quigley was dead or that they were divorced.  Mrs. Quigley mentions to George that she and Mr. Quigley enjoy watching the Burns and Allen TV show.

But after the episode, the only one in which Mrs. Quigley appears?

I believe that if we had seen Mr. Quigley in that Burns and Allen episode, he would have been named Justin and he would have been played by Burt Mustin.  I think it was Mrs. Quigley who passed away and after she died, her husband moved back East where he was from - to New York City.

Eventually, Justin Quigley moved into the Sunshine Home for retirees in Queens, where he met Edith Bunker who volunteered there.  Quigley ran away from the home and he was taken in by the Bunkers - over Archie's objections of course.  But Quigley reassured him that his friend Joe Nelson was coming to get him and they would move in together.  

That made Archie happy... until he found out that Joe Nelson was actually Jo Nelson - Josephine Nelson.

After the birth of their son Joey, Mike and Gloria Stivic adopted Justin and Jo to be their honorary grandparents so that Joey could have more family than before.

Sadly, Jo Nelson died just over two years later.  Mr. Quigley surrendered to the inevitable and returned to the Sunshine Home where he remained until he finally passed away in 1983.

(Burt Mustin died in 1977.  But he was playing Mr. Quigley as being six years younger than he actually was.  So Justin Quigley deserved to have as much time living on Earth Prime-Time as Mustin did on Earth.)

BCnU!