The Rogues, Sixties Light Drama Series

This light drama television series had lots of humorous moments, but it was a crime drama. The series centered around a crime family, but not in the sense of what we usually think of as an underworld crime family that tries to keep control over liquor, gambling or prostitution; rather the members of this family were all related, with one member being from France, others from England, and still others from the United States. What made this family unique was, they had a standard to only rob wealthy people whom they felt deserved to part with some of their money because they had acted so poorly toward others. The main cast featured English actor David Niven, French/American actor Charles Boyer (he became an American citizen during the early part of World War Two), American actor Gig Young, English actress Gladys Cooper and English actor Robert Coote. Gladys Cooper lived in the United States for an extended period, but I believe she only retained her UK citizenship, as did Robert Coote, who also periodically lived in the U.S. A few episodes of "The Rogues" cast English actor John Williams as an inspector with Scotland Yard. John Williams is someone you would likely recognize by face, but perhaps not by name (if you watched the 1960s show "Family Affair," with Brian Keith, John Williams filled in for Sebastian Cabot for a time, when Cabot took a leave of absence. He also played the chief inspector in famous Alfred Hitchcock movie "Dial M For Murder," with Ray Milland and Grace Kelly). Further, then essentially unknown American actor Larry Hagman was in two episodes of the show to try to help ease scheduling problems for the trio of well known male stars (Niven, Boyer, Young), who had commitments elsewhere. Hagman would soon go on to become famous in NBC's "I Dream of Jeannie" comedy series, and then later still as J.R. Ewing in CBS's "Dallas" series. He was the son of then well known film and stage star Mary Martin, who is likely best known to my generation for playing Peter Pan on stage and on television.

 

The Rogues" aired for one season on Sunday nights from 10 pm until 11 pm from September of 1964 until April of 1965 on the NBC network. "The Rogues" had a catchy theme song, instrumental only, no vocals, composed by Nelson Riddle. I watched "The Rogues" often in those times, and I have long had good memories of the show. Although the show was canceled after only one season, it had a truly outstanding regular cast (see below), and "The Rogues" won the Golden Globe Award for Best Show, and two regular cast members, Gladys Cooper and Robert Coote, were nominated for Emmy Awards for Outstanding Individual Achievements. The show also featured a number of well known guest stars, like Broderick Crawford, Ricardo Montalban, James Gregory, Dina Merrill, George Hamilton, Jill St. John, Dana Wynter, Ida Lupino, Walter Matthau, Eddie Albert, George Sanders, Zachary Scott, and others. There are DVD releases of the show and the show has aired on TVLand, I believe, and perhaps on some other such stations.

 

Stars David Niven and Charles Boyer were two of the owners of Four Star Television, the company that produced "The Rogues." The original intention for the series was to have Niven, Boyer and Young each take turns playing the lead for a weekly episode, with one or both of the other two stars adding some support, and with Coote and Cooper being the main support for the lead actor. David Niven, Charles Boyer and Gig Young were all established, well known stars. The thing was, David Niven was often unavailable for full episodes due to other commitments, so Boyer and Young shared the lead in many of the episodes, although Boyer's schedule periodically also proved to be problematic, leaving Gig Young as the most common lead. Understand, David Niven did lead in a couple of episodes. "The Rogues" showed the difficulty of doing a weekly television series with three big stars, all of whom still had strong ties to the movie industry; and thus, they had periodic scheduling conflicts.      

 

Main regular cast:

 

David Niven as Alec Fleming

Charles Boyer as Marcel St. Clair

Gig Young as Tony Fleming

Gladys Cooper as Margaret "Meg" St. Clair

Robert Coote as Timmy St. Clair

Larry Hagman as Mark Fleming 

 

In one episode, guest star Mexican actor Ricardo Montalban plays the ruthless owner of a shipping company (the Rogues call him a "barracuda;" which is a type of ferocious predatory fish). He has the bow of one of his ships reinforced and it then proceeds to ram and sink a rival company's ship, but the authorities can't prove it. When he answers a British reporter's question as to why his ship had its bow reinforced, he says it was for protection against icebergs; to which the reporter asks, "In the Mediterranean?" (Hahaha) The "family," as they tend to call themselves, come up with a scheme to have the shipping owner part with some of his money by them buying some outdated U.S. Navy ships cheaply and then getting the shipping owner to buy them at a much higher price by making him believe one of the ships contains gold bullion from the World War Two era. In another episode, the family determines it will go after a London gambling house that cheated "Uncle Bertie" (played by Donald Foster), one of their elderly relatives, in a card game. The gambling house is led by guest star English actor Patric Knowles. Because the family fears the English part of the family may be recognized in London, they call upon their American relative, Tony Fleming, to get back Uncle Bertie's money, but complications arise, and family elder Margaret is called into action to bring the plan to fruition. (Note: I always liked Gladys Cooper, who was in her 70s when she was cast in "The Rogues," and she is totally delightful in several episodes, but especially in this one. In various episodes, when told of how the family plans to teach a wealthy scoundrel a lesson, she utters, "Lovely!" A number of years before, Gladys Cooper was a very well known actress in her native England and the rest of Britain, although she also lived in the United States for a number of years. Famous American actress Bette Davis adored her, and Gladys Cooper famously played Bette Davis's mother in the film "Now, Voyager.") Another episode has the family trying to sell a diamond manufacturing machine to a greedy diamond mine owner (played by American actor James Gregory). Of course, the machine doesn't work, but their job becomes trying to convince the man that it does work. The family drops hints about a machine that makes diamonds, which causes the stock in the man's company to lose value (why do you need a diamond mining company, if you can just make diamonds), and the family then gets stock in the company at a cheap price, believing that when the diamond machine is finally proved to be unable to produce the valuable stones, the company stock will again surge upward, making them a large amount of money. And another episode has veteran American actor Broderick Crawford as a hard nosed multi-millionaire who preaches "don't ever give away anything, unless you get something better back." He owns a Rembrandt painting, and the family intends to use a copy of the painting done 20 years earlier by their forger employee, Henri, to get money from the rich tightwad to help the aging Henri open a restaurant in the south of France, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea (Henri is played by long time actor Steven Geray*).

 

* Steven Geray (an Anglicized version of his birth name) was born in what was then Austria-Hungary, but in the Hungarian administered area of what is now a part of Ukraine. The history and ethnic composition of that region is complex, so I'll just say that Geray came from an area with many Ruthenians, a Slavic people closely akin to the Ukrainians, but I'm not sure of his family background, and he is usually listed as Hungarian. In the 1930s, Geray appeared in many parts of Europe, including in London and Paris. His cabaret performances in prewar Paris saw him give unflattering portrayals of Hitler and Mussolini (GOOD FOR HIM!), which prompted protests from the German and Italian governments. He came to the United States during the early part of World War Two. If you've seen movies from the 1940s and 1950s, especially, chances are you have seen Steven Geray. As with many actors, he began to appear in television shows on occasion.  

 

 

The Skaryguyvideo multiple dvd set

 

Public domain photo of the cast of the NBC show, taken from Wikipedia. Gladys Cooper seated with the bulldog, standing left to right: Charles Boyer, Gig Young, David Niven and Robert Coote

WORD HISTORY:

Rogue-The history of the word "rogue" in English is tough, but it seems to be from Latin. The word entered English in the 1500s with the meaning, "a tramp, a beggar who pretends to be without money to earn sympathy and, thus, money." This seems to have formed the basis for the more modern meaning, "a scoundrel, a conman," and the secondary meaning, "an animal that roves outside the herd" (from the mid 1800s), and also, "a person who operates outside the rules or traditions of a system." This goes back to the Latin verb "rogare," which meant, "to ask (for something)," which goes back to Indo European "reg," which had the notion, "to move or lead in a direct line." The Indo European form is the source of numerous words including, "rich" and "right," from the Germanic roots of English, and of "direct," "correct" and "regulate," all Latin derived words borrowed by English, and of "rule," a Latin derived word borrowed by English via French. Latin "rogare" spawned a slang thieves' term, "roger" in English (pronounced with a hard 'g') with the meaning of "someone who pretends to be poor to get money from others because of sympathy." The term "rogues' gallery" started in the mid 1800s with daguerreotypes (and later photographs) of known criminals kept by law enforcement officials.   

A Favorite TV Show of the Past, "Good Times"

One of my favorite shows of the 1970s was "Good Times," produced by Norman Lear, who also did "All in the Family," "Sanford and Son," "Maude," and "The Jeffersons." "Good Times" was a comedy about a black family, the Evans family, of a husband and wife, 2 boys and 1 girl, living in the housing projects in Chicago. The show dealt with poverty and the struggles of the parents to make ends meet, as well as try to plan for their daughter's future college education. Much emphasis was put on education as a way to escape the almost hopelessness of life in the "ghetto." James, the husband, played by John Amos, works at a variety of low paying jobs, as he lacks education, something he wants his children to avoid. Teenage daughter Thelma, played by Bern Nadette Stanis, is a good student, and the proud parents have big expectations for her, as she does for herself, but a couple of boyfriends enter into her life, bringing her temperamental father to go ballistic! The youngest son, Michael, played by Ralph Carter, is also a good student, who aspires to become a Supreme Court justice, or is it the parents who want that FOR him? This issue was a theme of one episode. Then there's teenager James, Jr., better known as J.J., and the oldest child, played by Jimmie Walker, who has no apparent desire to go to college, and his poor grades and bad attitude toward school contrast with the other two kids, but the scripts dealing with this also became an issue in real life for John Amos and Esther Rolle (who played the wife and mother, Florida), as they felt the J.J. character, who quickly became the most popular on the show to many viewers, was sending the wrong message about education and responsibility, in general. Jimmie Walker quickly became known for shouting "dy-no-mite," an expression he used to dub himself, "Kid Dynomite," besides J.J.

Interestingly, in real life, Jimmie Walker was much older than his character in the show; in fact, he was not all that much younger than John Amos, who played his father in the series. On the other hand, Esther Rolle was much older than the "presumed" age of her character in the series.* If you think this all mattered, it didn't, as everything worked, and the show did well in the ratings for the first several seasons. The show's theme song also was a popular and catchy tune in those days, although trying to understand a couple of lines of the lyrics gave many people fits.

As I mentioned, the show often dealt with poverty, but usually in a comedic way, and in one episode, one of the family's neighbors is retired, but she is so short of money, she also supplements her diet with canned dog food. To help the lady out, the family invites her to dinner, as Florida has a large roasted chicken ready, but when the lady shows up, she tells the family that her pride will not allow her to accept dinner, without her providing the main dish ....... meat loaf! The family members each assume that the meat loaf is made with dog food, and in one of the funniest scenes I've ever seen on television, they try to avoid eating. When neighbor and regular character, Willona, played by Ja'net Dubois,** shows up asking to join the family dinner, because she had burned her own dinner, the family members all jump up and try to give her their own seat, pulling and tugging at the poor woman, to the absolute delight and hysterical laughter of the audience (the shows were filmed in front of a studio audience). I can't even type these words without laughing, as I recall that scene. As I mentioned, there were serious scenes during the series too, including about gang involvement by J.J. and later by Michael, and also an episode about James reuniting with his father, whom he hadn't seen since the father had left when James was just a kid.

If you've never seen this show, or if you haven't seen it for a while, check it out, and I can pretty much guarantee you'll be singing, "Ain't we lucky we got 'em .... Good Times!"

* To my recollection Florida's age is never mentioned in the series, but James' age of 40 is mentioned as part of his trouble in getting a job he sought. Using that age, coupled with references to James and Florida having attended school and school dances at the same time, makes me say Florida's "presumed" age.

** A semi-regular cast member was Johnny Brown, who played the apartment building superintendent, Nathan Bookman, and who was often referred to as "Buffalo Butt" by the residents. Prior to "Good Times," Johnny Brown had been on NBC's "Laugh-In," a highly popular weekly comedy for its first few years.

Photo is from the 2003 Sony Pictures Home Entertainment DVD. (All seasons are available on DVD)

WORD HISTORY:
Bed-This common word goes back to Indo European "bhedh, which had the idea of "to stick (pierce);" thus also, "to dig  ("piercing the ground)." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "bathjam," meaning "plot of land for planting, garden," but with the further meaning, "dug out area for animals to sleep," then also the idea of "sleeping place" in general. This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "bed," with the meanings "planting area" and "sleeping place." The spelling later varied between "bed" and "bed," before the latter winning out. The verb was derived from the noun in the 1200s or 1300s, initially with the meaning, "to give someone a place to sleep," but it didn't take long to add the meaning, "go to bed for the purpose of sex," the main meaning of the verb form in modern times. The other Germanic languages have: German "Bett" (bed) and "Beet," pronounced as if "bait" (plant bed),^ Low German Saxon also has "Bett" (meaning both bed and planting area,^^ West Frisian "bêd," Dutch "bed," Swedish "bädd" (bed, foundation), The other Germanic languages have words that are now essentially out of use.

^ Both words are really the same word, but eventually, from what I can tell in the 1600s, "Beet" emerged as a variant of "Bett" to become the word for "plant bed." While I'm far from certain of this, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that "beet" (the root vegetable, also called "beetroot" by some) and "bed" are related, as beets are "dug out of the ground." If they are related, it would be distantly, as long ago Germanic borrowed the word for the root vegetable from Latin, which may have borrowed a form of the word from Celtic. To be honest, many sources say Latin likely borrowed the term from Celtic, but they sure don't give evidence of this.

^^  Some low dialects seem to use "Bedd," and perhaps even "Bad", as I "believe" the spelling "Bett" was taken from standard German, which is based more on the high Germanic/German dialects. Low Saxon used "Bedde" up until a few centuries ago, as far as I can find, so the "Bett" spelling seems to indeed be borrowed from what is now standard German.