‘The Courtship of Eddie’s Father’ Turns 50: Bill Bixby, Brandon Cruz and Others Take a Look Back

The Novel and Movie That Started It All

The Courtship of Eddie’s Father began as a 1961 novel by Mark Toby, turned into a film two years later described by TCM as follows: “Recently widowed Tom Corbett, advertising director of a radio station, hires a day housekeeper to help care for his 6 1/2-year-old son, Eddie. The boy, however, would like his father to become romantically involved with a woman such as their attractive neighbor, divorcée Elizabeth Marten, who nursed Eddie when he was ill. When Eddie fails to interest his father in a relationship with Elizabeth, he strikes up a friendship with a shy beauty contestant from Montana, Dollye Daly; but she falls in love with Norman Jones, a disc jockey who is also a friend of Tom’s. Tom next meets Rita Behrens, a chic fashion consultant of whom Eddie disapproves. When Tom announces that he plans to marry Rita, Eddie runs away from summer camp and takes refuge in Elizabeth’s apartment. As a result, Tom breaks with Rita, and little Eddie at long last makes his father realize that Elizabeth is the best possible choice for a wife.”

Starring are Glenn Ford as Tom Corbett, Ronny Howard (then known as Opie Taylor on The Andy Griffith Show), Dina Merrill as Rita Behrens and Shirley Jones as Elizabeth Marten.

Bill Bixby and James Komack

Back in the 1959-62 television series Hennesey, James Komack served as a series regular, writer and director, while Bill Bixby made a guest appearance on the show. In a sense, it put these two guys on a path toward The Courtship of Eddie’s Father several years later. As Bill related to Pennsylvania’s Buck County Courier- Times, “When I first met Jimmie, I was doing a bit on Hennesey. Jimmie heard me deliver my one line, he came out of his dressing room, walked up to me and asked me my name. I told him and he said, ‘One day, Billy, you and I are going to do a series together.'”

He Was Right!

And they did. First on My Favorite Martian, which ran from 1963 to 1966 and for which James served as occasional director, and then on The Courtship of Eddie’s Father three years later. “I wanted to do Eddie’s Father as soon as My Favorite Martian ended,” Bill told the Providence Journal in 1969, “but they said I wasn’t mature enough to play a widower.”

Chad Everett Could Have Been Eddie’s Father

Herbert F. Solow, MGM Television’s Vice President in Charge of Television Production, when he began working with the studio was intrigued with an actor under contract named Chad Everett. “I’d seen him in some movies,” he told the Archive of American Television, “and I said, ‘If there’s ever a star of a television series, it’s Chad Everett.’ So when I got to MGM I called the casting guy and asked for a meeting with Chad Everett, but was told they’d recently released him.”

They Find Their Tom Corbett

With his potential leading man gone (though he would go on to star on MGM’s Medical Center), Herb turned his attention to prioritizing the in-house script that had been written for The Courtship of Eddie’s Father. “I called a friend of mine, Jimmie Komack, and said, ‘Listen, come on over here. I’ve got this script and let’s see if we can get it in some kind of shape.’ So Jimmie came over and did some work on it, we took it to ABC and they loved it. At the same time, a good friend of Jimmie’s and a good friend of mine was Bill Bixby. And I said, ‘Let’s get Bixby into this thing.’ So we had a good script, we had Bill Bixby and ABC’s interest.”

Bill Bixby Got to Play Himself

Bill’s interest in the role of Tom Corbett was immediate. In a 1969 interview with the St. Louis Globe-Democrat TV Digest, he commented, “We’re not doing a remake of the movie and I’m not playing the role the way Glenn Ford did. I was asked to be myself; no portrayal of any character. You know, I’ve never played myself before, I’ve always portrayed some part. The thought scared the hell out of me at first, but after three weeks of looking at the daily rushes, I decided I’m like that man. Now I can play myself. What’s great is that Tom Corbett’s ideas and attitudes are those of Bill Bixby.”

Personal Connection

On a 1972 episode of The Mike Douglas Show he mused, “Eddie’s father is a part of me, a part that I happen to like. I didn’t know I had it until after I did the show. That was thanks to Brandon Cruz, because he’s not an actor. He’s a little boy. And you don’t act against that.”

Mrs. Livingston, We Presume

One of the things Herb Solow brought to the show was a change in regards to the character of the Corbett housekeeper. “In the original movie,” he says, “she was the typical Irish-American housekeeper that you’ve seen 20 times on television. I said, ‘That’s wrong; let’s get someone who usually would not work as a housekeeper.’ I wanted a Japanese housekeeper, so we looked around and in comes Miyoshi Umeki, who won an Academy Award [for 1957’s Sayonara]. She read the script about dealing with Eddie and what happened? We thought she was great and hired her.”

Mrs. Livingston Was a Wise Woman

According to Brandon Cruz, the actress actually owned a piece of the show. “She was very quiet and very private,” he explains. “Nobody knew anything about Miyoshi, but she was invested in the show. If there was ever any disturbance on the set, it was Miyoshi complaining or letting it be known how she felt. In the third season, she was the first person to realize how the focus was going away from being a show about me trying to get Bill a wife and our relationship, and then the kooky characters around us, and turned into the James Komack show.

“Miyoshi was a very smart woman,” he adds. “She saw that Bill had a trailer brought inside the studio; this big rectangular box with no windows, just a door. He had a zebra rug and a leather couch, an egg chair with speakers in it, a stereo and the first color TV I ever saw. There was also a bar and a bathroom. Miyoshi realized that this was going to be a growing thing and she quietly bought up all the honey wagons — the portable dressing rooms — and owned a company very early.”

When Casting the Character of Eddie, They Were Not Looking For An Actor

One of the things that the producers wanted to be sure of was to avoid the usual casting process a kid role would take for a TV show. “A lot of different kids came in,” says Herb. “We tested three of them; one was a Hollywood talent school trained little kid who made all the right faces, had all the right moves and told all the right jokes. One was kind of a neutral kid and one was a Mexican-American kid named Brandon Cruz, who had never acted before in his life. And he was marvelous. He hd a great endearing look and a great charm about him. So we looked at the test and I said to ABC, ‘We’re going to hire Brandon Cruz,’ and they were, like, ‘No you’re not. The first kid we’re going to hire, because he knows the moves.’ I said, ‘But it’s not real. He looks like a Hollywood kid. We want some reality here.’ So I made my speeches and got them all upset and I said, ‘We’re going with Brandon Cruz, or don’t finance the show.’ They finally agreed.”

Notes Brandon, “Bill knew what he wanted me to be, and why I got the part was because I was just a normal kid that got along well with him.”

The Connection Between Bill Bixby and Brandon Cruz

While speaking to Modern Screen magazine in 1972, Bill was asked about how he got along with Brandon. “We’re very close friends,” he said. “We’re warm and easy with each other. I’ve known him since before he could read. I didn’t do anything to force his friendship, I merely shared my time and he’s sharing his back. I like him. He’s a good human being and we’re thoroughly honest with each other. We don’t have an actor-actor relationship, we have a human-human relationship. This show is based on the love between a father and his young son. I had to know Brandon six months before we started shooting the series so that I could know what kind of human being he was, and fall into the father-son relationship naturally.”

A Natural Connection

Two years earlier he had observed to the Long Island Press, “The amazing thing is that when we’re working in a scene together, there’s never a thought of conscious acting. Our natural affection for each other — the reality of it — is what appeals to the audience. I’ll give you an example. The other day the script called for me to take off Brandon’s shoes. Just for the hell of it, he curled his toes up and I couldn’t get the shoes off. He just felt like doing it for fun. It was a typical thing a kid would do. Instead of stopping, I told him to uncurl his toes — every parent who has ever removed a child’s shoes has had this happen. It’s great. One father told me his 8-year-old son and he didn’t hit it off. Then along came our show. Every Wednesday night they go into the den, lock the door and watch the show together. Afterward they sit and talk about it, communicating like they never did before.”

‘Brandon, You’re Acting’

In 1971, TV Star Parade spoke to Bill, and he revealed about he and Brandon, “Very often we ad-lib scenes on camera and I’ve grown so much as an actor as a result of having this freedom. Brandon is so quick to understand and interpret, and if there’s one expression he hates it’s, ‘Brandon, you’re acting,’ because that is something he’s been taught never to accept.”

The Sammy Davis, Jr. Influence

“Now here’s the thing,” Brandon elaborates. “Bill knew what he wanted me to be, and why I got the part, was just a normal kid that got along well with him. Sammy Davis Jr. appeared on the show and came in fresh off a jet from Vegas, and he walked in with a martini and a cigarette, and in a tux with his tie undone. He’s Sammy. He’s just talking and telling stories. He’s sitting in the makeup chair, and I’m sitting next to him, and he’s entertaining, cracking us up, telling everybody stories. My mom and a couple of other people were hanging around, because he was a big deal.

Brandon the Re-Actor

“I had to go off and do some school,” he continues, “I come back in to do the scene, and Bill always liked to roll the camera during rehearsal, because we might get some good moments. They roll the camera and Sammy has the first line. He starts talking and I just start staring at him, because he’s not Sammy anymore. He has a different voice, different mannerisms. Then I have the next line and I’m just staring at him. I think Bill was directing and he says, ‘Okay, cut. Um, Brandon?’ I was, like, ‘Oh, uh, yeah …’ He goes, ‘Okay, everybody, Brandon just saw acting for the first time. Now let’s do it again.’ In my head I’m thinking, ‘Well, I’m like all these actors. I’m going to act.’ Sammy does his line, and I came up with some corny voice and Bill is, like, ‘Okay, cut. Uh, Brandon, no acting.’ When we had a talk about it later — I mean years later — I said, ‘When you told me no acting, what exactly were you talking about?’ He said, ‘Acting is the art of reacting normally in an abnormal situation. You’ve got the camera, the crew, all these people, but you want to appear normal. Whether the role requires you to be weird or not, you have to be whatever the director and the script and the character are calling for. You were a 7-year-old kid. That’s what we wanted. That’s what we always wanted you to be. We never wanted you to be an actor. We wanted you to be Brandon.’ That’s why when people call me an actor, it’s, like, ‘I don’t think so. I’m a re-actor.’”

Got Milk?

“Hollywood has a tendency that if there’s an imperfection, they want to stop filming,” explains Herb. “As an example, there’s a scene in the kitchen with Miyoshi, Bill and Brandon, and Brandon’s drinking a glass of milk. He puts it down and he’s got a milk line on top of his lip and the director yelled, ‘Cut!’ I’m, like, ‘What is cut? What are you talking about? That’s a kid; that’s what kids do. And while we’re at it, ask Brandon to make some art drawings and pin them to the refrigerator. We’re trying to do a real show here with real emotions.'”

Sitcom with a Twist

Noted Bill to the Los Angeles Herald Examiner in 1969, “An adult, family comedy is what it is. We’re dealing with situations which, depending on your outlook, could be classified as controversial problems. For example, in one segment I fall in love with a lady, but she’s not emotionally prepared for motherhood. And because I have a son, we have to part. That’s a real problem for many people. Ours is a show dealing with ‘today’ and with love on many levels.” He added to Girl Talk magazine in 1974, “There was a philosophy expressed on Eddie’s Father: ‘You hold your child with open arms.’ You hold someone you love by giving him or her as much freedom as possible, to be as much an individual person as possible.”

The Power of Fan Mail

Back in 1989, Bill appeared on an episode of The Arsenio Hall Show — 17 years after The Courtship of Eddie’s Run ended production — and admitted, “Of all the shows I’ve done, that was the one that I appreciate the most, because it really involved feeling and communication. Instead of being funny by saying jokes, it came from the heart. The thing that touched me the most on the show was I would get a lot of mail from mothers without a male figure in their relationship with their son. We called the opening and closing of the show the ‘Peanuts,’ the little things that came from the crew. Usually they’d come in and go, ‘You know what my kid did today?’ And we’d write it down and do it. It’s the women without the image who would write and say, ‘Thank you,’ because they would do those ‘Peanuts’ after the show the next day. If we would climb a tree and talk, they would climb a tree with their son and talk, and suddenly the situation was there. I was always very pleased to hear that and very touched by that.”

Those “Peanuts” had a naturalness to them. In 1969, Bill explained to the Detroit Free Press, “The film for these is shot from a distance of 400 yards and we don’t know when the camera is on us. We do real things. Brandon Cruz is never told what to do for those filmings.”

‘Peanuts’

“We called the opening and closing of the show the ‘Peanuts,’ the little things that came from the crew,” Bill added. “Usually they’d come in and go, ‘You know what my kid did today?’ And we’d write it down and do it. It’s the women without the image who would write and say, ‘Thank you,’ because they would do those ‘Peanuts’ after the show the next day. If we would climb a tree and talk, they would climb a tree with their son and talk, and suddenly the situation was there. I was always very pleased to hear that and very touched by that.”

Those “Peanuts” had a naturalness to them. In 1969, Bill explained to the Detroit Free Press, “The film for these is shot from a distance of 400 yards and we don’t know when the camera is on us. We do real things. Brandon Cruz is never told what to do for those filmings.”

Three Seasons and Out

The Courtship of Eddie’s Father ran for three seasons and was then canceled by ABC. There are differing opinions about this, with Brandon laying the blame on series creator/writer/producer/director and co-star James Komack. “It was getting away from being about me trying to get Bill a wife and our relationship, and then the kooky characters around us, and it turned into the James Komack show,” he emphasizes. “If you watch the last season, it’s a lot less about Bill and I and a lot more about Jimmy. I think because of that we lost viewers and we were canceled. It was pretty cut and dry.”

The cancellation was tough for Bill to handle, as he related to the New York Daily News in 1973: “I cannot tell you how disappointed I was. I wanted that series to go on to the point when it came to the teenage stage and we could deal with these problems in an honest, contemporary way. But our time slot was changed so often we weren’t given a fighting chance. You can’t expect people to find you at home when you change your address so often.”

They Did It Their Way

Shortly before the show made its debut, Bill expressed to the Providence Journal that the series very much reflected his and James Komack’s sensibility. “We’ve succeeded in getting most of what we want,” he said. “Originally ABC wanted to put us on in the middle of last season, but we held out. And because we had an early start, we’ve been able to work out the bugs. We’ve got the kind of show we wanted. There’ll be no excuse if we fail.”

The fact that people are still talking about The Courtship of Eddie’s Father 50 years after its debut would seem to indicate that failing wasn’t a problem at all.