DATELINE TOOBWORLD - REMEMBERING CATHLEEN CORDELL

Some time ago, Skeeter Ullman shared this on Facebook:

CATHLEEN CORDELL

The same character in 'Night Gallery' - Mrs. Mount who ran the employment agency in "The Housekeeper" and in "Satisfaction Guaranteed!'

'Night Gallery' was an anthology series, with several stories told in each episode and no prequels or sequels to be found.  The only character we saw each episode was host Rod Serling.  (And I do mean "character".  Although he played himself, he never guided tours through bizarre art galleries in the real world.  Add to this his fictional televersions in 'The Twilight Zone', 'The Jack Benny Program', and mentioned in an episode of 'Perry Mason' as a friend to the lawyer, and you can see why he was inducted into the TV Crossover Hall of Fame.)

But if Cathleen Cordell played the same character in both segments, then she was the only other recurring character on the show.  I looked into this and Mr. Ullman is right, not that the Powers That Be would agree with him....

According to the IMDb, which I derisively call "Ol' Reliable", Ms. Cordell was known as "Miss Beamish" in the first segment, "The Housekeeper" which was broadcast in 1970.  It was in 1972's "Satisfaction Guaranteed" in which she was identified as "Mrs. Mount".

But there's no Zonk in this.

During that gap of two years, this "woman of a certain age" got married.  We're never going to find out for certain who her husband was, so it's time for a bit o' televisiological fun in order to fill in the blanks.

Mr. Mount was an Englishman living in the United States in the early 1970s.  We don't know his first name, but he was born in London around 1915 and he was probably either an older brother or at least a cousin to Nurse Patsy Mount (born circa 1922) who worked as a midwife in the East End of London.

As always, this is conjecture.

He may have been in America as a businessman, a government official, or perhaps as a journalist; and in the course of his duties he met Miss Beamish.  Perhaps he needed clerical work done and he visited her business in order to secure the services of a secretary.  And there he found love instead.....

So that's why she underwent a name change, and as the curator for Toobworld I can reconcile those two characters as being one and the same.

As to the difference in the look of her office?  At some point in those two years she either renovated or moved.

My thanks to Skeeter Ullman and Jeff Alexander for bringing this TV tidbit to my attention.

By the way, today marks the 103rd anniversary of the birth of Cathleen Cordell.

SHOWS CITED:

• 'Night Gallery'
• 'Call The Midwife'
• 'The Twilight Zone'
• 'The Jack Benny Program'
• 'Perry Mason'

BCnU!