TVXOHOF, DECEMBER 2018 - BRINGING HOME MALONE FOR CHRISTMAS

Traditionally in the Television Crossover Hall of Fame, December is the month in which Toobworld Central celebrates the Multiversal.  It stems from the fact that many of the Christmas entrants had representation in a variety of TV programs, especially Santa Claus.  (Thanks to the Hallmark channel alone, there will probably be plenty of Santas to fill dozens of dimensions!)

In the beginning of the TVXOHOF's history, the entire month of December served as the showcase for a holiday entry.  But now our Christmas Crossover is inducted on Christmas Day, and we can spotlight the major multiversals in the monthly showcase.  And now that we’ve introduced the Friday Hall of Famers this year, we can have a few of the minor multiversals as well.  (This December will be two such minor multiversals, but two of the Friday Hall Of Famers will be identical cousins who deserve this honorific as their portrayer left us this year.)

At the beginning of this year, actress Dorothy Malone passed away, just ten days shy of her 94th birthday.  She had been one of the most glamorous actresses of the late 40s and throughout the 50s.  With “The Big Sleep”, she played one of the sexiest roles in the movies, simply playing a bookstore clerk, deceptively staid in appearance, who offered Humphrey Bogart’s Philip Marlowe the chance to “keep her company” back in the storeroom.  After that it’s left to the imagination and I have a very good imagination.

From Wikipedia:
Mary Dorothy Maloney (January 29, 1924 – January 19, 2018) was an American actress. 

Her film career began in 1943, and in her early years she played small roles, mainly in B-movies. After a decade, she began to acquire a more glamorous image, particularly after her performance in "Written on the Wind" (1956), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Her film career reached its peak by the beginning of the 1960s, and she achieved later success with her television role as Constance MacKenzie on 'Peyton Place' from (1964–68). 

From 1964-68, she played the lead role of Constance MacKenzie on the ABC prime time serial 'Peyton Place' except for a brief stretch where she was absent due to surgery. Lola Albright filled in until her return. Malone agreed for $3,000 a week less than ABC's offer of $10,000 weekly, if she could be home nightly for 6 p.m. dinner with her two daughters and no shooting on weekends. "I never turned down a mother role," said Malone. "I like playing mothers. I started out as a very young girl in Hollywood doing westerns, portraying a mother with a couple of kids." 

In 1968, she was written out of the show after complaining that she was given little to do. Malone sued 20th Century Fox for $1.6 million for breach of contract; it was settled out of court. She would later return to the role in the TV movies "Murder in Peyton Place" (1977) and "Peyton Place: The Next Generation" (1985).

Constance MacKenzie is a multiversal, immortalized in BookWorld, the Cineverse, and Toobworld.  Within the greater TV Universe, she is a multidimensional.  As played by Ms. Malone, she is a member of the main Toobworld, Earth Prime-Time, and as such is being inducted today into the Television Crossover Hall of Fame as our December showcase.  But Constance also appeared in a daytime soap opera later on and that show is to be found in Toobworld2, the Land O’ Remakes.

From Wikipedia:

Constance MacKenzie (née Standish) is a fictional character in the 1956 novel “Peyton Place” by Grace Metalious. In the subsequent film adaptation, she was played by Lana Turner; in the sequel “Return to Peyton Place”, by Eleanor Parker; in the prime-time television series, by Dorothy Malone (and briefly by Lola Albright); and in the daytime soap opera “Return to Peyton Place”, by Bettye Ackerman and later by Susan Brown.

Constance Standish was born and bred in the small New Hampshire community of Peyton Place; living with her widowed mother, Elizabeth Standish. Like most people in that community, she was repressed. She met, acquired a job with, and eventually fell in love with a man named Allison MacKenzie, who ran an exotic fabric shop in New York City.

They had an extramarital affair (he was married and had two children and a wife in Scarsdale, New York), and from that affair, her daughter, Allison MacKenzie, his namesake, was born. (Allison, according to the book, was a year older than she really was, because Constance and her mother doctored the birth certificate.) After the birth of Allison, Mr. MacKenzie died, and left her some money in a discreet bank account. With this money and what she had saved while her former lover was alive, she opened a clothing store in her hometown. 

In the novel, it was named, the Thrifty Corner Apparel Shoppe; in the movie, it was simply called, The Tweed Shop; and in the television series, she didn't own a clothing store, but operated the town's book store.

Here are the tally listings for Contance MacKenzie’s membership into the TVXOHOF:

CONSTANCE MACKENZIE

1964-1968
Peyton Place
Constance Mackenzie Carson / Constance Mackenzie
430 episodes

The original primetime soap took place in the title town, which was founded by the Peyton family, whose members included the Harringtons. Some of the plots involved Rodney Harrington, the oldest son, choosing between bad girl Betty Anderson or fragile Allison MacKenzie. His brother Norman took up with working class Rita Jacks. Allison's mother Connie was keeping a secret about her daughter's birth. People married and divorced, loved and lost. Murder, illicit passion, insanity, and secrets were the staples of Peyton Place. 

1977
Murder in Peyton Place
Constance MacKenzie

A former resident of the town of Peyton Place, now wealthy and powerful, secretly returns to the town and sets in motion a spate of killings designed as revenge for past wrongs.

1985
Peyton Place: The Next Generation
Constance Carson

This movie, based on the 60's television series, brings back some of the major characters. It begins when a young girl Megan comes to town and she bears a resemblance to Allison Mackenzie, who disappeared 20 years ago. It is revealed that she is Allison's daughter. She is not warmly greeted by Kelly, the sister that Allison never knew of, it seems that she resents Allison, because she appears to be the center of her parents’ universe. She has set her sights on Dana Harrington, who is in line to inherit the Peyton fortune. And it seems that Dana has shifted his attention from Kelly to Megan. It is also revealed that Allison, not long after she disappeared was attacked by someone, and she has been in a catatonic state, when she is moved to Peyton Place someone goes into her room and kills her and makes it appear that she committed suicide. However, Steven Cord suspects that Allison did not take her life, so he investigates.  

O'Bservation:
Those summaries are courtesy of the IMDb.

There are a couple of pozz’ble, just pozz’ble, theories of relateeveety to be found in just those summaries, let alone the entire list of characters.  “Carson” could have some connection to Joe Carson of ‘Petticoat Junction’ and there are several Cords in TV Westerns who could be the ancestors for Steven.  But that would be something to investigate at a later prime-time because the focus should remain on Constance.

There is one aspect of Constance MacKenzie’s life in the main Toobworld that must be addressed – for fourteen episodes of ‘Peyton Place’, Constance MacKenzie was played by Lola Albright while Ms. Malone was recovering from surgery. 

There have been times when I have switched the home dimension of a TV show out of the main Toobworld for just one episode.  A case in point would be the crossover between ‘NCIS: LA’ and the remake of ‘Hawaii Five-0’.  Every other episode of ‘NCIS: LA’ is situated in Earth Prime-Time where it belongs with ‘JAG’ and the other ‘NCIS’ shows.  But this ‘Hawaii Five-0’ is from Toobworld2 because the show that starred Jack Lord, James MacArthur, and occasionally the incredible Khigh Dhiegh is the only ‘Hawaii Five-0’ for the main Toobworld.  So in just this one instance, we were watching the ‘NCIS: LA’ team from Toobworld2. They just didn’t get recast as was the case with the other McGarrett and Danno.

I suppose such a situation could be applied to these fourteen episodes of ‘Peyton Place’, that in another dimension (but not Toobworld2 since the daytime soap opera ‘Return To Peyton Place’ occupies that world) Constance MacKenzie had a different combination of her DNA.  And the Powers That Be forced the attention of the Trueniverse audience to watch that other dimension for two weeks.

But…. That’s a boring splainin.

It’s the standard Toobworld splainin for all of the dozens of recastaways in soap operas that all of those fictional soap opera towns are serving as test sites for future research into quantum leaping.  And as ‘Peyton Place’ was a prime-time soap opera – perhaps the first? – then that is the situation we had in this case.  In order to study ordinary life in a small town during the 1960s, a leaper from the far future took the place of Constance MacKenzie.  For the leaper, it might even have been a pleasure trip, a two-week vacation.  Eventually Ms. MacKenzie was returned to the world that she knew with her memory erased of her experience in that testing facility in the Future.

If you think it too crazy an idea, remember – Toobworld is NOT the Real World.

So in memory of the late and lovely Dorothy Malone, we here at Toobworld Central would like to welcome her character of Constance MacKenzie to the Television Crossover Hall of Fame!

Until next prime-time…..

HER RIDE'S HERE.....