page_title: This Is Your Life
section_title: Notable guests
hierarchical_section_title: This Is Your Life / Notable guests
caption_attribution_description: Photo of William Frawley as the subject of the television program This Is Your Life. In this photo, show host Ralph Edwards holds the book; Fred MacMurray is seen standing next to him. Angels' (baseball) manager Fred Haney is shown presenting Frawley with a lifetime pass to the team's games.
context_page_description: This Is Your Life is an American reality documentary series broadcast on NBC radio from 1948 to 1952, and on NBC television from 1952 to 1961. It was originally hosted by its creator and producer Ralph Edwards. In the program, the host would surprise guests and then take them through a retrospective of their lives in front of an audience, including appearances by colleagues, friends, and family. Edwards revived the show in 1971–1972, and Joseph Campanella hosted a version in 1983. Edwards returned for some specials in the late 1980s, before his death in 2005.
context_section_description: Some celebrities were unpleasantly surprised. Stan Laurel of Laurel and Hardy was angered by being "tricked" into what would be the team's only American television appearance, on December 1, 1954.  Laurel later said, "Oliver Hardy and I were always planning to do something on TV. But we never dreamed that we would make our television debut on an unrehearsed network program...I was damned if I was going to put on a free show for them." In 1993, Angie Dickinson refused to appear on a retrospective show.
  One of the show's subjects was Rev. Kiyoshi Tanimoto, a survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.  During the episode Edwards introduced Tanimoto to Robert A. Lewis, the co-pilot of the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. Hanna Bloch Kohner, a Holocaust survivor, was a subject on May 27, 1953.
  In February 1953, Lillian Roth, a "topflight torch singer of the Prohibition era" was the subject of the show, "cheerfully admit[ting] that she had been a hopeless drunk for 16 years before being rescued by Alcoholics Anonymous." Edwards described Roth's condition as "impending blindness, an inflamed sinus and a form of alcoholic insanity" and brought on a psychiatrist who had treated her, a brother-in-law "who had paid her bills" and several "glamorous foul-weather friends" such as Lita Grey Chaplin and Ruby Keeler.  Roth's story became the basis of her 1954 autobiography and 1955 film adaption, I'll Cry Tomorrow, with Edwards appearing as himself.
  Kate Newcomb, a doctor who practiced in a "70-mile circle" around Woodruff, Wisconsin, was the subject of a 1954 episode, bringing attention to her "million pennies" drive to raise funds for a small community hospital; viewers of the episode donated over $112,000 in pennies.
  The New York Times reported on September 1, 1955 that the Sixth United States Army requested a kinescope of the April 27 episode which honored World War II and Korean War General Mark Clark. The request stated, "We believe that showing of such a program would contribute materially toward the objectives of troop information, since it would create appreciation of the career of an outstanding military leader and further better understanding of certain highlights in the recent history of the Army."
  According to The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network TV Shows, 1946–Present, one celebrity that was definitely forbidden was Edwards himself, who supposedly threatened to fire every member of his staff if they ever tried to turn the tables on him and publicly present Edwards' own life.
  In a 1973 episode, Vincent Price was the surprised guest. The show had been planned with his wife Mary while Price was in the UK filming the movie Theatre of Blood. By the time he returned to his US home, he had split with his wife and begun a relationship with his co-star from the movie, Coral Browne. Price's daughter later revealed that his estranged wife had told him about the show in an attempt to manage any potential fall-out and unbeknownst to the producers, he agreed to act surprised when the show was recorded.
caption: William Frawley receives a lifetime baseball pass from the Angels' Fred Haney in January 1961. Fred MacMurray also was part of the Frawley show.
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